“The classical view has wasted billions of research dollars and misdirected the course of scientific inquiry for over a hundred years.” How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that human emotions are neither universal nor fundamental. All efforts to analyze faces and recognize emotions, either by people (law enforcement, TSA) or by software (Apple, Microsoft) are based on outdated science (aka mythology, ideology, stereotypes) and doomed to failure.
The book makes two key points.
First, the emotions we ascribe to others are unreliable, even though we use our intuitions in all aspects of life from employment to law enforcement. For example, parole boards grant parole more often first thing in the morning and less often when the panel get tired and hungry later. The same is true for employment interviews.
Psychologist and doctors are no more reliable in diagnosing mental states. The author gives two example where patients correctly abandoned health care providers when they confidently delivered the incorrect diagnosis.
Second, the emotions we ascribe to ourselves are also unreliable. The author, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology, offered an illustrative anecdote where she mistook symptoms of flu for physical attraction. With the onset of fever, she accepted a second date, but once the fever passed, she never saw him again.
In an interesting contribution to the nature-nurture debate, the author notes parenthetically, “In fact, your learn statistically even in utero, which makes it complicated to determine whether certain concepts are innate or learned.”
The author is a scientist. The book is a demonstration of how difficult it is to write about science. The book is part memoir, part research report, and part self-help. Common with many scientist-authors, much of the book is redundant as if the author could not figure out to make their point clearly, so they chose instead to make it often. Feel free to skim over some sections. Important points are repeated.
The self-help advice is in the second half of the book. You might skip the advice, as even the author notes, “This is the most speculative chapter (Emotion and Illness) in the book.”
If you are open to the learn the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, this is a wonderful book. “Scientific evidence shows that what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell are largely simulations of the world, not reactions to it.”
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