How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Apr 20, 2017 Anders Brabaek rated it it was ok

Shelves: cognitive-psychology

The basic message of this book is that emotions are subjective and constructed, and that neuro science proves it so. This message is in line with the frequently quoted Shakespeares' (Hamlet) "...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".
(Barrett do not make use of this quote).

I will suggest instead reading the article "The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization" by the author; http://www.affective-science.org/pubs... ...more

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Mar 14, 2017 Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it it was amazing

Most new pop science books irritate me since they give me nothing I didn't already know. This book is definitely an exception to that rule. I started liking this book from the very beginning, because I have previously read in over 20 books the experiment where they show photos of actors posed with an emotional expression of some kind and showed it to various people from different cultures and then claiming that each group shown the pictures knew what emotion was being invoked by the actor posing Most new pop science books irritate me since they give me nothing I didn't already know. This book is definitely an exception to that rule. I started liking this book from the very beginning, because I have previously read in over 20 books the experiment where they show photos of actors posed with an emotional expression of some kind and showed it to various people from different cultures and then claiming that each group shown the pictures knew what emotion was being invoked by the actor posing in the picture. I always suspected there was something wrong with the results which claimed that there is a universal set of emotions based on unique emotional 'fingerprints'. This author demolishes that finding, and I really hope I never see anyone else site that experiment again without at least first mentioning this author's analysis.

There is a classical view of emotions. It's been wrongly floating around since Plato hypothesized that we were like the charioteer (reason) being led by the horse being pulled apart by our passion and our appetites. Similarly Freud gave us a super ego, ego, or id, and Kahneman has his 'S1' and 'S2' (quick thinking vs thoughtful mind). The author not only tears down the classical emotional models of the mind, but she builds one up in its place that seems to make sense.

The author calls it the constructive emotional model. What she's saying is that emotions are not things. They are instances of previous experiences. They do not have essences or fingerprints. Darwin knocked it out of the park with his "Origins of Species", but his book "Expression of Emotions in Man in Animals" brought back essentialism (the author will say). That is a belief that there are real categories in the world and they exist beyond the concepts within our own mind. Our emotions are always of a particular instance and never from the general because they are always about something particular.

The author's theory takes the best from the Social, Neurological and Psychological constructive theories from the past. In the past, the social theory would have agreed with Beauvoir that girls are not born girls but made into girls, neurological would have said that there are basically unique areas in the brain for different emotions or patters of neurons, and the Psychological would have been William James' reaction to the bear that we would meet in the woods. The author does not accept any of those premises but does construct her constructive emotional model from those three areas. She builds her system from holism, emergent properties, and multiple different neuron formations leading to various emotional states.

The author really focuses on our body budget as to how we construct our emotional makeup. Also, she speaks about how our mind is constantly predicting, and when we create our 'now' we are also predicting it since we don't always understand everything and we are constantly making our best guess about our world and our current emotional states. We are statisticians from an early age (she'll say) and we often must take all of our previous best guesses of the world (an average) and interpolate (or even extrapolate) what we think we know and use that as our guide even though we know there is an error because we're forcing averages on to a particular. Since she's a scientist in the field she will provide some experiments and data to back up her beliefs.

A lot of the book I didn't like in particular the last third. That's just me. She did a little bit of self help type book and that always bores me, but basically her advice was along the lines of do more exercise and eat broccoli (okay, she doesn't say 'broccoli' but she does say eat healthier). She mentioned Spinoza and that he falls in to the classical school of emotional theory and he does, but within his book "Ethics" he too gave advice for living a healthy emotional live and I think he did a better job then this book did.

Though, I don't recommend skipping the last third. She did a really good job on speculating on the nature of autism. She theorized that the autistic person under predicts their body budget needs since they are not always attuned to the local environment correctly and therefore are often out of sync with what is really going around in their local environment. It seemed reasonable to me. I just never seem to come across any good books on autism, and her section seemed to be better than most that I have seen.

There is a real Phenomenological bent to her theory (think Husserl, some Heidegger, the Existentialist and in particular Gadamer in his book "Truth and Method", a book that no one reads today, but I would rate it as one of my all time favorites). Gadamer did say all "understanding is interpretation, being that can be understood is language". The author makes the point that if we don't have the word for the emotion we can't fully understand the emotion. Not everyone has a rich vocabulary to understand all of their perceived emotional states, and so therefore might not always be fully aware of their emotional state (she'll say). In addition, Gadamer ends his book by emphasizing that it's not the pieces that matter, and it's not the whole it's how they fit together. Similarly, the author is saying that's how we experience our emotions.

I really enjoyed this book. The author has a theory that goes against common wisdom, and builds a system that can explain a better way to understand our emotional world. I don't always agree with everything she says, but I always like to see the world differently and am open to new ways of thinking about old problems. ...more

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May 31, 2017 Morgan Blackledge rated it it was amazing

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 ...more

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Jun 17, 2017 Sarah rated it did not like it

Quite irritating...primarily because it purports to be a book about how the brain creates emotions, but it contains remarkably little neuroscience or detail about the brain. She makes lots of sweeping statements without showing sufficient evidence for them. It's not even really a book about emotions, but about categorization and prediction. So this book annoyed me a fair bit and I don't recommend it.

Finally...I'm sorry, but there IS a difference between a muffin and a cupcake beyond the time of ...more

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Jun 03, 2017 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing

This book kind of blew my mind. Barrett is pushing a pretty revolutionary theory of emotion--that it is context-driven and culturally bound. She rejects the idea that all humans share emotions. Rather, she says emotions are learned through our culture and our language. I imagine that other academics in this area will push back on her bold theories, but it was fascinating to read this.

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Jun 22, 2018 Amir Tesla rated it it was ok

Shelves: neuroscience

Such a delicate and painful book!

