The Psychological Construction of Emotion

This volume presents cutting-edge theory and research on emotions as constructed events rather than fixed, essential entities. It provides a thorough introduction to the assumptions, hypotheses, and scientific methods that embody psychological constructionist approaches. Leading scholars examine the neurobiological, cognitive/perceptual, and social processes that give rise to the experiences Western cultures call sadness, anger, fear, and so on. The book explores such compelling questions as how the brain creates emotional experiences, whether the "ingredients" of emotions also give rise to other mental states, and how to define what is or is not an emotion. Introductory and concluding chapters by the editors identify key themes and controversies and compare psychological construction to other theories of emotion.

willLisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory at Northeastern University, with research appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Barrett’s research focuses on the nature of emotion from both psychological and neuroscience perspectives, and incorporates insights from anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, and the history of psychology. She is the recipient of a Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health, among numerous other awards, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Association for Psychological Science. She was a founding Editor-In-Chief of the journal Emotion Review and cofounder of the Society for Affective Science. Dr. Barrett has published more than 160 papers, book chapters, and books.

James A. Russell, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Emotion Development Lab at Boston College. His research centers on human emotion, with interests in how large-scale environments influence emotion, the nature of emotion, how emotions can be described and assessed, a circumplex model of core affect, cultural similarities and differences in emotion concepts, and the perception of emotion from facial expressions. Dr. Russell is an Editor-In-Chief of Emotion Review and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals.

1. An Introduction to Psychological Construction, Lisa Feldman Barrett and James A. Russell
I. Foundations
2. Mental Mechanisms and Psychological Construction, Mitchell Herschbach & William Bechtel
3. Ten Misconceptions about the Construction of Emotion, Lisa Feldman Barrett
II. Psychological Construction Theories
4. The Conceptual Act Theory: A Roadmap, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Christine D. Wilson-Mendenhall, & Lawrence W. Barsalou
5. The Neuroscience of Construction: What Neuroimaging Approaches Can Tell Us about How the Brain Creates the Mind, Suzanne Oosterwijk, Alexandra Touroutoglou, & Kristen A. Lindquist
6. Emotions as Semantic Pointers: Constructive Neural Mechanisms, Paul Thagard & Tobias Schröder
7. Affect Dynamics: Iterative Reprocessing in the Production of Emotional Responses, William A. Cunningham, Kristen Dunfield, & Paul Stillman
8. My Psychological Construction Perspective, with a Focus on Conscious Affective Experience, James A. Russell
9. Emotions as Emergent Variables, James A. Coan & Marlen Z. Gonzalez
III. Core Affect
10. Brain Mechanisms of Pleasure: The Core Affect Component of Emotion, Morton L. Kringelbach & Kent C. Berridge
11. Mesolimbic Dopamine and Emotion: A Complex Contribution to a Complex Phenomenon, John D. Salamone, Mercè Correa, Patrick A. Randall, & Eric J. Nunes
12. An Approach to Mapping the Neurophysiological State of the Body to Affective Experience, Ian R. Kleckner and Karen S. Quigley
IV. Commentary and Consilience
13. Can an Appraisal Model Be Compatible with Psychological Constructionism?, Andrew Ortony & Gerald Clore
14. Basic Emotions, Psychological Construction, and the Problem of Variability, Andrea Scarantino
15. A Sociodynamic Perspective on the Construction of Emotion, Michael Boiger & Batja Mesquita
16. Evolutionary Constraints and Cognitive Mechanisms in the Construction of an Emotion: Insights from Human and Nonhuman Primates, Jennifer M. B. Fugate
V. Integration and Reflection
17. The Greater Constructionist Project for Emotion, James A. Russell
18. Construction as an Integrative Framework for the Science of the Emotion, Lisa Feldman Barrett
Afterword: Emotional Construction in the Brain, Joseph LeDoux
Index