Emotions - Introduction Sociology - Lecture Slides, Slides of Introduction to Sociology

Download Emotions - Introduction Sociology - Lecture Slides and more Slides Introduction to Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 13 FEELING: EMOTIONS docsity.com Background - Sociology of Emotions ‘Advanced societies cultivate feelings shamelessly and dedicate many resources and efforts to manipulating those feelings with alcohol, drugs of abuse, medical drugs, food, real sex, virtual sex, all manner of feel-good consumption, and all manner of feel-good social and religious practices. We doctor our feelings with pills, drinks, health spas, workouts, and spiritual exercises’ Antonio Damasio Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain 2004 In more complex studies in neurophysiology and psychology feelings and emotions they are conceptualised as different stages/states within a total process. For the purposes of sociology we can treat them as two names for the same phenomenon. docsity.com Explaining Emotions (1) The biological element of emotional states • they are located within the individual • they are genetically inscribed • they are therefore inherited • they are closely linked to bodily changes • they are essential for human survival The socially constructed part of emotional states Varies according to the social customs, beliefs, and expectations of the society that people feeling those emotions live in. docsity.com Explaining Emotions (2) Theodore Kemper • fear • anger • depression • satisfaction/happiness 1. four physiologically grounded ‘primary’ emotions docsity.com Explaining Emotions (2) Theodore Kemper • guilt • shame • pride • gratitude • love • nostalgia 2. ‘secondary’ emotions which are learned through socialization Most present day sociologists do not work with this kind of typology of emotions. They simply study the social causes and consequences of particular emotions. docsity.com Love and Romance • sociology is interested in the social functions love fulfills • romantic love is an ideological construction • not all cultures value or privilege romantic love • love is not a necessary condition for marriage everywhere • being ‘in love’ is often a miserable rather than a happy experience • romantic love may trap women ‘in false expectations and psychologically crippling demands’ (Mary Evans 1998, p.269) docsity.com Grief • whether grief is a public or private emotion is socially determined • grief is occasioned by loss • death the main loss associated with grief in Western societies • mass mourning for celebrity death is a quite new phenomenon • mass public grief and can be understood through Durkheim’s concept of ‘collective effervescence’ docsity.com Gendered Emotions The gendering of emotions is culturally specific. There are no universal generalizations. In Anglophone and north European cultures in recent times it has been seen as typical and more appropriate for women express grief, fear, sentimentality, vulnerability, envy, jealousy. The more appropriate emotions for men to show are anger, rage, aggressiveness, triumph. docsity.com Authenticity (2) Daniel Harris ‘The Electronic Funeral: Mourning Versace’ gives a sense of what is meant by the failure of authentic emotion. This emotional outpouring demonstrates: not “our sensitivity to violence, as the mourners would have us believe, but our inability to respond to the headlines as anything more than an opportunity to engage in a grisly spectator sport, fascinated by atrocities we savour from a vantage point of domestic invulnerability, safely ensconced behind our television sets.” docsity.com Films • Longing 2005 (Valeska Grisebach) (love) • Broken Wings (Knafayim Shvurot) 2002 (Mir Bergman) (grief) docsity.com