In 2015, when turn over Hitting theaters, Lisa Damour watched the Pixar movie with her 11-year-old daughter. The film felt personal: turn over depicts the emotions of an 11-year-old named Riley. In the sequel Riley is now 13 years old, Inside Out 2, June 14, and Damour will be watching alongside another 13-year-old: her younger daughter. “The queer mapping of my family life,” says Damore, “has been profound for me personally and professionally.”
Damur is well versed in the science of teenage emotions. Also His work as a psychologist, he has written three books on teenagers and their often intense emotional development. His experience makes him well-suited to counsel Inside Out 2 As Riley struggles with more adult emotions like anxiety, jealousy, embarrassment, and ennui, all of which are new characters in the film.
Damur was not alone in providing expert guidance to the creative team. Emotion scientists Datcher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Greater Good Science Center, also served as a scientific advisor, helping to shape what new emotions would appear in the film and how to accurately represent the science of emotions on screen. “They got it right,” Keltner said of Pixar. “They take that science seriously.”
I spoke with Damore and Keltner individually about their roles Inside Out 2, The psychology of teenagers and how to translate that knowledge to the screen. The following conversations have been edited and condensed for clarity
Allie Volpe
Tell us about your role in the film. How was your conversation with the creatives?
Lisa Damore
I am a psychologist who specializes in adolescents and I have written a lot about teenage girls. Our relationship started with May 2020 [director] Kelsey Mann and [screenwriter] Meg LeFauve. I hope on the Zoom call, and they are both on hold uncomplicatedWhich is a book I published in 2016, and under pressureWhich is a book I published in 2019. [The creative team and I have] The four-year-old talks about anxiety and fulfillment in adolescence and the changing brain and emotions. Along with Dr. Keltner, I went over the draft of the film, and we gave directions on how to bring it into line with the science, which they did a phenomenal job with.
Datcher Keltner
It really started from scratch, turn over. [Executive producer] Pete the doctor called me. I thought they would be interested in strategic questions about the film, [but] They are only interested in science, how much passion? What do they do to our minds? How do they affect your identity or your memory? with Inside Out 2, I remember going with Meg and Kelsey, and they’re like, “Okay, she’s 13, she’s a teenager. What happens emotionally?” Got that [us] from anxiety; Jealousy, FOMO emotions, embarrassment, which I’ve done a lot of research in my lab. Emotions move from a focus on family to your social network [as a teenager]And all the dynamics that come from it. [Meg and Kelsey asked] Technical question, what muscle movements in the face when you feel jealous? Or what anxiety does to our sense of the future?
Allie Volpe
How much did you consult about the look and feel of these characters?
Datcher Keltner
I visited Pixar a lot. I study the human voice. Has a really sweet voice turn over What comes out of this science, like the moments of irony that come out of that conversation: it sounds like a sarcastic voice and why it makes you so mad. This picture has stuff on the face which is amazing. Just zeroing in on particular facial muscle movements and what they mean. I studied the face for 35 years, and they got it right. So I want to talk about the science: these are facial muscles, here are some papers, here’s how we communicate with emotions.
Allie Volpe
What happens developmentally in the adolescent brain to cause these new emotions—anxiety, jealousy, embarrassment, and ennui—to become so important to the story?
Lisa Damore
One of the things that happens when people are teenagers is that their brains become more sophisticated and this allows for self-conscious emotions. Before the age of 13, children are solidified in their thinking. They can’t always see things from another perspective. Then around 13 or 14, the brain develops the ability to picture itself externally, the ability to imagine different situations.
With that arrival comes the ability to be embarrassed and imagine what other people think of you. Or envy, wanting something that someone else has and wondering why you don’t have it. Ennui is so funny and wonderful and really maps the natural scorn and excess to everything teenagers can have. Then, of course, anxiety is a major player in this movie. What anxiety requires is the ability to imagine and speculate. Fear is our response to threats in front of us, whereas anxiety is imagining things that might happen.
