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A Sociological View of EmotionsEmotions are like a sixth sense for perceiving form and change in social relationships. Physical displays of emotions - like facial expressions - broadcast what we are feeling to help others figure out how we are defining a situation and how we have assessed the impact of recent events. Emotions - far from being primitive reflexes that interfere with social process (a view that was common only a few years ago) - are vital for social organization. Emotional control, masking displays of feeling, and denial of felt emotions occur in social situations, not to remove emotions from social life, but to achieve conformity with prevailing emotion norms. ACT Model of EmotionA social event combines cultural elements and deflects feelings about each element away from fundamental sentiments. Feelings about settings and behaviors are experienced directly, though occasionally we talk about deflected settings with modifiers like "desecrated." However, impressions of individuals routinely turn into expectations about the emotions that the individuals should be feeling.
The expected emotion for an individual depends on the individual's identity and on the impression of the individual emerging from events. On the whole, an individual who looks bad as a result of events should have unpleasant emotions, and an individual who looks good should have pleasant emotions. However, impressions are measured against identities, too. For example, we might expect an individual who looks somewhat positive in a situation to feel an unpleasant emotion if the impression of the individual is not as good as the individual's respected identity warrants.
Range of EmotionsThe EPA dimensions for emotions indicate whether an emoting individual is feeling pleasant versus unpleasant, dominating versus vulnerable, and activated versus quiescent. Click buttons in the following display to see kinds of emotions corresponding to different combinations of pleasantness, vulnerability, and activation. (Pleasant emotions are not separated into dominating versus vulnerable because English provides no names for pleasant emotions that involve vulnerability.) Characteristic and Structural EmotionsAccording to ACT, emotional experience depends on who we are as well as on how we are doing interactionally. This gives rise to a notion of characteristic emotion: the emotion predicted when an individual's identity is confirmed perfectly. For example, a gangster getting perfect confirmation would feel angry, contemptuous, outraged. A heroine getting perfect confirmation would feel cheerful, friendly, affectionate. The minister role induces emotions of feeling generous, compassionate, and kind if perfectly confirmed. Perfectly confirmed prostitution as an occupation fosters feeling impatient, fed-up, and aggravated. Yet the characteristic emotion for an identity is only partly achieved in real relations because we interact with people in other identities, and there has to be some trade-off in maintaining our own identity as opposed to others'. Others' identities tug feelings in different directions, and this process gives emotional character to different kinds of relationships. For example, a minister interacting with a sinner does not achieve perfect confirmation of self, but instead is deflected such that predicted emotions are lovesick, apprehensive, overwhelmed. Those are the kinds of feelings that ministers suffer in relationships with sinners. On the other hand, feeling grateful, relieved, and sympathetic are the kinds of emotions the minister enjoys in his or her personal relationship with God. Emotions change as one engages others in the role set associated with one's identity (the role set is the group of complementary identities with whom one has to relate). Different relationships foster different emotions, which is what is meant by the term structural emotions. Noticing the recurrent emotions that we experience in a relationship allows us to perceive the social structure within which we are situated. According to ACT's basic motivational principle, individuals try to validate salient meanings in a situation. The salient meanings notably include the identities of self and other, and when these identities are confirmed, the individual experiences the structural emotion of the relationship. Therefore ACT's motivational principle can be reformulated as follows. Individuals try to experience the structural emotions of their relationships (while also maintaining meanings of behaviors and the setting). That is, in each relationship an individual seeks to experience the emotion that arises out of optimal confirmation of the identities in that relationship. Emotions and MotivationACT makes a non-intuitive claim about emotions and subsequent action. For example, feeling jealous theoretically would lead to benevolent behavior rather than to vindictiveness. The positive acts would arise for a person with high self-esteem as she or he tries to overcome a flash of jealousy in order to regain the usual sense of self. Such a prediction goes against the commonsense notion that an emotion is a motive, producing behavior which is consistent with the emotion. Emotions are a kind of transitory awareness of how one has been affected by events. Emotional experience allows us to monitor the impacts of social interaction, but emotions have no real force of their own. Behavior is driven and controlled not by emotions but by the penchant to confirm fundamental sentiments about oneself and others, to maintain identities. Yet commonsense says emotions do have motive power: people act nasty because they are jealous, act gloomy because they are depressed, act excited because they are elated. This viewpoint has appeal, it is ... commonsense. So why doesn't ACT allow for it? In fact, ACT does offer the commonsense viewpoint of emotions. The trick for making emotions into motivational states is to incorporate emotion into a person's identity. Really, a definitional matter is the issue here. An "emotion" is a transitory state that reflects what happened recently and that does not straightforwardly imply what will happen soon. Commonsense thinking about emotions refers to something else, a condition that lasts longer - though still temporary - and that does control action in a straightforward way. "Mood" is a better term for the commonsense usage. A "mood" is what happens when an emotion is turned into an aspect of self. A number of features of this interpretation are worth mentioning.
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