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Nov 29, 2017 Bob Nichols rated it it was ok

Barrett believes that past theories of emotions are wrong. In that classical view, emotions are “essences,” with mental circuity in place, waiting to be triggered. Based on brain science, this view is no longer tenable, she says. Rather, we construct emotions. From culture, we form a concept of emotion; without a concept, we have no emotion. Culture lays down new wiring to reflect “social realities,” including how each culture defines what it means to be happy, sad, angry, etc. This explains the ...more

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Jan 15, 2019 Amirography rated it liked it

Shelves: by-the-bed-books, cognitive-science

It was a weird book. I honestly don't know how to feel about this book. On one side it has a good theory on the architecture of emotion. A very interesting and a radical one of them. However, other contents of the book, contained horrible arguements in order to apply the theory to the everyday life.
For example the chapter on law and criminal justice system was simply horrible. Applying "affective realism" to everything, starting from racial bias to will depletion.
Also there were alternative It was a weird book. I honestly don't know how to feel about this book. On one side it has a good theory on the architecture of emotion. A very interesting and a radical one of them. However, other contents of the book, contained horrible arguements in order to apply the theory to the everyday life.
For example the chapter on law and criminal justice system was simply horrible. Applying "affective realism" to everything, starting from racial bias to will depletion.
Also there were alternative interpretations about phenomena that from a mainstream point of view were interpreted differently, which is not bad (and even it is impressive) on itsown, but they diserved much more explanation and justification than dr. Feldman Barrett gave.
The theory itself was interesting, it certainly deserves a high consideration, however her reliance on "language" and her use of "concept" and "word" interchangably was questionable.
I appreciated the chapter on animal emotions. For two reasons:
1. Animal cognition is often ignored. It is nice to see that she covered it.
2. It is essential for a theory of architecture of emotion to get applied to non-human animals.
However she fell to the same mistake she tried to avoid. Namely she inferred human condition to other animals. How? She considered that just because humans are reliant on socially learned concepts using language, animals that have not have linguistic capabilities of humans, doesn't have socially shared emotional concepts. However she should have considered that though humans show more reliance and flexibility towards learning from society, animals may share similar tendencies to make much more similar concepts than chance, and end up with similar concepts in the end. But her logic at that point was heavily reductive.

In all, I have a highly mixed feelings about this book. If some parts of the book was reduced, and some parts were explained and justified more, I would have given this book five stars and putted it into my favorite shelf and recommended it like crazy. However it is not the case. I just hope this theory attracts serious attention. ...more

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Jul 10, 2017 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: neuroscience, psychology, read-2017, science, non-fiction, read-in-english

''A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions...'' Wait, new?

The writer is amazing (and very persuasive), she carries her theory all the way until the end, in an engaging and amusing way. The idea is that emotions don't have biological fingerprints, they are socially constructed. Therefore, people all over the world, experience different type of emotions (some of them unknown for others). She calls this ''the theory of constructed emotion.'' Though she doesn't talk much about the ...more

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Mar 10, 2018 Charlene rated it it was ok

Shelves: neuroscience

There is so much to like in this book but even more to dislike.

- Universal emotions - Barrett carried out a savage and satisfying attack on the assumption that emotions are universal. When trying to replicate findings from Ekman and other universal emotion researchers, Barrett uncovered severe flaws in the studies. When it comes to ripping apart the work of other scientists, Barrett's critical thinking skills are sharp and useful. This is not necessarily the case when understanding findings from There is so much to like in this book but even more to dislike.

- Universal emotions - Barrett carried out a savage and satisfying attack on the assumption that emotions are universal. When trying to replicate findings from Ekman and other universal emotion researchers, Barrett uncovered severe flaws in the studies. When it comes to ripping apart the work of other scientists, Barrett's critical thinking skills are sharp and useful. This is not necessarily the case when understanding findings from her own work. She should take a lesson from pop-sci writers like Sapolsky or Damasio and use phrases such as, "We found that (finding inserted here) but the effects were small," or "It *might* be the case that," (fill in her finding). Instead, she is extremely preachy, over confident, and has essentially written a self-help book.

- Emotions affect the physical body - Barrett wrote about one of my favorite studies in which the authors looked at the effects of emotions on cytokine production. She also went into detail about how emotions can account for various illnesses. Who knows, she might end up being right. The evidence does suggest emotions play a role. I would even agree to the characterization that they play a key role. However, there is zero balance in her discussion of emotions and illness. She is far too over confident with far too little data to back what amounts to not much more than hunches. You might get the impression that all illness is emotion gone awry. So much of this book is a severe overshoot.

- This author LOVES to brag about her parenting. Nothing is more satisfying to her than bragging about her daughter. Yet, you get the distinct impression that she merely uses her daughter to demonstrate that she is the best parent in the world. If you take her advice (the book is filled to the absolute brim with parenting advice), you too can be the superior parent she is.

When I reached the end of the book, I was so happy to never again have to experience one more word from this author. From now on, if I want to find out about her work, I will stick to scientific articles.
...more

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Apr 11, 2017 Owen rated it liked it

Disclaimer: As of yet, I have not entirely finished the book. In principle, if I do decide to write a review, it is after I finished the entire book. However, Dr. Barrett's way of arguing for the theory of constructed emotions feels more promotional and she does not quite prove her theory as the only valid option, and as such I am not as inclined to finish the book to the end, though I will try.

In summary, the book argues against the idea that there is an innate sense of emotion; all our Disclaimer: As of yet, I have not entirely finished the book. In principle, if I do decide to write a review, it is after I finished the entire book. However, Dr. Barrett's way of arguing for the theory of constructed emotions feels more promotional and she does not quite prove her theory as the only valid option, and as such I am not as inclined to finish the book to the end, though I will try.

