Mood vs Emotion: Differences & Traits

Mood vs. Emotion: Differences & Traits

Five factors outlining the difference between mood and emotion

In an excerpt taken from “The Nature Of Emotion”, Dr. Ekman lays out five factors for determining mood vs emotion. Variations in duration, provocation, modulation, facial expression, and awareness of cause support Dr. Ekman’s argument for the difference between mood and emotion. Duration In the debate of mood vs emotion, moods can be distinguished from emotions in terms of their …

Are facial expressions universal or culturally specific?

A look at cultural expressions in public and private

Excerpts taken from Dr. Paul Ekman’s scientific autobiography, Nonverbal Messages: Cracking the Code (pp. 70-74) January 22, 2018 Display Rules As I was preparing to make my second trip to New Guinea, I knew that even if I obtained strong results supporting Darwin’s claim of universals in facial expressions, I would need to explain why so many smart anthropologists such as Margaret …

Las Vegas Shooter's Motivations

The Las Vegas Shooter’s Motivations

Looking to understand Stephen Paddock

October 18, 2017 While it’s easy to understand the horror he inflicted, truly comprehending the motivations of Stephen Paddock (the Las Vegas shooter), let alone empathizing with his outlook, is a very long reach. From news reports, it seems clear he was intent on having his actions publicly recognized. But to what end? Could it be just as simple as …

Cultivating Emotional Balance

A Special CEB Teacher Training Opportunity

A Letter from the Other Ekman

A Letter from the Other Ekman By Eve Ekman, PhD October 5, 2017 I am writing this letter to let you know about a special training opportunity which is very close to my heart and mind. The training is to become a certified Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) teacher . Teaching CEB to nearly a thousand students in the last eight …

September 11th: Then and Now

Remembering the September 11th attacks through the eyes of an emotions expert September 11, 2017 It was sixteen years ago on September 11th that the twin towers in New York City were destroyed by the airplanes that flew into them. It was a shock. Not since 1941, when Pearl Harbor was targeted, had America been attacked, and even then it …

My Six Discoveries

My Six Discoveries

One scientist. Six discoveries. Fifty-five years in the making.

August 1, 2017 Number 1: Nonverbal behaviors provide accurate information. And it is not obscure; most people can derive at least some of that information with no trouble. It may be surprising now, but the general consensus when I started my research was that judgments based on facial expression and bodily movements were at best a source of stereotypes. Clinicians …

Cultivating Emotional Balance Teacher Training

CEBTT The Cultivating Emotional Balance Training emerged from the Destructive Emotions dialogue between behavioral scientists and the Dalai Lama, Buddhist monks, and scholars at the Mind and Life Institute in Dharamsala, India, in March of 2000. At the culmination of this meeting the Dalai Lama requested that the important ideas raised in these sessions, specifically how to manage the everyday …

“Atlas of Emotions” Event

San Francisco Exploratorium Emotions Education Join Drs. Paul and Eve Ekman as they discuss their latest project, Atlas of Emotions, at the San Francisco Exploratorium on Thursday, March 30. The Atlas of Emotions is an online interactive tool that has been accessed by over 700,000 individuals across the globe. This emotions education tool was funded by the Dalai Lama Trust …

Rethinking Love

Is love an emotion? February 14, 2017 Lasting Love Is love an emotion? Let’s put aside loving your job or a piece of clothing, in which the use of the word “love” is as a superlative. That still leaves romantic love and parental love: Are either of these emotions? I think not and here’s why: the time frame for emotions and …

Respectful Disagreements

How to Deal with Disagreement

November 29, 2016 What We Care About I suspect that some of us encountered disagreements about the president-elect, the state of the country, the world, and what to do about any or all of it during our holiday gatherings. How can we best deal with disagreements when they are about matters we care about? When such a disagreement becomes apparent it …

“Nonverbal Messages: Cracking the Code”

Excerpt taken from Introduction (pp. ix – xiv) November 1, 2016 “What motivated me to spend fifty years investigating facial expressions, gestures, emotion and lies? Why these topics, which had been abandoned as fruitless by the academic establishment?… In much of my life I have been a bit oppositional, some would say rebellious, so I am not surprised that I …

Constructive Anger

How to deal with anger.

