We tend to believe that our emotions are a rational outcome of our experiences. Similar to how we understand reality, our brain is creating a story (sometimes an imperfect story) about what’s happening based on your knowledge and experience about emotion that you’ve learned in the past to make predictions about what is going to happen in the future. This is why, for instance, your emotional response to words or an action may not align with what may really be happening. Have you ever stepped away from an argument, thought about what happened, and wondered, “why did I react that way?”
Lisa Feldman Barrett shares more.