Description

‘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.

Publisher 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 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 Fascinating . . . a thought-provoking journey into emotion science * The Wall Street Journal *