September 22, 2016 The following excerpt about constructive anger is taken from the book of dialogue between the Dalai Lama and myself, entitled Emotional Awareness (2009). Having just reread it, I found nothing to change; I still believe it raises the right question, makes a useful suggestion and offers a practice to learn it. It is only when life itself …

Eve Ekman on Cultivating Emotional Balance

June 23, 2016 Finding Insight in Awareness Our emotional responses shape our experience of the world. Emotions can feel profoundly enriching, as when we feel pride from great success or the elation of new love. They can also feel painfully unbearable, as with profound grief or embarrassment. Sometimes we may want to hold on to emotions forever, and other times …

Our Emotional Reactions to Terrorism

Understanding Emotions June 22, 2016 Untangling a Complex Emotional Impact Most of us have no trouble recognizing what emotion we feel unless for some reason we don’t think that we should be feeling that emotion. But the tragic events in Paris, San Bernardino and now Orlando are likely to have had a complex emotional impact, which might be confusing if …

Paul Ekman on The Takeaway

Listen to Paul Ekman on The Takeaway, a national public radio show, co-produced by WNYC, PRI, New York Times, & WGBH Friday May 20, 2016: What is the Atlas of Emotions and why did the Dalai Lama ask Dr. Paul Ekman to create it? The Atlas of Emotions entails making us aware of the complexity of this very intimate part …

Atlas of Emotions Press Release

May 9, 2016 Backed by funding from the Dalai Lama, Dr. Paul Ekman and Dr. Eve Ekman announce the launch of the Atlas of Emotions www.atlasofemotions.com 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 in the New York Times

A Map of Emotions May 6, 2016 As featured in The New York Times (Inner Peace? The Dalai Lama Made a Website for That) ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Dalai Lama, who tirelessly preaches inner peace while chiding people for their selfish, materialistic ways, has commissioned scientists for a lofty mission: to help turn secular audiences into more self-aware, compassionate humans. That …

What Scientists Who Study Emotion Agree About

April 12, 2016 Originally published in the Perspectives on Psychological Science What Scientists Who Study Emotion Agree About Paul Ekman University of California, San Francisco and Paul Ekman Group, LLC Abstract In recent years, the field of emotion has grown enormously- recently, nearly 250 scientists were identified who are studying emotion. In this article, I report a survey of the …

Trusting Can Be Dangerous

December 8, 2015 Misjudging a Peron I have spent a lot of time in the last thirty years advising police, both regional and national, on how to evaluate truthfulness. You can see some of the training tools we used here. Police make mistakes, not just with Black people, although implicit or explicit racism causes a higher rate of mistaken judgments with …

The Science of “Inside Out”

July 3, 2015 As seen on the New York Times How Emotions Work FIVE years ago, the writer and director Pete Docter of Pixar reached out to us to talk over an idea for a film, one that would portray how emotions work inside a person’s head and at the same time shape a person’s outer life with other people. …

Dr. Paul Ekman on Torture

August 17, 2015 As seen in the Huffington Post I was approached soon after 9/11 by a senior psychologist, who held office in APA, to participate in the government’s newly developing interrogation program. I declined, although I had already developed techniques for establishing better emotional connections with interviewees, through my work on nonverbal behavior, facial expressions and gestures. And I …

#AskEkman: How do I become a facial expression expert?

July 2014 The most popular questions we receive at the Paul Ekman Group are questions relating to which courses and universities are best equipped to promote a career in becoming an expert in facial expressions and emotion. The answer to this question depends on what level of education you are seeking, and what topic interests you. To help you on …

Darwin’s Claim of Universals in Facial Expression Not Challenged

March 2014   Paul Ekman, Emeritus Professor, University of California, San Francisco Dacher Keltner, Professor, University of California, Berkeley   Challenging Darwin Lisa Feldman-Barrett’s recent contribution (New York Times, February 28, 2014) seeks to undermine the science showing universality in the interpretation of facial expressions. In her eyes, recent evidence “challenges[ing] the theory, attributed to Charles Darwin, that facial movements …

Welcome to our new Website!

April 2014 Paul Ekman Group Website I’m Paul Ekman. Welcome to the first post of my blog on our new website!  This past year has been exciting as we’ve improved our training products and created new ways for you to connect with us. Our training tools have been expanded and refined, and our most popular modules (Micro Expressions and Subtle Expressions) …