Science Friday - Meet The Emotions Behind Teenage Angst In ‘Inside Out 2’

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

In the 2015 film “Inside Out,” audiences met 11-year-old Riley and her team of emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger, each represented by a different character. They lived inside Riley���s mind to help guide her feelings and actions, and towards the end of the film, their emotional control center gets an upgrade with a puberty button.That’s where the new film “Inside Out 2” picks up. Riley is now 13 years old and dealing with the slew of emotions that come with puberty. In the new film, moviegoers meet a new crew of characters: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui, who is always bored.But what’s the science behind Riley’s newfound teenage angst? Guest host Annie Minoff talks with psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour, who served as a science advisor to the film.“Inside Out 2” is now playing in theaters.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

In the new film Inside Out 2, main character Riley is becoming a teenager and going through some emotional growing pains. One of the things that happens when you become a teenager is that the brain develops and becomes more sophisticated. And so with that comes the arrival of self-conscious emotions. It's Monday, June 17th, and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm CyFrag producer Rasha Iridi. Remember the 2015 Pixar film Inside Out? In it, we met 11-year-old. old Riley Anderson and her team of emotions, joy, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger, each

represented by a different character. Now, in its sequel, Inside Out 2, Riley gets a new team of emotions, the not-so-fun kind that can make up teenage angst. So what's the science behind the teenage mind and how accurate is the film? Here's guest host Annie Menoff. Riley's emotions live in her mind, known as Headquarters in the film, where they helped direct her emotional responses and actions. And towards the end of that movie, you might remember that Headquarters was undergoing a little light renovation. All right, here you go. Your new expanded console is up and running.

Wow. Cool. Upgrade. Hey. Oh, whoops. Wait, did I just do that? Hey, guys, what's puberty? I don't know.

That's right. Riley's brain was gearing up for puberty. And that is where Inside Out 2 picks up. The movie is out today. Riley is now 13 and dealing with a slew of new and extremely intense emotions that come with puberty. For example, we meet... Hello! I'm anxiety.

I'm one of Riley's new emotions and we are just super jazz to be here. Where can I put my stuff? What do you mean we? Alongside anxiety, we meet envy, embarrassment, and on we, who is just so over it. But what's the science behind Riley's teenage angst? Joining me now is one of the science advisors on the film. Dr. Lisa DeMore is a psychologist who has written several books about teenage emotions. She's based in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Lisa, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you so much for having me. So as a science advisor on this movie, what is your role? What Pixar wanted was to get the details right about adolescent development and the emotional landscape of teenagers. And it was so much fun to work with them because they were so serious about making sure that they were telling a true story about what we know about teenagers and their development. For people who write a lot of jokes, very serious people. Yes, very serious people, exactly.

So I mentioned that this new film introduces four new emotions. We meet anxiety, envy, embarrassment, and on we. Why those four do you think? One of the things that happens when you become a teenager is that the brain develops and becomes more sophisticated. And at the technical level, what we say is you move towards abstraction, the ability to think about thoughts, to see yourself from a perspective that is not your own. And so with that comes the arrival of self-conscious emotions. So embarrassment, what does that person think of me? Envy. Why does that person have something I want? Right. And of course, anxiety, which is anticipating

the future and trying to imagine what could happen or what could go wrong. And then, of course, son, we, who is just, you know, willing to show all of the things that are beneath her consideration. I guess the child mind is not up for existential dread, but maybe by 13, 14, these kind of big, weighty concepts are starting to impend on the consciousness. Absolutely. And then that capacity kicks in and suddenly young people think very differently. And it's quite dramatic, actually. And it's not driven by intelligence. Being a bright kid doesn't get you there faster. It is very much a neurological achievement. It requires. requires the renovations to the brain that are brought on by puberty.

And are those the four that you would have chosen if it was Dr. Lisa DeMore making this film? I think so. I also know the other science advisor and I agree with him, you know, kind of would have loved to see compassion on the scene. But, you know, at some point you've got to make some choices. It's true that all of these emotions, I mean, they kind of have a negative valence. Is that puberty in a nutshell? It's just all these icky, hard emotions crashing into you all at one. Actually, yes, and no. So yes, they become much more amplified and they arrive and they weren't there before. But in fact, adolescents are also incredibly earnest, incredibly broad-minded, suddenly

quite philosophical. So I think you could easily have a whole host of more, you know, positive emotions that come on the scene. But I think there's real value in focusing on the uncomfortable emotions because one of the things that this movie does is that it reminds us, which we really need this reminder, that uncomfortable emotions are important, they are normal, they are natural, they are growth-giving, they are protective, and, you know, Annie, we find ourselves in a moment in the culture where we are so worried about teenagers, so worried about the adolescent mental health crisis, as we should be, that I'm actually also seeing teenagers and adults becoming unduly concerned about what are typical and expectable. Right. Am I normal? Am I normal? So I actually,

