Preface

Written and oral traditions across many cultures demonstrate that there has been interest in emotions "since the earliest times" and the field of psychology itself seems to largely have been born of the various attempts to understand them.

It seems strange, then, that the topic is so thoroughly neglected: focus is given to perception and motivation, with little consideration of the step in between, that being the emotions that arise as a result of perception, and the same emotions that form a basis for our motivation.

And the lack of scientific inquiry has allowed myth and superstition to flourish. Emotions are still widely consider to be mystical and supernatural, and there are volumes of self-help quackery fobbed off on the general public that promises to help them enjoy more positive emotions and cope with negative emotions.

The topic has not been utterly ignored: Robert Burton wrote his "Anatomy of Melancholy" in the seventeenth century as an attempt to draw conclusions on evidence, but the consideration of emotion has not been as fully developed or explored, and remains largely mysterious.

The present book means to amend this deficit, but is modest in its scope - as so little progress has been made, there's little to be drawn upon, and much of the research has been scattered and disparate. It's difficult to separate the legitimate research-based science from the theoretical.

It's also noted that emotions are often viewed from a cultural perspective, and the authors acknowledge that they are following in the western tradition of European and American science. They expect an audience of readers who exist in the same tradition and will readily accept their perspective, but they acknowledge and suggest the reader should acknowledge that it reflects the specific underpinnings of a specific culture and radically different approaches exist and should not be automatically considered to be invalid.