Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain & How Emotions Are Made By Lisa Feldman Barrett 2 Books Collection Set

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain and How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett are presented together in a two-book set, bringing accessible writing informed by neuroscience and psychology. Across both titles, Barrett explores how the brain functions and reconsiders established ideas about the links between thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain is structured as seven short essays plus a brief story on how brains evolved, drawing on contemporary neuroscience research. In How Emotions Are Made, Barrett revisits an understanding of emotion traced back to Plato and questions whether it is accurate, using scientific evidence to argue that common-sense views are outdated and that emotions are constructed psychological experiences shaped by personal history, physiology and environment.

Included titles

• Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
• How Emotions Are Made

Key details

• Two-book collection set
• By Lisa Feldman Barrett
• Seven essays plus a short account of brain evolution in Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
• Grounded in neuroscience and psychology
• Challenges assumptions about thoughts, feelings and behaviour

Synopses

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain

Written as seven short essays plus a concise story about how brains evolved, this book shares lessons drawn from contemporary neuroscience research. It considers where brains came from, how they are structured and why that matters, and how brains work together to shape experience. It also disputes popular myths, including the idea of a “lizard brain” and the notion of a battle between thoughts and emotions, or between nature and nurture, in determining behaviour.

How Emotions Are Made

This book challenges a long-standing view of emotion and argues that common-sense ideas about emotions are out of date. Using scientific evidence, it proposes that emotions are not universally pre-programmed in brains and bodies, but are psychological experiences constructed from personal history, physiology and environment. It also sets out implications for real-world decisions, including sentencing, policing and medical diagnosis, where assumptions about hardwired emotions may influence outcomes.