What is Emotion?

What is Emotion?
Author: Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology Emeritus Jerome Kagan
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0300124740

In this sophisticated overview of human emotions, a widely respected psychologist and author addresses the ambiguities and embraces the controversies that surround this intriguing subject. An insightful and lucid thinker, Jerome Kagan examines what exactly we do know about emotions, which popular assumptions about emotions are incorrect, and how scientific study must proceed if we are to uncover the answers to persistent and evasive questions about emotions. Integrating the findings of anthropological, psychological, and biological studies in his wide-ranging discussion, Kagan explores the evidence for great variation in the frequency and intensity of emotion among different cultures. He also discusses variations among individuals within the same culture and the influences of gender, class, ethnicity, and temperament on a person's emotional patina. In his closing chapter, the author proposes that three sources of evidence - verbal descriptions of feelings, behaviours, and measures of brain states - provide legitimate but different definitions of emotion. Translating data from one of these sources to another may not be possible, Kagan warns, and those who study emotions must accept, at least for now, that their understanding is limited to and by the domain of their information

What Is an Emotion?

What Is an Emotion?
Author: William James
Publisher: Start Classics
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-03-26
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

I should say first of all that the only emotions I propose expressly to consider here are those that have a distinct bodily expression. That there are feelings of pleasure and displeasure of interest and excitement bound up with mental operations but having no obvious bodily expression for their consequence would I suppose be held true by most readers. Certain arrangements of sounds of lines of colours are agreeable and others the reverse without the degree of the feeling being sufficient to quicken the pulse or breathing or to prompt to movements of either the body or the face. Certain sequences of ideas charm us as much as others tire us. It is a real intellectual delight to get a problem solved and a real intellectual torment to have to leave it unfinished. The first set of examples the sounds lines and colours are either bodily sensations or the images of such. The second set seem to depend on processes in the ideational centres exclusively. Taken together they appear to prove that there are pleasures and pains inherent in certain forms of nerve-action as such wherever that action occur. The case of these feelings we will at present leave entirely aside and confine our attention to the more complicated cases in which a wave of bodily disturbance of some kind accompanies the perception of the interesting sights or sounds or the passage of the exciting train of ideas. Surprise curiosity rapture fear anger lust greed and the like become then the names of the mental states with which the person is possessed. The bodily disturbances are said to be the "manifestation" of these several emotions their "expression" or "natural language"; and these emotions themselves being so strongly characterized both from within and without may be called the standard emotions.--William James

How Emotions Are Made

How Emotions Are Made
Author: Lisa Feldman Barrett
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2017-03-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0544129962

Preeminent psychologist Lisa Barrett lays out how the brain constructs emotions in a way that could revolutionize psychology, health care, the legal system, and our understanding of the human mind. “Fascinating . . . A thought-provoking journey into emotion science.”—The Wall Street Journal “A singular book, remarkable for the freshness of its ideas and the boldness and clarity with which they are presented.”—Scientific American “A brilliant and original book on the science of emotion, by the deepest thinker about this topic since Darwin.”—Daniel Gilbert, best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture. A lucid report from the cutting edge of emotion science, How Emotions Are Made reveals the profound real-world consequences of this breakthrough for everything from neuroscience and medicine to the legal system and even national security, laying bare the immense implications of our latest and most intimate scientific revolution.

The Book of Human Emotions

The Book of Human Emotions
Author: Tiffany Watt Smith
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 031626539X

A thoughtful, gleeful encyclopedia of emotions, both broad and outrageously specific, from throughout history and around the world. How do you feel today? Is your heart fluttering in anticipation? Your stomach tight with nerves? Are you falling in love? Feeling a bit miffed? Do you have the heebie-jeebies? Are you antsy with iktsuarpok or filled with nakhes? Recent research suggests there are only six basic emotions. But if that makes you feel uneasy, suspicious, and maybe even a little bereft, The Book of Human Emotions is for you. In this unique book, you'll get to travel across the world and through time, learning how different cultures have articulated the human experience and picking up some fascinating new knowledge about yourself along the way. From the familiar (anger) to the foreign (zal), each entertaining and informative alphabetical entry reveals the surprising connections and fascinating facts behind our emotional lives. Whether you're in search of the perfect word to sum up that cozy feeling you get from being inside on a cold winter's night, surrounded by friends and good food (what the Dutch call gezelligheid), or wondering how nostalgia evolved from a fatal illness to enjoyable self-indulgence, Tiffany Watt Smith draws on history, anthropology, science, art, literature, music, and popular culture to find the answers. In reading The Book of Human Emotions, you'll discover feelings you never knew you had (like basorexia, the sudden urge to kiss someone) and gain unexpected insights into why you feel the way you do. Besides, aren't you curious what nginyiwarrarringu means?

