How Emotions Are Made

Emotions 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/b>When you feel anxious, angry, happy, or surprised, what's really going on inside of you? Many scientists believe that emotions come from a specific part of the brain, triggered by the world around us. The thrill of seeing an old friend, the fear of losing someone we love - each of these sensations seems to arise automatically and uncontrollably from within us, finding expression on our faces and in our behaviour, carrying us away with the experience.This understanding of emotion has been around since Plato. But what if it is wrong? In How Emotions Are Made, pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on the latest scientific evidence to reveal that our common-sense ideas about emotions are dramatically, even dangerously, out of date - and that we have been paying the price. Emotions aren't universally pre-programmed in our brains and bodies; rather they are psychological experiences that each of us constructs based on our unique 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, or 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 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.

Vorwort
Emotions 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.

Autorentext
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 received a NIH Director's Pioneer Award for her research on emotion in the brain. She lives in Boston.

Klappentext

When you feel anxious, angry, happy or surprised, what's really going on inside you?

'Fascinating . . . a thought-provoking journey into emotion science' Wall Street Journal

Pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on the latest scientific evidence to reveal a radical truth that emotions aren't universally pre-programmed in our brain and bodies, as common sense tells us. Shockingly, they are unique experiences and formed out of our individual environment and personal history. From lust to anger, relationships, health, parenting and even national security, How Emotions Are Made finally explains why this matters and what it means for what you feel and why you feel it.

'Most of us make our way through the world without thinking a lot about what we bring to our encounters with it. Lisa Feldman Barrett does and what she has to say about our perceptions and emotions is pretty mind-blowing' Elle

'A brilliant and original book on the science of emotions' Daniel Gilbert, author of the bestseller Stumbling on Happiness

'Meticulous, 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' Andrew Solomon, bestselling author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon

Inhalt
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