How Emotions Are Made did what all great books do. It took a subject I thought I understood and turned my understanding upside down.The definitive field guide to feelings and the neuroscience behind them.A brilliant and original book on the science of emotion, by the deepest thinker about this topic since DarwinMeticulous, well-researched, and deeply thought out . . . For anyone who has struggled to reconcile brain and heart, this book will be a treasure; it explains the science without short-changing the humanism of its topic.Radical and fascinating ...
How Emotions are Made defends a bold new vision of the most central aspects of human nature.Every lawyer and judge doing serious criminal trials should read this book.Barrett's figurative selfie of the brain is brilliant.A provocative, insightful, and engaging analysis ... You won't think about emotions in the same way after you read this important book.The implications of Lisa Barrett’s work (which ‘only’ challenges two-thousand-year-old assumptions about the brain) are nothing short of stunning. Even more stunning is how extraordinarily well she succeeds.This is a provocative, accessible, important book.Lisa Feldman Barrett illuminates the fascinating new science of our emotions.Lisa Barrett masterfully integrates discoveries from affective science, neuroscience, social psychology, and philosophy to make sense of the many instances of emotion that you experience and witness each day.Fascinating . . . a thought-provoking journey into emotion scienceLisa Barrett writes with great clarity about how your emotions are not merely about what you're born with, but also about how your brain pieces your feelings together, and how you can contribute to the process. She tells a compelling story.Fascinating . . . a thought-provoking journey into emotion scienceEmotions aren’t hardwired into you – you create them. A world-leading neuroscientist argues that understanding the origin and nature of emotions has huge implications for our future.
'How Emotions Are Made did what all great books do. It took a subject I thought I understood and turned my understanding upside down' – Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point
When you feel anxious, angry, happy, or surprised, what's really going on inside of you?
Uncover fascinating insights into the human mind with How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a pioneer in neuroscience and psychology. This profound book will dismantle and reconstruct your understanding of your own emotions.
The world perceives our emotions as automatic and reactive, a response to the world around us. But How Emotions Are Made poses a compelling new perspective, suggesting emotions aren't universally pre-installed, rather they are unique psychological experiences constructed through our personal history, physiology, and environment.
This new view of emotions has serious implications:
- when judges issue lesser sentences for crimes of passion
- when police officers fire at threatening suspects
- when doctors choose between one diagnosis and another
They're all, in some way, relying on the ancient assumption that emotions are hardwired into our brains and bodies. Revising that conception of emotion isn't just good science, Barrett shows; it's vital to our well-being and the health of society itself.
Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D., is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Psychiatry and Radiology. She is the author of
How Emotions Are Made and received a NIH Director's Pioneer Award for her research on emotion in the brain. She lives in Boston.Introduction - i: Introduction: The Two Thousand Year Old Assumption Chapter - 1: The Search For Emotion's ''Fingerprints'' Chapter - 2: Emotions Are Constructed Chapter - 3: The Myth of Universal Emotions Chapter - 4: The Origin of Feeling Chapter - 5: Concepts, Goals, and Words Chapter - 6: How the Brain Makes Emotions Chapter - 7: Emotions As A Social Reality Chapter - 8: A New View of Human Nature Chapter - 9: Mastering Your Emotions Chapter - 10: Emotions and Illness Chapter - 11: Emotion and the Law Chapter - 12: Is a Growling Dog Angry? Chapter - 13: From Brain to Mind: The New Frontier Acknowledgements - ii: Acknowledgments Section - iii: Appendix A: Brain Basics Section - iv: Appendix B: Supplement for Chapter 2 Section - v: Appendix C: Supplement for Chapter 3 Section - vi: Appendix D: Evidence for the Concept Cascade Section - vii: Bibliography Section - viii: Notes Section - ix: Illustration Credits Index - x: Index
