What Motivates Us?

This blog comes from a thread on the Fox web page dedicated to the show "Lie To Me" entitled “Theory Behind The Show.” This is quite incorrect in fact as I am trying to amplify the subject matter that the show deals with.

As mentioned Dr. Ekman, the man Dr. Lightman is modeled after, was influenced greatly by Silvan Tomkins yet Tomkins developed an entire theory of personality called “Affect Psychology” whereas Ekman concentrated on the face. So Ekman’s work is not a “theory” and he would certainly probably not want it to be considered such but rather called “hard science.”

I wish to point out that at least in the discussion it is inappropriate to leave Tomkins out of the picture and I will argue that "Affect Theory" has a lot to offer in filling in the whole picture as far as telling us about people's motivation.

Some comments about last night’s show:

1) Fear: We in Affect Psychology are not only interested in lying but how emotion or feeling motivates us to act in all areas of life.

In the case of the astronaut “fear” motivates the wife to do what she does. Fear of losing “everything.”

2) Shame: When Dr. Litghtman isolates the drug pusher at school he does it by a mass shame response. “Who are all the others afraid to look at.”? Shame/fear. I am just pointing out that he is using emotion all the time to manipulate people. It is just not about “lying.” It is about how emotion “motivates” us. I will not extrapolate much on this but I suggest that the operative emotion at work in the classmates was not fear, for the most part, but “shame.”

3) When Dr. Lightman confronts the father of the girl who has confessed to murdering the girl to see if he is lying he says that the real murderer would show disgust, contempt, or fear but “never’ surprise whereas the father had shown surprise and horror and therefore was innocent.

I am sure he must have researched on this but “we” would disagree that you can say “never” we feel that we “feel” and then everyone “learns” very specific rules about how to handle feeling. True enough there are average ways that we as a culture will react. That is what the show is based on but to say “never” would be, again, as noted above to be saying that it would be an “innate” or born with instinctual response for humans to see a picture of a murder victim and “never” show surprise. That is just not a tenable statement.

I am always surprised by what people tell me they feel about what they do.

I hope the show is staying true to the research.

References

drlynch