The Therapeutic Interview in Mental Health

The Therapeutic Interview in Mental Health
Author: Giovanni Stanghellini
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2017-08-18
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1107499089

The therapeutic interview approach looks at patients' experiences, emotions and values as the keys to understanding their suffering.

Theories of Emotion

Theories of Emotion
Author: Robert Plutchik
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2013-10-22
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1483270017

Emotion: Theory, Research, and Experience, Volume 1: Theories of Emotion, presents broad theoretical perspectives representing all major schools of thought in the study of the nature of emotion. The contributions contained in the book are characterized under three major headings - evolutionary context, psychophysiological context, and dynamic context. Subjects that are discussed include general psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion; the affect system; the biology of emotions and other feelings; and emotions as transitory social roles. Psychologists, sociobiologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, ethologists, and students the allied fields will find the text a good reference material.

The Emotions

The Emotions
Author: Nico H. Frijda
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 564
Release: 1986
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780521316002

What are 'emotions'? This book offers a balanced survey of facts and theory.

The Neuroscience of Emotion

The Neuroscience of Emotion
Author: Ralph Adolphs
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 140088991X

A new framework for the neuroscientific study of emotions in humans and animals The Neuroscience of Emotion presents a new framework for the neuroscientific study of emotion across species. Written by Ralph Adolphs and David J. Anderson, two leading authorities on the study of emotion, this accessible and original book recasts the discipline and demonstrates that in order to understand emotion, we need to examine its biological roots in humans and animals. Only through a comparative approach that encompasses work at the molecular, cellular, systems, and cognitive levels will we be able to comprehend what emotions do, how they evolved, how the brain shapes their development, and even how we might engineer them into robots in the future. Showing that emotions are ubiquitous across species and implemented in specific brain circuits, Adolphs and Anderson offer a broad foundation for thinking about emotions as evolved, functionally defined biological states. The authors discuss the techniques and findings from modern neuroscientific investigations of emotion and conclude with a survey of theories and future research directions. Featuring color illustrations throughout, The Neuroscience of Emotion synthesizes the latest in neuroscientific work to provide deeper insights into how emotions function in all of us.

Emotion and Cognition

Emotion and Cognition
Author: Patrick Lemaire
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2021-12-29
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 100052101X

This cutting-edge, yet accessible book provides a complete and integrated assessment of the role of emotions in a wide variety of cognitive functions. Including both empirical and theoretical works and debates, this book presents the results of research aimed at understanding how our emotions influence cognitive performance in diverse areas such as attention, memory, judgment, decision-making or reasoning, and emotional regulation. Drawing on years of research that has enabled psychologists to know when emotions have beneficial versus deleterious effects on cognition, the book explores the mechanisms responsible for these effects. Each chapter focuses on a specific cognitive function and is mirrored by a chapter examining the individual differences in the role of emotions on this aspect of cognition, and how this role changes during aging and in patients with mood disorders. Emotions play a central role in the life of every human being as they crucially guide our actions, thoughts, and relationships, helping us detect and identify what is important, as well as what to memorize, understand, and decide. As such, Emotion and Cognition is a valuable source for all undergraduate and graduate students in the disciplines of cognitive and affective sciences, as well as for experts in the field.

Emotion

Emotion
Author: Dylan Evans
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2002
Genre: Emotions
ISBN: 9780192853769

From Darwin to "Star Trek", Evans offers a lively look at the science of emotions and finds that whether we live in the shadow of Times Square or in the depths of the rain forest, all humans feel disgust, joy, surprise, anger, fear, and distress. 20 halftones.