The Jamaican body's role in emotional experience and sense perception: feelings, heart, minds and nerves

When Jamaican speak of feelings, they literally mean feelings: physical sensations. Emotions, which emerge through social interaction, comprise an unmarked subset of feelings. They can affect the mind in ways that are actualized in behavior. Emotions affect other parts of the body as well, in ways that follow from an equilibrium model of health. Non-emotional feelings index bodily disequilibrium rather than causing it. An example of such is seen in nerves: a chronic feeling-complaint that comes about when the nerves, associated with perception and sensation, are weakened, and which entails visual dimness, jumpiness, and joint trouble. Although exacerbated by certain social situations and often used in social commentary and manipulations, nerves is experienced and treated as a physical rather than a socially-based disorder. By studying the bodily dimension of nerves and other feelings we may gain insight into the ways in which the body serves as a source of culture (e.g., nerves culture) as well as into how culture influences bodily experience. We may broaden our understanding of the complex interplay between the bodily and mental dimensions of people's lives.(AU)

Extraversion and stimulation-seeking as factors in overeating and obesity

A clinical impression concerning overeating and obesity led to a review of the relevant research and culmination in a research hypothesis. This stated that eating was in many people not only a means of satiating hunger, but a means of obtaining stimulation and part of a general tendency to 'overindulge'. In the research, overeating was found to be linked to high external responsiveness, and sensation seeking to low basal arousal level. Eating as a form of sensation seeking was the subject of this study. The role of arousal level and externality were also examined. Three measures were chosen: a measure of extraversion, of sensation seeking and of basal arousal level (resting pulse rate). These were administered to a small randomly selected sample of subjects, who were then divided into a normal weight and an overweight group, using a 5 percent overweight cutoff point. In addition, a questionnaire was administered, and a standard structured interview given to a subgroup. Results showed the overweight group to be significantly higher on extraversion. The overweight group were found to be differentiated into two groups, the mildly overweight and the very overweight. The mildly overweight were the most extraverted and the highest sensation seeking of all three groups. The overweight group had a lower mean pulse rate than the normal group. The overweight group were higher on the Boredom Susceptibility and Experience Seeking factors of the sensation seeking measure. The mildly overweight smoked and drank more than any other group, suggesting a general pattern of overindulgence. The overweight group as a whole preferred non-physical and non-risk activities. They disliked monotonous activities. It appeared that whereas eating provided stimulation, it appeared to be stimulation of a low intensity type that is easily obtained. Implications were that overeating is a 'normal' response to prevalent food cues in the society, given man's genetic adaptations over the centuries. Treatment should be both curative and preventative, and should take the whole individual into account as obesity is the result of physiological, psychological and environmental factors (AU)