Lisa Feldman Barrett

“An emotion is your brain’s creation of what your bodily sensations mean, in relation to what is going on around you in…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Numerous experiments showed that people feel depressed when they fail to live up to their own ideals, but when they fall short…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“If you want to gain mastery at perceiving other people’s emotional experiences, you must let go of this essentialist assumption.”

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Instead think, “We have a disagreement,” and engage your curiosity to learn your friend’s perspective. Being curious about your friend’s experience is…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Scientific revolutions tend to emerge not from a sudden discovery but by asking better questions”

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“The concept of “Emotion” itself is an invention of the seventeenth century. Before that, scholars wrote about passions, sentiments, and other concepts…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“In other words, the Himba participants categorized facial movements as behaviors rather than inferring mental states or feelings.”

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“But one thing is certain: every day in America, thousands of people appear before a jury of their peers and hope they…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Perceptions of emotion are guesses, and they’re “correct” only when they match the other person’s experience; that is, both people agree on…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Social reality is not just about words—it gets under your skin. If you perceive the same baked good as a decadent “cupcake”…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“The word “smile” doesn’t even exist in Latin or Ancient Greek. Smiling was an invention of the Middle Ages, and broad, toothy-mouthed…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Our words allow us to enter each other’s affective niches, even at extremely long distances. You can regulate your friend’s body budget…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“The Nobel laureate and neuroscientist Gerald M. Edelman called your experiences “the remembered present.” Today, thanks to advances in neuroscience, we can…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“The human brain is a cultural artifact. We don't load culture into a virgin brain like software loading into a computer; rather,…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Simulations are your brain’s guesses of what’s happening in the world. In every waking moment, you’re faced with ambiguous, noisy information from…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Your brain is shaped by the realities of the world that you find yourself in, including the social world made by agreement…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Some scientists refer to the control network as an “emotion regulation” network. They assume that emotion regulation is a cognitive process that…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“The distinction between “real in nature” versus “illusory” is a false dichotomy. Fear and anger are real to a group of people…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“When you categorize something as “Not About Me,” it exits your affective niche and has less impact on your body budget. Similarly,…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“I’ve said several times that the brain acts like a scientist. It forms hypotheses through prediction and tests them against the “data”…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“That’s what the history books say . . . but history books are written by the victors. The official history of emotion research, from…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“To make meaning is to go beyond the information given. A fast-beating heart has a physical function, such as getting enough oxygen…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Bullies intend to cause suffering, but is the intent to cause harm? We cannot know for sure, but in most cases I…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“I can notice a tiny weed forcing its way through a crack in the sidewalk, proving yet again that nature cannot be…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Anger is stereotypically normal for men because they are supposed to be aggressors. Women are supposed to be victims, and good victims…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“A similar bout of affective realism gave birth to Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law. This law permits the use of deadly…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“My point is that bias is not advertised by a glowing sign worn around jurors’ necks; we are all guilty of it,…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Western culture has some common wisdom associated with these ideas. Don’t be materialistic. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Sticks and…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“It is actually a policy issue relevant to the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to free speech. The First Amendment was…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“We already have intriguing evidence that some types of chronic pain work by prediction. Animals who have stress or injury early in…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Judges infer all sorts of negative personality characteristics in angry female rape victims that they tend not to attribute to angry male…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“This is another basis for my frequent claim, “You are an architect of your experience.” You are indeed partly responsible for your…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“No other animals have collective intentionality combined with words. A few other animal species do have symbolic communication of a sort. Elephants…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“But evolution has provided the human mind with the ability to create another kind of real, one that is completely dependent on…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett

“Your body-budgeting regions can therefore trick your brain into believing that there is tissue damage, regardless of what is happening in your…

— Lisa Feldman Barrett