What are meta-emotions, according to George Loewenstein?

George Loewenstein calls meta-emotions feelings about our own feelings, such as guilt about envying a friend or shame at not grieving a dead relative. Building on John Gottman's finding that accepting rather than dismissing a partner's emotions makes relationships healthier, he argues we can take the same accepting stance toward ourselves, partly by recognising how common our negative feelings are.

• Judging ourselves for the wrong emotions adds a fresh layer of negative feeling on top of the original one.
• Shankar Vedantam notes that readers forgive flawed characters in novels far more easily than they forgive themselves.

▸In their words

“These are all meta-emotions. They're kind of like emotions squared.” George Loewenstein · at 39:14 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Hidden Brain (2026-10-12). Read the whole episode summary →

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