Content Area
What are the core emotions that humans experience?
Inside Out identifies 5 basic emotions: Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. Throughout history, philosophers like Descartes, scientists like Darwin, and psychologists like Paul Ekman have identified different core emotions. Create a list of historical core emotions and discuss how socio-cultural factors have influenced our understanding of emotions.
What is the James-Lange theory of emotions?
How does the Autonomic Nervous System influence the experience of emotions? How do expressions like "my heart sank" or "the thought of that turns my stomach" support causation or correlation of the biological response theory? How did Walter Cannon's experiments support or disprove the James-Lange theory?
What does crying prove?
Identify 3 types of tears that humans have. What has chemical analysis of human tears shown? What impact might an adult experience if they never experience emotional crying?
Memory and Motivation Connection
Read recent studies by Dacher Keltner and Paul Ekman about how the current state of a person's emotions can influence their memory of the past. How do emotions, such as anger, help a person identify a problem and motivate action?