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Besides the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin was also responsible for the theory of emotion, the most important principle of which was that the mind consists of two competing forces, the rational(理性的)and the emotional. He believed emotions played a part in the lives of non-human animals, but in humans emotions were a very small remaining part whose usefulness had been largely replaced by the evolution of reason.

This theory dominated his field for more than a century, but it was dead wrong. We now know that, on the contrary, emotions enhance our process of reasoning and aid our decision-making. In fact, we can't make decisions, or even think, without being influenced by our emotions.

Consider a pioneering 2020 study in which researchers analyzed the work of 118 professional traders at four investment banks. Some were highly successful, but many were not. The researchers' goal was to understand what differentiated the two groups. Their conclusion? The traders had different attitudes toward emotions.

The relatively less successful traders for the most part denied that emotions had an effect on their decision-making. The most successful traders, in contrast, had a different attitude. They showed a great willingness to reflect on their emotion-driven behaviour. They recognised that emotion and good decision-making were linked. Accepting that emotions were necessary for high performance, they tended to reflect critically about the role of emotion. Though the successful traders accepted the positive and essential role emotions played, they understood that when emotions become too intense it is useful to know how to tone them down. The issue for them was not how to avoid emotion, but how to harness it.

If emotions aid rational reasoning, how does that work? Perhaps the most important discovery regarding the role of emotion is that even when you believe you are exercising cold, logical reason, you aren't. People aren't usually aware of it, but the very framework of their thought process is highly influenced by what they're feeling at the time. As the Caltech neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs puts it: "Each emotion is a functional state of the mind that puts your brain in a particular mode of operation that adjusts your goals, directs your attention, and modifies(调整) the weights you assign to various factors as you do mental calculations.

The new view of emotion may not correspond to the way Darwin saw it, but it does support one of the basic conclusions of his theory of evolution: humans are not as different from non-human animals as people believed. Want to fare better? Value and regulate your emotion.