Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life

By Paul Ekman

Book Overview

"Beautifully interweaves research with anecdotes, recommendations, and the behind-the-scenes flubs, accidental discoveries and debates . . . that are the essence of scientific inquiry." - Scientific American A renowned expert in nonverbal communication, Paul Ekman led a revolution in our scientific understanding of emotions. In Emotions Revealed , he assembles his research and theories to provide a comprehensive look at the evolutionary roots of human emotions, including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and happiness. Drawing on decades of fieldwork, Ekman shows that emotions are deeply embedded in the human species. In the process, he answers such questions as: What triggers emotions and can we stop them? How does our body signal to others whether we are slightly sad or anguished, peeved or enraged? Can we learn to distinguish between a polite smile and the genuine thing? Can we ever truly control our emotions? Unique exercises and photographs help readers identify emotions in themselves and others. Emotions Revealed is a practical, mind-opening, and potentially life-changing exploration of science and self. c

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080507516X
• ISBN13: 9780805075168
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Holt & Company, Henry
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Amazing Book

This book contains very useful information and should not be glanced over lightly. Though the information is presented and backed up in a scientific manner, it still does not detract from the overall usefulness of this book.

Unbelievably Good

This book is the culmination of decades of research done by Dr. Ekman. It's expansive and easy to read. It's one of my favorite non-fiction books.

Understanding emotions

It is very interesting that I can now understand how someone is feeling from the face muscles. Since I liked what author says, I bought his second book titled "Telling Lies". This book is on a "niche" area. For those who are interested, they will definitely like it.

Absolutely Excellent book on Concealed Emotions

btw I'm Susan Gill's son. Dr Ekman has been getting alot of attention lately, due to the fact that he is the scientific consultant for the new show on Fox "Lie to Me". The show is even based off of his science. In fact, it's the reason I got into this type of behavioral science. So if like me you want to strengthen your ability to catch liars or see hidden emotions in the face, this book is without a doubt your best bet. What makes this book so good is that Ekman includes pictures of every single emotion, and describes them in detail so that you should know which emotion should be felt at which time. Pictures are abundant in each chapter for each specific emotion On top of that, the book even has a test you can take to see how well you can read emotions before, and after you read the book. Another very helpful thing is that he even gives a negation signal people can make in the face called "mouth shrugs", and the difference between a mouth shrug and sadness. This was an issue if you've seen the "Moral Waiver", because it was hard to spot in that particular episode what exactly a mouth shrug looked like. In fact, I know what a mouth shrug looks like and I STILL have a harder time seeing what they did with it, so on that note this book is very useful. As for using it for lie detection, the extra chapter included in this edition is extremely useful. It describes the two types of errors a person can make when interpreting signals for lying, but not in so much detail that it kills you (I.E "Telling Lies"). It's almost as if it summarizes some of what "Telling Lies" says, so it's really good after you read "Telling Lies" to read that chapter if you're having any issues. My only complaints for the book is mostly the way Ekman set up the chapters. He wrote why and when we feel the emotion BEFORE you learn to recognize it. This was a problem for me because it made me want to get to the faces and how to read them. If he had done that first, I may have been more interested in understanding WHY or WHEN certain emotions occur. On a different note, Ekman really makes it seem that he doesn't have a lot of confidence in his lie detection system, but if you watch "Lie to Me" you can see clearly that his research can be well over 90 % accurate based on the context of the situations, and looking for changes in behavior instead of just one sign of lying only. One last thing, if you to want to learn how to detect lies and how to read faces and body language like the people on "Lie to Me" (and like Ekman), this isn't the only book you should get. It's more of a concentration on the Face instead of the "whole picture" you'll be looking at. This is my opinion, but you should really get Ekman's book "Telling Lies" and Alan and Barbara Pease's book "The Definitive Book of Body Language" if you want to get really serious about lie detection. Each book contains certain information that's more in depth on each subject. Like the use of Manipulators

Get the training CDs as well!

The book is outstanding but you should definitely get the 2 TRAINING CDs on microexpressions, available from the website of the same name as the book.