Synopses & Reviews
Keith Oatley and Jennifer M. Jenkins’s best-selling book on the psychology of emotions is the most highly regarded and engaging text for the emotions course. While retaining its interdisciplinary breadth, historical insights, and engaging format, this new edition adds the expertise of outstanding researcher and dedicated teacher Dacher Keltner. The second edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect the latest research and developments in emotions and includes the following features:
- Cohesive synthesis of evolutionary and cultural approaches to emotion
- New chapters on communication of emotion, bodily changes, and appraisal
- Increased emphasis on interpersonal implications of emotions, including studies of newly discovered expressions and systems of communication
- New coverage of moral judgment, individual differences, gene-environment interactions, and positive emotions
- New coverage of subjective well-being and pro-social emotions like gratitude and compassion
- Updated references throughout reflect current research and data, including research on affective neuroscience
- A new design and pedagogical features including new integrated boxes that depict historical landmarks and historical figures, updated tables, boldfaced terms, and end-of-chapter summaries
An Instructor’s Manual with lecture notes, chapter outlines, and multiple-choice test questions available upon request. Please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/oatley.
Review
“This new edition is as delightful and informative as its predecessor. It includes the important advancements in research made over the past 10 years, and carries the clear fruits of its enlarged authorship.”
Nico Frijda, University of Amsterdam“Understanding Emotionsprovides an admirable theoretical integration of empirical research and, at the same time, makes emotion research relevant to our everyday lives. It is the perfect book for both undergraduate and graduate-level courses on emotion.” Batja Mesquita, Wake Forest University
Review
"The contemporary field of emotion research is an immensely challenging one to synthesise. Oatley and Jenkins have done this, and have managed to do so in a way that makes this field accessible to a broad audience without sacrificing the precious scientific integrity upon which the entire research enterprise rests.
Understanding Emotions is a truly first-rate introductory treatment of this important area, and promises to be of great use to students, teachers, and researchers in the many fields now concerned with better understanding emotions."
James Gross, Stanford University, The BPPS Quarterly"There is nothing like this book on the market. It goes deeper into the problems than any introductory book on emotion that I know, lacking the superficiality of most such texts. The discussions, although accessible, are of intellectual standing. The book is full of theoretical ideas of elaboration that I find very challenging. In addition, it is highly enjoyable in its examples, interesting, very well written, up-to-date, and informative. The organization is admirable, placing culture first and only then going into the more basic processes." Professor Nico Frijda, University of Amsterdam
"In my view, this particular text is quite distinctive in terms of its breadth. It draws upon and integrates material on emotions from social and clinical psychology, from psychiatry, from sociology, from anthropology and from literature. It addresses important issues regarding emotions from many more theoretical perspectives than has been typical in most recent books on emotions. It includes historical material as well as very up-to-date work on emotions and it addresses both theoretical and applied issues." Margaret S. Clark, Carnegie Mellon University
"Oatley and Jenkins's book is an excellent text that is well written, interesting, and accessible while maintaining intellectual rigor. It is comprehensive in its coverage and considers the historical roots of emotion research as well as the most recent research." Contemporary Psychology
"At each turn, the authors have gone to great lengths to make this book accessible, from their clear and compelling writing, to the large number of figures, tables, insets with biographical information about key figures, summary sections, and helpful suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter. Studies are thoughtfully selected and carefully presented in enough detail that a student can clearly see how a question was framed and answered. Connections between studies are drawn within each chapter, and pains also have been taken to make connections across chapters as well. Understanding Emotions is a truly first-rate introductory treatment of this important area, and promises to be of great use to students, teachers, and researchers in the many fields now connected with better understanding emotions." James Gross, Stanford University
Synopsis
This new textbook is the first book to fully span the fast growing field to research on emotions. It ranges across a broad range of disciplines, covering the entire lifespan from infancy to adulthood. Its main theme is that emotions have functions: they set priorities among our concerns and they provide the underlying structure of human friendships, to the excitements of sexuality. Understanding Emotions is designed as a textbook for second- and third-year university courses, and the text itself is fully supported by introductions and summaries, suggestions for further reading, plus a comprehensive bibliography and a glossary.
Synopsis
This new textbook by cognitive scientist and prize-winning novelist Keith Oatley, and developmental psychologist Jennifer M. Jenkins, is the first to fully span the fast-growing field of research on emotions. It is designed as a textbook for second- and third-year university courses, and the text itself is fully supported by introductions, summaries, and suggestions for further reading, plus a comprehensive bibliography and a glossary.
Understanding Emotions ranges across the disciplines from philosophy and narrative literature through anthropology, evolutionary theory, brain research, psychology, and sociology, covering the entire lifespan, from infancy to adulthood. Its main theme is that emotions have functions: they set priorities among our concerns and they provide the underlying structure and human relatedness from attachment in infancy, to the warmth of family life and of friendships, to the excitements of sexuality. Interpersonal functions of emotions include those of anger which mediates conflict and often prompts renegotiation, and the more problematic effects of contempt. Emotions sometimes become dysfunctional in orders of depression, anxiety, and excessive aggression, but these disorders can also be understood in terms of how they arise. The book emphasizes the human value of emotions, with practical concern for clinical problems, education and everyday understanding.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [383]-432) and indexes.
About the Author
Keith Oatleyis Director of the Cognitive Science Program, University of Toronto. He is the author of more than 130 scholarly articles and seven books, including
Emotions: A Brief History(Blackwell, 2004), and two novels.
Dacher Keltneris professor of psychology at University of California at Berkeley, and the author of more than 80 scholarly articles and one book. He received the 2000 Templeton Positive Psychology Prize for Excellence in Research, and two university-wide teaching awards at UC Berkeley.
Jennifer M. Jenkinsis Professor in the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology at the University of Toronto. She is co-editor, with Keith Oatley, of Human Emotions: A Reader (Blackwell, 1998). She now heads a large research project on gene-environment interactions in children.
Table of Contents
Figures.
Tables.
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
Part I: Perspectives on Emotion:.
1. Approaches to Understanding Emotions.
2. Evolution of Emotions.
3. Cultural Understandings of Emotions.
Part II: Elements of emotion:.
4. The Communication of Emotion.
5. Bodily Changes and Emotion.
6. Brain Mechanisms of Emotion.
7. Appraisal, Knowledge, and Experience.
Part III: Emotions and Social Life:.
8. Development of Emotions in Childhood.
9. Emotions in Social Relationships.
10. Emotion and Cognition.
Part IV: Emotions and the Individual:.
11. Individual Differences and Personality.
12. Emotion and Mental Health in Childhood.
13. Emotions and Mental Health in Adulthood.
14. Psychotherapy, Consciousness, and Well-being.
Glossary.
References.
Subject Index.
Author Index.