The Theory of Constructed Emotion
Barrett, L. F., Atzil, S., Bliss-Moreau, E., Chanes, L., Gendron, M., Hoemann, K., Katsumi, Y., Kleckner, I. R., Lindquist, K. A., Quigley, K. S., Satpute, A. B., Sennesh, E., Shaffer, C., Theriault, J. E., Tugade, M., Westlin, C. (2025). The theory of constructed emotion: More than a feeling. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 20, 392-340. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916251319045
Barrett, L.F., & Miller, E. K. (2025). Categorization is “baked” into the brain. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bu4sn_v1
Barrett, L. F. & Lida, T. (2024). Constructionist approaches to emotion in psychology and related fields. Chapter in A. Scarantino (Ed.), Emotion Theory: The Comprehensive Routledge Guide (p. 350-387). New York: Routledge.
Barrett, L. F. (2022). Context reconsidered: Complex signal ensembles, relational meaning and population thinking. American Psychologist, 77, 894-920. (Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in Psychology, American Psychological Association). https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001054
Barrett, L. F. & Westlin, C. (2021). Navigating the science of emotion. In H. Meiselman (Ed.), Emotion measurement, 2nd Edition (p. 39-84). Oxford, England: Elsevier.
Hoemann, K., Wu, R., LoBue, V., Oakes, L. M., Xu, F., & Barrett, L. F. (2020). Developing an understanding of emotion categories: Lessons from objects. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24, 39-51. PMCID: PMC6943182
Barrett, L. F. & Finlay, B. L. (2018). Concepts, goals and the control of survival-related behaviors. Current Opinion in the Behavioral Sciences, 24,172-179. PMCID: PMC6541420
Gendron, M. & Barrett, L. F. (2018). Emotion perception as conceptual synchrony. Emotion Review, 10, 101-110.
Barrett, L. F. (2017). Functionalism cannot save the classical view of emotion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 34-36. PMCID: PMC5390699
Barrett, L. F. (2017). The theory of constructed emotion: An active inference account of interoception and categorization. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 1-23. PMCID: PMC5390700
Barrett, L. F. (2017). Functionalism cannot save the classical view of emotion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 34-36. PMCID: PMC5390699
Hoemann, K., Gendron, M., & Barrett, L. F. (2017). Mixed emotions in the predictive brain. Current Opinion in Psychology, 15, 51-57. PMCID: PMC5669377
Barrett, L. F. & Lida, T. (2024). Constructionist approaches to emotion in psychology and related fields. Chapter in A. Scarantino (Ed.), Emotion Theory: The Comprehensive Routledge Guide (p. 350-387). New York: Routledge.
Barrett, L. F. & Westlin, C. (2021). Navigating the science of emotion. In H. Meiselman (Ed.), Emotion measurement, 2nd Edition (p. 39-84). Oxford, England: Elsevier.
Barrett, L. F. (2012). Emotions are real. Emotion, 12, 413-429. PMID: 22642358
Barrett, L.F., Mesquita, B., & Gendron, M. (2011). Context in emotion perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 286-290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411422522
Barrett, L.F., Mesquita, B., & Gendron, M. (2011). Context in emotion perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 286-290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411422522
Barrett, L.F. (2006). Solving the emotion paradox: Categorization and the experience of emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 20-46. PMID: 16430327
Barrett, L.F., Mesquita, B., & Gendron, M. (2011). Context in emotion perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 286-290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411422522
Barrett, L.F., & Miller, E. K. (2025). Categorization is “baked” into the brain. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bu4sn_v1
Cultural Variation
Hoemann, K., Gendron, M., Crittenden, A. N., Mangola, S. M., Endeko, E. S., Dussault, E., Barrett, L.F., & Mesquita, B. (2024). What we can learn about emotion by talking with the Hadza. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 19, 173-200. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231178555
Gendron, M., Hoemann, K., Crittenden, A. N., Mangola, S. M., Ruark, G., & Barrett, L.F. (2020). Emotion perception in Hadza hunter-gatherers. Scientific Reports, 10 3867. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60257-2
Gendron, M., Mesquita, B., & Barrett, L.F. (2020). The brain as a cultural artifact: Concepts, actions and experiences within the human affective niche. In L. Kirmayer, S. Kitayama, R. Lemelson, & C. Wortman (Eds.), Culture, Mind, and Brain (p. 188-222). Cambridge University Press.