In summary, the book argues against the idea that there is an innate sense of emotion; all our concepts surrounding emotion are constructed. What we think we feel, what we see in others, etc. is ultimately based upon inference based upon previous experience. Barrett rejects the idea of an "emotional fingerprint" in facial expression or physiology by which we can definitively know what emotion a person is feeling. The antithesis to constructed emotional is the classical theory of emotion that treats the different emotions such as happiness, anger, fear, etc. as universal and innate; emotions are concepts that we form and use. To make this point, there are references to multiple studies that suggest emotions are not as universal as other psychologists (such as Ekman) supposed their own research showed. At this level, the book presents an interesting alternative that does a good job explaining much of the variability that is seen in emotional expression and interpretation.

However, the way the author argues suggests she is more than simply trying to argue for her theory, but for her own brilliance. She indirectly compares her own research to high profile paradigm shifts in scientific history, such as Newton or Albert Einstein to explain how her theory relates to the previous consensus regarding emotions. At times, I feel like I am being told more about how brilliant the theory and the research is rather than a solid exposition on the scientific findings.

To which I move to my most serious criticism of the book. Her argument focuses on arguing against the classical theory of emotions. But she does a poor job addressing other possible explanations for the scientific findings. At one point, she raises the idea of prototypes based upon Eleanor Rosch's alternative to classical conceptions. Prototypes are essentially images we create of the best example of any category we have; based upon the prototype, we evaluate our experiences in comparison to these prototypes, but there can be divergence and variability between the prototype and what we actually perceive in a way that classical definitions do not allow for. A prototype theory of emotion would explain much of the evidence that Barrett references. However, her rejection of prototypes being stored in the brain is based upon two premises:
1) The prototypical facial expressions are rarely found in life
2) Laboratory studies have shown that prototypes can be constructed on the fly without previous experience.
The problem with Barret's argument for rejection of emotional prototypes is, firstly, the argument doesn't understand how prototypes work. Good examples of prototypes rarely are seen themselves. The lack of observation of the prototypes does not mean the prototypes do not exist in the brain. IF anything, the fact that the prototypes of emotional expression is rarely found while we have these intuitions about what emotions look like argues against past experience being the sole contributor to how we conceptualize emotion; there seems to be some framework we intuitively have and makes unconscious adjustments to as we use. Secondly, the fact that prototypes can be constructed spontaneously does mean that prototypes only occur spontaneously. In the end, I feel her reasoning leaves much to be desired.

While this is a popular level book and not intended to be a thorough presentation, the rather short and problematic dismissal of emotional prototypes being stored in the brain demonstrates my ultimate criticism of this book: it is higher on self-promotion and lower on sound arguments. To be clear, I think there is a lot to be said in favor of the constructed emotions if one qualifies the extent that we construct our sense of emotions. After considering some of the findings that were presented, I favor a blend of genetically-formed prototypes and construction to explain emotions. However, this book frustrates me as much as it makes me think, as it seems like Barrett has fallen victim to confirmation bias and inadequately understanding other potential theories. ...more

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May 31, 2017 Dan Graser rated it it was amazing

This has been a great year for books on the workings of the brain with the release of Robert Sapolsky's latest work and now this groundbreaking contribution from Lisa Feldman Barrett. What Barrett has achieved here is a wonderful introduction, thorough description, and cogent examination of an alternative theory to the classical theory of emotion: "The Theory of Constructed Emotion." While some may already be familiar with the concept, this is the finest it has ever been posited. She deftly sums This has been a great year for books on the workings of the brain with the release of Robert Sapolsky's latest work and now this groundbreaking contribution from Lisa Feldman Barrett. What Barrett has achieved here is a wonderful introduction, thorough description, and cogent examination of an alternative theory to the classical theory of emotion: "The Theory of Constructed Emotion." While some may already be familiar with the concept, this is the finest it has ever been posited. She deftly sums up the theory early on:

"In short, we find that your emotions are not built-in but made from more basic parts. They are not universal but vary from culture to culture. They are not triggered; you create them. They emerge as a combination of the physical properties of your body, a flexible brain that wires itself to whatever environment it develops in, and your culture and upbringing, which provide that environment."

After the best explanation and discussion of interoception I've ever heard, she continues to describe in great detail why several of the experimental data that supports classical theories of emotion are fundamentally flawed and what the future study of constructivist theories of emotion might sound like:

"Now you know how emotions are made in the brain. We predict and categorize. We regulate our body budgets, as any animal does, but wrap this regulation in purely mental concepts like Happiness and Fear that we construct in the moment. We share these purely mental concepts with other adults, and we teach them to our children. We make a new kind of reality and live in it every day, mostly unaware that we are doing so."

While her later discussion of Emotion and the Law is somewhat superficial regarding actual implementation of theory into legal practice, her concluding chapter, "From Brain to Mind: The New Frontier," is a tour de force of revolutionary thinking and crystal clear description.

This is a landmark work and will function as a fantastic introduction to an important theory of our development of emotions. Highly Recommended! ...more

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Dec 07, 2018 Nelson Zagalo rated it it was ok

Shelves: academic

Felt sad reading this. So many holes in one theory. Of course we must always be open minded, and be prepared to accept other views of the world, however in this case I can't really see any novelty, any argument never heard before.
I must say Barrett is able to tell some stories, and mostly to promote herself and her work, but it takes a bit more to convince us.

