The psychology of self-talk and emotional sound

The loudest voice you’ll ever hear is the one in your head. So what is it actually saying; what’s it doing to you?

Researchers mapped 24 distinct human emotions from nothing but sound. No words. Just voice, and what I found in their data made me rethink every word I've chosen, and every word I've let go.

In this episode:

• The vocal emotion study that started it all; and a link to explore it yourself
• The James-Lange theory, and why it flips everything you thought about self-talk
• One small vocabulary change, and what it quietly did to my inner world

Links and references below. As always — there's always more INSyed.

• Cowen, Alan & Elfenbein, Hillary & Laukka, Petri & Keltner, Dacher.(2018). Mapping 24 Emotions Conveyed by Brief Human Vocalization. American Psychologist. 74. 698-712. 10.1037/amp0000399.
• https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/vocs/map.html#
• Cannon, W. B. (1927). The James-Lange Theory of Emotions: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory. The American Journal of Psychology, 39(1/4), 106–124. https://doi.org/10.2307/1415404