The Hidden Genius of Emotion: Lifespan Transformations of Personality (Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction)

This book is about emotion and personality, focusing on how emotion powerfully influences moment-to-moment thoughts, behaviors, and interpersonal interactions. Though emotion is continually present, it is seldom in consciousness, and thus affects lives in a covert manner. This hidden influence is revealed through the example of the lives of three famous mid-century psychologists: Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, and Fritz Perls. Carol Magai and Jeanette Haviland-Jones show how each person has his or her own unique "emotional organization," that exerts a distinct and unique bias on what we see, feel, and think.

This book is about emotion and personality. It is about how emotion powerfully influences our moment-to-moment thoughts, behaviors, and interpersonal interactions. Though emotion is all around us, it is seldom in consciousness, and thus affects our lives in hidden form. This hidden influence is unveiled in the present volume, taking as its example the lives of three famous mid-century psychologists. The authors show how each person has his or her own unique "emotional organization," and how this exerts a distinct and unique bias on what we see, feel, and think about ourselves and others, and about the world at large.