HOW EMOTIONS ARE MADE: The Secret Life of the Brain

This understanding of emotion has been around since Plato. But what if it is wrong? In How Emotions Are Made, pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on the latest scientific evidence to reveal that our common-sense ideas about emotions are dramatically, even dangerously, out of date – and that we have been paying the price. Emotions aren't universally 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 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