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Atlas of Emotions Press Release
Backed by funding from the Dalai Lama, Dr. Paul Ekman and Dr. Eve Ekman announce the launch of the Atlas of Emotions
May 9, 2016
Paul Ekman and the Dalai Lama
San Francisco, California – Dr. Paul Ekman and his daughter, Dr. Eve Ekman, have built the world’s first interactive mapping of how emotions influence our lives, titled the Atlas of Emotions. The creation of the Atlas of Emotions was funded by the Dalai Lama Trust. The Atlas represents five emotions as continents, further mapping a number of emotional ‘states’ within each of those continents.
The Atlas of Emotions arose as a result of the friendship between Paul Ekman and the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama asked Ekman to create a map that would help navigate our emotions in order to reach a calm state of mind, and to base this map on scientific knowledge. To create the Atlas, Ekman surveyed 248 scientists who study emotion and found that “more than 70% of emotion scientists believe that the evidence is convincing now for five emotions: enjoyment, anger, fear, sadness, and disgust.” The Atlas focuses on these five emotions, and also includes information on less well-established and partially charted emotions. It was constructed by Stamen Design.
“The Atlas of Emotions was created to help people navigate among their emotional experiences and to reduce destructive and regrettable emotional episodes,” said Dr. Ekman. “The Atlas will increase our understanding of the subtleties and complexities of emotional life, exposing features of our emotions that may not be apparent, giving us a deeper understanding of ourselves.”
The Atlas of Emotions is offered online at no charge. http://www.atlasofemotions.com/
About Dr. Paul Ekman
Dr. Paul Ekman, Professor Emeritus in Psychology at UCSF, is the researcher and author best known for furthering our understanding of emotion and also deception. He established the universality of some facial expressions and in a separate line of research discovered how expressions and gestures may betray a lie. Ekman has authored more than 100 published articles and holds several honorary doctoral degrees. www.paulekman.com
About Dr. Eve Ekman
Dr. Eve Ekman is currently a Post-Doctoral Scholar at UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. Ekman’s research interests were inspired by her experience as a medical social worker in the emergency department of San Francisco General Hospital coupled with her training in the applied emotion regulation and mindfulness intervention: Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB).