Their repeated failures eventually led them to a creative solution. If we cannot measure emotions in the body and brain, they said, we’ll measure only what happens before and after: the events that bring on an emotion and the physical reactions that result. Never mind what’s happening inside that skull thing in the middle. Thus began the most notorious historical period in psychology, called behaviorism. Emotions were redefined as mere behaviors for survival: fighting, fleeing, feeding, and mating, collectively known as the “four F’s.” To a behaviorist, “happiness” equaled smiling, “sadness”
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