The editors of this unique volume have selected 24 of the most outstanding thinkers and writers on emotion and asked them to address 12 fundamental questions in the area of emotion, questions that both the editors and the contributors consider central to an understanding of emotion.

Introduction ; QUESTION 1: ARE THERE BASIC EMOTIONS? ; 1. In the eyes of the beholder ; 2. All emotions are basic ; 3. The basics of basic emotion ; 4. Toward a concept of "Modal Emotions" ; 5. "You're not sick, you're just in love" ; 6. Emotion as an interpretive system ; Afterword ; QUESTION 2: HOW DO YOU DISTINGUISH EMOTIONS? ; 7. On emotion, mood, and related affective constructs ; 8. Moods, emotions, and traits ; 9. Varieties of affect: Emotions and episodes, moods, and sentiments ; 10. Parsing the emotional domain from a developmental perspective ; 11. Distinctions among emotions, moods, and temperamental qualities ; 12. The stable and unstable in emotion ; 13. Basic emotions ramify widely in the brain, yielding many concepts that cannot be distinguished unambiguously ... yet ; 14. Emotions, moods, traits, and temperaments: Conceptual distinctions and empirical findings ; Afterword ; QUESTION 3: WHAT IS THE FUNCTION OF EMOTIONS? ; 15. Emotions are many splendored things ; 16. Why emotions are felt ; 17. Emotions are functional, most of the time ; 18. Human emotions: A functional view ; 19. A phylogenetic view ; 20. Distinguishing functional from dysfunctional affective responses ; 21. Responses ; QUESTION 4: HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN EVIDENCE OF UNIVERSALS IN ANTECEDENTS OF EMOTION? ; 22. It's a small world, but a large stage ; 23. Antecedent events and emotion metaphors ; 24. Some reasons to expect universal antecedents of emotion ; 25. Universal antecedents of the emotions ; 26. Evidence for both universality and cultural specificity of emotion elicitation ; 27. Elicitation ; QUESTION 5: WHAT ARE THE MINIMAL COGNITIVE PREREQUISITES FOR EMOTION? ; 28. Why emotions require cognition ; 29. Levels of thought and levels of emotion ; 30. Emotions require cognitions, even if simple ones ; 31. Answer - None: Cognition is one of four types of emotion activating systems ; 32. Systems ; 33. Appraisal: The long and short of it ; 34. Cognitive-emotional interactions in the brain ; 35. A proper distinction between affective and cognitive process is essential for neuroscientific progress ; 36. An emotion's occurrence depends on the relevance of an event to the organism's goal/need hierarchy ; 37. Afterword ; QUESTION 6: IS THERE EMOTION-SPECIFIC PHYSIOLOGY? ; 38. Complexities in the search for emotion-specific physiology ; 39. Three fundamental emotion systems ; 40. Emotion-specific physiology activity: Don't forget about CNS physiology ; 41. The search for autonomic specificity ; 42. The clearest physiological distinctions between emotions will be found among the circuits of the brain ; 43. Afterword ; QUESTION 7: CAN WE CONTROL OUR EMOTIONS? ; 44. Emotions unbecoming and becoming ; 45. The degree of emotional control depends on the kind of personal system involved ; 46. Emotional control: Variations and consequences ; 47. Afterword ; QUESTION 8: CAN EMOTIONS BE NONCONSCIOUS? ; 48. Why emotions are never unconscious ; 49. Emotional processing, but not emotions, can occur unconsciously ; 50. Evidence for nonconscious emotions ; 51. Afterword ; QUESTION 9: WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN EMOTION AND MEMORY? ; 52. Some relations between emotions and memory ; 53. The past and the present in emotion ; 54. Memory versus emotional memory in the brain ; 55. Subjectivity may have evolved in the brain as a simple value-coding process that promotes the learning of new behaviors ; 56. Afterword ; QUESTION 10: HOW DO INDIVIDUALS DIFFER IN EMOTION-RELATED ACTIVITY? ; 57. Honoring biology in the study of affective style ; 58. Personality dimensions and emotion systems ; 59. Individualized differences in emotion ; 60. Broad dimensions of temperament and personality ; 61. Afterword ; QUESTION 11: WHAT DEVELOPS IN EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT? ; 62. Two aspects of emotional development: Expression and elicitation ; 63. Experience and understanding of emotions, relationships, and membership in a particular culture ; 64. Particular Culture ; 65. Intersystem connections ; 66. Meaning and emotional development ; 67. Lots of "stuff" ... especially mind "stuff" that emerges from brain "stuff" ; 68. Emotional development: Changes in reactivity and self-regulation ; 69. Afterword ; QUESTION 12: WHAT INFLUENCES THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF EMOTION? ; 70. I feel, therefore I am - I think ; 71. Why emotions vary in intensity ; 72. Emotional experience is an output of, not a cause of, emotional processing ; 73. Evolution constructed the potential for subjective experience within the neurodynamics of the mammalian brain ; 74. The vicissitudes of mood: A schematic model ; 75. Afterword ; Epilogue ; References ; Index

"An excellent selection of readings!"--Jeffrey Cohn, University of Pittsburgh "Includes all of the important theory, research and data on the major issues in emotions."--Thomas Hershberger, Chatham College "Valuable entry to the literature on the pervasive impact of emotion in many research problem areas of psychology."--R. Dale Dick, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire "An outstanding text--much more than just a compilation of articles--rich in scope and information, well organized and put together with a fine discussion by the editors at the end of each section."--Philip Very, National-Louis University

Portrays a dynamic field of inquiry just emerging from its formative years Identifies the central theoretical and empirical issues that define the field of affective science and will shape its development in the years ahead Introduces the major thinkers and researchers in the field thereby encouraging critical thinking on the part of students Shows how new research can provide answers to the questions about the nature of emotion Stimulates students to formulate their own research agenda and theoretical perspectives

Dr. Paul Ekman, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D. is Williams James Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Portrays a dynamic field of inquiry just emerging from its formative years Identifies the central theoretical and empirical issues that define the field of affective science and will shape its development in the years ahead Introduces the major thinkers and researchers in the field thereby encouraging critical thinking on the part of students Shows how new research can provide answers to the questions about the nature of emotion Stimulates students to formulate their own research agenda and theoretical perspectives