Mormonism and the Emotions provides the construction of an introductory Latter-day Saint (LDS) theology of emotion that is both canonically based and scientifically informed. Specifically, this examination highlights three widely accepted characteristics of emotions that emerge from scientific perspectives, namely the necessity of cognition for their emergence, the personal responsibility attached to their manifestation, and their instrumentality in facilitating various processes of human development and experience. In this light, both the basic theological structure of Mormonism and its unique canonical texts are examined to determine the extent to which LDS theology is compatible with such a three-fold definition of emotion. The conclusion is that at this basic level of explanation science and Mormon theology undoubtedly share a common perspective. Specifically, this textual analysis focuses on unique Mormon scriptures and on their references and descriptions of six common emotions: hope, fear, joy, sorrow, love, and hate.
For each of these emotional phenomena, which are further classified into three separate groups of emotion types, the extensive report of textual evidence consistently confirms an implied presence of the outlined three-fold model of emotion. The evidence thus suggests the presence of an underlying folk model of emotion in the text that broadly matches scientific definitions. Additionally, the theological examination is enlarged by a particular focus on the Mormon theology of Atonement, which is shown to play a significant role in the context of LDS framings and regulations of emotions. A broad exploration of such areas as epistemology, cosmology, soteriology, and anthropology of Mormonism further contextualizes the analysis and roots it in the LDS theological worldview.