Abstract
This book poses and answers the question: What do emotions do for us? This question is centuries old, but only recently has behavioral and neurological study of emotion progressed to the point that we can start to answer. Scientific study of emotions has been a relatively recent development, in part because of the sentiment conveyed in the quote above from Camus. Emotions feel so deeply personal, and so related to our values and hopes, that it is almost impossible to convey their meaning to others in ways that can be understood. As soon as we apply a label to the emotion, it seems to lessen the experience itself. Yet the strength of the scientific study of emotion rests in the ability of researchers to approach the topic with methodological rigor – they must define what emotions are, what causes them, and how to elicit and measure them. Applying the scientific method to the study of emotion has allowed researchers who study human behavior to examine the consequences of emotions for people. The findings help us to understand emotions in daily life and in mental health disorders, as well as how to think about emotion to improve our lives.
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Lench, H.C., Carpenter, Z.K. (2018). What Do Emotions Do for Us?. In: Lench, H. (eds) The Function of Emotions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77619-4_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77619-4_1
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