Understanding emotions cover

Understanding emotions

by Keith Oatley

This new textbook is the first book to span fully the fast-growing field of research on emotions. It extends across a broad range of disciplines, covering the entire lifespan from infancy to adulthood. Its main theme is that emotions have functions: they set priorities among our concerns and they provide the underlying structure of social relationships from attachment in infancy, to the warmth of family life and friendships, to the excitement of sexuality. Understanding Emotions is designed as a textbook for second- and third-year university courses, and the text itself is fully supported by introductions and summaries, suggestions for further reading, plus a comprehensive bibliography, and indexes and a glossary.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?