Includes bibliographical references and index

An introduction to psychological construction / Lisa Feldman Barrett and James A. Russell -- Part I. Foundations : Mental mechanisms and psychological construction / Mitchell Herschbach and William Bechtel -- Ten common misconceptions about psychological construction theories of emotion / Lisa Feldman Barrett -- Part II. Psychological construction theories : The conceptual act theory: a roadmap / Lisa Feldman Barrett, Christine D. Wilson-Mendenhall, and Lawrence W. Barsalou -- The neuroscience of construction: what neuroimaging approaches can tell us about how the brain creates the mind / Suzanne Oosterwijk, Alexandra Touroutoglou, and Kristen A. Lindquist -- Emotions as semantic pointers: constructive neural mechanisms / Paul Thagard and Tobias Schröder -- Affect dynamics: iterative reprocessing in the production of emotional responses / William A. Cunningham, Kristen Dunfield and Paul E. Stillman -- My psychological constructionist perspective, with a focus on conscious affective experience / James A. Russell -- Emotions as emergent variables / James A. Coan and Marlen Z. Gonzalez -- Part III. Core affect : Brain mechanisms of pleasure: the core affect component of emotion / Morton L. Kringelbach and Kent C. Berridge -- Mesolimbic dopamine and emotion: a complex contribution to a complex phenomenon / John D. Salamone, Mercè Correa, Patrick A. Randall, and Eric J. Nunes -- An approach to mapping the neurophysiological state of the body to affective experience / Ian R. Kleckner and Karen S. Quigley -- Part IV. Commentary and consilience : Can an appraisal model be compatible with psychological constructionism? / Andrew Ortony and Gerald Clore -- Basic emotions, psychological construction, and the problem of variability / Andrea Scarantino -- A sociodynamic perspective on the construction of emotion / Michael Boiger and Batja Mesquita -- Evolutionary constraints and cognitive mechanisms in the construction of an emotion: insights from human and nonhuman primates / Jennifer M.B. Fugate -- Part V. Integration and reflection : The greater constructionist project for emotion / James A. Russell -- Construction as an integrative framework for the science of the emotion / Lisa Feldman Barrett -- Afterword : Emotional construction in the brain / Joseph LeDoux

"This volume presents cutting-edge theory and research on emotions as constructed events rather than fixed, essential entities. It provides a thorough introduction to the assumptions, hypotheses, and scientific methods that embody psychological constructionist approaches. Leading scholars examine the neurobiological, cognitive/perceptual, and social processes that give rise to the experiences Western cultures call sadness, anger, fear, and so on. The book explores such compelling questions as how the brain creates emotional experiences, whether the "ingredients" of emotions also give rise to other mental states, and how to define what is or is not an emotion. Introductory and concluding chapters by the editors identify key themes and controversies and compare psychological construction to other theories of emotion"--