Finding the self in self-transcendent emotions

摘要

Emotion research has something in common with a drunk searching for his car keys under a street lamp. "Where did you lose them?" asks the cop. "In the alley," says the drunk, "but the light is so much better over here." For emotion research, the light shines most brightly on the face, whose movements can be coded, compared across cultures, and quantified by electromyography. All of the "basic" emotions described by Paul Ek-man (1) and others (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust) earned their place on the list by being face-valid. The second source of illumination has long been animal research. Emotions that can be reliably triggered in rats, such as fear and anger, have been well-studied, down to specific pathways through the amygdala (2).