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The National Mind argues that understanding the power of nationalism requires probing into its cognitive and emotional influence on our everyday perceptions, feelings, beliefs, and behavior. Focusing particularly on the impact of canonical national narratives on thinking and feeling norms in society, it develops an interdisciplinary cognitive approach to the question of how nationalism shapes our minds, and eventually, our world. It derives insights from longstanding philosophical and scholarly debates on the social nature of knowledge and feeling as well as recent cognitive research on emotions and the perception of reality. Grounding its theoretical investigation in empirical observations about a prominent non-Western case, namely, contemporary Turkey, The National Mind demonstrates how nationalist narratives and conceptions dominate our social and political common sense, at both societal and global levels. It offers a comprehensive and original interpretation of how the ‘national mind'operates in everyday experiences. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of psychology, philosophy, politics, history, sociology, and nationalism studies.

Just as a garden needs worms, we need bad feelings.... We tend to think about bad feelings--feelings like anger, envy, spite, and contempt--as the weeds in life's garden. You may not be able to get rid of them completely, but you're supposed to battle them as best you can. The best garden is one with no weeds. The best life is one with no bad feelings. But this isn't quite right, according to philosopher Krista K. Thomason. Bad feelings are the worms, not the weeds. They're just below the surface, and we like to pretend they aren't there, but they serve an important purpose. Worms are just as much a part of the garden as the flowers, and their presence means your garden is thriving. Gardens aren't better off without their worms, and neither are we. The trick is learning how to enjoy our gardens, worms and all. Thomason draws on insights from the history of philosophy to show what we've gotten wrong about bad feelings and to show readers how we can live better with them. There is nothing wrong with negative emotions per se. Their bad reputation is undeserved. Negative emotions are expressions of self-love--not egoism or selfishness, but the felt attachment to ourselves and to our lives. We feel negative emotions because our lives matter to us. After explaining this, Thomason helps us look at individual bad feelings: anger, envy and jealousy, spite and Schadenfreude, and contempt. As she demonstrates in this tour of negative emotions, these feelings are valuable parts of our attachment to our lives. We don't have to battle negative emotions or'channel'them into something productive. Bad feelings aren't obstacles to a good life; they are part of what makes life meaningful.

This book approaches emotion from a cultural perspective in applied contexts, consolidating new research that examines the interface of emotions with various aspects of human life. It provides insights into the vibrant and growing field of emotion research by rearticulating the distinction and interrelationships of the trilogy of mind consisting of cognition, affection and conation. It brings into focus indigenous and culturally relevant conceptualizations of emotion processes. Among the topics covered: Emotions at work: applications of emotional intelligenceIndian perspectives on youth, compassion, and moral well-beingParental emotion regulationstrategiesRole of emotions in construction of social identities Emotions in Cultural Context offers an up-to-date exploration of recent work in psychology of emotions.

An accessible, scientific account of grief, melancholy, and nostalgia in human life and their broader lessons for understanding emotions in general.The Science of Sadness proposes an original scientific account of grief, melancholy, and nostalgia, advocating a unique ethological approach to these familiar, woeful emotions. One of the leading scholars in the psychology of music and music cognition, David Huron draws on hundreds of studies from physiology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and the arts to resolve long-standing problems that have stymied modern emotion research. A careful examination of sadness-related behaviors reveals their biological and social functions, which Huron uses to formulate a new theory about how emotions in general are displayed and interpreted.We've all shed tears of joy, tears of grief, tears of pain. While different emotions often share the same weepy display, Huron identifies the single function that unites them. He suggests how weeping emerged over the course of human evolution, explores the contrasting cultural manifestations of sadness, and chronicles humanity's changing interpretations of sadness over time. Huron also explains the various ways cultures recruit and reshape involuntary emotional displays for different social purposes, and he offers a compelling narrative of what makes tragic arts so appealing. Though sadness is typically regarded as the very antithesis of happiness, The Science of Sadness draws attention to the important roles that grief, melancholy, and nostalgia play in human well-being.