ABSTRACT

Emotions play an extraordinarily important part in human life. They constitute the motor behind our life, the prime reason for our being, the compass directing our primary choices, the thermometer indicating the degree of our happiness with our surroundings and with how we are facing existence. Nothing is as fundamental for the comprehension of the human being, and nothing is still as little understood as emotion. The hot areas of the mind are notoriously the most difficult to study, but in this case a scientific taboo has also lent a hand, as a result of which emotion has not been recognised by modern psychology as an acceptable area of investigation. The most important testimony to the fact that things are changing has been offered by the birth of a new scientific journal, Cognition and Emotion. Founded by Fraser Watts in 1987, it has achieved consistent success both with the public and with the critics.