Para a análise extensa em português, e os argumentos do meu ceticismo para com a obra, ver no blog: ...more

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Dec 25, 2018 Farha Crystal rated it really liked it

"Variation is the norm"

We categorize things to communicate with our physical body and the outside environment. Language is a medium. It's more diverse in categories/samples than so-called "emotions". In fact, sometimes we use the single word "happy", 'sad", "angry" to maintain our body budget economically. (Of course, the brain will take the shortest route for prediction thanks to the second law of thermodynamics. )

Now, think of poets, writers, novelists of ages... the puppet masters and "Variation is the norm"

We categorize things to communicate with our physical body and the outside environment. Language is a medium. It's more diverse in categories/samples than so-called "emotions". In fact, sometimes we use the single word "happy", 'sad", "angry" to maintain our body budget economically. (Of course, the brain will take the shortest route for prediction thanks to the second law of thermodynamics. )

Now, think of poets, writers, novelists of ages... the puppet masters and magicians of languages. Aren't they more diverse in describing things than us? Don't they have more divisions/points in their single scale of the words like Happy/Sad/Angry/Love ... Consider for a moment, we're average( in the context of using language) than them.
Don't we often notice that our favorite author/poet is just describing the state of mind/brain we often experience but the only difference is we didn't have those words to describe ours.?

Words are like currency so as emotions. Its value depends on the user's value/perspective. Poets and novelists are richer in currencies where the person with alexithymia is poor.

The feelings we experience is an active inference account of interoception and categorization. It's another way of saying that the emotions are your bodies way of predicting how to act when a certain situation occurs. It's all about the concepts and making connections.

It doesn't matter if you are actually on the scene or not when you are delving into the book's or films character or the film/book itself or the friend who is sitting beside while talking about her life's story... your brain is actually trying to simulate those words/pictures in those forms to experience a similar feeling.

I almost enjoyed the book till I entered into the last third part.

I couldn't synchronize with her in the question of controlling emotions. How much control do we have in our interoceptions to regulate our body budget? The question of free will lies in the feedback loop between genetic on/off switch and the environmental stimuli.
There is research that shows the importance of early learning on how your reactions to different stimuli are built, and how the repeated exposure to those stimuli with the same outcome reinforces the pattern of reaction in what is called "long-term potentiation"
Of course! The brain is plastic and it is modified through experience throughout the lifespan of the individual but this process has limits!

Going back to her, yes our brain works like a scientist, always taking information, evaluating that information and predicting for the future use and verifying the information based on prediction errors. But, what if the scientist is not a complete scientist ( of course in her term, variation is the norm :) ), what if the scientist secretly wants to write fictions/fantasy, what if the scientist is sometimes absent-minded to do the job properly? who will decide what should he do? himself or the medicine or the therapy or the therapist or the social surrounding? Who is himself? Does he understand that thing? How much?

:D ...more

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Oct 03, 2017 Terry O'Connor rated it it was ok

This review also appears on Amazon.com A few caveats before I begin the review proper - I take writing a negative review very seriously and understand full well that online actions have consequences. I also understand that the author is a far more accomplished, successful, intelligent, well-read and many other positive things, person that I will ever be. However, even brilliant people can be misguided. I know personally people have PhDs in the most rigorous scientific fields from the world's This review also appears on Amazon.com A few caveats before I begin the review proper - I take writing a negative review very seriously and understand full well that online actions have consequences. I also understand that the author is a far more accomplished, successful, intelligent, well-read and many other positive things, person that I will ever be. However, even brilliant people can be misguided. I know personally people have PhDs in the most rigorous scientific fields from the world's best universities who are nonetheless misguided, I believe, on various issues. I especially see this on what I'll characterize as the nature vs. nurture issue of the human mind.

I read this book back in March of 2017, and refrained from writing this review because generally I'm uncomfortable with writing them. However, about an hour before writing this, I listened science writer Robert Wright's podcast of the author discussing her book and was so bothered by it that I felt compelled to write the review you're reading now.

Dr. Barrett discusses this book, and I personally found the discussion disingenuous at best, and intellectually dodgy at worst. Dr. Barrett, to me, sounded more like an attorney than she did a scientist. She nitpicked the meaning of Mr. Wright's choice of words, and if you nitpick enough, you can find a flaw in anything, then focus on it ad nauseam. She absolutely dominated the discourse with what I perceived to be a veritable flood of verbiage, while avoiding a truly honest debate on the issues with Mr. Wright, as he clearly disagreed with her.

Let's take for instance the point that Mr. Wright brought up about schadenfreude, which Dr. Barrett discusses in her book. Wright implied this is an instinctive emotion, Dr. Barrett claims this is a culturally constructed emotion, as are all emotions. Schadenfreude is a German word denoting the pleasure that someone feels at the misfortune of others. Can a three year old experience this, Mr. Wright asked. Dr. Barrett made a somewhat snarky remark to Mr. Wright saying that maybe YOU feel schadenfreude a lot, but most of us don't. Then went on to discuss that the three year old would not feel this because they haven't been taught, or learned the concept of it. Ultimately, this is as most questions in psychology, an academic question because we can't prove anything about subjective experience. However, can any of us honestly say that we've never seen a three year old who has no idea what shadenfreude is, experience it anyway? Haven't YOU felt it at some time, even though you many have never heard the word?

Here's another thing I didn't like in the book - Dr. Barrett joking referred to "brain blobs", as she pokes fun at the notion that the brain has specified locations for various functions. If I understand her point correctly, this would directly contradict eminent scientists Dr. Robert Sapolsky's view of the brain, which is greatly divided by function, and has much experimental evidence to back up his claims in his book "Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst", which I personally find a far superior book to this one. Here's a statement from "Behave" which directly contradicts the fundamental premise of Dr. Barrett's book - "by the time you finish this book, you'll see that it actually makes no sense to distinguish between aspects of a behavior that are "Biological" and those that would be described as, say, "psychological" or "cultural." Utterly intertwined. I think Dr. Sopolsky would agree that you could replace the word "behvaior" with "emotion" and still agree with him.

