How sensitivity to emotions changes across the lifespan

Why do we become more positive as we grow older? Why are adolescents so sensitive to negative social cues?

more…

Tau.Neutrino said:

How sensitivity to emotions changes across the lifespan

Why do we become more positive as we grow older? Why are adolescents so sensitive to negative social cues?

more…

> Sensitivity to Facial Emotion Intensity

Why face? It’s a facile question but at the same time deep because many people learn to hide their facial emotions. Or fake them. Eg. Diplomats, sociopaths, and crocodile tears.

> “Which face is more angry?,” “Which face is more happy?,” or “Which face is more fearful?”

I hope they drilled down deeper than that. A better question would be “on a scale of 0 to 5, rate both faces for how much of their emotion is faked”, or “which face shows more humility?”.

It’s also essential to get the feedback from the owner of each face about how they feel, how strongly they feel, how much they are faking it and how truthful they are about these statements.

>Why are adolescents so sensitive to negative social cues?

not read the linked page, yet.

social environments of past (think ancestral environments) shaped the biology, which adjusted the biology to be receptive to social environment/culture. Selection did this, a brutal thing, your ancestors acted in such a way as to give less adapted (appealing) creatures fewer opportunities to breed, or less opportunity to breed with more ideal creatures, alienated, variously deprived of resources (including mates), or possibly murdered your could-have-been-ancestors offspring.

when coming into breeding age group/cultural norms are very important, so heightened sensitivity is not unexpected, which might include reticence (caution/care), to avoid humiliations or embarrassment that could influence mate availability and mate choice. Related social status.

an added dimension of modern contemporary social environments, in addition to notions and projections about how supremely important they ought be (ignorance and denial of bio-history helps), is the close proximity young people are forced into, like school etc. And they are forced, by way of numbers too.

if you saw emotions as mechanisms, related desires and mental states, to get whatever done, of when hormones are shaping all that, doing their good work for the replicator, well, nature’s got you by the balls, so to speak (doubt i’m entirely alienating the ladies there). As you get older you realize the extent it had you, or has you. Believing your own bullshit is quite important when young, though it may feel very sincere, anyway you’re sort of colluding with others making bullshit work, it’s a group effort.

feelings are of course important things, but I note too people spend a lot of time in some neutral zone, trying for. Willed forays seems better, steering the beast.

people emote, theatrically, and there is too the sham, something else.

animating the dial can hold other peoples interest, even be convincing, but for the most part the mind has to be charged with something, their has to be some structural changes to where and what the electricity is delivered, like christmas lights you know, some variation’s good.

transition said:

>Why are adolescents so sensitive to negative social cues?

not read the linked page, yet.

social environments of past (think ancestral environments) shaped the biology, which adjusted the biology to be receptive to social environment/culture. Selection did this, a brutal thing, your ancestors acted in such a way as to give less adapted (appealing) creatures fewer opportunities to breed, or less opportunity to breed with more ideal creatures, alienated, variously deprived of resources (including mates), or possibly murdered your could-have-been-ancestors offspring.

when coming into breeding age group/cultural norms are very important, so heightened sensitivity is not unexpected, which might include reticence (caution/care), to avoid humiliations or embarrassment that could influence mate availability and mate choice. Related social status.

an added dimension of modern contemporary social environments, in addition to notions and projections about how supremely important they ought be (ignorance and denial of bio-history helps), is the close proximity young people are forced into, like school etc. And they are forced, by way of numbers too.

if you saw emotions as mechanisms, related desires and mental states, to get whatever done, of when hormones are shaping all that, doing their good work for the replicator, well, nature’s got you by the balls, so to speak (doubt i’m entirely alienating the ladies there). As you get older you realize the extent it had you, or has you. Believing your own bullshit is quite important when young, though it may feel very sincere, anyway you’re sort of colluding with others making bullshit work, it’s a group effort.

feelings are of course important things, but I note too people spend a lot of time in some neutral zone, trying for. Willed forays seems better, steering the beast.

people emote, theatrically, and there is too the sham, something else.

animating the dial can hold other peoples interest, even be convincing, but for the most part the mind has to be charged with something, their has to be some structural changes to where and what the electricity is delivered, like christmas lights you know, some variation’s good.

There’s a lot in that. I like the way you’ve related the sensitivity to emotions back through the evolutionary tree.

Quite possibly more interesting than sensitivity to emotions by humans as a function of age would be a scientific study of the sensitivity to emotions by animals as a function of age.

Off topic, but related to what i’ve been doing today, is the question “why do children scream?” I live next to a primary school. Today i was watching three young children squealing and screaming, in a context where the causes could be watched. The loudest screamer screamed about 1.5 seconds before something exciting happened, then tensed up waiting for the event. Sort of psyching herself up.

The second loudest screamed half a second before something exciting happened. More of a fearful pre-response to imminent danger.

The third, squealed rather than screamed while running though water. Never ran without squealing.

The third was youngest, loudest was oldest. I found it interesting how emotional responses changed with age. Would that be a generalisation, or do i need a bigger set of observations?

>Off topic, but related to what i’ve been doing today, is the question “why do children scream?” I live next to a primary school. Today i was watching three young children squealing and screaming, in a context where the causes could be watched. The loudest screamer screamed about 1.5 seconds before something exciting happened, then tensed up waiting for the event. Sort of psyching herself up.

doubt i’d have half the stress if I did some that. Just what I need.

grown ups get pissed to do that. It’s the license. I hardly drink. Very rare.

i’ll have to run around a scream, risk it, unlicensed.