Emotions Emerge from More Basic Psychological Ingredients: A Modern Psychological Constructionist Model

Over a century ago, William James outlined the first psychological constructionist model of emotion, arguing that emotions are phenomena constructed of more basic psychological parts. In this article, I outline a modern psychological constructionist model of emotion. I first explore the history of psychological construction to demonstrate that psychological constructionist models have historically emerged in an attempt to explain variability in emotion that cannot be accounted for by other approaches. I next discuss the modern psychological constructionist model of emotion that I take in my own research, outlining its hypotheses, existing empirical support, and areas of future research. I conclude by arguing that psychological constructionist models can help scientists better understand the human mind.