Contrary to the conventional view that they are hard-wired into our brain and different from and often at odds with our Rationality, emotions are constructed from the Interoception of bodily Feelings, interpreted in the light of experience and Culture:
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.Feldman Barrett (2017), xii
Consider the example of sadness:
I felt sadness in that moment because, having been raised in a certain culture, I learned long ago that “sadness” is something that may occur when certain bodily feelings coincide with terrible loss.ibid., xiii
We don’t experience emotions as constructed because “the entire
process of construction is invisible” to us.ibid., 26
Reference
- Feldman Barrett (2017): How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain