Symbolic Interactionism, Inequality, and Emotions

Fields, Jessica; Copp, Martha; Kleinman, Sherryl

doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30715-2_8

Cited by 78 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…As Fields, Copp, and Kleinman (2006) argue, positive emotions can reproduce inequality. Men's good feelings not only allow them to tolerate race-based inequalities; they also prevent men from identifying them.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Not Out to Start a Revolution”

Wilkins

2012

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

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In this article, I use in-depth interviews with black university men to investigate race, gender, and emotions. Participation in dominant institutions requires African American men to exhibit extraordinary emotional restraint. Because anger is culturally associated with men, however, black men's suppression of anger violates masculine expectations. Thus, racial subordination not only creates difficult emotional expectations but may also create emotional dilemmas in which expected emotional displays undermine other identity expectations. In this article, I examine both how a group of black university men achieve emotional restraint and how they use their emotions to craft and manage their identities as black middle-class men. I argue that black men distance themselves from the controlling image of the angry black man by developing a shared identity I call moderate blackness. Moderate blackness entails emotional restraint, a moderate approach to campus racial politics, and the ability to get along with white people. These strategies work together to produce positive, restrained emotions and to manage anger and agitation, but they require black university men to "not see" racism. Black men use defensive othering to push the stereotype of the angry black onto black women. In doing so, they shore up their masculinity but leave women responsible for combating racial inequality.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Not Out to Start a Revolution”

Wilkins

2012

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

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“…Patriarchal systems and such institutions as marriage contribute to the perception that the experience of jealousy provides “evidence” of love (Clanton, 2006). The meritocratic ideology that characterizes free market capitalism may encourage individuals to feel pride following economic success and frustration and shame in response to failure (Fields, Copp, & Kleinman, 2006; p. 168). Religious institutions and organizations elicit and manage hope, fear, guilt, and a sense of control, among other emotions (Kay, Gaucher, McGregor, & Nash, 2010; Sedikides, 2010).…”

Section: Emotions Are Structurally Embedded In Social Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Failing to consider characteristics of social systems or structures (as well as individual and group reactions to them) makes it difficult if not impossible to understand, for instance, why some individuals feel intense anger and distress concerning the unequal distribution of income and wealth in society, whereas others are satisfied with the same unequal arrangements (Jost et al., 2012; Kluegel & Smith, 1986; Napier & Jost, 2008). Similarly, an appreciation of system‐level emotions may be necessary to explain why some immigrant groups inspire warmth and admiration, whereas others inspire envy, pity, or contempt (Caprariello, Cuddy, & Fiske, 2009; Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2003) and why some members of economically insecure groups experience shame, embarrassment, humiliation, and anxiety in response to poverty, unemployment, and job insecurity, whereas others do not (Adair, 2002; Ashford, Lee, & Bobko, 1989; Fields et al., 2006; Lane, 1962; Mathew, 2010; McKee‐Ryan, Song, Wanberg, & Kinicki, 2005; Newman, 1999; Paul & Moser, 2009).…”

Section: Emotions Are Structurally Embedded In Social Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rage Against the Machine: The Case for System‐Level Emotions

Solak¹,

Jost²,

Sümer³

et al. 2012

Social & Personality Psych

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Although psychologists have generally conceptualized emotions in light of individual‐ and group‐ level approaches, in the current paper we propose that there are also system‐level emotional events, including both system‐based emotions (experienced as a direct or indirect consequence of system‐level characteristics) and system‐targeted emotions (reflecting evaluations that support or oppose the overarching social system). We begin by discussing how emotions are embedded in the social system and what system‐level functions they serve. We draw on system justification theory to understand the reciprocal relations between emotional life and ideologies that justify or challenge social systems. We then focus on three empirical propositions concerning the dynamics of system‐level emotions: (I) System‐based emotions reflect one’s subjective as well as objective standing in the social order; (II) System‐based emotions reflect one’s subjective appraisal of the social order; and (III) System‐level emotions affect action tendencies and behaviors, including behaviors that promote system stability versus change. The investigation of system‐level emotions promises to deepen our scientific understanding of the motivational dynamics of social stability and social change and to uncover the affective dimension of system justification processes. Extending the social psychological analysis of emotions to include contextual features at the level of social systems builds a much‐needed bridge between emotion research in psychology and sociology.

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“…According to the tenets of symbolic interactionism, “emotions are not merely natural impulses. Rather, they are shaped by both culture (…) and our human capacity to react and make sense of our feelings” (Fields, Copp, and Kleinman :156). When constructing meanings of their emotions, actors rely on symbolic means provided by the culture in which they live, which include “symbols, stories and formulas as resources for defining emotional experience” (Cacian and Gordon :314).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Searching for a Narrative of Loss: Interactional Ordering of Ambiguous Grief

Sawicka

2016

Symbolic Interaction

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In this article I analyze the collective management of ambiguous emotions in the case of grief arising from perinatal loss/stillbirth. Based on a content analysis of selected Polish discussion lists for bereaved parents and interviews with moderators of these lists, I conceptualize the experience of grief arising from miscarriage/stillbirth as both culturally “disembedded”—not regulated by a coherent set of feeling and display rules, and interactionally “disenfranchised”—framed by the immediate social surrounding of the bereaved as illegitimate. This study then focuses on subsequent social processes surrounding the collective management of such emotions through interactions within online bereavement communities, leading to the creation of local definitions of the situation of loss and formation of subcultural feeling and display rules of grief. I posit that in a wider perspective these community processes can be seen as grassroots mechanisms that agents use to transform the existing emotional culture of grief.

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Symbolic Interactionism, Inequality, and Emotions

Cited by 78 publications

References 59 publications

“Not Out to Start a Revolution”

“Not Out to Start a Revolution”

Rage Against the Machine: The Case for System‐Level Emotions

Searching for a Narrative of Loss: Interactional Ordering of Ambiguous Grief

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