The author had the temerity to take a veiled swipe at fellow psychologist, Daniel Kahneman. Not directly, mind you, but it was an unmistakable negative remark towards him. Dr. Kahneman is the only psychologist to win a Nobel Prize; he won it with his contribution to economics on the psychology of decision making in uncertain circumstances. In his masterwork of psychology "Thinking Fast and Slow" he summarizes his decades of research on human psychology by postulating that we have two different thinking systems, one rapid and intuitive, the other slow and deliberate. Dr. Barrett completely denied the existence of this distinction, in language I found similar to poking fun at "brain blobs." I admire a writer who has grand ambitions, however, taking a shot at perhaps the most accomplished living psychologist, and missing the mark entirely, further solidified my inability to construct much positive emotion of this book.

Ultimately, Dr. Barrett is trying to convince the reader that there are no universal emotions, as say psychologist Dr. Paul Ekman and others would have us believe, and that they are all dependent upon learning and culture. Now this view may auger well with our current intellectual zeitgeist, which is averse to the notion of human nature, and believes that most human ills can be mended by being educated in the right ideas. While I believe this in part, I do not believe this entirely. Why can't it be that there are emotions engraved on our DNA and our experience from birth to death interacts with our nature?

Wright and Barrett also discussed indigenous cultures, who are very often discussed in psychological texts because they don't have any of the influence of modern western cultures, and live in a way that humans are more evolved to live in. Dr. Barrett says that for instance, the !Kung simply do not feel fear in the way that you or I would because of their culture. So, if a !Kung saw within stepping on distance of themselves a coiled, ready to strike deadly snake, they wouldn't feel what any other human would feel? I highly doubt that.

Dr. Barrett resides in academia's ivory tower - me, I'm a mud-spattered grunt in the trenches of trying to heal people's painful emotions. I was hoping for cutting edge insights from the Ivory Tower to help us emotional hygienists in the world below. I found woefully little, unfortunately. I see countless people ruled, tormented and sometimes ruined by their painful, negative emotions. If I summarized this book to your clients - "well, those emotions are just constructs that you learned and you create, so just change them!", I think I'd be out of a job. Our emotions are just not that simple. Not even close.

Perhaps I misunderstood the book. I was hoping that the podcast would convince me of Dr. Barrett's way of thinking. It didn't. It actually secured my own existing beliefs, partly because I found her so overbearingly loquacious, without really saying much of anything with substance. Mostly a big disappointing word salad.

On a more positive note, I really liked her discussion about the concept of emotion differentiation and emotional granularity, and found them extremely helpful to my job as a mental health therapist. I now have lists of words for emotions that I have clients read through to help them better identify feelings that cause them trouble, or feelings of things that they find pleasurable. It's been very helpful, so I'm thankful for that.

In closing, I'm a grizzled old veteran of the internet, and anticipate this review may provoke some reader's ire. I won't respond to anything argumentative, snarky, or hostile. I may not respond at all, it depends upon my mood. If there is something I'm misunderstanding, I really would like some enlightening. In short, I simply don't believe the premise of this book, that emotions are cultural constructs. They are a product of both our natures and our experience. Thank you for reading. ...more

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Feb 02, 2019 Michael Shore rated it it was ok

This book starts out really strong. The core thesis put forward by the author about the constructed nature of emotions is fascinating and thought provoking. It challenges some of our deepest held assumptions and intuitions about emotions.

However, she then goes on to repeat her central ideas 900 times throughout the book. I’d be a rich man if I got a penny for every time she mentions “interoceptive network”, “body budget”, “emotional granularity”, and “affective niche.” It’s truly tiring. She This book starts out really strong. The core thesis put forward by the author about the constructed nature of emotions is fascinating and thought provoking. It challenges some of our deepest held assumptions and intuitions about emotions.

However, she then goes on to repeat her central ideas 900 times throughout the book. I’d be a rich man if I got a penny for every time she mentions “interoceptive network”, “body budget”, “emotional granularity”, and “affective niche.” It’s truly tiring. She spends entire chapters on animals, criminal justice, self-help, pop philosophy etc, many of which are only loosely connected to the ideas at hand. The book is easily three times as long as it needs to be. And her ideological biases shine forth consistently and unmistakably.

She uses concepts haphazardly as well. For example, she uses the word “concept/s” frequently throughout the book, but never actually takes the time to precisely clarify what she means. It initially seems as though she means a concept requires language, but later in the book she appears to be referring to a ‘category of distinct instances’ which can exist without having words for it. This lack of conceptual rigor is confusing to say the least.

Her pet peeve with what she dubs the “classical view of emotion” quickly gets annoying. She jumps on every opportunity she can to take cheap shots at a caricatured, outdated view of emotion which I had never heard seriously pedaled before. She consistently provides what seems like the least charitable interpretation of the “opposition” - straw manning at its best.

Perhaps most obnoxious of all, the book is written with a grandiose ‘I’m single handily changing the scientific paradigm forever’ tone. Notwithstanding her valuable contributions to the field, a bit more modesty would be welcome, especially since many of the ideas put forward in this book have been in circulation long before she entered the scene.

