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Humans

Emotions are not universal – we build them for ourselves

We are the architect of our own emotional experience, and that has profound philosophical and practical implications, says Lisa Feldman Barrett

By Shannon Fischer

8 March 2017

Barrett

“I’m not saying you can snap your fingers and change how you feel, but your horizon of control is much bigger than you think”

Ken Richardson

What are emotions?

The classical view says your brain is off, then something happens and a defined set of neurons fires to cause an emotion. So, say a snake slithers towards you – it supposedly triggers a built-in circuit for fear: your heart races, you sweat and you make a specific, universal facial expression that everybody in the world can recognise.

Every time you feel fear, the same …

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