Glossary // Glossary term Theoretical

Theory of constructed emotion

Lisa Feldman Barrett's account in which emotions are not triggered programmes but are constructed in the moment from predictions that combine interoceptive signals, past experience and emotion concepts. It builds on the idea of core affect and predicts variation rather than fixed signatures within emotion categories. Critics question how its broad predictive framework can be falsified.

Where the site uses it

  • Basic emotions and constructed emotions: the current debate

    Basic emotion theory treats emotions as evolved families with characteristic signals; the theory of constructed emotion treats them as built in the moment. This essay sets out both, the evidence each cites, and what the debate means for measuring emotion.

Studies behind it

The works the definition rests on, with the level of evidence each was appraised at.

  • Barrett, L. F. (2016). The theory of constructed emotion: An active inference account of interoception and categorization. doi:10.1093/scan/nsw154

    Level D Theory

    Supports the claim that the theory of constructed emotion proposes a computational, predictive account in which emotions are constructed through interoception and categorisation rather than triggered as fixed programmes. A theoretical proposal whose central predictions are still being tested.

  • Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.110.1.145

    Level D Theory

    Supports the claim that core affect was proposed as a basic pleasant-unpleasant and activated-deactivated state that becomes an emotional episode when attributed to a cause. A theoretical framework.

  • Lindquist, K. A., Wager, T. D., Kober, H., Bliss-Moreau, E., & Barrett, L. F. (2012). The brain basis of emotion: A meta-analytic review. doi:10.1017/S0140525X11000446

    Level D Meta-analysis

    Supports the claim that there was little evidence for consistent and specific localisation of discrete emotion categories to distinct brain regions, and that interacting regions also involved in non-emotional operations were active across categories. Imaging findings are correlational with respect to emotion categories, so it is graded D; it was published with open peer commentaries, which were not reviewed here.