Reading this book caused an imbalance in my body budget which was detected by my interoceptive networks and experienced as a constructed instance of frustration. My affective niche has grown to include a ‘really annoyed by the book I’m reading’ category, thus expanding my emotional granularity. Lesson learned. ...more

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Mar 27, 2017 William rated it liked it

Lisa Feldman Barrett has written an ambitious book on the construction of emotions by presenting an old theory that she claims is new. She postulates in her theory that emotions are not a simple reaction to external stimulation that provokes a response from modules in the brain that are dedicated to mediating an appropriate emotive behavior. She calls this the classical theory that has been the standard for our understanding brain function for numerous years. She points out that her research ...more

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Aug 07, 2017 Celine rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, npr, summer-2017

Fascinating topic but felt too repetitive and over-simplistic in its explanations. Specifically the way Barett seemed to hover above the surface in her descriptions and deconstructions the mind. She offered useful metaphors to illustrate her arguments, but never really delved into the deeper neuroscience of how our brains actually craft emotions. I get that you never want to assume your readers will always know fundamental principles, but Barrett swung too much the other way for me; at times I ...more

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Jun 17, 2017 Alexander rated it it was amazing

How Emotions Are Made was a breakthrough book for me. I have not read neuroscience and so her ideas were all new to my naïve self. In High School, I was strongly interested in Taoism. And one of the concepts that had the most impact upon me was the idea of the integrated life, the idea that one should not cut one’s life into pieces but instead should strive for a single authentic identity. Perhaps the strangest example of the inauthentic life was Freudian theory with its emphasis on the conflict How Emotions Are Made was a breakthrough book for me. I have not read neuroscience and so her ideas were all new to my naïve self. In High School, I was strongly interested in Taoism. And one of the concepts that had the most impact upon me was the idea of the integrated life, the idea that one should not cut one’s life into pieces but instead should strive for a single authentic identity. Perhaps the strangest example of the inauthentic life was Freudian theory with its emphasis on the conflict between the individual and society and the conflict within the individual. But Freud’s edifice was just the gasp of the romantic emphasis upon feelings and emotions as a challenge to and superior to reason. Barrett’s book emphasizes the role of cognition in the development of feelings. As such it seems to me that promises a superior integration (rather than conflict) between thinking and feeling.
The book is not without flaws. It seems to treat emotion as a logical primitive, a relatively undefined concept. She does seem to be building on real research though out the first half of the book. In the second half of the book, she suggests that you can learn to control your emotions. Here she seems to be going beyond the science. Her concept of the role of cognition requires her to critique the idea of universal human emotions. Here Paul Ekman is her target and I think He is that easy to criticize. Ekman is known for writing about universal ways of expressing particular emotions which implies the universality of emotions across individuals and cultures. Perhaps if we were able to develop a true taxonomy of emotions, we might find that both theories are valid for different elements.
Barrett has written and edited a number of serious studies. How Emotions Are Made is a popularization of her work. Perhaps her scientific work would will answer some of the questions I have had about her book. The idea that emotions are partially cognitive is new to me. The book suggests that thinking and feeling are not two separate streams but interacting bodies that together can create a single authentic self. Furthermore, I take it that even though I am seventy-five, I still have the opportunity for further emotional growth. I prefer to continue to look to the future.
I hope to look at one or two of her academic works in the future. Are there any other books I should look at?
...more

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Aug 28, 2017 Josh rated it it was ok · review of another edition

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett is a book that explores recent advances in neuroscience as they relate to the formation, experience and reaction to emotions. Barrett’s primary thesis is that emotions are not rigid constructs emitted by dedicated circuits within the brain, but rather emergent entities formed by three separate elements: affective realism, concepts, and social reality. This is a powerful concept; the idea that emotions are malleable and ...more

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May 05, 2019 Song rated it it was amazing

Shelves: neuroscience

Five stars are not enough to describe how excellent this book is and how appreciated I am to have the chance to read this book. I believe this book should be on every modern reader's bookshelf or essential reading list.

When I picked up this book one month ago, I saw Daniel Gilbert the author of "Stumbling on Happiness" wrote the punch line introduction on the book cover that said, "A brilliant and original book by the deepest thinking about this topic since Darwin". I have to admit there was a Five stars are not enough to describe how excellent this book is and how appreciated I am to have the chance to read this book. I believe this book should be on every modern reader's bookshelf or essential reading list.

When I picked up this book one month ago, I saw Daniel Gilbert the author of "Stumbling on Happiness" wrote the punch line introduction on the book cover that said, "A brilliant and original book by the deepest thinking about this topic since Darwin". I have to admit there was a silent taunt in my mind when I read this sentence, "Jeez, these days people are so exaggerated in order to recommend something". Now I have finished the book. I would say I was wrong about the laughing at. I fully agreed with Daniel Gilbert. This book should be ranked next to "On the Origin of Species". Why? I guess the astonishment for a modern intellectual reader when she or he finds out the concept of "Rational vs Emotional" for the human mind is wrong, which has been treated as a universal axiom, could be just like when the religious ancestors were told humans were not created by God but evolved from monkeys.

For the records, I don't have the expertise to judge Mrs. Barrett's academic correctness from the neuroscience, psychology, or biology perspectives. I just hold a master’s degree in computer science and that's all. I didn't cut open any poor rabbit or frog for autopsy. My biological knowledge is merely at the level of the high school textbook. And I even don't think psychology can be categorized as "science"(I know, that's my personal prejudice). But Dr. Barrett totally convinced me with her book, and I believe what she's written is true. Because of with the strict scientific training I received in computer science, I can tell crystal clear Dr. Barrett was using the same strict scientific methods to prove her hypothesis. That's totally based on the rock-solid logic and facts. Although there are huge differences among neuroscience, psychology, biology and computer science from the view of modern academic disciplines, the scientific research methods in these topics have the common model: getting the facts and data, making the hypothesis, and connecting these two with the undeniable logic.

With the said that Dr. Barrett's book actually is a hardcore science book, not some bestseller chicken soup emotional intelligence pop reading, I’d like to say she is an excellent writer because this hardcore science book is not like other usual science books, at all! Although Dr. Barrett's contents and discussion are strictly following the facts, data, logic and proving etc. the standards of science thesis writing, the book is easy to follow, funny to read and friendly for the layman readers to understand. Dr. Barrett used many vivid and lively examples from daily life, such as her daughter and dogs, to make the hardcore science discussion not so hard for common readers. This is another big reason I am convinced by Dr. Barrett's hypothesis: the discussion is easy to understand and close to everyone's common experience.

