Nursing in a postemotional society

Abstract

Globalization is often seen as the final stage in the transition towards a market economy. It is argued that a side-effect of globalization is cultural homogeneity and loss of life world, or 'McDonaldization'. McDonaldization represents the rationalization of society in the quest for extreme efficiency. More recently, Mestrović has argued that the rationalization of emotions has also occurred and that Western societies are entering a postemotional phase. In postemotional societies there has been a separation of emotion from action. The result is synthetic, manufactured emotions manipulated and standardized for mass consumption. In this paper I explore what it means to nurse in a 'postemotional society' and what impact this dulling of the emotions has had on a profession that locates 'care' as its central defining concept. My aim is to generate critical discussion of the shape and direction of contemporary society and the role of nursing within it.

Emotional Labor and Health Care

“…Nursing's more ‘precarious’ professional position is not likely to be improved through nurses’ embracement of medicine's emotional culture of ‘detached concern’– a set of cultural prescriptions that reinforces the institutionalized separation of rationality and emotion while appearing to combine them. Nonetheless, as others have noted (Davies 1995; Gordon 1991; Herdman 2004), nurses themselves are not totally comfortable with what it would mean to fully recognize the emotional skill required in their jobs (Phillips 1996). This ambivalence speaks strongly to the internalization of a masculine conception of what constitutes professional conduct.…”

“…As Thoits (1990, 188) has noted, deviance may be more likely among those who hold multiple roles with ‘mutually contradictory feeling expectations’. In the case of health care, the existence of competing sets of expectations is increasingly likely as the field continues to diversify and to become even more connected to market forces (Davies 1995; Glenn 1992; Herdman 2004; Larson and Yao 2005; Montgomery et al. 2005; Tung 2000).…”

Caring as a Scripted Discourse versus Caring as an Expression of an Authentic Relationship between Self and Other

“…Milgram's obedience studies and historical atrocities like the Holocaust were facilitated by pressures to conform and by lack of opportunity to reflect on one's actions. Because our present-day social world encourages fast paced non-reflective activity and has resorted to the manufacturing of synthetic emotion and fantasy fulfilling based experiences (Herdman, 2004), it is sometimes hard to recognize that the persistent feelings of emptiness arise out of an unmet hunger for connecting with other human beings, especially during times of vulnerability. Watson's approach looks past behavior shaping and trickle down rewards to embrace the true essence of nurses as autonomous, capable, caring people who can change the health care system for the betterment of patients and workers.…”

Investigating Social Factors Associated with Emotional Labor Among Nurses (Case Study; Tehran West Region Hospital's)

“…Another thing about the nurses working there is that, on the one hand, nurses are faced with patients who have little knowledge of medicine, and doctors are faced with the other hand, those who like show their craft, this fact leads to double behavior in the nurses. According to these fact Nursing's is more 'precarious' professional position is not likely to be improved through nurses' embracement of medicine's emotional culture of 'detached concern' -a set of cultural prescriptions that reinforces the institutionalized separation of rationality and emotion while appearing to combine them (Erickson et al,2008,722) Davies (1995), Gordon(1991), Herdman (2004), have noted, nurses themselves are not totally comfortable with what it would mean to fully recognize the emotional skill required in their jobs (Phillips 1996), Also nurses working within a masculinized context that simultaneously devalues the knowledge and skill underlying the performance of emotion management (Gordon 1991;Phillips 1996;Staden 1998;Woodward 1997).…”