How Emotions Are Made

'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 Talking to Strangers When you feel anxious, angry, happy, or surprised, what's really going on inside of you? Perhaps you thought of your emotions as automatic and reactive, a response to the world around you. The thrill of seeing an old friend, the fear of losing someone you love - each of these sensations seems to arise automatically and uncontrollably. But in How Emotions are Made pioneering neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett shatters everything you thought you knew with a compelling new argument: emotions aren't universally pre-programmed into our brains and bodies but, rather, are unique psychological experiences constructed through our personal history, physiology and environment. Relationships, health, parenting, even national security - emotions have serious implications for them all. How Emotions are Made offers a radical new framework that finally explains what you're feeling - and why it matters so much. Review: 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 Revenge of the Tipping Point The definitive field guide to feelings and the neuroscience behind them -- Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit A brilliant and original book on the science of emotion, by the deepest thinker about this topic since Darwin -- 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 Radical and fascinating ... How Emotions are Made defends a bold new vision of the most central aspects of human nature -- Paul Bloom, author of Against Empathy and How Pleasure Works Every lawyer and judge doing serious criminal trials should read this book -- Baroness Helena Kennedy QC House of Lords, U.K. Barrett's figurative selfie of the brain is brilliant * Booklist * A provocative, insightful, and engaging analysis . . . You won't think about emotions in the same way after you read this important book -- Daniel L. Schacter, author of The Seven Sins of Memory 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 -- Nancy Gertner, Senior Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School, and former U.S. federal judge for the United States District Court of Massachusetts This is a provocative, accessible, important book -- Robert Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and A Primate's Memoir Lisa Feldman Barrett illuminates the fascinating new science of our emotions -- Peggy Orenstein, author of Girls & Sex 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 -- Barbara Fredrickson, author of Positivity and Love 2.0 Fascinating . . . a thought-provoking journey into emotion science * The Wall Street Journal * 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 -- Joseph Le Doux, author of Anxious and Synaptic Self Contents: 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 Author Biography: 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 Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (2020). She has received a NIH Director's Pioneer Award for her research on emotion in the brain, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019, the APS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, and the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in Psychology in 2021. She lives in Boston.