According to neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson, each person has a unique emotional profile. As he puts it, “Just as each person has a unique fingerprint and a unique face, each of us has a unique emotional profile, one that is so much a part of who we are and those who know us well can often predict how we will respond to an emotional challenge.” Based on his research, Davidson identified six dimensions of Emotional Style in his classic work The Emotional Life of Your Brain written with Sharon Begley. According to him, Each of the six dimensions has a specific, identifiable neural signature—a good indication that they are real and not merely a theoretical construct.
The six dimensions of Emotional Style are as follows :
- Resilience Style : People at one end of this dimension recover quickly from adversity whereas people at the other end of this dimension recover very slowly.
- Outlook Style : Does a person have a sunny disposition and look at the brighter side of things or does he tend to be cynical or pessimistic ? People at one end of the outlook spectrum may be characterized as Positive types; those at the other, as Negative types.
- Social Intuition Style : Can a person read other people’s body language and voice tone and figure out whether they want to talk or be alone whether they are stressed or relaxed. Or is a person puzzled by the outward manifestations of other people’s mental and emotional state ? Socially intuitive types are at one end of this spectrum; Socially Puzzled
types are at the other end. - Self-Awareness Style : Is a person aware of his own thoughts and feelings and attuned to the messages of his body ? Or does he act and react without knowing why he does what he does because his inner self is opaque to his conscious mind ? Self-aware people lie at one end of his spectrum; Self-opaque people lie at the other end.
- Sensitivity to Context Style : Does a person follow conventional rules of interaction so that he does not tell his boss the same dirty jokes he shares with his friends or engage in a date at a funeral service ? Or is he baffled when someone points out that his behavior is inappropriate ? Tuned in people are at one end of the spectrum of the Sensitivity to Context Style; Tuned out people are at the other end.
- Attention Style : Can a person filter out emotional or other distractions and stay focused ? Is he so absorbed in the TV show that he does not notice the whining of his dog ? Or do his thoughts flit from what he is doing to the quarrel he had with his colleague in the morning or the anxiety about an upcoming presentation ? Focused people are at one end of the Attention spectrum; Unfocused people are at the other end.
Emotionally a person is the product of different amounts of each of these six components. Since there are numerous ways to combine the six dimensions, there are countless Emotional Styles. Indeed, everyone is unique. As Davidson puts it, “…each of us is a color-wheel combination of the Resilience, Outlook, Social Intuition, Self-Awareness, Context and Attention dimensions of Emotional Style, a unique blend that describes how you perceive the world and react to it, how you engage with others and how you navigate the obstacle course of life.”