Week 2: Emotion
Recommended Reading
How Emotions Are Made: The New Science of the Mind and Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (BS 135)
Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions by Batja Mesquita (BS 199)
Two Interesting Recent papers
van Heijst, K., Kret, M. E., & Ploeger, A. (2025). Basic Emotions or Constructed Emotions: Insights From Taking an Evolutionary Perspective. Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 20(3), 377–391. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231205186
This paper seeks to preserve basic emotion theory (BET) by arguing that BET and TCE are explaining emotion at different levels. It gives a very inaccurate account of TCE.
Barrett, LF, et.al. (2025) The Theory of Constructed Emotion: More Than a Feeling. Perspectives on Psychological Science 20(3):392-420. DOI:10.1177/17456916251319045
Barrett’s paper is an elegant rebuttal of van Heijst that will also give you a deeper appreciation of the comprehensive nature of the constructed theory of emotion (TCE). In particular, it discusses how the theory fits into current evolutionary thinking.
