Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,000+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Emotions Revealed summary
Paul Ekman
Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life
16 mins
Table of Contents
Emotions Revealed
Summary of 7 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 7
Our emotions are the product of evolution and are still attuned to the concerns of our ancestors.
If you’ve ever been embarrassed after crying your eyes out during a Pixar movie, you may have wished you could make your emotions less visible. But outward displays of emotion like these are actually very useful evolutionary tools.
In fact, these sometimes uncontrollable emotional reactions are innate, and they’re still triggered by the same things that our ancestors had to deal with.
For instance, animals were a main threat to our ancestors, and some of these predators have been around so long that they’ve become imprinted on our brain, always eliciting a fearful reaction.
Swedish psychologist Arne Ohman tested this theory in 1993. He wanted to determine whether people today are more sensitive to things like spiders and snakes, which would have been a threat to our ancestors as well.
So, Ohman showed his subjects an image of a spider accompanied by an electric shock. He then repeated this procedure with an image of a pretty flower, also accompanied by a shock.
A single electric shock coupled with the picture of the spider was sufficient for people to react with fear when shown the image of the spider alone. In contrast, it took many more shocks to condition people to fear the image of the flower.
Okay, but what about a more modern threat, like guns?
Ohman repeated the experiment, this time pairing a shock with an image of a modern gun and then with an image of a spider.
Again, the ancient fear proved more powerful: test subjects took just as long to react fearfully to the gun as they did to react to the flower, while the spider remained innately frightening.
This is strong evidence, suggesting that our emotions, especially fear-based ones, are hand-me-downs from our ancestors and their experiences.
Want to see all full key ideas from Emotions Revealed?
Key ideas in Emotions Revealed
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
What is Emotions Revealed about?
Emotions Revealed (2003) puts emotions under the microscope, revealing where they come from and how to recognize them, whether they’re yours or someone else’s. If you’ve ever wanted to know if someone was being dishonest or trying to deceive you with a friendly smile, these are the blinks for you!
Best quote from Emotions Revealed
My will and reason were powerless against the imagination of a danger which had never been experienced. - Charles Darwin
—Paul Ekman
Who should read Emotions Revealed?
- Law enforcement officers who need to recognize the emotions of criminals and victims
- Therapists and psychologists who want to help patients cope with their emotions
- Empathetic people who want to connect more effectively with others
Categories with Emotions Revealed
Books like Emotions Revealed
People ❤️ Blinkist
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
People also liked
Start growing with Blinkist now
28 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers