EP. 62: How Emotions Are Made: Lisa Feldman Barrett On The Neuroscience of Feeling

Mar 17, 2023

“Feelings, nothing more than feelings” - Morris Albert

In this episode, we discuss how emotions are made - and how insights into how our brains make us feel can help us cope with challenging situations. 

My guest is Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychology professor and neuroscientist at Northeastern University, who is the author of seven books on emotion and the brain, including the best-selling book How Emotions Are Made and, most recently, Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain. In addition to the books, Dr. Barrett has published over 260 peer-reviewed scientific papers. She received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award for her revolutionary research on emotion in the brain.

Her groundbreaking research overturns many prior assumptions about how the human brain forms emotions. On this show, we cover these topics …

• A discussion about theory in scientific contexts
  The classical view of emotions
• An overview of her research in constructed emotion
• The problem with the “amygdala hijack” and the reptilian brain
• The brain as a prediction machine
• Rationality
• Mood and metabolic efficiency
• The body-budget
• How emotions can be recategorized
• A new take on depression
• The story of her daughter and the “emotional flu”
• Decision-making, rationality, and the use of emotion

For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com/podcasts