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 * The definitive field guide to feelings and the neuroscience behind them. -- Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of <i>Grit</i> 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 <i>Stumbling on Happiness</i> 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 <i>Far from the Tree</i> and <i>The Noonday Demon</i> Radical and fascinating ... How Emotions are Made defends a bold new vision of the most central aspects of human nature. -- Paul Bloom, author of <i>Against Empathy</i> and <i>How Pleasure Works</i> 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 <i>The Seven Sins of Memory</i> 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 <i>Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers</i> and <i>A Primate's Memoir</i> Lisa Feldman Barrett illuminates the fascinating new science of our emotions. -- Peggy Orenstein, author of <i>Girls & Sex</i> 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 <i>Positivity</i> and<i> Love 2.0</i> 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 <i>Anxious</i> and <i>Synaptic Self</i> Fascinating . . . a thought-provoking journey into emotion science * The Wall Street Journal *

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.

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