Shrink Feeling
How emotions work, and how to understand and regulate them.
Discrete Emotions (19)
Basic Emotions
Basic emotions is the theory that a small set of feelings is universal and built in.
Discrete Emotions
Discrete emotions treats feelings as separate, named categories with their own patterns.
Awe
Awe is wonder in the face of something vast that shifts your perspective.
Contentment
Contentment is calm, low-key satisfaction with how things are.
Joy
Joy is a bright, energizing pleasant feeling that lifts you up.
Sadness
Sadness is a low-energy feeling that typically follows loss or disappointment.
Anger
Anger is a high-arousal feeling triggered by blocked goals or perceived wrongs.
Fear
Fear is a high-arousal feeling that responds to real or anticipated threat.
Disgust
Disgust is revulsion that drives avoidance of something seen as contaminating or offensive.
Shame
Shame is a painful, global feeling that the self is flawed.
Guilt
Guilt is a feeling focused on a specific wrong action rather than the whole self.
Embarrassment
Embarrassment is a self-conscious feeling from being exposed in an awkward social moment.
Pride
Pride is a self-conscious pleasant feeling about achievement, with an authentic and a hubristic form.
Envy
Envy is discomfort at another person having something you want and lack.
Loneliness
Loneliness is distress from a gap between the connection you have and the connection you want.
Jealousy
Jealousy guards a relationship you don't want to lose.
Relief
Relief is the exhale after the brace.
Frustration
Frustration is thwarted effort with nowhere to go.
Resentment
Resentment is a grievance that won't cool down.
Emotion Science (19)
Affect
Affect is the broad landscape of emotional experience.
Emotion Regulation
Manage emotions without denying them.
Emotional Awareness
Awareness comes before regulation.
Affect Labeling
Naming emotions may change how they're experienced.
Core Affect
Core affect is the ongoing pleasant-to-unpleasant, calm-to-activated feeling state that underlies every emotion.
Valence
Valence is the pleasant-to-unpleasant quality that gives a feeling its direction.
Arousal
Arousal is the calm-to-activated energy dimension of a feeling.
Appraisal Theory of Emotion
Appraisal theory says emotions arise from your interpretation of a situation.
Constructed Emotion
Constructed emotion says the brain builds emotions from body signals, concepts, and context.
Positive Affect
Positive affect is the general tendency to feel pleasant and engaged.
Negative Affect
Negative affect is the general tendency to feel unpleasant and distressed.
Mood
Mood is a lasting, diffuse feeling state that colors your whole outlook.
Anticipation
Anticipation is emotion running ahead of the event.
Nostalgia
Nostalgia is memory that comforts and aches at once.
Boredom
Boredom is the itch of unused attention.
Anxiety as an Emotion
Anxiety is the mind bracing for a maybe.
Emotional Ambivalence
Ambivalence is the heart holding two truths together.
Emotional Habituation
Habituation is how the extraordinary quietly becomes ordinary.
Feelings as Information
Feelings are data, useful when you read them for the right thing.
Emotion Regulation (16)
Emotional Reactivity
Emotional reactivity is the ease, speed, and strength of your emotional responses.
Emotional Inertia
Emotional inertia is the tendency for a feeling to carry over and resist changing.
Emotional Recovery
Emotional recovery is the process of returning toward baseline after a feeling spikes.
Expressive Suppression
Expressive suppression is hiding the outward signs of a feeling without changing the feeling itself.
Emotional Acceptance
Emotional acceptance is allowing a feeling to be present without struggling against it.
Emotional Numbing
Emotional numbing is a muting or blunting of feelings, often after overwhelm.
Emotional Flooding
Emotional flooding is overwhelming arousal that swamps clear thinking in the moment.
Emotional Overwhelm
Overwhelm is emotion past the point you can hold it.
Emotional Suppression Cost
Suppression hides the feeling but keeps the bill running.
Emotional Bandwidth
Bandwidth is your room for feeling before it overflows.
Distress Tolerance
You can feel bad without having to fix it this second.
Urge Surfing
An urge you observe without obeying will usually crest and fade.
Opposite Action
Acting against an unjustified emotion gradually changes the emotion.
Frustration Tolerance
You can meet obstacles without quitting or exploding.
Emotional Agility
Noticing feelings without being ruled by them, then acting on your values.
Emotional Overcontrol
When tight self-control turns into rigidity and distance.
Emotional Intelligence (8)
Emotional Granularity
Precision creates emotional clarity.
Alexithymia
Alexithymia is difficulty identifying and describing one's own emotions.
Emotional Vocabulary
Emotional vocabulary is the range and precision of the words you have for feelings.
Savoring
Savoring is deliberately attending to pleasant experiences to extend their good feeling.
Gratitude
Gratitude is appreciation for a benefit you've received.
Emotional Contagion Resistance
Contagion resistance lets you feel with someone without becoming them.
Compassionate Distress
Compassionate distress is empathy that tips into your own overload.
Affective Empathy
Affective empathy is emotion shared, not just understood.
Difficult Emotions (4)
Anticipatory Anxiety
Dread before an event frequently outweighs the event that follows.
Shame Resilience
You can move through shame by naming it and reaching out rather than hiding.
Affective Instability
Emotions that spike quickly and take a long time to come back down.
Fear of Happiness
Holding happiness at arm's length because it feels risky.
Positive Emotion (4)
Hope
Hope keeps a door open when the outcome isn't certain.
Positivity Resonance
Positivity resonance is a good feeling made between two people, not just within one.
Elevation
Elevation is being moved by someone else's goodness.
Broaden-and-Build Theory
Good feelings broaden attention and slowly build lasting resources.
Loss (3)
Grief
Love doesn't end at loss, and grief is what that looks like.
Anticipatory Grief
Mourning a loss you can see coming before it arrives.
Disenfranchised Grief
Real grief for a loss the world around you doesn't acknowledge.
Social Emotions (3)
Schadenfreude
A flicker of pleasure at a rival's setback.
Moral Anger
The anger that rises when we see values or others violated.
Vicarious Embarrassment
Feeling another person's embarrassment as if it were your own.
Coping (2)
Benefit Finding
Difficulty can carry genuine gains without erasing the pain.
Emotional Eating
Eating to soothe emotions instead of to feed the body.
Emotion Categories (2)
Moral Emotions
The feelings that guide moral behavior and social bonds.
Self-Conscious Emotions
Feelings that arise from evaluating the self against standards.
Emotional Awareness (2)
Somatic Marker Hypothesis
Bodily feelings tag options and shape choices before reasoning finishes.
Emodiversity
A varied emotional life tends to be a healthier one.
Individual Differences (2)
Affect Intensity
The natural volume at which someone experiences their emotions.
Guilt-Proneness
A trait of feeling guilt that pushes toward repair, not self-attack.