if it were up to me, I probably would put the weight on these more unwanted emotions because I am so behind the message that they are part of life, that they are not on their own grounds for concern. And I know we're going to talk about more of that, but I have to kind of pause for a moment over on we because I think of all the new emotions in this film, this one kind of had me raising my eyebrows like, huh, enui. Why is that such a central emotion for Riley? Well, it's, you know, very funny. She's, you know, the character is very, very funny. She's French. She's French. She's very French. And, you know, when I saw her, what it brought to mind is this really interesting line of research about anger and girls. We see in the research that in the course of development,

little boys express more anger at home than little girls do, and that that flips and in adolescence, that teenage girls express more anger at home than teenage boys do. But there's one form of anger where girls outpace boys through the entire course of development, and it's disdain. Oh my gosh. You're bringing up a lot of memories, Lisa. Well, I mean, it was actually one of those things I was reading the research paper, and I actually goffawed. I have two teenage girls myself, and I was like, okay, this tracks, and I'm guessing these researchers had teenage daughters, too. And truly no one does disdain better. They really are great.

So what exactly, we talked a little bit about this, but what is going on in the brain during puberty? So it's really a grand renovation project. And it's so apt in the film, the way in which, you know, a wrecking ball comes in and updates headquarters. And it happens in this kind of overnight quality, which I think a lot of families feel like that's what it looks like in their house. And what's happening is that the brain is becoming faster, more powerful, more efficient. This involves adding neurons. This involves pruning neurons. And one of the things that is true is that in perhaps a design flaw, the brain remodels in the order

in which it developed initially, which is from the more the ancient part of the brain, which is above the back of the neck, up to the more sophisticated, more recent part of the brain, which is behind the forehead. Now, the design flaw here may be that the emotions are located in the more ancient part of the brain. So those get upgraded first. They become faster and more powerful. And the perspective maintaining systems, which live behind our foreheads, don't get upgraded until later. And so one of the ways we talk about this as scientists is that teenagers have gawky brains. And this is especially true, 1314, like the renovation project's underway. The emotions are now on steroids. And it's very easy

for them to dysregulate. It is very easy for them to lose all perspective. not because they're being dramatic, not because they're overreacting, but because they have a brain that is midway through renovation. Is there a moment in the movie where you think you see that, the kind of gawky teenage brain happening? So beautifully, so beautifully. So as you mentioned, the puberty button is installed at the end of Inside Out, the original. And then in this movie, the alarm goes off. And there is such, it's actually, I mean, it's genius how they capture this show. shift towards an intense reaction. So then all of the old emotions are at the controls. And Riley's mom says something to her and Riley becomes inexplicably angry. You know, just has this like sort of lashes out at her mother. And then you're back in the mind and all of the emotions turn on anger. And he's like,

I barely touched it. I barely touched it. And then sadness does the same. And they're like, this thing's broken. And it's funny. It is apt. And it is really a very honest and clear depiction of the science, that feelings that were there before are suddenly just so much more potent than they were. And it's as destabilizing to the kid as it is to the family. And I think that's something that we don't talk about enough. Riley doesn't really know where it's coming from either. No. I mean, she's freaked out too. And I think, you know, we can be so hard on teenagers in our culture and we can be so critical of them. And I think it's so easy for adults to underestimate

how strange it all feels to the kid too. You know, that they know they did not use to get this upset about things. And it's fascinating. I get to work with 13-year-olds, and they will say to me, you know, I am so upset. And I also, I can't figure out what's going on. Like, I know this is not a big deal. And having that kind of split experience of a powerful emotional reaction that they can observe but not control, that's a lot of what it is to be 13.

Was there a conversation that you had with the filmmakers that, then you're watching the movie or looking at a part of the script and thought, like, oh, oh, they did that. You know, that made it in. There were a few times. I mean, one piece of it was that, you know, and in my work and in our conversations, I really make the argument, which psychologists are in agreement about, that anxiety is not an all bad thing. Explain. So it's a protective emotion when it's within bound. Anxiety is the experience we have when we anticipate a threat, when we can imagine something.

