Landmarks in Emotion Research

Brian Parkinson is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Oxford and has been researching emotion since he was an undergraduate at Manchester University. He has authored more than a hundred chapters and journal articles and he is currently an Editor-in-Chief of the journal Emotion Review.

• Introduction. Section 1. Starting points. Section 2. Differences. Section 3. Causes. Section 4. Regulation. Section 5. Facial expression I: Perceived meanings. Section 6. Facial expression II: Signalling in social contexts. Section 7. Interpersonal processes. Section 8. Group processes. Section 9. Concepts. Section 10. Future directions.

'Brian Parkinson invites you to an adventure! Like a detective, he identifies, examines, and evaluates key pieces of evidence that, together, build the science of emotion. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand how and why we understand emotions as we do'.--Maya Tamir, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem'The threads of research in the study of emotion are often woven into an uncomplicated but overly simplistic canvas. Brian Parkinson invites you to a detailed, slow reading of a comprehensive sample of these threads. He unveils the hidden side of that canvas: the researchers’ struggles, the participants’ perplexities, and the perennial conundrums posed by the elusive phenomenon hidden behind the word “emotion”'.--José-Miguel Fernández-Dols, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid'In his unprecedented new book Landmarks in Emotion Research, Brian Parkinson reviews most of the foundational studies in affective science. He dissects the procedures and outcomes of each, and then gracefully and even-handedly determines when the findings support the claims and when they do not. Taking a participant’s eye view, he illustrates how the social contexts and role demands of experiments can often explain findings without resorting to fancy theories, and he does so with clear everyday examples that amuse and convince. This book is both highly analytical and extremely accessible. Although it’s intended for advanced undergraduates, its potential beneficiaries include graduate students and seasoned researchers. Landmarks in Emotion Research is an eye-opening delight'.--Alan Fridlund, University of California at Santa Barbara