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us back to a recurring theme of this book: To what degree does language influence psychological state or merely reflect it? Is it possible to change our psychological state by changing the ways we use words? For example, would John Kerry have won the 2004 presidential election if his advisers had told him to use I-words more and we-words less? Would his change in language have changed his formal speaking style and rigid body posture? I seriously doubt it. People can be trained to change their language but there is no compelling evidence that the language affects their personality, behavior, or emotional state. Rather, had John Kerry attempted to loosen up, be more personal and genuine, his language would have followed. Language is a powerful reflection of a person but does not change the person on its own.

CHAPTER 5

Emotion Detection

Who said there’s no crying in football? [New York] Jets coach Rex Ryan … in the wake of the previous day’s devastating 24–22 loss to the Jaguars, delivered an impassioned speech to his players that was so emotionally-charged it brought him to tears.… “He didn’t bash us at all; he was just very emotional … he was crying,” right tackle Damien Woody told The Post. “Rex believes in our team so much I can’t even put it into words and it would be a shame if we didn’t capitalize on our opportunity.”

“I was a little upset to see him that way,” cornerback Darrelle Revis told The Post. “I’m upset for the same reasons he’s upset.”

Asked if he’s ever been a part of a meeting with such high-powered emotions, Revis said: “No, I haven’t been a part of a meeting where a coach cried like that.… In the future, I hope there are more tears of joy than the one this morning.”

—MIKE CANNIZZARO, New York Post, November 17, 2009

All signs point towards trouble for [the New York Jets] this week, as Coach Rex Ryan cried as he addressed his team on Monday, feeling so overwhelmed with emotions. Staged or not, Ryan’s using tears to motivate and bring his team together is the official signal that the wheels have come off.

—SAM HITCHCOCK, NewJerseyNewsroom.com, November 20, 2009

WHEN PEOPLE BEHAVE emotionally, it gets our attention. An adult football coach crying is important information for his team, his opponents, and the football-watching public at large. The original New York Post article suggested that after Coach Ryan’s emotional display, his team was ready to take the next bus to Boston to better prepare for their upcoming game with the New England Patriots. The article a few days later from the respected NewJerseyNewsroom website viewed the same emotional display as evidence that the team was headed for disaster. And, indeed, it was. The following Sunday the Jets were crushed by the Patriots 31–14. No tears were reported the following week.

Emotions change the ways people see and think about the world. They can motivate people to work harder or cause them to give up in despair. Emotions can broaden our perspectives or restrict them by causing us to ruminate about the same topics over and over. Emotions guide our thinking and affect the ways we talk and get along with others. Not only do we need to know our own emotions, we need to be able to read other people’s emotions to understand what they are thinking and planning to do.

Reading other people’s emotions is usually easy if they are crying, screaming, or laughing hysterically. At other times emotions are conveyed more subtly through facial expressions, tone of voice, or nonverbal behaviors. Much of the time, however, people may be feeling one thing but not conveying it. All of us have had the experience of not knowing if our date, parent, teacher, boss, or client likes us or not. In our close relationships, someone may have failed to pick up on important emotional cues that may have damaged the relationship. In reading others’ e-mails, IMs, tweets, or letters, most of us have missed an emotional cue that the other person may have been intending to send.

The central question of this chapter is how can we detect people’s emotions through their