that goes wrong. And it can help us course correct. It can help us do the right thing and can help us start studying for a test that we forgot about. So it has value. It only becomes pathological if we're imagining threats that can't possibly be real or something that's not going to really happen or if our response is out of proportion to the threat. So if a kid hasn't studied for a test, we'd like for them to be a little bit anxious if that test is coming fast. A panic attack is not going help them. So we psychologists are way more at ease with anxiety than everybody else. We also have not helped the situation by using the term anxiety to describe both typical and expectable nerves and also disorders, right? Like we've made it murky. But one of the things that I saw evolve in

the film was anxiety becoming also adorable, right? That the character is likable. And this is really important because she belongs on the team. Right. She cares about Riley. Just sometimes she overdoes it a little bit. She gets out of hand. And so in making her cute, it's not only visually appealing, it also reminds us that she has a place and that we don't want to get rid of her. And this was very much the message of the first film as I remember it. You know, you saw Joy really trying to keep a lid on some of Riley's more, you know, quote unquote, negative emotions, telling sadness to be less mopey, telling anger to be less fiery. And the message of that film was very much, no, all of these emotions play a role in Riley's life. But

why do we need embarrassment or why do we need unwee? Because I think a lot of people would say, I could do without that. Well, so we need embarrassment, actually, so we don't make the same mistakes twice, right? Often we feel embarrassed because we violated a social code. And The value of the discomfort of embarrassment is that it helps us learn. Like, I don't want to do that again. So it's incredibly important. I mean, if people have no embarrassment, no shame, they don't always act their best, right? That it helps keep us on track. And then on we, you know, I mean, I think that it's really important to naturalize, you know, that sometimes we're bored, that we're not engaged in things. And that it's actually in spaces where we're bored or

disengaged. Often the creativity occurs, so there's value there. And then another new arrival in this film is envy. And what we recognize as psychologists is that envy can have two sides. It can have benign envy is what we call it, which is where you see somebody who has something, a capacity or an object, and you want it for yourself. And it inspires you to be better. It's motivating. It's, you know, that could be me. I want that thing. Exactly. I want to be better. I want to work harder so I can have that same thing. Or it can be malicious, which is I want to take that person down as a way to level set here. And so there's no question that these emotions, again, while often unwanted, often experienced in a way that is uncomfortable, are as critical to our overall healthy functioning as the emotions we like having. So Riley, of course, is a young girl. If Riley was a boy, would we see a different movie, maybe like a different cast of emotions?

I've thought about this a lot, right? So fundamentally, no. I mean, all people have feelings and all people have many of the same feelings. And we identify a range of feelings that we can study in a lab. And I think, you know, if Riley were a boy character, you should expect to see the same cast of characters. I also, though, think you might see another layer. because one thing that is true is that we do not actually allow boys the same wide emotional highway in our culture that we allow girls.

Girls are given, you know, a great deal of latitude in terms of expressing both, you know, vulnerable emotions and also feelings like anger. Whereas boys in our culture, and I hope this is improving a little bit, when we look at the science, what the science says is there are two emotions. Boys are freely allowed to express in our culture. culture, anger and pleasure at someone else's expense. I know. Not great. I don't know that I entirely agree with the way we've characterized that because I think there are domains where you watch boys express a much wider range of emotions.

Take sports, for example, right? Around sports, either as participants or viewers, you know, boys will get excited. Boys will cry. Boys will be thrilled for one another. So I think the way I would characterize it is that boys are hemmed in. there are domains where they have more latitude. And one of the things I think we should be studying is what is it that we can do that would allow boys to express the feelings that they have, that they express in some settings across a wider range of settings. I'm holding up for the Kelsey brothers and all of their crying to help us move the needle on this.

It's okay now. Tears are fine. So you've been working with teenagers for about 30 years? It's true. What are you most excited to see represented in this film? I am so excited to see represented. The experience the kid and the family often has, which is they put a child to bed one night.

And then the next day, what wakes up is a teenager with these emotions that feel very out of control, very unexpected, much more powerful than they're used to. I want young people to see that for themselves so that they don't have to feel like there's something wrong with them. And I also am so excited for families to see this. Because one of the things that is very true about raising teenagers is that it can feel quite isolating.

When your kid is changing on you, when your relationship with them is changing, when things are getting bumpy in a new way. Yeah, why is this just happening to me? Yeah, a lot of families think, like, what's wrong with my kid, what's wrong with our relationship, how do we get it back, like, where it was? and so for this film to put up on the big screen,

the story that this is normal. This is actually the typical and expectable unfolding of events. I think we'll be so reassuring to teenagers, so reassuring to their parents, and go so far to help people feel less worried about what we have long known as psychologists to be the totally uncomfortable, but expectable bumps,

that come with being a teenager or raising one. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. Dr. Lisa DeMore is a psychologist and science advisor on Inside Out 2. That wraps up this week's show. Lots of folks help make it happen, including Jordan Smudjik, Charles Burgquist, George Harper, John Dancosky.

On tomorrow's episode, The Science of Why Cephalopods like squid and cuttlefish make ink. Join us. I'm Sifr I producer, Rasha Auredi. Thank you.