What is the emotional profile of your brain?

For a long time, psychologists and psychiatrists have been accustomed to studying the population according to personality patterns and a style of intelligence. One could be extraverted, introverted, have logical-mathematical or musical intelligence… but what about emotions? Aren’t they what govern our behavior most of the day? Aren’t they the ones who make us love, hate, fear or desire?

Indeed, It was Professor Richard J. Davidson, from the University of Wisconsin, who proposed the need to establish a new parameter: the emotional profile. Would you like to know which one you identify with the most?

What is the emotional brain profile?

According to the authors of the theory themselves, sEmotional profile is understood as the way we respond to the experiences we have in life consistently. This profile directly influences the possibility of feeling certain emotional and mood states, as well as emotional traits. It is possible to consider it as the constitutive and fundamental element of our emotional life.

It also states that we all have the 6 dimensions of this profile, showing a tendency towards one pole or the other depending on our brain configuration. Let’s see those dimensions in detail.

The 6 dimensions of the emotional profile

The emotional profile of our brain, according to this theory, would be configured through the scores obtained in each of the 6 dimensions. These, however, change over time thanks to brain plasticity, so the evaluation is only valid for the moment in which it is carried out.

1. Resistance

Day by day, we all have to face continuous challenges and adversities. Resistance would be, in this case, the personal ability that each of us has to recover from a difficult event.facing a stressful situation, facing a loss, a disappointment, or a simple argument as a couple or with a friend.

2. Attitude

In what spirit do you face reality on a regular basis? Are you optimistic, cautious, skeptical, cautious or negative?

It is true that the mood can vary from day to day, but each person has their own style, a wake where optimism or, on the other hand, negativity is normally printed. Davison does not seem to establish middle ground here.

3. Social intuition

It is empathy, the ability to read and notice in others those signs that say so much about the people around us.. They’re happy? Are you worried? Disappointed? Non-verbal language offers many clues that go unnoticed by many people, for others, however, it is easy to understand them.

4. Self-awareness

Here we refer to the ability to perceive and understand our own emotions and feelings. Do you know how to recognize your anger? Your nerves? Your disappointments?

Sometimes people feel bad without really knowing the reason, we are restless and this discomfort sometimes ends up manifesting itself in illnesses. Here Professor Davidson tells us that we can be self-aware or opaque.

5. Sensitivity to context

How do people react to certain contexts? There are those who tend to be very variable depending on who they interact with or where they are. Others, for their part, tend to be the same in all types of media and in front of all types of people.

There are circumstances to which we are more sensitive in some contexts, but normally there are quite a few differences from person to person. Do you know how to adapt? Are you always the same? Or do you change your way of acting?

6. Focused or scattered

Here we talk about the ability that each person has to eliminate emotional distractions and remain focused on a specific task. Are you able to do it?

Sometimes we find ourselves assailed by problems or worries and we are unable to move forward with our obligations because we have our minds elsewhere. However, there are other people who manage to maintain control, who put aside that avalanche of emotions to focus on a task.

This can serve to delve into the neuronal and emotional substrate of our brain, abilities that can be trained to also improve our quality of life, to be more emotionally effective, to be more empathetic and receptive and to manage our reality in a more optimal way.

More than one person may not feel identified, or may not see fit to be in one pole or another. But without a doubt, for a moment, he has surely made us all think and value some aspects of ourselves.

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