'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

When you feel anxious, angry, happy, or surprised, what's really going on inside you? Most scientists would agree that emotions come from specific parts of the brain, and that we feel them whenever they're triggered by the world around us. The thrill of seeing an old friend, the sadness of a tear-jerker movie, the fear of losing someone you love - each of these sensations arises automatically and uncontrollably within us, finding expression on our faces and in our behaviour, and carrying us away with the experience.

This understanding of emotion has been around since Aristotle. But what if it's wrong? In How Your Emotions Are Made, pioneering psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on the latest scientific evidence to reveal that our ideas about emotion are dramatically, even dangerously, out of date - and that we have been paying the price. Emotions don't exist objectively in nature, Barrett explains, and they aren't 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 wellbeing and the health of society itself.

Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Macmillan
Publication date

23 Mar. 2017
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

15.3 x 3.5 x 23.4 cm
ISBN-10

1509837493
ISBN-13

978-1509837496
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan; Main Market edition (23 Mar. 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1509837493
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1509837496
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.3 x 3.5 x 23.4 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 442,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,490 in Psychology & Emotions
- 6,176 in Scientific Psychology & Psychiatry
- 13,278 in Higher Education of Biological Sciences

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Product description

Review

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

The definitive field guide to feelings and the neuroscience behind them., Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit

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

From the Inside Flap

‘This meticulous, well-researched and deeply thought out book provides information about our emotions – what they are, where they come from, why we have them. 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

‘What if everything you thought you knew about lust, anger, grief and joy was wrong? Lisa Barrett is one of the psychology’s wisest and most creative scientists, and her theory of constructed emotion is radical and fascinating. Through vivid examples and sharp, clear prose, 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

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2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

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rita

new descartian generation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 January 2019

Verified Purchase

In my generation, we are well aware of the importance of the mind, but Barret is selling this idea to the extreme.

For her, there is no reaction, no sensory channel reception, no awareness of sensory input. Everything is prediction, even an unexpected smell. It takes her to page 64 to accept less minded sensory input reception processes, and such acknowledgement bears almost no echo in her writings. She denies cause effect and fails to see that she is putting the prediction and the mind as the cause (of everything). This is the new descartian generation of Western intellectuals with little experiential sensorial training. For me, it is sort of a stretch to see sensory reception (which of course involves the nervous system, and may be tainted eventually by simulation and 'illusion') as prediction, and self-awareness as prediction.

In brief, her brain is, as she says, locked in her skull. My brain is a sensorial organism permanently in inter-relation with everything else, being changed and changing.

(on the upside, despite her bias and her crusade against Ekman tainting her reasoning, she is well acquainted with the literature)

92 people found this helpful

Helpful

AM Hodge

Absolutely Fascinating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 August 2018

Verified Purchase

I thoroughly enjoyed this very well written book. Her writing style is quite easy to read although she is introducing some very difficult and challenging concepts. As an avid, though lay, reader of books on neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, her explanations in this book upend everything I thought I knew about the brain and the mind. There is some repetition, but personally I found this to be helpful because the book feels like the construction of a 3-D jigsaw puzzle, so having some ideas repeated helps to orient you to how things fit together.
Definitely not a one time read and then put it aside. If you are interested in this topic, then in my view, this is one of the best books available and for that reason I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

35 people found this helpful

Helpful

Challenging a normal attitude to emotions

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2019

Verified Purchase

I have to give this book 5 stars based on its audacity and ambition alone.

The author fearlessly challenges some of the fields (affective psychology/neuroscience) most revered and respected theorists and researchers, including Jack Panksap, Antonio Damassio, Joseph LeDoux, Paul Ekman and even Charles Darwin.

That's mad ballsy.

The book is a virtual slaughterhouse of sacred cows.

I have reservations about much of the authors assertions. It's hard not to, because she challenges so much of the current gospel.

That being said, I have the strong intuition that the this work represents a legitimate challenge to the old paradigm.

It will be interesting to read the inevitable pushback.

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindleworm Dot Com

Ho hum ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 December 2019

Verified Purchase

A very interesting look into how Lisa currently believes our brains create our emotions. Lisa pushes well against the tide of established beliefs and makes a fairly good case for her theories.

But, we’ll probably throw this one on the “scrap-head-of-wild-scientific-ideas-that-came-and-went” in a few years time, along with all the other thoughts that currently suit the zeitgeist.

Interesting though.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

challenging, interesting and well written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2019

Verified Purchase

This is not an easy book, despite the very readable narrative style. The concepts are difficult to grasp at times - whilst feeling that i was understanding something, later I realised i was not, or might not be, doing so. That probably says more about my brain that author's or indeed about the book, but be warned - unless you have a good grasp of neuroscience already this book is likely to be both interesting and very challenging to grasp

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Philip M

An articulate book, very interesting but hard work. Prepare for a second read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2019

Verified Purchase

This is not an easy book to read. Several times I considered giving up, but I really wanted to understand the subject so I continued. And I am glad I did, the second half of the book was not only illuminating, but also truly interesting. There were many fascinating examples of studies and case histories, a very enlightening insight into criminal law (both in the US and the UK) concerning unconscious actions, and an insight into suggestions that animals might experience emotions.

As I intimated earlier, the first half of the book was very hard work. Admittedly some of the concepts are very complex and hard to grasp. I felt that the author was determined to drive home every detail of her considerable research into the roles of prediction and prediction error in the formation of our emotions in order to thoroughly dismantle the long-held classical view of “essential” emotions generated by specific regions of the brain. This is completely understandable since developing a prediction theory of the brain’s function has clearly been a major part of her professional career.

And this book is very convincing of her theories. The author is talented, articulate and dedicated and this book is probably one of the most thorough modern analyses of how emotions are created. It is definitely worth devoting time to several readings.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Julian Williams

Emotions are cultural concepts linked to our body energy balances

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 November 2019

Verified Purchase

I just loved this book which completely changed my approach to the neuroscience of emotions. Over the last ten years I have read about five books a year about neuroscience, and this book really put some huge blocks into empty spaces.

Lisa Barrett explains how the "classical" view of emotions has misled us up blind alleys. Emotions are concepts tied to our bodily energy budgets that are culturally labelled without real boundaries. We improve our emotional intelligence by "granulating" our labels for these concepts.

Wonderful book that has changed my way of approaching new subject matter.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

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