Fordham University Masthead Logo DigitalResearch@Fordham Sociology Faculty Publications Sociology 1994 The oS cial Construction of Emotions: New Directions from Culture Theory E. Doyle McCarthy Follow this and additional works at: https://fordham.bepress.com/soc_facultypubs Part of the Other Sociology Commons, and the Sociology of Culture Commons Recommended Citation McCarthy, E. Doyle, "The ocS ial Construction of Emotions: New Directions from Culture Theory" (1994). Sociology Faculty Publications. 4. https://fordham.bepress.com/soc_facultypubs/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Sociology at DigitalResearch@Fordham. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalResearch@Fordham. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 266 PETER N. STEARNS and DEBORAH C. 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Stearns. 1985."Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and INTRODUCTION Emotional Standards." American Historical Review 90: 813-836. Stone, L. 1977. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800. New York: Harper and Row. A majority of sociologists and many other social scientistsworking in emotion " de Swaan, A. 1981. The Politics of Agoraphobia: On Changes in Emotional and Relational studies identify their work with the approach called "social constructionism." Management. Theory and Society 10(3):359-85. However, there is a fairly wide range of perspectives and working assumptions Terman, L. 1938. Psychological Factors in Marital Happiness. New York: McGraw-Hill. that this term encompasses, almost to the point where the term no longer clearly Trumbach, R. 1978. The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in 18th Century England. New York: Academic Press. identifies where one stands on such basic matters as defIningemotions, studying Vowinckel, G. 1983. Of Political Heads and Beautiful Souls. A Sociological Inquiry into the emotions, and how preciselyemotions are sociallycircumscribed. Furthermore, Civilization Forms of Affect and Its Expression. Hamburg: Juventa. this approach is coming to mean things other than it did when sociologists began Wells, R. V. 1971."Family Size and Fertility Control in Eighteenth-Century America: A Study to map out the terrain of the sociology of emotions more than a decade ago. of Quaker Fami1ies."Population Stu4ies 25: 73-82. After a brief elaboration of these points, I will examine where the social Wishy, B. 1968. The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of Modern American Child Nurture. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. constructionist approach appears to be moving in sociology and related fIelds. Wouters, C. 1987."Developments in the Behavioral Codes between the Sexes: The Formalization In the course of this examination, I will also explain why these directions have of Informalization in the Netherlands, 1930-85." Theory, Culture. and Society 4(2-3): 405- far-reaching implications for sociology. To anticipate the direction I am '! 27. headed, it is my view that constructionists will be taking their lead from "culture . 1991."On Status Competition and Emotion Management." Journal of Social History 24: 699-717. theory," a term that designates a diversity of new studies from Zelizer, V. 1985. Pricing the Priceless Child. New York: Basic Books. Sodal PerspectIves on Emotion, Volume 2, pales 267-279. Copyright c 1994 by JAI Press Inc. ADrights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 1-55938-136-1 2(,7 E. DOYLEMcCARTHY 269 I" 268 SocialConstructionof Emotions humanities and social science, whose focus is the interpretation of culture and project involves how emotions are differentiated, socialized, and managed its operations (e.g., Munch and Smelser 1992;Alexander and Seidman 1990; socially. Today, Gordon's thinking can be seen as representative of a number Denzin 1992)and which represents a revolution of sorts in the ways that social of different constructionist approaches, each viewing emotions as inextricably scientists conceptualize and study their objects of inquiry. Culture theory has social or cultural, precisely because they are emergent properties of social already begun to alter how emotions are conceptualized. But its future impact relations and sociocultural processes. on the sociology of emotions promises to be considerable. Despite this emphasis, sociologists do not usually go as far as to defme emotions entirely as cognitive categories, or to deny'what is distinctive about the domain of human feeling and emotionality. Hochschild's work (1983, pp. EARLYCONSTRUCTIONIST APPROACHES 201-22),for example, is explicitly critical of those who subsume emotion under other categories. However, in some cases, approaches appear to do precisely Constructionism's most prominent feature is an emphasis (one that varies this and verge on a kind of cognitive reductionism where the processes of considerably from study to study) on cognitive and cultural features of emotion. human understanding and evaluation in which emotio~s play a vital and This emphasis it shares with many cognitive psychologists working in emotions formative role, are reduced to conceptual schemes. (See a discussion of this and with those identified with the social constructionist movement in by Gergen and Gergen 1987,p. 43.) To date, most constructionists, and people psychology (Gergen 1985; Gergen and Davis 1985; Averill 1980, 1982, 1986; of other persuasions too, would agree that there is strong support inside and Harre 1986),as well as with a number of works in cultural anthropology (e.g., outside social science for distinguishing emotion and cognition, while at the Lutz 1988;Shweder and leVine 1984)and philosophy (de Sousa 1987;Rorty same time stating that emotions are vital players at every step and in every 1980;Solomon 1984). aspect of human knowledge and understanding. Again, this is not to equate In most cases, proponents of this approach argue that emotions cannot be emotion and cognition, nor to reduce emotion to cognition. Emotions are not divorced from the sociocultural meanings in which they are experienced and merely cognitive functions. At the same time emotions are inextricably cultural expressed. That is, while we can analytically distinguish emotions from bodily (which is not the same thing). Perhaps this last point is best stated by Catherine and cognitive functions and processes, emotions are in fact best grasped as Lutz (1988, p.5) who argues that emotional experience "is not precultural but objects of investigation within the domain of cultural forms and meanings. preeminently cultural." Furthermore, constructionists argue that the linkages of affect and cultural Constructionist approaches can also be identified by what they oppose or form are vital for both conceptualizing emotions and for studying their reject. Most notably these include a view of emotions as physiological states operations. It is in this sense that emotions cannot be divorced from a whole or as natural objects. Alternatively, emotions or emotional processes(including I host of cultural and social phenomena: from language in the form of words, I experiences, meanings of experiences, expression, and so forth) are best from what Austin (1962) first described as "speech acts," from "vocabularies \ construed as acts or as kinds of symbolic actions, as social performances or, of emotion" (Geertz 1959)or the rules governing expression and feeling, from in Averill'sterms (1986,p.l 00), "cultural performances" or "sociallyconstituted the idioms (both pretheoretical and theoretical)