Abstract
In this chapter, we selectively review the contributions of three traditions to sociology of emotions – dramaturgy, symbolic interactionism, and group processes. In summarizing the key contributions of these literatures, we highlight possible areas for theory development and integration across the three traditions. Drawing on recent studies of the relationships between emotion and differences in social position, we focus on status and power as common ground. After reviewing the contributions to sociology of emotion by the emotion management, identity theory, affect control theory, social exchange theory, and justice/equity theory literatures, we address the lack of clarity and shared language across traditions as critical obstacles to theory development in the sociology of emotions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267–299.
Bales, R. F. (1950). Interaction process analysis: A method for the study of small groups. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Beattie, S., & Lebel, S. (2011). The experience of caregivers of hematological cancer patients undergoing a hematopoietic stem cell transplant: A comprehensive literature review. Psycho-Oncology, 20, 1137–1150.
Berger, J. (1988). Directions in expectation states research. In Status generalization: New theory and research (pp. 450–474). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Berger, J., Conner, T. L., & Fisek, M. H. (Eds.). (1974). Expectation states theory: A theoretical research program. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers.
Bourdieu, P. (1979). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Boyle, K. M., & McKinzie, A. E. (2015). Resolving negative affect and restoring meaning: Responses to deflection produced by unwanted sexual experiences. Social Psychology Quarterly, 10(5), 1–22.
Branscombe, N. R., Schmitt, M. T., & Schiffhauer, K. (2007). Racial attitudes in response to thoughts of white privilege. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(2), 203–215.
Burke, P. J. (1991). Identity processes and social stress. American Sociological Review, 56(6), 836–849.
Burke, P. J., & Harrod, M. M. (2005). Too much of a good thing…. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68(4), 359–374.
Burke, P. J., & Stets, J. E. (2009). Identity theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Clark, C. (1987). Sympathy biography and sympathy margin. American Journal of Sociology, 93(2), 290–321.
Clark, C. (1997). Misery and company: Sympathy in everyday life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Clay-Warner, J. (2006). Procedural justice and legitimacy: Predicting negative emotional reactions to workplace injustice. In Advances in group processes (Vol. 23, pp. 207–227). Bingley: Emerald Books.
Collins, R. (1990). Stratification, emotional energy, and the transient emotions. In Research agendas in the sociology of emotions (pp. 27–57). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Coltrane, S. (1996). Family man: Fatherhood, housework, and gender equity. New York: Oxford Press.
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order (1st ed.). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Cooley, C. H. (1964). Human nature and the social order. New York: Schocken Books.
Copp, M. (1998). When emotion work is doomed to fail: Ideological and structural constraints on emotion management. Symbolic Interaction, 21(3), 299–328.
Damasio, A. R. (1995). In colder blood. In Descartes’ error: Emotion reason, and the human brain (pp. 127–164). New York: Avon Books.
Denzin, N. K. (1985). Emotion as lived experience. Symbolic Interaction, 8(2), 223–240.
Durkheim, E. (2001). The elementary forms of religious life: A new translation by Carol Cosman. (C. Cosman, trans., M. S. Cladis, Ed.) New York: Oxford University Press.
Durr, M., & Wingfield, A. H. (2011). “Keep Your ‘N’ In Check!” African American women and the interactive effects of etiquette and emotional labor. Critical Sociology, 37(5), 557–571.
Francis, L. E. (1997). Ideology and interpersonal emotion management: Redefining identity in two support groups. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60(2), 153–171.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books.
Guillermina, J. (2007). Emotion in justice processes. In J. Stets & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of emotions (Vol. I, pp. 321–347). New York: Springer.
Harlow, R. (2003). “Race Doesn’t Matter, But…’: The effect of race on professors’ experiences and emotion management in the undergraduate college classroom. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(4), 348–363.
Hegtvedt, K. A. (2006). Justice frameworks. In P. J. Burke (Ed.), Contemporary social psychological theories (pp. 46–69). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hegtvedt, K. A., & Killian, C. (1999). Fairness and emotions: Reactions to the process and outcomes of negotiations. Social Forces, 78(1), 269–302.
Hegtvedt, K. A., & Parris, C. L. (2014). Justice theory and emotions. In J. E. Stets & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of emotions (Vol. II). New York: Springer.
Heise, D. R. (1979). Understanding events: Affect and the construction of social action. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Heise, D. R. (1997). INTERACT: Introduction and software. Retrieved from http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ACT/interact.htm
Heise, D. R. (2007). Expressive order: Confirming sentiments in social actions. New York: Springer.
Hochschild, A. R. (1979). Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. American Journal of Sociology, 85(3), 551–575.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kang, M. (2010). The managed hand: Race, gender, and the body in beauty service work. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kemper, T. D. (1978). A social interactional theory of emotions. New York: Wiley.
Kolb, K. H. (2011). Sympathy work: Identity and emotion management among victim-advocates and counselors. Qualitative Sociology, 34(1), 101–119.
