{"id":75265,"date":"2022-08-10T07:36:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T11:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=75265"},"modified":"2022-08-17T13:57:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T17:57:00","slug":"lisa-feldman-barrett-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/lisa-feldman-barrett-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisa Feldman Barrett: \u201cEmotions Don\u2019t Happen to You”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What does Lisa Feldman Barrett say about emotions? How can it help you better understand your own emotions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, emotions don’t simply happen to you, rather they are constructed by you depending on your past experiences. Barrett has spent years studying emotions in the human brain, publishing her book, How Emotions Are Made<\/em>, to share her findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading for Lisa Feldman Barrett’s surprising explanation of how you create your own emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Lisa Feldman Barrett: “Emotions Are Made by You”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Challenging many of society\u2019s long-standing beliefs about emotions, Lisa Feldman Barrett wrote How Emotions Are Made<\/em><\/a> to call into question everything from what emotions are, to where they come from and how to control them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa Feldman Barrett introduces a new theory of emotion, based on years of research, which posits that emotions are neither hardwired into our brains nor universally felt and recognized; rather, emotions help the brain to predict what will happen next based on what\u2019s happened in the past\u2014and to plan accordingly. Barrett calls this the theory of constructed emotion<\/em>. As she sums it up in her TED talk<\/a>, \u201cEmotions don\u2019t happen to you; they\u2019re made by you.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emotions Are Not Reactions; They\u2019re Predictions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Myth: <\/em><\/strong>Emotions are uncontrollable reactions to external triggers<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reality:<\/em><\/strong> Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that each person’s brain constructs emotion<\/strong> by predicting what to do next based on what’s happened in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrett maintains that the purpose of the brain is to budget the body’s internal resources (such as water, salt, glucose, and hormones) to keep you alive and healthy. The brain must continuously anticipate the body\u2019s needs and attempt to meet them before they arise. To do this, it must make predictions about everything, including emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all the stimuli your brain is constantly receiving, it would operate very slowly if it were always in \u201creaction\u201d mode. Instead, before you take any action, your brain predicts what\u2019s about to occur, and what your body will need for that to happen\u2014for example, by giving you a shot of cortisol to help you get out of bed in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa Feldman Barrett asserts that the brain takes in external sensory input from your environment, as well as internal sensory input about the state of your body, and tries to make sense of these sensations using emotion concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In essence, your brain is constantly trying to guess (predict) the meaning of sensory input, so it can determine how to budget your body\u2019s resources and what action to take next.<\/strong> To do so, your brain relies on past experiences, organized as emotion concepts. These emotion concepts function as mental explanations for what\u2019s going on inside and around you. If you didn\u2019t have concepts, all the sensory input you received from the word would just be meaningless noise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does Lisa Feldman Barrett say about emotions? How can it help you better understand your own emotions? According to neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, emotions don’t simply happen to you, rather they are constructed by you depending on your past experiences. Barrett has spent years studying emotions in the human brain, publishing her book, How Emotions Are Made, to share her findings. Keep reading for Lisa Feldman Barrett’s surprising explanation of how you create your own emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":75293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,160],"tags":[714],"class_list":["post-75265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-science","tag-how-emotions-are-made","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nLisa Feldman Barrett: \u201cEmotions Don\u2019t Happen to You" - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What do Lisa Feldman Barrett's studies reveal about emotions? Why does she say emotions don't happen to you? 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