Lisa Feldman Barrett
Canadian-American psychologist known for the theory of constructed emotion
Psychologist at Northeastern University who argues that emotions are constructed by the brain from bodily signals, past experience and culture. She co-authored a 2019 review that questioned inferring emotion from facial movements.
Why this person matters
Barrett's theory of constructed emotion offers an alternative to the view that emotions are universal, built-in categories. She worked with collaborators including James Russell, with whom she founded the journal Emotion Review, and James Gross, with whom she founded the Society for Affective Science.
Main contributions
Theory of constructed emotion
Barrett holds that emotions are created, not triggered, from the body's physical properties, a flexible brain, and culture and upbringing. She set this out for general readers in How Emotions Are Made (2017).
Review of facial expression evidence
With Ralph Adolphs, Stacy Marsella, Aleix Martinez and Seth Pollak she published a 2019 review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. It concluded that the evidence does not support the common view that specific facial configurations reliably signal specific emotions.
Affective science community
She is the founding editor-in-chief of Emotion Review, with James Russell, and founded the Society for Affective Science with James Gross. She was president of the Association for Psychological Science from 2019.
Context and limits
The sources read contain no direct rebuttal of constructed emotion theory. A companion article to her 2019 review, by Alan Cowen, Disa Sauter, Jessica Tracy and Dacher Keltner, took a different position: more than 20 emotions expressed through the face, body and voice, with expression varying by culture and situation. Her criticism of the word-list method used in earlier facial expression studies is reported in Paul Ekman's obituary.
In your introductory course
Motivation and emotion.Barrett appears in chapters on emotion as a current alternative to basic emotion theory. Students meet her argument that emotion categories vary with context and culture.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 10.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 2010
She joined the psychology faculty at Northeastern University.
- 2014
The Psychological Construction of Emotion appeared.
- 2017
She published How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain.
- 2019
Emotional Expressions Reconsidered was published with Adolphs, Marsella, Martinez and Pollak.
Sources
- Northeastern University, Lisa Feldman Barrett profileUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- Association for Psychological Science, Emotional Expressions Reconsidered (Barrett et al., 2019)Society or association. Abstract inspected.
- Boston Globe, Paul Ekman, who linked facial expressions to universal emotions, dies at 91 (New York Times obituary)Publisher. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Lisa Feldman BarrettReference work. Reference article inspected.