How Emotions Are Made
Author: Lisa Feldman Barrett
This is a very interesting book that I had to speed read on my first take because by the time I had gotten to it, I only had 2 days left before it needed to be returned to the library. That is why my notes below may feel sporadic and unconnected to the broader topic of the book as I was just grabbing interesting ideas as I stumbled into them. I absolutely plan to check this out again and read fully.
I also have to say, this is a psychology book just like The Cyber Effect which I attempted to read earlier in 2021. Both books were written by a Ph.D in psychology, but what a world of difference between the two. I couldn’t get through The Cyber Effect because it felt so shallow and lacking in research, which soured my appetite for reading on the topic of psychology given how often the “science” of it comes into question, or changes. But this book felt much more thoroughly researched and grounded in fact.
First, the classical view of emotions is that emotions have a fingerprint. That is, we can recognize them based on changes to our body. Primarily our face. The author states this view is wrong and not supported by the many studies she performed. She states that the idea that furrowing your brow to describe anger is a cultural creation, not reality. Instead, we express emotion in many different ways.
With emotion, variation, not uniformity is the norm.
The book, as revealed with the title, seeks to answer the question of exactly how emotions are made, and why they are so non-uniform.
A mental event, such as fear isn’t created by only one set of neurons. Or in other words, fear isn’t only generated out of the amygdala, which was widely accepted. Instead, different combinations of neurons can create instances of fear, which i s what neuroscientists call degeneracy. Degeneracy means “many to one” ie – many combinations can produce one outcome of fear.
Degeneracy is not to say that all neurons in the brain are the same and can do the same thing. That has been disproven.
Interoception is our brains representation of all sensations from your internal organs and tissues, the hormones in your blood, and your immune system. “It also demonstrates that you’re not at the mercy of emotions that arise unbidden to control your behaviour. You are an architect of these experiences. Your river of feelings might feel like it’s flowing over you, but actually you’re the river’s source.”
“In a sense, your brain is wired for delusion: through continual prediction, you experience a world of your own creation that is held in check by the sensory world. Once your predictions are correct enough, they not only create your perception and action but also explain the meaning of your sensations. This is your brain’s default mode. And marvellously, your brain does not just predict the future: it can imagine the future at will. As far as we know, no other animal brain can do that.”
She speaks of an interesting concept she calls “body budget” which is the idea that your brain is always budgeting for energy needs. “When your brain predicts that your body will need a quick burst of energy, these regions instruct the adrenal gland in your kidneys to release the hormone cortisol. People call cortisol a stress hormone but this is a mistake. Cortisol is released whenever you need a surge of energy, which happens to include the times when you are stressed.”
“When it comes to managing your body budget, your brain does not have to go it alone. Other people regulate your body budget too…Holding hands with loved ones, or even keeping their photo on your desk at work, reduces activation in your body-budgeting regions and makes you less bothered by pain. If you’re standing at the bottom of a hill with friends, it will appear less steep and easier to climb than if you are alone…In contrast, when you lose a close, loving relationship and feel physically ill about it, part of the reason is that your loved one is no longer helping to regulate your budget. You feel like you’ve lost a part of yourself because, in a sense, you have.”
“…the brain actls like a scientist. it forms hypotheses through prediction and tests them against the data of sensory input”
“The theory of constructed emotion is not just a modern explanation of how emotions are made. It’s also an ambassador for a radically different view of what it means to be a human being. This view is consistent with the latest research in neuroscience. It also gives you more control over your feelings and behaviour than the classical view does, and it has deep implications for how to live your life. You are not a reactive animal, wired to respond to events of the world. When it comes to your experiences and perceptions, you are much more in the driver’s seat than you might think. You predict, construct, and act. You are an architect of your experience.”
The next three paragraphs are all quotes from chapter eight that I thought were great thoughts:
“As a real world example, pick any extended conflict in the world: Israelis versus Palestinians…I’d like to suggest that no living member of these groups is at fault for the anger that they feel toward each other, since the conflicts in question began many generations ago. But each individual today does bear some responsibility for continuing the conflict, because it’s possible for each person to change their concepts and therefore their behaviour. No particular conflict is predetermined by evolution. Conflicts persist due to social circumstances that wire the brains of the individuals who participate. Someone must take responsibility to change these circumstances and concepts. Who’s going to do it, if not the people themselves.”
“To make this point, a scientific study provides some preliminary hope. Researchers trained a group of Israelis to think about various negative events, such as Palestinians’ launching rockets and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, and recategorize them as less negative. The trainees were not only less angry afterword but they showed greater support for policies leading to more peaceful and conciliatory resolutions, such as providing aid to Palestinians, as well as less support for aggressive tactics towards Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.”
“If you grow up in a society full of anger and hate, you can’t be blamed for having the associated concepts, but as an adult, you can choose to educate yourself and learn additional concepts. It’s certainly not an easy task, but it is doable. This is another basis for my frequent claim, you are an architect of your experience. You are indeed partly responsible for your actions, even so-called emotional reactions that you experience as out of your control. It is your responsibility to learn concepts that, through prediction, steer you away from harmful actions. You also bear some responsibility for others, because your actions shape other people’s concepts and behaviours, creating the environment that turns genes on and off to wire their brains, including the brains of the next generation.”
I like the idea of responsibility she poses here. Culturally, it feels like emotions have skewed more towards being truth, and we should listen and follow them. But we can see how destructive that is. This reminds me of a book I am currently reading now as well called “The Coddling Of The American Mind” where the authors speak to the “un-truth” of emotional reasoning, i.e. – the terrible idea that we should always trust our emotions.
Chapter nine speaks to mastering your emotions. She kicks off the chapter going back to the topic of interoception.
She says that typical self help books focus on your mind and the idea that thinking differently = feeling differently which I agree with. But, she also says the most basic thing you can do is to keep your body budget in shape. Your body budget is making predictions about heart rate, breathing, hormones etc must be calibrated to your body’s actual needs.
So her primary form of advice for proper regulation of emotion is the un-sexy truth that we need to eat healthy, exercise and get enough sleep.