Datcher Keltner
Sex hormones hit and they start thinking about dating and flirting and worrying about their looks. Children move from childhood and the world of concrete fears to become everything social. Thirteen-year-olds are very aware of social dynamics: What do other people think of me? Are they judging me? What is my reputation? Why didn’t I get an invite? Jealousy is about your status, how does it compare with others? Do they get things that you don’t get that you deserve? Anxiety: What other people will think of me and what will happen to me [self]-Respect? Embarrassment is a social emotion. So, how we express to adults this absurd, this boring. It’s really about becoming social.
Allie Volpe
Were there teenage experiences, such as being upset with your parents or feeling like you were wearing the wrong clothes, that you thought would be useful in exemplifying these emotions?
Lisa Damore
talked to [the Pixar team] So much about perfectionism. Perfectionism, especially among teenage girls, and especially when anxiety is under control, is a very real and very challenging problem. We see it across all gendersWe see this when we look at the data though A little more in girls. Much of that stems from their desire to please. We socialize girls more than boys to be pleasing to the adults around them. They get a lot of reinforcement when they do this. When girls or extremely perfectionist boys bring their A-plus game to everything, adults cheer them on and encourage them to do more. This can make them feel that their value depends on making no mistakes and that there are no areas where they are struggling. At the center of this movie is Riley trying to form a hockey team. So if they come to the sense that the only way to get this right is to make no mistakes, that’s a recipe for anxiety and discomfort.
Datcher Keltner
There is a scene with Riley and her two friends in the car wondering what the other person is thinking and wondering if they are judging them. That’s what happens when you’re a teenager.
Allie Volpe
Were there conversations about other possible emotions that could be included?
Lisa Damore
Yes, there was. This means identifying about 20 or 25 distinct emotions. They got it down to nine, which is pretty impressive. There are all sorts of characters that you can bring. But I think they made a good call with the four they added and they all serve a purpose and they all correspond to what it means to be a teenager.
Datcher Keltner
[Psychologist] Paul Ekman studied six emotions: anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy—that’s it turn over – and then surprise, which did not happen turn over. In my lab, we studied surprise, compassion and shame and embarrassment and love and desire and interest and boredom. When I went in and talked to Kelsey and Meg, they were like, “What emotions should we add?” I brought shame. You are humiliated online and you feel ashamed. They really grappled with it. They sketched out the scenes, did some animation, but they felt that another time would be better. I always pitch them social emotions, compassion and wonder, especially, because they are so important. That they wanted to make a passion [brought] teenager [to a place of] Like, “You adults are wrong. Your music is old, your dance moves suck.” There are some interesting examples, like contempt. But it was toxic or hard to identify. I really pitched and vented. “You think it’s a good movie? Do you think it’s good food?” Teenagers are great at it. They thought about it and they made it, but they got stuck with ennui, which I think is going to be fun for people.
Allie Volpe
Many people may think that anxiety is just an uncomfortable emotion. How does this movie go against that belief?
Lisa Damore
Anxiety has a protective function and is not always negative. Most people don’t know it. But we find ourselves in a culture where we’re pretty uncomfortable about any emotion that’s uncomfortable, and we pathologize negative emotions. They did a great job in this film dealing with a range of what anxiety can be.
Anxiety is absolutely an essential part of life. It protects us, it helps us visualize and anticipate things that could go wrong, it helps us make correct and better decisions. It can suggest being out of control. It’s so valuable to capture both the healthy and unhealthy aspects of anxiety in this movie so that families can discuss what kinds of anxiety they have. [they might be feeling or seeing].
Datcher Keltner
This is the central mission turn over The movie world needs to understand that grief is okay. There is this knowledge of sorrow. This film tackles anxiety and, to me, a lot of Western thinking about emotion pathologizes emotion. It stigmatizes them. The film tells families that we need all the emotions. Embarrassment is uncomfortable: Oops, I called someone the wrong name. I feel embarrassed. It tells your mind that I don’t want to make that mistake again. I will learn and I will try harder. So the central idea of these films is that emotions are healthy, and there are New research shows If you have a complex life full of emotions and you feel them properly, this is the best place.
