Psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett has written an important book about emotions. It beautifully describes how emotions are constructed, depending on  the body's energy balance, sensory input, and language and shared practices.

What are emotions? We have long thought that emotions like fear, anger, and sadness are ancient, automatic, and universal, and embedded in human biology. But studies across facial expressions, autonomic responses, and brain activity have failed to confirm the universality of emotional markers. Instead, emotions are created by the brain using a combination of bodily sensations, past experiences, and social context. Emotions are thus not triggered passively but they are actively constructed by the brain to interpret and respond to the world. For example, a racing heart can be experienced as fear, excitement, or attraction, depending on the situation and learned concepts.

Context, not biology alone, dictates how we interpret expressions. What looks like fear in one culture might signify respect in another. Emotion concepts differ across cultures. Western notions of sadness or anger don't align with unique emotional experiences such as the Dutch gezellig or the Filipino liget. These differences show that social reality greatly influences emotional experiences, as our brains rely on culturally taught concepts to make sense of the world. Even the supposed emotional roles of brain regions, like the amygdala for fear, are far more variable than previously thought.

Other animals are different from the human animal. While other animals display behaviors that humans interpret as emotions, these behaviors often arise from basic affect (e.g., pleasure or discomfort) rather than socially constructed emotions. Anthropomorphizing animal behavior can lead to misunderstandings, though recognizing their unique adaptations fosters empathy and better treatment.

Why This Matters

The classical view has influenced critical systems and practices, often with flawed outcomes:

• In mental health, misconceptions about universal emotional triggers lead to narrow treatment approaches. Recognizing the variability in emotional experience can enhance mental health strategies. I think that the application in business of Elizabeth Kübler Ross' work is a fine example: She labeled five emotions that are experienced by people who suffer from terminal illness. In 1974, she came to the conclusion that the stages are not experienced in a strictly linear progression. 'Most of my patients have exhibited two or three stages simultaneously, and these do not always occur in the same order.' Later, the five stages were applied by business consultants to present a linear progression of organizational change! 
• In technology, emotion-detection systems, such as facial recognition software, rely on false assumptions about universal expressions, leading to inaccuracies and biases.
• In law and justice, legal interpretations of emotions like remorse or intent are often biased by stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings, affecting verdicts and sentencing.

So, emotions emerge as the brain predicts and categorizes sensory input (psychological safety in Jones' Venn). Simple feelings of pleasantness or unpleasantness (affect) arise from the brain’s efforts to maintain the body’s energy balance. These sensations gain meaning when categorized as emotions (physiological safety in Jones' Venn). Emotions are deeply tied to social realities, with concepts learned through language and shared practices (sociological safety in Jones' Venn). 

As architects of our emotional experiences, we have the power to change our minds, relationships, and societies.

Source:

Feldman Barrett, L. (2017), How Emotions Are Made – The Secret Life of the Brain, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Kübler Ross, E. (1974), Questions and Answers On Death and Dying (First ed.), New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, pp. 25-26.