the emotion work you observed

Social Psychology of Emotions

Social-Psychological Approaches Emotion Management Signal Theory of Emotion Attachment Theory

Emotions

What role do emotional expressions have in social life?

1. They act as interpretive landmarks in understanding a situation

Emotions

2. Social context is important for interpreting an emotion’s meaning or cause.

Causation is socially constructed (sources of emotions are social)

Emotions

Emotion Management Theory (EMT)

Emotion Management Theory Individuals work on inducing or inhibiting emotions to conform to feeling rules.

Hochschild on Emotions

Feeling Rules Rules about what feelings are socially acceptable for particular social contexts or situations.

-Includes explicit rules set by companies

Hochschild on Emotions

Emotion Management work The type of work individuals do to conform to feeling rules.

Hochschild on Emotions

Emotional Labor On the job

Emotion Work Daily life

Hochschild on Emotions

The Commoditization of Emotion Work The ability to act out the right emotions is valuable in the market.

Hochschild on Emotions

Commoditization of Emotion Work (p. 572)

Hochschild on Emotions

Meaning-making on the job Conveying positive brand associations to customers/clients/investors/patients

Hochschild on Emotions

Effective Meaning-Making Meaning-making is more effective when workers are able to engage in emotion management work.

Hochschild on Emotions

Surface Acting Actor does not feel the emotions

Deep Acting Actor does feel the emotions (really feeling it)

Hochschild on Emotions

The Pinch Difference between how you want to feel and how you actually feel

Hochschild on Emotions

Evocation Bringing up the “correct” emotions

Suppression Keeping down the “wrong” emotions

Hochschild on Emotions

Cognitive, bodily, and expressive techniques Various ways that people work on themselves to evoke/suppress emotions to conform to feeling rules

Hochschild on Emotions

Critiques Goffman in two ways: 1. Individuals must manage emotions in process

of managing impressions

2. Goffman does not show that this work is unequally distributed across the class system

Hochschild on Emotions

Class Structure Argument 1. “Middle-class” families prepare their children

for emotion management work more than “working-class” families.

2. Each class prepares its children to psychologically reproduce class structure.

Hochschild on Emotions

What is the goal of emotion management work?

àTo alter one’s feelings to conform to feeling rules to evoke particular emotions and understandings in others.

Hochschild on Emotions

How does Hochschild emphasize controllability?

àEmployees manage emotions to follow feeling rules of a company.

Hochschild on Emotions

Field study 4

Discussion questions Describe an example of emotion work that you have done: 1) the situation; 2) the “pinch” between how you wanted to feel

and how you actually felt; 3) why you wanted to feel a particular emotion;

was it because of feeling rules?; 4) the feeling rules and how you knew them; 5) the work itself –evocation and suppression;

cognitive, bodily, expressive techniques 6) the result.