Being an Expert in Emotion: 4 Key Characteristics

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What does it mean to be "good at emotion"? We all know people who are better than others at abilities related to emotion: they are more in tune with their emotions, can better accept or regulate them, can harness them to get things done, and more. These abilities are widely associated with positive outcomes and have clear ties to mental and physical well-being. People who are good at emotion tend to be healthier mentally and physically, accomplish their scholastic and professional goals, and adapt more easily to different personal and social situations.

So, what's the problem? In our review in the Psychological Bulletin¹, my colleagues and I found that there are actually many ways — over 40! — that you can be good at emotion. You’ve likely heard of some of these already, such as emotional intelligence or emotional competence. However, these skills are often defined and measured differently, making it hard to compare research findings and translate them into programs of education and intervention.

To address this problem, we integrated research in this area using the concept of expertise. You may think of experts as people who have extensive and specific knowledge of an area. But prior research suggests there is more to it. Expertise has four defining characteristics^2-3, each of which can also be used to describe the various types of expertise in emotion.

1. Expertise is supported by extensive and specific knowledge about the domain in question. Experts must know, in detail, about the breadth of their field. This knowledge allows "experts" to differentiate between more specific categories. Have you ever been around someone who could tell the difference between the colors lime, olive, and chartreuse — while you could only see yellow versus green? This is like how experts can verbally represent their ideas and experience in a fine-grained manner. Similarly, emotion experts have categories for types of emotional experiences that are diverse and nuanced, which they can easily name using specific words — they feel “disappointed” rather than “bad,” “ecstatic” rather than “good.”
2. Expertise is distinguished by enhanced information-processing capacities. Experts don’t just know a lot — they know what to do with it. They have access to properties of a situation that may not be obvious to others, and leverage these to accomplish their goals. Consider the way a professional tennis player takes in the ball’s exact angle, velocity, and more to deliver the perfect return. Emotion experts use information from their body and the world to their benefit. They focus on information that is relevant to the situation at hand, as when a person preparing for a public speech interprets their heart palpitations as excitement or preparation, rather than as anxiety or failure.
3. Expertise is demonstrated by stable, high-level performance. An expert shows their ability or skill reliably and across different contexts; one single display of brilliance is not enough. At the same time, expertise also means that your behavior is sensitive to changing needs. The most adaptive response will vary from moment to moment (think about the tennis game), and experts flexibly update their approach. The same holds for emotion experts. Different situations call for different emotions, and emotion experts are nimble at identifying these needs and switching gears. They can also demonstrate their expertise by communicating their thoughts and feelings in a context-appropriate and sophisticated way: they can walk the walk and talk the talk.
4. Expertise is developed through deliberate practice. Experts do a lot of training to get where they are, intentionally working to improve their existing skills and seeking out opportunities to acquire new ones. These processes require awareness and sustained attention. Chess masters regularly evaluate themselves, efficiently studying past actions so they can better predict what will happen next. Likewise, emotion experts actively attend to their experiences of emotion and may engage others — friends and family, partners or therapists — in helping them see things from new perspectives. In this way, emotion experts can become better equipped for future events and challenges.

These characteristics hint at ways that you can improve your expertise in emotion. We do not yet know which are more important for health and well-being, and there may also be others. Still, as a first step, our research suggests that you can bolster your expertise by:

• Increasing your knowledge of emotion and range of emotion words (reading scientific summaries can help, as can picking up some good narrative fiction)

• Taking notice of what’s going on in and around you during emotional experiences (for example, how you have been sleeping and eating, where you are and what others are doing)

• Putting yourself in a variety of emotion-evoking situations (consider leaving your comfort zone by doing an unfamiliar activity, appreciating art, or talking to someone new)

• Reflecting on your experiences in ways that make them meaningful (such as briefly describing them in a journal entry or discussing them with someone you trust)

If you want to be good at emotion — or even become an expert! — these ideas are a good place to start.