Every now and then I run across a neuroscientific study that makes me think in a new way, because it tries a fresh angle or studies something no one has studied before. A study from 2014 I just encountered accomplishes exactly that, thanks to a wonderful blog anyone interested in brain research should check out regularly, Psyblog, authored by the indefatigable Dr. Jeremy Dean.
The study, published in Motivation and Emotion, by Verduyn & Lavrijsen, 2014), asked the apparently simple question, how long do emotions last? The answer is fascinating, and not at all simple. It’s not the case that negative emotions last and positive ones are fleeting, for example. An apparently random collection of positive and negative emotions come and go very quickly, whereas a similar set of both kinds of emotions last a good deal longer. Nor is it always the case that the importance of the event triggering the emotion determines how long it lasts.
Of course, trivial events that come and go by the score during the day won’t necessarily cause emotions to stick with you, and earth-shaking moments will probably last longer emotionally speaking. But we can never be sure how an event will strike us.
One of my first summer jobs was working for my dad, a scientist, in his lab. I was sixteen. My job was to feed a culture of anaerobic amoebae he was using in his work. One day…
