Physiological Basis of Emotion

Have you ever felt your “heart skip a beat” or “butterflies in your stomach”? While it is easy to think that our emotions come out of nowhere, research now tells us that an instances of emotion are by-products of the brain’s efforts to make sense of the external and internal environment. Understanding how the brain and body create emotions can not only shed light on how emotions function, but also how psychological disorders may arise and why emotions change across the lifespan.

Representative Work

MacCormack, J.K., Bonar, A.S., & Lindquist, K.A. (2024). Interoceptive beliefs moderate the link between physiological and emotional arousal during an acute stressor. Emotion. 24(1), 269–290. PMCID: PMC10818018 Preprint

MacCormack, J. K., Feldman, M. J., Bonar, A.S., & Lindquist, K. A. (2023). Aging bodies, brains, and emotions: The physiological hypothesis of emotional aging. In (Eds., R. E. Kleck, R. B. Adams, Jr., & U. Hess). Emotion communication by the aging face and body: A multidisciplinary view. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. PDF

Resources

Bonar, A. S., MacCormack, J. K., Feldman, M. J., Inagaki, T. K., & Lindquist, K. A. (in prep). The Body Signal Beliefs Questionnaire: Assessing beliefs about the value and management of interoceptive sensations. Questionnaire posted here.