We all experience an intricate range of emotions daily. Yet what kind of roles do they play in our close relationships? How do our abilities to read emotions in other people affect the quality of these connections? Moreover, how does it affect our own cognition? Does it have the potential to interrupt or facilitate our own lives? These are the types of questions that Dr. Margaret Clark has been working on answering in her lab at Yale. Besides her decorated background in social psychology and academia, she’s actively working towards understanding the processes that promote supportive close interpersonal relationships. She believes emotions play a significant role in how these interactions play out. However, our emotions don’t just “happen”, Dr. Clark argues that we construct them. Hear more about this constructivist theory of emotions and much more during our conversation.