When understanding how other cultures express emotions, it is almost as important to reflect on our own cultural norms as it is to recognize differing ones. This is essentially what Humintell’s Dr. David Matsumoto and his team find in a recent publication. Dr. Matsumoto studied the role that one’s own cultural norms and sense of…
Read MoreOut of the Corner of Your Eye
The role of peripheral vision in emotional recognition is crucial to our perception of the world. This is the conclusion of exciting research by Dr. Fraser Smith of the University of East Anglia. Dr. Smith and his team looked at the ways in which our peripheral vision manages to capture expressions of fear, tying this…
Read MoreUniversal or Just Deceptive Emotions?
We spend a fair amount of this blog discussing the role of universal emotional expressions, but not everyone agrees. Some emerging research, such as a recent study by Drs. Carlos Crivelli and Alan Fridlund, has begun to challenge some fundamental ideas related to the concept of basic emotions. This research questions whether facial expressions reflect…
Read MoreCultivating Gratitude Can Promote Healthy Relationships
Why do we feel gratitude anyway? Gratitude seems like an incredibly central emotion in our interactions with other humans, and there is good reason for that! In past blogs, we have written about how critical cultivating gratitude can be in promoting healthy relationships and even in ensuring good physical health. Building on this research, a…
Read More