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The Science of Sadness: A New Understanding of Emotion
An accessible, scientific account of grief, melancholy, and nostalgia in human life and their broader lessons for understanding emotions in general.
The Science of Sadness proposes an original scientific account of grief, melancholy, and nostalgia, advocating a unique ethological approach to these familiar, woeful emotions. One of the leading scholars in the psychology of music and music cognition, David Huron draws on hundreds of studies from physiology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and the arts to resolve long-standing problems that have stymied modern emotion research. A careful examination of sadness-related behaviors reveals their biological and social functions, which Huron uses to formulate a new theory about how emotions in general are displayed and interpreted.
We’ve all shed tears of joy, tears of grief, tears of pain. While different emotions often share the same weepy display, Huron identifies the single function that unites them. He suggests how weeping emerged over the course of human evolution, explores the contrasting cultural manifestations of sadness, and chronicles humanity’s changing interpretations of sadness over time. Huron also explains the various ways cultures recruit and reshape involuntary emotional displays for different social purposes, and he offers a compelling narrative of what makes tragic arts so appealing. Though sadness is typically regarded as the very antithesis of happiness, The Science of Sadness draws attention to the important roles that grief, melancholy, and nostalgia play in human well-being.
The Science of Sadness proposes an original scientific account of grief, melancholy, and nostalgia, advocating a unique ethological approach to these familiar, woeful emotions. One of the leading scholars in the psychology of music and music cognition, David Huron draws on hundreds of studies from physiology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and the arts to resolve long-standing problems that have stymied modern emotion research. A careful examination of sadness-related behaviors reveals their biological and social functions, which Huron uses to formulate a new theory about how emotions in general are displayed and interpreted.
We’ve all shed tears of joy, tears of grief, tears of pain. While different emotions often share the same weepy display, Huron identifies the single function that unites them. He suggests how weeping emerged over the course of human evolution, explores the contrasting cultural manifestations of sadness, and chronicles humanity’s changing interpretations of sadness over time. Huron also explains the various ways cultures recruit and reshape involuntary emotional displays for different social purposes, and he offers a compelling narrative of what makes tragic arts so appealing. Though sadness is typically regarded as the very antithesis of happiness, The Science of Sadness draws attention to the important roles that grief, melancholy, and nostalgia play in human well-being.
408 pages, Paperback
Published May 7, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 17, 2025
It's strange that this is the first review for such an amazing book.
الكتاب جميل، وهو من اسمه علم الحزن، مليء بالدراسات المفيدة فعلًا، والأهم إنه بيغير مفهوم قارئه عن الحزن.
الكتاب جميل، وهو من اسمه علم الحزن، مليء بالدراسات المفيدة فعلًا، والأهم إنه بيغير مفهوم قارئه عن الحزن.
March 5, 2026
Sometimes, our emotions take over. Once we recover, we want to know where that emotion came from. Dr. David Huron provides a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of sadness in humans. He accurately summarizes a large body of research, including his own, to help us understand how sickness, melancholy, and grief (three sadness states) evolved to provide sociological, ethological, and physiological benefits to humans experiencing them, and how these three states offer a comprehensive set of strategies for dealing with a huge range of stressors, from insect bites to the death of a partner. For example, he posits that, "...the feeling of melancholy enhances cognitive planning through melancholic realism;... the feeling of grief solicits social assistance through the ethological signal of weeping..." and other nuggets. These nuggets, generously sprinkled throughout, push the book from textbook territory to a book everyone will enjoy. The scholarship is wide-ranging, balanced, and he uses his own research and that of others to very effectively support his theories and connections. This is Dr. Huron's last book, capping a long career of incredible science on the cognitive connections between music and emotion, and well worth your time.
March 4, 2025
Excellent read! It really broadened my perspective on emotion research and the biological history behind feeling states
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews