Lisa Feldman Barrett
Lisa Feldman Barrett (born c. 1963) is a university distinguished professor of psychology at Northeastern University,[1] where she focuses on affective science.[2] She is a director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory. Along with James Russell, she is the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Emotion Review.[3]
Lisa Feldman Barrett | |
---|---|
Born | 1963 (age 56–57) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Nationality | Canadian |
Citizenship | United States |
Alma mater | University of Toronto, University of Waterloo |
Known for | Theory of constructed emotion |
Spouse(s) | Daniel J. Barrett |
Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship, NIH Director's Pioneer Award |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Cognitive neuroscience, psychology, psychophysiology, affective neuroscience |
Institutions | Northeastern University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston College, Pennsylvania State University |
Thesis | (1992) |
Doctoral advisor | Mike Ross |
Website | lisafeldmanbarrett |
Education
Dr. Barrett was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1963. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Psychology with Honors at the University of Toronto. She completed a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada, and a Clinical Internship at the University of Manitoba Medical School.
Professional history
Study of human emotions
At the beginning of her career, Dr. Barrett's research focused on the structure of affect, having developed experience-sampling methods[4] and open-source software to study emotional experience. Dr. Barrett and members at the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory (IASL) study the nature of emotion broadly from social-psychological, psychophysiological, cognitive science, and neuroscience perspectives, and take inspiration from anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics. They also explore the role of emotion in vision and other psychological phenomena.
In 1996, she joined the Psychology Faculty at Boston College. Before that she was an assistant professor of clinical psychology at The Pennsylvania State University.
Her research has focused on the main issues in the science of emotions such as:
- What are the basic building blocks of emotional life?
- Why is it that people quickly and effortlessly perceive anger, sadness, fear in themselves and others, yet scientists have been unable to specify a set of clear criteria for empirically identifying these emotional events?
- What roles do language and conceptual knowledge play in emotion perception?
- Are there really differences between the emotional lives of men and women? (see Sex differences in psychology § Emotion)
Theory of constructed emotion
During her graduate training, Dr. Barrett developed the initial insights for her current theory of constructed emotion.
She highlights differences in emotions between different cultures (see Emotions and culture), and says that emotions "are not triggered; you create them. They emerge as a combination of the physical properties of your body, a flexible brain that wires itself to whatever environment it develops in, and your culture and upbringing, which provide that environment."[5][6]
Honors and awards
- Independent Scientist Research (K02) Award, NIMH, 2002–2007.
- Elected fellow, Association for Psychological Science, 2003.[7]
- Elected Fellow, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2005.
- Elected Fellow, American Psychological Association, 2005.
- Career Trajectory Award, Society of Experimental Social Psychology 2006.[8]
- NIH Director's Pioneer Award, 2007–2012.[9]
- Kavli Fellow in the Frontiers of Science Program, National Academy of Sciences, 2008.
- Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2008.
- Arts in Academics award, University of Waterloo, 2010.[10]
- Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Award, Northeastern University, 2012.[11]
- Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 2012.
- Award for Distinguished Service in Psychological Science, American Psychological Association, 2013.[12]
- Elected Fellow, Society of Experimental Psychologists, 2013.
- Diener Award in Social Psychology, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2014.[13]
- Heritage Wall of Fame, Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology, 2016.[14]
- Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement, Association for Psychological Science, 2018.[15]
- Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2018.[16]
- President, Association for Psychological Science, 2019–2020.[17]
- Guggenheim Fellowship in neuroscience, 2019.[18]
- John P. McGovern Award in the Behavioral Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2020.[19]
Selected publications
Books
- How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. ISBN 0544133315.
Selected academic papers
- Barrett, L. F., Adolphs, R., Martinez, A., Marsella, S., & Pollak, S. (2019). Emotional expressions reconsidered: Challenges to inferring emotion in human facial movements. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 20, 1–68.
- Barrett, L. F. (2017). The theory of constructed emotion: An active inference account of interoception and categorization. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi: 10.1093/scan/nsw154.
- Barrett, L. F., & Bar, M. (2009). See it with feeling: Affective predictions in the human brain. Royal Society Phil Trans B, 364, 1325–1334.
- Barrett, L. F., & Bliss-Moreau, E. (2009). Affect as a psychological primitive. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 167–218.
- Barrett, L. F., Lindquist, K., Bliss-Moreau, E., Duncan, S., Gendron, M., Mize, J., & Brennan, L. (2007). Of mice and men: Natural kinds of emotion in the mammalian brain? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 297–312
- Barrett, L. F., Lindquist, K., & Gendron, M. (2007). Language as a context for emotion perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 11, 327–332.
- Barrett, L. F. (2006). Emotions as natural kinds? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 28–58.
- Barrett, L. F. (2006). Solving the emotion paradox: Categorization and the experience of emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 20–46.
- Barrett, L. F., & Barrett, D. J. (2001). Computerized experience-sampling: How technology facilitates the study of conscious experience. Social Science Computer Review, 19, 175–185.
- Feldman, L. A. (1995b). Valence focus and arousal focus: Individual differences in the structure of affective experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 153–166
See also
- Affective neuroscience
- Theory of constructed emotion
- Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
References
- "Northeastern University Psychology Department". neu.edu. Archived from the original on 2017-09-26. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- "The Faces and Minds of Psychological Science". psychologicalscience.org.
- Emotion Review
- Hektner, Joel M.; Jennifer A. Schmidt; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (September 2006). Experience Sampling Method: Measuring the Quality of Everyday Life.. SAGE Publications. p. 37 et al. ISBN 1-4129-4923-8.
- How Emotions Are Made, 2017, Introduction
- Joseph LeDoux has taken a similar view.
- "Association for Psychological Science: APS Fellows". www.psychologicalscience.org.
- "2006 Career Trajectory Award". sesp.org.
- Pioneer award announcement Archived 2007-10-02 at the Wayback Machine
- "Home – Arts". uwaterloo.ca. January 15, 2013.
- "Academic Honors Convocation – Northeastern University". Academic Honors Convocation.
- "Lisa Feldman Barrett and Frederick Leong receive APA Distinguished Service Awards". www.apa.org. January 2014.
- "Home – SPSP". www.spsp.org.
- "Heritage Fund Initiative". www.foundationpsp.org.
- "APS Mentor Award". psychologicalscience.org.
- "Lisa Feldman Barrett elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences". northeastern.edu. April 2018.
- "Northeastern Professor Named President-Elect for the Association of Psychological Science". northeastern.edu. May 2018.
- "Lisa Feldman Barrett". www.gf.org. April 2019.
- "John P. McGovern Award Lecture in the Behavioral Sciences". aaas.org. February 2020.