How emotions are made with Lisa Feldman Barrett (Pt 1)
Dec 2, 2020
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Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett challenges traditional views on emotions, emphasizing their fluid nature and the brain's role in shaping them. She discusses the lack of objective markers for emotions and reevaluates the amygdala's role in fear responses. The podcast explores the complexities of emotions, misconceptions around anger expressions, and the importance of embracing a scientific understanding of emotions in daily interactions.
Emotions are not hard-wired responses but are constructed by the brain based on past experiences and contextual predictions, challenging traditional beliefs.
Emotional granularity, the ability to distinguish subtle emotional nuances, is crucial for well-being, aiding in stress reduction, communication, and health outcomes.
Deep dives
Lisa Feldman Barrett's Paradigm-Shifting Work on Emotions and the Brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett's groundbreaking research challenges traditional views of emotions as hard-wired responses in specific brain regions. Her theory of constructed emotion upends long-held beliefs, impacting fields from emotional intelligence to facial recognition. Barrett's journey from clinical psychology to neuroscience led her to discover the lack of distinct markers for emotions, uncovering the complexities of emotional experiences. Through her research, Barrett highlights the variability and unpredictability of emotional expressions, urging a reconsideration of how we perceive and understand emotions.
The Brain's Role in Constructing Emotions: A Paradigm Shift
Barrett's theory emphasizes that the brain constructs emotions based on past experiences, interoceptive cues, and contextual predictions. By predicting and interpreting sensory data from the body and surroundings, the brain forms emotional concepts tailored to each situation. This process challenges the traditional belief of hardwired emotions tied to specific brain regions and external triggers like fear circuits in the amygdala. The brain's constant prediction-making and concept construction enable individuals to navigate and react to diverse emotional situations.
Emotional Granularity and Mental Health
Barrett discusses emotional granularity, the ability to distinguish between subtle emotional nuances, as crucial for mental and physical well-being. Greater emotional granularity provides precise tools for regulating the body budget, reducing stress, and improving health outcomes. Individuals with higher emotional granularity cope better with challenges, communicate more effectively, and experience faster recovery from illness. This finer emotional distinction enhances adaptive responses and interpersonal interactions, contributing to overall resilience and well-being.
The Significance of Emotions in Everyday Life
Barrett's exploration into emotional construction underscores the importance of understanding emotions in decision-making, communication, and overall well-being. By shedding light on how the brain interprets sensory cues, past experiences, and context to construct emotions, Barrett reveals the critical role emotions play in daily life interactions and self-regulation. The implications of emotional awareness and granularity extend to mental health, social interactions, and adaptive responses to various life stressors, emphasizing the profound impact of emotional intelligence on personal and collective well-being.
This episode is part one of a two part conversation that Jean and Scott had with neuroscientist, Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett. University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, and Chief Science Officer for the Center for Law, Brain and Behaviour at Harvard, Lisa Feldman Barrett, is profoundly changing our understanding of the brain and in particular, our emotions. Since the ancient philosophers, and into our last century of scientific endeavor, emotions have been seen as hard-wired responses to external stimuli, located in specific regions of the brain. Lisa’s work has over-turned this age-old model which shapes everything from our current beliefs about emotional intelligence to facial recognition software widely being deployed around the world.
Lisa Feldman Barrett has written two books, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (2020) and How Emotions are Made (2017), as well as hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers appearing in Science, Nature Neuroscience and other top journals in psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
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