How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Sesame Street teaches children that emotions are distinct things inside us seeking expression in the face and body, as does the Pixar movie Inside Out.

You can experience anger with or without a spike in blood pressure. You can experience fear with or without an amygdala, the brain region historically tagged as the home of fear.

Emotions are real, but not in the objective sense that molecules or neurons are real. They are real in the same sense that money is real—that is, hardly an illusion, but a product of human agreement.5 This view, which I call the theory of constructed emotion, offers a very different interpretation of the events during Governor Malloy’s speech. When Malloy’s voice caught in his throat, it did not trigger a brain circuit for sadness inside me, causing a distinctive set of bodily changes. Rather, I felt sadness in that moment because, having been raised in a certain culture, I learned long ago that “sadness” is something that may occur when certain bodily feelings coincide with terrible loss.

Now imagine that you’re in a doctor’s office, complaining of chest pressure and shortness of breath, which may be heart attack symptoms. If you’re a woman, you’re more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety and sent home, whereas if you’re a man, you’re more likely to be diagnosed with heart disease and receive lifesaving preventive treatment. As a result, women over age sixty-five die more frequently of heart attacks than men do.