This detailed look at the panoply of human and non-human emotions takes an explicitly evolutionary approach to understanding emotions in many different arenas of human experience. This makes sense because the author is an evolutionary psychologist and ethologist who has published widely on a variety of subjects centered around adolescence, marriage and sexuality, and power hierarchies, often from a cross-cultural perspective. Weisfeld (Wayne State Univ.) is author or coeditor of numerous books including Psychology of Marriage: An Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural View (CH, Nov'18, 56-1297). In this quite readable and accessible volume, he first outlines his evolutionary approach to the study of emotions, then offers an account of the physiological and neurophysiological underpinnings of emotion, describing what he considers to be all of the basic emotions and their evolutionary functions. This account is similar to but much broader than Paul Ekman's (Emotions Revealed, 2003). . . It is. . . a pleasure to read so far-ranging a survey of emotions from one so erudite.
Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.
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Emotions make us do what we have to do. It is entirely logical, therefore,
to put them in an evolutionary perspective to see where they come from and
what purpose they serve. In doing so, Glenn Weisfeld offers a fresh, enlightening
look at something we experience every day. -- Frans de Waal, Emory University and author of Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves
Too often behavioral science is based on cognition, as if we consciously strive to increase our utility functions. In this wise work, Glenn Weisfeld shows the importance of physiologically-based emotions as motivators, describing the evolutionary commonalities of emotional behavior in humans and animals. A great and readable antidote for those drugged by the idea that we are essentially rational actors. -- Allan Mazur, Syracuse University
This is an outstandingly insightful book about the most important part of ourselves: feelings. They guide our perceptions, thoughts and behaviors, and lead us through life. Glenn Weisfeld takes a very scholarly and up-to-date approach in discussing how evolution shaped this part of the human condition. He describes the adaptive values of a rich array of emotions regulated by a complex network of physiological, biochemical, and neurobiological mechanisms and, by stating that pathologies do occur, avoids the trap of adaptationism. A balanced piece of work by an internationally highly esteemed human ethologist. -- Wulf Schiefenhoevel, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