I learned another lesson from this book: a well-written science book is a thousand times better than a popular non-expert bestseller book writer's chicken soup work. Because usually the only advantage for the latter is just easy to read but could be full of wrong ideas, myths, misconceptions, and fantasy conclusions. The only problem for science book is often it's very hard for common readers. So, when a solid, hardcore science book is getting sexy and easy for the average readers, it will just prevail, like what Dr. Barrett has accomplished in her "How Emotions Are Made".

I’d recommend this book to any reader who can read. It has refreshed my views about emotions, rationales, life, and society. I become a better me after reading this book. ...more

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Mar 09, 2019 Mitch Vaterlaus rated it really liked it

An interesting theory of constructed emotion. Dr. Barrett's comment on "finding comfort in some uncertainty" resonated with me.

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Jun 26, 2019 Andrew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book challenges the 'established' views on emotions. Certainly well worth reading.

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Nov 18, 2018 Virginia Lazar rated it liked it

Some interesting points of view.rest of the book challenges eckman and other researchers about the universality of emotions, stating that emotions are rather learned than inborn .

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Jan 27, 2018 Razan Jambi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

What can I say! I wouldn’t think of a better book to start the year with!

This book can help you understand how we creat our own realities and our own emotions and master them

If science is telling you that you can be the architect of your own experience then you need not to listen to anything else

This book is highly recommended it’s so very interesting even though it’s all science:p

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Jul 09, 2017 M.M.J. Gregory rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Truly excellent, the beginning of a revolution.

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Oct 27, 2019 Joe Flynn rated it it was amazing

I made more extensive notes for this book than any since my university days. So often did i need to get something straight in my mind, so often was i blown away, so often was i dazzled on topics far outside the scientific understanding of emotion.

This is a book that sets itself a big target - to revolutionise the understanding of emotion. I feel it hits the bulls-eye. Not only that, we also have an illuminating view of how science, history, politics, and society work in real life.

We are I made more extensive notes for this book than any since my university days. So often did i need to get something straight in my mind, so often was i blown away, so often was i dazzled on topics far outside the scientific understanding of emotion.

This is a book that sets itself a big target - to revolutionise the understanding of emotion. I feel it hits the bulls-eye. Not only that, we also have an illuminating view of how science, history, politics, and society work in real life.

We are presented with the classic view, one we would all recognise from our day to day lives, one in-built to our societies, espoused by our luminaries, and assumed to be a fact. Emotions are distinct things inside of us, and can be controlled through rationality. Turns out they are not. The evidence is abundant on this point. There turns out to be no solid evidence of a single emotion network or trigger, rather, we are told they are contingent on culture, emergent, and belonging to the same class of concepts as money or laws. intriguing.

Following the deconstruction of the classical view, we are introduced to the constructive view, the How Emotions are Made from the title. This can be tough going at first, with the author switching between cutesy lay terms to hard science in a flash. We go through the ideas of body budgets, affective reality, the creation an use of concepts, a entire model of the brain/consciousness, and social reality. Emotions become a wrapping to help us react to situations felt in the body and predicted by the brain. They are constructed by us based on how our bodies feel combined with concepts we have picked up from out cultures. It becomes clear that different cultures have different emotions, certainly finer grained ones.

She does not say that illusions are made up, they are socially real, just like money or laws, real as long as more than a single person know what it means. Complicated and smart. This is labelled a superpower of humanity - and is exactly the same point that Yuval Noah Harari makes when he writes of the unique human ability to create shared fictions. Even if it turns out to not be 100% correct this really feels like the right path.

There are brilliant asides throughout the book. From different grades of anger in alternate languages, entire new emotions in Philippine tribes, to the fact that Russian's see two blues in the rainbow.

The final few chapters are clearly flagged as more speculative - yet the quality of the work is enhanced. We follow the application of the theory in several fields.

This includes a section on how best to master our emotions according to current evidence. Some of it is simple, yet is both effective and fits the theory - sleep well, eat well, work out, yoga - keeping your body budget in line. Some of it is more incisive, building the ability to re-categorise feelings, changing anxiety to anticipation for example. The book is excellent here on the social construction of the self, reminding me of the Ego Trick by Julian Baggini, and many Buddhist texts. Highlights the importance of the body as root of feeling of self.

There are excellent sections on common medical ailments, (chronic pain, anxiety, depression, Autism, the US opiate disaster), and a enlightening section on animals and emotion - and all help build out the theory, far better than current understanding. Could really help people in distress if worked on more.

There is a fabulous (and funny) section responding to an expected criticism - that this is a left leaning 'bleeding-heart' view of reality, this is shut right down, yes many of the issues we face are 'society's' fault, poverty trapping sections of society on the lower rungs, but she insists on the ultimate responsibility of each individual to surround themselves with the tools and concepts to progress, you are the architect of your own reality, bound but not fixed to a social reality. It matters how you treat others.

First rate popular science writing, a compelling narrative, some useful tips for normal people, some amusing is US focused anecdotes. I can understand other scientists of emotion picking holes or decrying aspects not covered in the book, but i assume the labs and journals are the place for these discussions. The author talks often about 'my' theory, and i can't comment if that tag is fully justified, similarly i am unsure just how rigid the classical view that is knocked out of the park is. However, as a lay reader and taken at face value, here we are shown a problem in current understanding, assumptions are methodically taken to pieces, and in its place a tentative but evidence backed theory is built out. It has the insight to power a revolution in understanding. ...more

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Apr 15, 2018 Hanna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Hanna by: Mark Z. Danielewski's instagram

Shelves: educational, scientific, american, non-fiction, psychology

I found „How emotions are made“ an incredibly interesting book, which led me to question a few beliefs I had before, but also reinforcing certain „gut feelings“ about the nature of emotions, that I already had. Barrett’s book felt like an in-depth episode of the Invisibila Podcast (which I find mostly extremely interesting, but sometimes also superficial).

