27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very useful book about the psychology of emotions. Not for the beginner., February 20, 2008
This title suggests that the book would be an introduction to emotions. But an introduction it is not. In my opinion, professor Kagan, after decades of research on emotions, has done in this book a recapitulation of many of his observations on the field. This is a commnetary on emotion research as it has been practiced by psychologists. Philosophers and other specialists have also been interested in emotions, but their work is not the focus of this book, though a few may be mentioned here and there.
Kagan is critical of many approaches that have been adopted in the field, sometimes by eminent researchers. For example, he is very skeptical about research on animals that are used to reach conclusions about humans. If rats cannot appraise feelings--but humans can-- why are emotional labels attributed to them? Why do we think that they feel "anxious" in some situations and thus make comparisons with human anxiety? He questions the way emotions are classified, labeled, and makes constructive proposals. He also takes some to task for not taking into account a larger set of explanatory variables than they are accustomed to. Culture, ehtnicity, social class, temperament, and even genetic differences in specific cases (that he describes), for example, should be accounted for by psychologists when they enroll subjects for their research. NOT that these factors have NOT been considered before, but it is rarer to find cases where they've been taken into account in the same research protocol.
Kagan loves to make analogies and his are not restricted to psychology. To make his points, he will draw parallels with modern physics, biology, ancient China, ancient Greece, Aquinas, etc., as well as ordinary day-to-day situations. This feature made the book VERY interesting to me by being more than just a psychology book. Only a handful of those analogies were opaque to me -- maybe I could not follow.
Overall this is a book best for those who have some appreciation of what has been going on in the field, including students who had an introduction to emotions as a branch of psychology. Others can gain, too, for this is not quantum physics, but it will be less easy. If you are not up to task yet, a quick solution is to precede Kagan with The Science of Emotions by Randolph Cornelius who is also a psychologist. I am not sure that the chapter on emotions found in introductory psychology texts will be enough, but it would be much better than nothing. There is also Robert C. Solomon's What Is an Emotion? He covers some of the psychological researchers on emotion, but Solomon is a philosopher, so you will also get into other orientations.
Why did I take 1 star off? Well, it's actually 1.5 star, but due to the weight of experience and concomitant maturity poured into this book, I had to round off upward rather than downward. My problem was the stuffy writing style. And Kagan paid tribute to the editor for clarifying his text! Actually, I believe him. It's hard for an editor to fundamentally change someone else's writing style in any deep fashion. (But the editor should take some responsibility for the irritating "number shifts"--they seem to be taking over the land these days. A number shift woud be something like: AN author should appeal to THEIR readers, instead of his/her/his or her/ readers.) Writing is communication. A single author who takes it upon himself to make his product translucent can save thousands of hours to thousands of readers. I am not asking for watered-down prose. I just want to absorb knowledge efficiently. There is so much to learn out there, no time to parse. I don't mean by any means that all or most of the sentences are miles long or a pain to read. But, yes, writing is an art, and there are those who convey complexity more efficiently. I reserve that extra star for them.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
