Very Different People — The Emotional Life of Your Brain
Authors: Richard J. Davidson, Sharon Begley
A convergence book that covers the emotion domain of mainstream psychology and neuroscience.
Each person has a path along which their thoughts tend to flow, and that path becomes a pattern, leading to consistent attitudes. This is called \"Emotional Style.\"
Emotional Style is composed of six dimensions, reflecting the activity of specific brain circuits. Each dimension has opposite ends — for example, a positive or negative outlook — which appear as a result of increased or decreased activity in specific brain circuits. Various combinations of these six emotional dimensions give rise to every person's personality and temperament.
Resilience
How quickly or slowly do you recover from adversity? (Fast-to-recover type vs slow-to-recover type)
Outlook
How long can you sustain positive emotions? (Positive-outlook type vs negative-outlook type)
Social Intuition
How well do you pick up on social signals from the people around you and adapt? (Socially sensitive type vs socially confused type)
Self-Awareness
How well do you understand the emotions that show up physically as a reflection of your inner feelings? (Clear self-awareness type vs unclear self-awareness type)
Context Sensitivity
How skillfully do you regulate your emotional responses while considering the social context you're in? (Context-savvy type vs context-dissonant type)
Attention
How precisely and clearly do you focus your conscious attention? (Focused type vs distracted type)
Source: http://muserika.com/281
The environment doesn't just change behavior or brain function. It can also affect which genes turn on and off, and which genetic traits are expressed.
