Mind & Life Podcast

Christy Wilson-Mendenhall – Emotions in the World

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July 17, 2025

View or download a transcript of this episode

In this episode, Wendy speaks with cognitive and affective scientist Christy Wilson-Mendenhall. Christy has a long history studying emotions, and her work integrates psychological science and contemplative philosophy to explore well-being and resilience. This conversation covers many topics, including:

Christy Wilson-Mendenhall, PhD
  • integrating basic science and philosophy with on-the-ground research;
  • viewing emotions as malleable, situated, and learned;
  • working with emotions to enhance well-being;
  • intersections of cognitive science and Buddhist philosophy;
  • the critical role of community and relationships;
  • understanding deep resilience;
  • a free online course to help build resilience and emotional well-being;
  • making worldview explicit;
  • foregrounding interconnectedness when teaching;
  • the power of emotional granularity;
  • eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and solastalgia;
  • the role of imagination and visioning;
  • priming ourselves for a better future;
  • taking seriously and learning from the perspective of marginalized folks;
  • and making small personal changes to effect systems change.

Christine Wilson-Mendenhall, PhD, completed her doctorate in Cognitive Science at Emory University, and conducted postdoctoral research in the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Lab at Northeastern University and the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. She is currently a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Healthy Minds at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her early research pointed to the plasticity of emotions – that our emotional experiences are more malleable than traditionally assumed. How, then, do we actively shape our emotional experiences to become healthier and more resilient? Christy’s current research program conceptualizes and measures emotional skillsets to test hypotheses regarding whether these skills cultivate well-being. Her work is based in interdisciplinary integration, drawing on perspectives from situated cognition, constructionist approaches to emotion, and contemplative philosophies, to investigate well-being as an active process of life-long learning, practice, and transformation.

Resources

Faculty page at the Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Personal website and publications

Supported by the generosity of
The BESS Family Foundation