JAMES,WILLIAM AND EMOTION - IS A CENTURY OF FAME WORTH A CENTURY OF MISUNDERSTANDING

During his lifetime William James's complex ideas about emotion were o versimplified to the point of caricature, and for the next half centur y scientific research on emotion was driven by the oversimplified vers ion-by the idea that emotions are merely the sensation of bodily chang es. In fact, the interpretation of the stimulus was an essential featu re of James's ideas, but one that seemed so obvious that it did not re quire explanation. Three damaging scientific consequences of the misch aracterization of James's views were (a) the nearly exclusive focus on bodily process, (b) the reification of emotions as entities rather th an processes, and (c) the linear thinking produced by the concern with the sequence of affect, interpretation, and bodily response.