Ingenious: Lisa Feldman Barrett - Issue 46: Balance

Do you think you can read emotions like joy or anger in another person's face and actions? Read them because joy and anger are universal emotions and we all know what they look and feel like? Well, if so, says neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, you are winging it, guessing at best. Emotions like happiness and despair are not baked into our brains, waiting to be triggered by experiences in the world. Sure, we have a range of feelings, stimulated by our senses. But those feelings cannot be categorized as emotions innate in everyone. What we call emotions, Barrett says, are concepts constructed by our individual neural systems, molded by our cultures and past experiences. In her new and first book, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, based on years of research at her neuroscience lab at Northeastern University, Barrett spells out the "theory of constructed emotion."