'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.
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
