 BDTE’s core thesis is that emotions are elicited by hardwired mechanisms whose evolutionary function is to compare newly acquired beliefs with existing desires and existing beliefs, thereby monitoring and updating the central representational system of humans (the belief–desire system). For example, suppose you have a belief that your favorite candidate will lose the election and a desire that she win the election (Reisenzein 2009a). Once new information that she has in fact won the election is acquired, a belief-belief-comparator system produces a belief disconfirmation signal subjectively experienced as surprise, and a belief-desire-comparator system produces a desire fulfillment signal subjectively experienced as pleasure. This in turn leads to adaptive responses which include a refocusing of attention to the new content that one’s favorite candidate won, the deletion of the belief that one’s favorite candidate was going to lose, and the subjective experience of happiness.