The Psychology of Emotion

This text describes and evaluates the many theories of emotion. The scene is set with a discussion of the nature of theory and its appraisal. This is both in general and also in the field of emotion in particular. Theories of emotion are categorized and then considered from several bases.

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The interplay between emotion and cognition has become increasingly important over the last decade, and psychologists are becoming more aware of the work of philosophers, sociologists, and anthropologists, linguists and historians. "The Psychology of Emotion" describes and evaluates the many theories of emotion. The scene is set with a discussion of the nature of theory and its appraisal. This is both in general and also in the field of emotion in particular. Theories of emotion are categorized and then considered from several bases. These include: experience, behaviour, physiology, cognition, specific emotions, development, social, clinical, individual differences, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, culture, linguistics, and history. Themes are abstracted, including, for example, biology, gender, social constructionism and post-modernism. The author presents these theoretical issues, encompassing most current emotion theories, including some of the past, and extends the issues further than the field of psychology. He goes on to make judgements about the relative merits of the theories and, finally, extracts whatever common themes there might be.