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“Fascinating . . . A thought-provoking journey into emotion science.” — 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. “Mind-blowing.” — Elle “Chock-full of startling, science-backed findings . . . An entertaining and engaging read. ” — Forbes
At this time of writing, The Audiobook How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain has garnered 8 customer reviews with rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Not a bad score at all as if you round it off, it’s actually a perfect TEN already. From the looks of that rating, we can say the Audiobook is Good TO READ!
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As someone who has conducted graduate research in emotion and facial expression, I have come across the author's name in my studies. I did not focus on the neuroscientific details of emotions very much, so I did not do a deep dive into Barrett's work, or her close colleagues. However, I did pick up this book when it first came out, as I recognized her name and viewed her to be a credible source in the field.Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book and find its assertions to be intellectually spurious (notwithstanding that this is not a peer-reviewed paper, but a mass published book—but more on that later).The interior flap of the book states two things: "Her research overturns the widely-held belief that emotions live in distinct parts of the brain and are universally expressed and recognized." First, saying that the amygdala is the seat of fear, and other statements like it, is an oversimplification. We should definitely value the neuroscience research that explains the emotional processes (elicitation, processing, expression/suppression, biological processes, and physical displays); i.e. the "hardware" part of emotion studies. A peer-reviewed meta-analysis from Barrett and coauthors in 2008 (Wager et al.) showed that, across 163 studies, the bio/psycho/social processes of emotion in the brain involve expected areas (the limbic system), areas that have only been shown in animal imaging studies until that point (the thalamus and brainstem), and unexpected places (lateral frontal cortex, temporal cortex, occipital cortex, and cerebellum).As interesting and necessary research as the above information is, it does not disprove the second assertion, which would “take down” basic universal expressions and recognition, a bold claim with such scant evidence that she has provided. The flap of the book goes on to talk about how "emotions are constructed in the moment ... aided by a lifetime of learning." Like the neuroscience applications, I find the socio-cultural details (and all related "software" details) of emotions to be interesting and necessary research, but none of them disprove the notion that there are 6/7 universal expressions of emotion that have been repeatedly demonstrated to be universally recognized (Matsumoto, 2001). Furthermore, when these emotions are aroused, the same facial expressions of emotion are reliably produced by people all around the world, and from all walks of life (Matsumoto, Keltner, Shiota, O’Sullivan, & Frank, 2008). Different research teams, laboratories, methodologies, and participants from a wide array of countries have shown levels of universal emotion recognition well above chance in a meta-analysis of 168 datasets examining judgments of emotion in the face and other nonverbal stimuli (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002).
To wit, also consider the work of Matsumoto and Willingham (2009) who demonstrated that both sighted and congenitally blind judo athletes made the same facial expressions of sadness upon losing a match. Basic facial expressions are exhibited by both congenitally blind infants and children (Charlesworth & Kreutzer, 1973) and nonhuman primates (Chevalier-Skolnikoff, 1973; Geen, 1992; Hauser, 1993; Snowdon, 2003), heavily suggesting that the universal basis for these expressions are biological, genetic, and evolutionary in origin. Let me put that last point this way: **If emotions are entirely dependent on cultural learning, how are congenitally (from birth) blind individuals making the same facial expressions as sighted individuals?** While outward expressions only show, well, the outside of a person and not the experience inside, it forms a basic building block of emotions as a universal experience (unless you incur brain damage or are born with emotional deficiency or absence of some sort).
Barrett’s assertion that since emotions can have a cultural/learned component, the evolutionarity and universality of some emotions are rendered void is not factually supported. Cultural ideas about emotions and what elicits them can and do coexist side-by-side with their evolutionary universality. Humans are not born as blank slates, where culture has to do all the work. Basic, evolutionary emotion "programming" exists alongside the human capacity for language, and other prepackaged "software" in the brain. It is puzzling to me why Barrett would attempt to make such a claim against the universality of emotions with no evidence to refute previous research, and is the reason that, despite some possible interesting alleys of thought about culture and emotion, this book earns the lowest rating. I could go further into my notes in the book that I made as I read in bewilderment, but tossing out the main claim from the book’s summary should be enough reason for the casual reader to steer clear of this book.
One final note of interest. A Google search of Barrett and these claims leads to several newspaper articles from 2013-2015, all claiming this supposed brave new upheaval of scientific knowledge. This book was published in 2017. The articles and book read like someone desperately trying to prove something within the public arena (including her sissification of even even basic brain regions into the term “brain blobs”), rather than let the argument go through the gauntlet of the peer-reviewed system of the scientific community to check for its robustness. Major main assertions of this book are not peer-review supported, which casts a dark cloud over all of its assertions, and demands those who seek facts about what we do and do not know about emotions to look elsewhere.
The glorious "Mama's Last Hug" by Frans de Waal is centered on animal emotions, as de Waal studies primates, but reminds us that we humans are animals too. It will go a long way to show that evolutionary, universal emotions don't only belong to humans, and reinforces what a tough job anyone trying to discredit them would have. The book also includes a bit about Barrett's idea, and succinctly distills the argument into this:"For [Barrett], feelings and emotions are one, but for [this scientist], me, and many other scientists, they are to be kept apart. Emotions are observable and measurable, reflected in body changes and actions. Since human bodies are the same across the globe, emotions are by and large universal, including what happens to us when we fall in love, have fun, or get mad. That is why we never feel emotionally disconnected even in a country where we don't speak the language."Where to start reading instead:- "Emotions Revealed" by Paul Ekman (for beginners)- "Darwin and Facial Expression: A Century of Research in Review" by Paul Ekman (for more advanced readers)- "Mama's Last Hug" by Frans de Waal (for beginners)REFERENCES-- Charlesworth, W. R., & Kreutzer, M. A. (1973). Facial expressions of infants and children. In P. Ekman (Ed.), Darwin and facial expression (pp. 91-168). New York: Academic.
-- Chevalier-Skolnikoff, S. (1973). Facial expression of emotion in nonhuman primates. In P. Ekman (Ed.), Darwin and facial expression (pp. 11-89). New York: Academic.-- Elfenbein, H. A., & Ambady, N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128(2), 205-235.
-- Geen, T. (1992). Facial expressions in socially isolated nonhuman primates: Open and closed programs for expressive behavior. Journal of Research in Personality, 26, 273-280.
-- Hauser, M. (1993). Right hemisphere dominance for the production of facial expressions in monkeys. Science, 261, 475-477.
-- Matsumoto, D. (2001). Culture and Emotion. In D. Matsumoto (Ed.), The Handbook of Culture and Psychology (pp. 171-194). New York: Oxford University.-- Matsumoto, D., & Willingham, B. (2009). Spontaneous facial expressions of emotion of congenitally and noncongenitally blind individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 1-10.-- Matsumoto, D., Keltner, D., Shiota, M. N., O’Sullivan, M., & Frank, M. G (2008). Facial Expressions of Emotion. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 211-234). New York: Guilford.
-- Snowdon, C. T. (2003). Expression of emotion in nonhuman animals. In R. J. Davidson, K. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 457-480). New York: Oxford University.-- Wager, T. D., Barrett, L. F., Bliss-Moreau, E., Lindquist, K. A., Duncan, S., Kober, H., Joseph, J., Davidson, M., & Mize, J. (2008). The neuroimaging of emotion. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (p. 249–271). The Guilford Press.
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