To be fully human is to have feelings. Can we imagine being alive and not feeling happy at our success on a daunting task or not being sad if a loved one dies tragically? Are there people who have never become angry at learning that someone has wronged them or who haven't enjoyed a concert or an exciting game or a cooling drink on a hot day or who haven't been frightened by a sudden danger? Surely, unless there's some serious neurological problem, to live is to experience pleasure or displeasure, happiness or sadness, anger or fear or contentment.

This book is concerned largely with the causes and, especially, the consequences of positive and negative feelings: How our thoughts, judgments, memories, and interactions with others can be affected as a result of experiencing pleasure or displeasure. You will see that our emotions, our moods, and even our physical sensations can distort our judgments, alter what ideas occur to us and what we remember, and affect our behavior to those around us. Many of these influences are quite surprising and certainly far more complicated than most people generally expect. More important in this pragmatic age, feelings can lead to error. The best way to minimize the mistaken judgments and/or erroneous decisions and/or faulty recollections that feelings can produce is to understand the nature of these effects and the conditions under which they arise.

This book will attempt to summarize what is known about the causes and consequences of good and bad feelings.