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This textbook discusses fundamental issues in the definition and measurement of emotion, including: conscious and unconscious processes; the ways in which emotions arise in, and are constrained by, social situations and social processes; the regulation and sharing of emotion and their effects of mental health; and the manner in which culture (including subculture) shapes or moderates some of these processes.

The book also focuses on the component processes of emotion, their functions, and the ways in which these interact with the social environment. Rather than deny either that emotions are biologically determined or that they are culturally created or shaped, both biology and social situation are treated as important forces in the elicitation and the experience of emotion.

Each section of the book is structured around specific approaches or models, and the precise questions that they were constructed to address. The theories and models are also placed in their in historical context. Discussion of the different approaches is elaborated by summaries of the extant scientific evidence, as well as examples of specific experiments or studies that were designed to evaluate the question. Timely, engaging real-world examples are used from a variety of international contexts.

The pedagogic features, including concise introductions and summaries, discussion questions, and suggested readings, have been incorporated into the volume, making this an ideal text for a course of Emotion, which can be found as an option within many social psychology and cognitive psychology courses.