motion norms in early socialization, individuals learn what emotions are appropriate to types of situations, and are therefore equipped to manage situated emotional identities. The development of the ”looking glass self” (Cooley 1902) allows the growing social actor to experience sympathy or empathy, which may be a prerequisite for the adoption of the ”role-taking” emotions of pride, shame, or envy.
A figurative or virtual audience, which Mead (1934) might have identified as the ”generalized other,” serves an internal regulative function similar to that provided by the literal social audience. Feeling rules and the consequent emotion work are the media through which the self learns to control his or her own behavior and feelings (Hochschild 1979: ”Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure”). Shott (1979: ”Emotion and social life: a symbolic interactionist analysis”) asserts that emotional social control becomes articulated in adult society as emotional self-control. In 1962, Schachter and Singer (”Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state”) injected their subjects with substances that stimulated states of physiological arousal for which there were no affective cues in the situation. Subjects were then provided with cognitive cues toward one or another emotion. Schachter and Singer concluded that situational cues or definitions indicated the appropriate emotion label for the participants.
Gross and Stone’s (1964) pioneering article on the emotion of embarrassment proposed a theoretical justification for the treatment of embarrassment (and, by association, emotions in general) as a social phenomenon. Gross and Stone contributed two key ideas. First, they commented on the social nature of embarrassment, that certain situations are more prone to the effects of embarrassment than others (i.e., situations requiring ”continuous and coordinated role performance” (1964: 116) ). Second, certain situated identities are more precarious than others, and are therefore more prone to embarrassment, such as the identity of the adolescent.
- Cooley, C. H. (1902) Human Nature and the Social Order. Scribner’s, New York.
- Gross, E. and Stone, G. P. (1964) Embarrassment and the analysis of role requirements. American Journal of Sociology 70 (July): 1-15.
- Hochschild, A. R. (1979) Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. American Journal of Sociology 85: 551-75.
- Mead, G. H. (1934) Mind, Self, and Society. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
- Rosenberg, M. (1990) Reflexivity and emotions. Social Psychology Quarterly 53: 3-12.
- Schachter, S. and Singer, J. (1962) Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review 69: 379-99.
- Shott, S. (1979) Emotion and social life: a symbolic interactionist analysis. American Journal ofSociology 84 (6): 1317-34.
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