Emotions - A Brief History

Emotions: A Brief History investigates the history of emotions across cultures as well as the evolutionary history of emotions and of emotional development across an individual’s life span. In clear and accessible language, Keith Oatley examines key topics such as emotional intelligence, emotion and the brain, and emotional disorders. Throughout, he interweaves three themes: the changes that emotions have undergone from the past to the present, the extent to which we are able to control our emotions, and the ways in which emotions help us discern the deeper layers of ourselves and our relationships.

Keith Oatley is Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of more than 120 journal articles and chapters and five books, including Understanding Emotions (Blackwell, 1996).

Preface.

1. Meaning and ambiguity.

Emotions: signals of what is vital.

2. Evolution, culture, and a necessary ambivalence.

Inherited repertoires of emotion built upon by culture and experience.

3. Medicine for the soul.

From Epicureans and Stoics via the seven deadly sins to cognitive therapy.

4. Emotions and the brain.

Accidents, imaging technologies, the new psychopharmacology.

5. Social histories: emotions and relationships.

Social goals of aggression, attachment, affiliation, and their mixtures.

6. Individual histories.

Emotional development from childhood to maturity.

7. Emotional disorders.

Excesses of sadness, anxiety, shame, and anger.

8. Emotional intelligence.

What is it to be emotionally intelligent? Are there skills to learn?.

Endnotes.

References.

Index