Lawler, E. J. (2001). An affect theory of social exchange. American Journal of Sociology, 107(2), 321–352.
Lawler, E. J., & Yoon, J. (1996). Commitment in exchange relations: Test of a theory of relational cohesion. American Sociological Review, 61(1), 89–108.
Lawler, E. J., Thye, S. R., & Yoon, J. (2009). Social commitments in a derpsonalized world. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Lively, K. J. (2008). Emotional segues and the management of emotion by women and men. Social Forces, 87(2), 911–936.
Lively, K. J., & Heise, D. R. (2004). Sociological realms of emotional experience. American Journal of Sociology, 109(5), 1109–1136.
Lively, K. J., Steelman, L. C., & Powell, B. (2010). Equity, emotion, and household division of labor. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73(4), 358–379.
Lois, J. (2003). Heroic efforts: The emotional culture of search and rescue volunteers. New York: New York University Press.
MacKinnon, N. J. (1994). Symbolic interactionism as affect control. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Mead, G. H. (1934). In C. W. Morris (Ed.), Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Merton, R. K. (1995). The Thomas theorem and the Mathew effect. Social Forces, 74(2), 379–424.
Ridgeway, C. L. (1991). The social construction of status value: Gender and other nominal characteristics. Social Forces, 70(2), 367–386.
Ridgeway, C. L. (2001). Social status and group structure. In M. A. Hogg & S. Tindale (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Group processes (pp. 352–375). Maulden: Blackwell Publishing.
Ridgeway, C. L. (2006). Expectation states theory and emotion. In J. E. Stets & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of emotions (pp. 347–367). New York: Springer.
Ridgeway, C. L., & Johnson, C. (1990). What is the relationship between socioemotional behavior and status in task groups? American Journal of Sociology, 95(5), 1189–1212.
Robinson, D. T., Smith-Lovin, L., & Tsoudis, O. (1994). Heinous crime or unfortunate accident: Emotion displays and reactions to vignettes of criminal confessions. Social Forces, 73, 175–190.
Schachter, S., & Singer, J. E. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69(5), 379–399.
Shott, S. (1979). Emotion and social life: A symbolic interactionist analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 84(6), 1317–1334.
Smith, R. T. (2008). Passion work: The joint production of emotional labor in professional wrestling. Social Psychology Quarterly, 71(2), 157–176.
Smith, A. C., I, & Kleinman, S. (1989). Managing emotions in medical school: Students’ contacts with the living and the dead. Social Psychology Quarterly, 52(1), 56–59.
Staske, S. A. (1996). Talking feelings: The collaborative construction of emotion in talk between close relational partners. Symbolic Interaction, 19(2), 111–142.
Stryker, S. (2001). Traditional symbolic interactionism, role theory, and structural symbolic interactionism: The road to identity theory. In J. H. Turner (Ed.), Handbook of sociological theory (pp. 211–231). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Stryker, S. (2004). Integrating emotion into identity theory. In Theory and research on human emotions (Vol. 21, pp. 1–24). Boston: Elsevier.
Stryker, S., & Burke, P. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63(4), 284–297.
Summers-Effler, E. (2004a). A theory of the self, emotion, and culture. In Advances in group processes (Vol. 21, pp. 273–308). Bingley: Emerald Books.
Summers-Effler, E. (2004b). Defensive strategies: The formation and social implications of patterned self-destructive behavior. In Advances in group processes (Vol. 21, pp. 309–325). Bingley: Emerald Books.
Thoits, P. A. (1984). Coping, social support, and psychological outcomes: The central role of emotion. Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 5, 219–238.
Thoits, P. A. (1990). Emotional deviance: Research agendas. In T. D. Kemper (Ed.), Research agendas in the sociology of emotions (pp. 180–203). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Thoits, P. A. (1995). Stress, coping, and social support processes: Where are we? What next? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 35(Extra Issue), 53–79.
Tiedens, L. Z., Ellsworth, P. C., & Mesquita, B. (2000). Sentimental stereotypes: Emotional expectations for high-and low-status group members. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(5), 560–575.
Turner, J. H. (2000). On the origins of human emotions: A sociological inquiry into the evolution of human affect. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Walster, E. H., Berscheid, E., & Walster, G. W. (1975). New directions in equity research. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 9). New York: Academic.
Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. New York: Springer.
Westphal, J. D., Park, S. H., McDonald, M. L., & Hayward, M. L. A. (2012). Helping other CEOs avoid bad press: Social exchange and impression management support among CEOs in communications with journalists. Administrative Science Quarterly, 57(2), 217–268.
Wharton, A. S. (2009). The sociology of emotional labor. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 147–165.
Wingfield, A. H. (2010). Are some emotions marked “Whites Only”? Racialized feeling rules in professional workplaces. Social Problems, 57(2), 251–268.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Weed, E.A., Smith-Lovin, L. (2016). Theory in Sociology of Emotions. In: Abrutyn, S. (eds) Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32250-6_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32250-6_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61601-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32250-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)