Basically her theory focus on the premise, that emotions are not, as many might think, biologically given sets of conditions that always come I found „How emotions are made“ an incredibly interesting book, which led me to question a few beliefs I had before, but also reinforcing certain „gut feelings“ about the nature of emotions, that I already had. Barrett’s book felt like an in-depth episode of the Invisibila Podcast (which I find mostly extremely interesting, but sometimes also superficial).

Basically her theory focus on the premise, that emotions are not, as many might think, biologically given sets of conditions that always come with the same set of biological „symptoms“ (she calls the fingerprints), but are actually socially constructed.

She says on page 141:

„This brings us to one of the most challenging ideas in this book: you need an emotion concept in order to experience or perceive the associated emotion. It’s a requirement. Without a concept for „Fear“, you cannot experience fear. Without a concept for „Sadness“, you cannot perceive sadness in another person. You could learn the necessary concept, or you could contract it in the moment through conceptual combination, but your brain must be able to make that concept and predict with it. Otherwise, you will be experientially blind to that emotion.“

That doesn’t mean, that your feelings are not real, they are, but they are also specific to your person and your own brain’s interpretation. There’s not one set of biological characteristics, that define for instance „Anger“ or „Fear“ or any other emotion. Everyone will experience these in a slightly different way, but the closer you are to another person, culturally and socially, the more similar the shared construction of a certain emotion will be and therefore feel like something that can be naturally „decoded“ by the other.
Barrett says on page 195:

„(…), we must all give up the fiction, that we know how other people feel. When you and a friend disagree about feelings, don’t assume that your friend is wrong (…). Instead think, „We have a disagreement“, and engage your curiosity to lean your friend’s perspective. Being curious about your friend’s experience is more important than being right.“

I really liked Barrett’s writing and how easily she is able to explain certain theories, with lots of analogies and through carefully building knowledge through each chapter. In some moments I did find, that her ideas strayed a bit too far away from neurobiology to philosophy and I felt myself asking „Where is the science in that?“. On the other hand, is my categorizing in „hard evidence by science“ vs. „soft evidence by humanities studies“, nothing else than a categorization which has been taught to me, telling me that one is more respectable than the other.

In this regard I want to end my review with another quote from the book (p. 292):

„I don’t know, but I find some comfort in a bit of uncertainty. It’s refreshing to question the concepts that have been given to us, and to be curious about which are physical and which are social. There is a kind of freedom in realizing that we categorize to create meaning, and therefore it is possible to change meaning by recategorizing. Uncertainty mean that things can be other than they appear. This realization brings hope in difficult times and can prompt gratitude in good times.“

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Sep 08, 2018 Ian Scuffling rated it liked it

Shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2018, reality-bites

I thought the first half of this book was really interesting; it challenged some of my initial understanding of how the brain works, emotion, and how emotion becomes an experience. Basically, Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that your brain, because it works to construct reality based on predictions from sensory input using a kind of matrix of concepts (that are purely mental), is actually constructing emotions based on prediction-error history, contextual concepts, and social reality of the concept. I thought the first half of this book was really interesting; it challenged some of my initial understanding of how the brain works, emotion, and how emotion becomes an experience. Basically, Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that your brain, because it works to construct reality based on predictions from sensory input using a kind of matrix of concepts (that are purely mental), is actually constructing emotions based on prediction-error history, contextual concepts, and social reality of the concept. Basically, this means that no emotion you experience is the same twice, much less is my happiness the same as your happiness as anyone else's happiness. Happiness doesn't "look" the same in the face, the body, nor the brain, and there is no universal, essential human emotion.

The second half of the book kind of dropped the more nuanced (and, to me, interesting) scientific stuff and instead adopted a kind of prescriptive view of how to improve your "emotional granularity" which was basically just principles from cognitive behavior therapy—eat well, sleep enough, read more, exercise more. Then she talks about the power of how humans think about emotions and the impact on the law. This was interesting, but kind of easy to extrapolate from the things she had been saying all along. Probably, most controversially, she suggests that because human bias is inherent in all cognition and evaluation (reason and emotion are not a battle, but all part of a functioning brain), that a jury of your peers is therefore flawed from the beginning and will not ferret out the truest justice. This is problematic for a lot of reasons since it ignores how juries work as a kind of democratic situation where the jurors deliberate with one another and must come to a quorum to mete out justice. I get what she's trying to say, it just seems to ignore a lot of key elements of a functioning due process to make a small point about how humans may make mistakes due to our cognitive biases. Even worse, she leans on the idea that DNA will ultimately replace the need for juries, however ignoring the fact that DNA evidence is extremely error prone.

The closing dealt with a question if our mammalian friends feel human-like emotions, focusing on great apes, chimps and dogs. No surprises—probably not.

All-in-all, I think the first half with its deeper focus on the science was much more interesting, especially when she pointed out a severe flaw in how emotion researchers have been testing for emotional "fingerprints" for decades. I like history of the science, and a break down of the science stuff much more than the speculative and ruminative stuff in the last half. Worth a read to understand where the science of emotion, and of our understanding of how the brain works, is going, and trust that the easy stuff in the back will just be fun riffs on what you've just learned. ...more

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Jun 22, 2018 Eduardo Santiago rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book has insidiously been changing my life. I find myself engaging differently in some conversations. Definitely reading differently, especially anything to do with communication. There are some books I may want to reread in light of this new perspective. And perspective is all it is: just a reframing of a mental model.

Barrett in no way denies or invalidates emotions; what she does is suggest that they’re not as universal as we think. Not across humans, certainly not across species. Affect ...more

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