Hoemann, K., Crittenden, A. N., Msafiri, S., Liu, Q., Chaojie, L., Roberson, D., Ruark, G., Gendron, M. & Barrett, L. F. (2019). Context facilitates performance on a classic cross-cultural emotion perception task. Emotion, 19, 1292-1313. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000501
Gendron, M., Crivelli, C., & Barrett, L. F. (2018). Universality reconsidered: Diversity in meaning making of facial expressions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27, 211-219. PMCID: PMC6099968
Gendron, M., Roberson, D., & Barrett, L. F (2015). Cultural variation in emotion perception is real: A response to Sauter et al. Psychological Science, 26, 357-359. PMCID: PMC5497728
Gendron, M., Mesquita, B., & Barrett, L.F. (2020). The brain as a cultural artifact: Concepts, actions and experiences within the human affective niche. In L. Kirmayer, S. Kitayama, R. Lemelson, & C. Wortman (Eds.), Culture, Mind, and Brain (p. 188-222). Cambridge University Press.
Gendron, M., Roberson, D., van der Vyver, J. M., & Barrett, L. F (2014). Cultural relativity in perceiving emotion from vocalizations. Psychological Science, 25, 911-920. PMC3989551. PMCID: PMC3989551
Gendron, M., Roberson, D., van der Vyver, J. M., & Barrett, L. F (2014). Perceptions of emotion from facial expressions are not universal: Evidence from a remote culture. Emotion, 14, 251-262. PMC4752367. PMCID: PMC4752367
Empirical Reviews and Meta-Analyses
Barrett, L. F., Adolphs, R., Marsella, S., Martinez, A., & Pollak, S. (2019). Emotional expressions reconsidered: Challenges to inferring emotion in human facial movements. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 20, 1-68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100619832930
Siegel, E. H., Sands, M. K., Van den Noortgate, W., Condon, P., Chang, Y., Dy, J., Quigley, K. S., & Barrett, L. F. (2018). Emotion fingerprints or emotion populations? A meta-analytic investigation of autonomic features of emotion categories. Psychological Bulletin, 144(4), 343-393. PMCID: PMC5876074
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. PMCID: PMC2597798
Barrett, L. F. (2006). Are Emotions Natural Kinds? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 28-58. PMID: 26151184
Emotional Granularity
Hoemann, K., Barrett, L. F., & Quigley, K. S. (2021). Emotional granularity increases with intensive ambulatory assessment: Methodological and individual factors influence how much. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704125
Hoemann, K., Khan, Z., Kamona, N., Barrett, L. F., & Quigley, K. S. (2021). Investigating the relationship between emotional granularity and peripheral physiological activity in daily life. Psychophysiology, 58, 6, e13818. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13818
Hoemann, K., Nielson, C., Yuen, A., Gurera, J. W., Quigley, K. S., & Barrett, L. F. (2021). Expertise in emotion: A scoping review and unifying framework for individual differences in the mental representation of emotional experience. Psychological Bulletin, 147(11), 1159–1183. PMCID: PMC9393910
Kashdan, T.B., Barrett. L.F., & McKnight, P. E., (2015). Unpacking emotion differentiation: Transforming unpleasant experience by perceiving distinctions in negativity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 10-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414550708
Feldman, L. A. (1995a). Variations in the circumplex structure of mood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 806-817. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295218003
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. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.1.153
Selected Empirical Papers
Westlin, C., McVeigh, K., Korogodsky, I., Fernando-McKinley, G., Erdogmus, D., Barrett L. F., & Satpute, A.B. (in press). The inadequacy of normative ratings for building stimulus sets in affective science. Emotion.
Westlin, C., Singh, A., Erdogmus, D., Startis, G., & Barrett, L. F. (2024). Exploring theory-laden observations in the brain basis of emotional experience. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/hbg6k_v1
Le Mau, T., Hoemann, K., Lyons, S.H., Fugate, J. M. B., Brown, E. N., Gendron, M., & Barrett, L. F. (2021). Professional actors demonstrate variability, not stereotypical expressions, when portraying emotional states in photographs. Nature Communications, 12, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25352-6
Azari, B., Westlin, C., Satpute, A. B., Hutchinson, J. B., Kragel, P. A., … & Barrett, L. F. (2020). Comparing supervised and unsupervised approaches to emotion categorization in the human brain, body and subjective experience. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77117-8
Hoemann, K., Kahn, Z., Feldman, M., Nielson, C., Devlin, M., Dy, J., Barrett, L. F.,Wormwood, J. B., & Quigley, K. S. (2020). Context-aware experience sampling reveals the scale of variation in affective experience. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69180-y
Clark-Polner, E., Johnson, T., & Barrett, L. F. (2017). Multivoxel pattern analysis does not provide evidence to support the existence of basic emotions. Cerebral Cortex, 27, 1944-1948. PMCID: PMC6093086
Wilson-Mendenhall, C.D., ^Barrett, L.F., & ^Barsalou, L.W. (2015). Variety in emotional life: Within-category typicality of emotional experiences is associated with neural activity in large-scale brain networks. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10, 62-71. PMCID: PMC4994840
Lindquist, K. A., Gendron, M., ^Barrett, L. F., & ^Dickerson, B.C. (2014). Emotion perception but not affect perception is impaired with semantic memory loss. Emotion, 14, 375-87. PMCID: PMC4119962