Harvard researchers examine evolution of emotion differentiation
When teenagers seem to be experiencing conflicting emotions at the same time and struggling to make sense of them all, it may be because they are. That’s the finding of a new study by Leah Somerville and Erik Nook, a Ph.D. student working in her lab. Other co-authors were Katie McLaughlin, now an assistant professor of psychology; Psychology Department researcher Stephanie Sasse; and Hilary Lambert of the University of Washington. The research was described in a paper in Psychological Science. “In particular, what we wanted to look at is how people can take the messy mix of feelings we have at any moment and try to make sense of them by giving them specific labels … and how that process changes,” Nook said. “Because some people are very specific in making sense of what they’re feeling, whereas other people might just say they feel bad, but can’t be more specific than that.”...