Ekman and Emotional Profiles

I was reading the book “Emotional Awareness” which is a transcript of a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Dr. Paul Ekman (two of my favorites!). On pages 45-47, Ekman talks about the idea of “emotional profiles.” He says he has spent many decades of his career identifying the similarities between people in their emotional lives and now, through emotional profiles, is identifying differences in people’s emotional lives. I noticed when reading the book is that there are a number of factors that seem to affect a person’s emotional profile. Ekman says a bit about it, yet when I researched and thought about writing “When Hope is Not Enough” I found that there are five factors that affect someone’s emotional profile. Those are:

• Tolerance – the sensitivity to being triggered
• Uptick speed – how quickly someone gets to maximum emotional intensity
• Intensity – how “high” and intense the emotion goes
• Length of time at maximum intensity – how long one can maintain maximum intensity
• Down hill speed – how quickly the emotion peters out

I have to think more about this idea and maybe more will come. Unfortunately, Ekman’s work on this will not be published until later this year.