Emotions

Cognitive Approach to Emotions

Schachter Singer, Averill

Schachter, Stanley and Jerome E. Singer. 1962. Cognitive, Social and Psychological Determinants of Emotional State. Psychological Review Vol.69, No.5. 

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undifferentiated

General Theories of Emotions

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Eight Dimensions of the Sociology of Emotions

1.    Micro Macro

2.    Quantitative - Qualitative

3.    Positivism

4.    Political Economy of Emotions

5.    Accounting for Emotions versus Managing Emotions

6.    Gender

7.    Prediction versus Description

8.    Biological versus Social Construction of emotion.

Kemper, Theodore D. Research Agendas in the Sociology of Emotions. State University of New York Press, Albany.

1. Micro Macro Link

Collins: Interaction ritual chains cumulating over time and space constitute the macro structure of interaction. 

Discuss:  Children as emotional resources for lower class females.

Scheff: Social order is constructed by aggregating the individual cases of experienced pride and shame. 

2. Quantitative - Qualitative

Heise:         ACT: emotions have both qualitative and quantitative aspects

Quantitative later ACT

Qualitative: Hochschild, A. 1979. Emotion work, feeling rules and social structure. American Journal of Sociology v.85, 551-575.

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3. Positivism versus Constructionist  [MacKinnon 1]

Positivist:           Heise, Collins, Kemper, Scheff

Emotions can be examined as more or less objective phenomena, determined by social structure.

1)             We can measure emotions.

2)             Social structures give rise to specific emotions.

3)             Social structure implies the importance of interaction patterns (remember: social structure= pattern of behavior).

4)             “For positivists, cognitive awareness and labeling of emotions are not necessary, although they are frequent components of the experience of emotions” (Kemper 1978, 47-48).

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Explanandum:  the phenomenon to be explained

Explanans:         phenomenon used for the explanation (e.g. physical laws; relations stated theories and hypothesis)

In the constructionist approach to emotions:

Explanandum:  cultural sentiments are to be explained

4. Political Economy of Emotions

Political Economy definition:

·       used as code word for Marxism

·       focus on concepts like social class, labor value, division of labor.

5. Accounting for Emotions versus Managing Emotions

A) Accounting: the positivists Collins and Kemper

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B) Managing: Heise, Thoids, Hochschild, and Gordon

·       Clark: Emotions are weapons in micropolitics

1. expressing negative emotions or withholding positive emotions induces fear and shame

2. expressing positive emotions or withholding negative emotions induces the other’s liking of oneself.

3. controlling the other’s level of arousal can “displace” the other. Example making someone loose his cool.

4. eliciting the other’s feeling of loyalty and obligation will secure one’s own position.

5. patronize someone: express positive emotions to mark one’s own superiority and the other’s inferiority. Example: expressing sympathy for a superior or pointing out the other’s problems.

·       ACT:   emotion management is likely to occur when behavior has led to a transient identity that is not in line (odd) with the fundamental sentiments of the actor.

6. Gender

General ignorance: women are more emotional than men.

Hormonal differences: Higher testosterone in males lead to higher rates of aggression.

Feminist ideology: Hochschild: Men and women act on the basis of their gender ideologies.

7. Prediction versus Description

Every theory needs description at its beginning, therefore all are descriptive. Heise, Kemper, Scheff, and Collins make predictions in addition.

8. Biological versus Social Construction of emotion.

Nature versus nurture debate of primary and secondary emotions.

"Virtually every sociologist of emotions acknowledges a physiological substrate [underlying layer] to emotions"(p.20). The debate is how important are such physiological bases.

Fisher, C.d., and N.D. Ashkanasy. 2000. “The emerging role of emotions in work life: an introduction. Journal of Organizational Behavior 21:123-129.

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How do we define Emotional Labor?

·    Is it the simple requirement to display a particular emotion such as friendliness?

·    Only if the performer had to work to create feels and displays of friendliness (deep acting)?

·    Only if the performer does not feel friendly, but fakes friendliness?

• Only if the performer does not feel friendly and experiences genuine dissonance or stress when complying the mandate to display friendliness?

Debate: Primary versus Secondary Emotions

 Primary emotions are:

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Table: The literature on primary and secondary emotions

The distinction between primary and secondary emotions is not a severe problem for constructionists. After all, there are much more blended emotions than primary emotions.

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Kemper's Eight Dimensions of Sociology of Emotions

Kemper, Theodore D. Research Agendas in the Sociology of Emotions. State University of New York Press, Albany.

Affect Control Theory of Emotions

Behavior is motivated to maintain fundamental sentiments of an identity, not to feel good.  Emotions signal the actor how the progress of social interaction is going in respect to her identity.

Two Factor Theory of Emotions (not Schachter& Singer)

First Factor: A person's current self-feeling (EPA).

= Transient Impression

        If a person confirmed her identity there will be no deflection.

        transient impression = fundamental sentiment (identity)

        The person will experience emotions befitting his identity

Second Factor: Discrepancy of the current self-feeling and the fundamental identity

=  Deflection

        If events disconfirm a person’s identity she will emote in cadence with the transient impression created by the event. In other words, she will emote in the direction of the deflection from the disconfirmed fundamental sentiment.

Both factors are interdependent: “By implication, people with different identities will experience different emotions” (p,129) in the same situation.

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Three Forms of Emotions

Characteristic Emotions:

If a person confirms her identity, her emotions will be equal to the EPA profile of her fundamental identity.

Structural Emotions:

Emotions experienced in the interaction with institutional counter identities.

Consequent Emotions:

General model: emotions experienced as a result of an interaction in an event.

Smith-Lovin, Lynn. 2002. “Roles, Identities, and Emotions: Parallel Processing and the Production of Mixed Emotions”. Pp. 125-143. In: Self and Identity. Yoshihisa Kashima, Margaret Foddy, and Michael Platow. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. London. 

This reading is intended as a rehearsal of identity theories with implications for emotions

Core ideas of three identity theories can be interconnected:

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Stryker: Identity Theory

·      Hierarchy of identity salience that comprises the self.

·      How the self is linked via identities to a social network and social structure.

Heise and Smith-Lovin: Affect Control Theory (ACT)

·      Shows how affect and cognition link identities to actions and emotions”(p.126)

Burke: Identity Theory

·      Focus on the situated identity, the situation-specific processing and measurement of identities and emotions.

Remember my critique on Stryker’s model of identity salience as being a binary model in which only the identity highest in salience will be chosen to be acted upon, when I suggested taking an average of identity ratings weighted by their relative salience. Exactly this idea was used by Lynn Smith-Lovin and combined with the idea of cybernetic feedback.

Smith-Lovin’s idea:

·      We use Stryker’s multiple-identity self

·      simultaneously process identities and emotions as suggested by Heise.

·       and, as suggested by Burke, consider the identities’ situation-specific determination.

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