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Learning These 20 Foreign Words for Emotions You Never Knew You Had Will Increase Your EQ
We tend to think of emotions as simple, hard-wired responses. You see a hungry lion, you feel fear. You smell a pile of rotting garbage, you feel disgust. But according to fascinating new science, emotions are actually much more complicated than that.
Sure, physical responses like a pounding heart or a wrinkled nose are a big part of emotions. But so are the words your language provides you for your feelings, as well as your cultural beliefs about what different sensations mean and what emotions are expected in certain situations.
This isn’t just some abstract academic point. Understanding how the words and beliefs we have available to us influence our emotions helps us pick more precise language for our feelings, which in turn helps us understand them better and respond to them in healthier, more constructive ways. In short, thinking about the language and history of emotions improves your EQ.
The bigger your emotional vocabulary, the higher your EQ.
So how do you get smarter about the language of emotions in order to get smarter about emotions themselves? One simple way is to watch this fascinating TED Talk by British historian Tiffany Watt Smith.
