We think of our emotions as static. We feel how we feel because that’s how we’re feeling—and that’s not up for challenging. There’s even a certain sacredness we attach to our emotions at times—that makes us even more resistant to questioning them.
This classical view of emotions as primitive, built-in, universal responses to circumstances goes back to Ancient Greece. It was first challenged by William James in 1890, who proposed that scientists should stop treating feelings as “eternal and sacred psychic entities, like the old immutable species in natural history”
An increasing amount of research into how our brain works to construct experience has refuted the classical stance, however, our common-sense ideas about emotions haven’t shifted much. We do tend to hold onto our emotions and at times even root for those that work against us. If you’ve ever been sad, but a part of you felt some comfort in the sadness; or angry at something but unwilling to question the anger—you may resonate with this.
In her book, How Emotions Are Made, neuroscientist and psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience to challenge the classical view of emotions.
Her theory of constructed emotion demonstrates that emotions are not responses but predictions; they are not inborn but constructed; they are not universal, but the product of our past experiences.
“No scientific innovation will miraculously reveal a biological fingerprint of any emotion. That’s because our emotions aren’t built-in, waiting to be revealed. They are made. By us. We don’t recognize emotions or identify emotions: we construct our own emotional experiences, and our perceptions of others’ emotions, on the spot, as needed, through a complex interplay of systems.” – Lisa Feldman Barrett
Emotions are designed – and we are the designer
Classical philosophers thought that emotions emerged from the very primitive recesses of our brain—and that it was incumbent upon us to use the more advanced parts of the brain—those that host reason—to trump the emotions.
Emotions, however, are not pre-programmed in the dark animalistic parts of our brains, they are designed, by us.
“Human beings are not at the mercy of mythical emotion circuits buried deep within animalistic parts of our highly evolved brain: we are architects of our own experience.” – Lisa Feldman Barrett
We are not at the effect of our emotions—we construct them. And we can change them by changing how we interpret what’s happening to us.
Emotions are shaped by our past
Experiences we’ve been through create neural connections which get activated when we are in similar circumstances.
“Some of your synapses literally come into existence because other people talked to you or treated you in a certain way. The macro structure of your brain is largely predetermined, but the micro wiring is not. As a consequence, past experience helps determine your future experiences and perceptions.” – Lisa Feldman Barrett
Our past shapes the way we construct our emotions. Experiences that left an emotional imprint on us are likely to trigger us in the future. But we do have the ability to re-interpret and re-contextualise our experience—and create a new narrative.
Changing the predictions changes our experiences
Emotions are the brain’s interpretation of the bodily sensations. Our brains use sensory input to make predictions about what’s about to happen. It’s constructing a story to make sense of felt experience, and when we change how we understand what’s happening, we change our experience.
Research shows that reframing our bodily sensations can have a profound impact on our experience and emotions. A study by Jeremy Jamieson demonstrated that people prone to social anxiety experience less anxiety when they reframe the stress arousal as beneficial. Interpreting our physical sensations in a different way changes our experience.
Getting ready to test for a black belt in karate, Lisa Feldman Barrett’s 12-year-old daughter received the following advice from her instructor: “get your butterflies flying in formation”. We don’t need to get rid of our emotions. We need to use them to our advantage.
Examining and challenging our belief systems about ourselves can change our experience of life. Our personalities, characteristics, physical responses are a story. And where that story is self-defeating and doesn’t serve us, we can rethink how we make sense of our experience.