THEORIES OF EMOTIONS

Theories of emotions



Theories of Emotions

Introduction

Emotions seem to be most closely linked to what a person is trying to do. One's perception and interpretation of events is never independent of the action that one can perform on them. Indeed, an event can be defined as an opportunity for action. However, not all events generate emotion—only those in which one has a stake in the outcome (Barbara, 2002, 1-26).

The classic treatments of emotion in sociology were macrolevel in their focus. Durkheim's anomie, Marx's alienation, and Weber's charismatic leadership all represented social facts that were characteristic of certain system configurations. Emotions might be experienced by individuals (just as suicide is an individual act), but the classic theorists used emotions to link social positions to the common experiences of large numbers of people who occupied those positions. For example, Marx saw emotional life as molded by social structures of production typical of different eras. Material economic arrangements led to alienation and disenchantment in the laboring classes; one's emotional experiences were heavily determined by one's class position. Alternatively, the religious fervor produced by ideological structures could work to support a repressive class system and therefore might be propagated by the elite for mass consumption.(Schultz, 2000)

Historical Perspective

Emotion Culture: Feeling Rules and Emotion Work

Schultz's (2008) study of Delta flight attendants, The Managed Heart, was perhaps the most influential of several monographs that marked the beginning of the modern sociological inquiry into emotions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hochschild identified four central concepts—feeling rules, emotional labor, surface acting, and deep acting—that defined the modern sociology of emotion for most nonspecialists and are featured in most sociological research on emotions. Sociologists embraced Hochschild's insight that emotions were governed by feeling rules and controlled through culturally guided management.(Weyer, 2008)

Weyer (2008) built on the work of Goffman and Marx. Feeling rules are cultural norms that specify the type of emotion, the extent of emotion, and the duration of feeling that are appropriate in a situation. For example, our culture requires that a grieving spouse feel intense unhappiness immediately after the death but “snap out of it” after a few months. When what we feel differs from the cultural expectation, Hochschild argued that we actively engage in emotion management to create a more appropriate response. Such management can take several forms. Surface acting adjusts our expression of emotion to normative patterns. By pretending an emotion we do not feel, we elicit reactions from others that bolster our performance and may eventually transform it into a genuine one. Flight attendants that Weyer (2008) studied reported pretending to be cheery so that passengers would respond to them as if they were friendly. The passengers' responses then led to an authentic positive emotion. Deep acting involves a more basic manipulation of one's emotional state. Through physiological manipulation (deep breathing), shifting perceptual focus (concentrating on a positive aspect of a bad situation), or redefining the situation (thinking of a drunk passenger as a frightened child-like person), actors can change their feelings ...