The Problem of Emotions in Societies

Jonathan Turner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136165009
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Social Sciences

Like any other valued resource, emotions are distributed unequally. Moreover, emotions are a generalized resource because they give people the confidence, or lack of confidence, to secure additional types of resources. Thus, this distribution of emotions roughly corresponds to the shares of others kinds of resources that members of various social classes possess. The level of positive and negative emotional energy evident among members of different social classes has large consequences for the viability of human societies. When a large majority of members in diverse social classes have reservoirs of positive emotional energy, these emotions work to legitimate macrostructures and to build people's commitments to societies. When, however, significant numbers of persons in lower social classes, and at times in middle to upper social classes as well, reveal reservoirs of negative emotional energy, they are likely to de-legitimate key institutional systems and, under specifiable conditions, mobilize collective—often with violent outcomes. Thus, emotions are at the core of both integrative and disintegrative forces in societies, and when large reservoirs of negative emotional energy exist, they pose a problem for societies.

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Glossary/Index

Note: Page numbers followed by “f” refer to figures and followed by “t” refer to tables.

A

achievement cultures 38

Al Qaeda 55, 56

alienation: a second-order negative emotion combining sadness, anger, and fear, generating a lack of commitment to the culture and structure of social units and their culture 6, 8, 8t, 9, 10, 16, 44

anger 3, 7

assertion–anger 4t, 5, 6t, 8, 8t

in attribution processes 16, 39, 40

danger to society of collective 45–50

diffuse 11, 36, 40, 45–46, 47, 48, 55

displaced 13–14

fuelling violence 7, 44, 45, 46–47, 48, 50, 59

gender dynamic in revealing 50

humiliated fury 44, 47, 56, 60

and personal behavioral pathologies 44, 45

in response to repressed shame 7, 9, 40, 45, 47, 55

righteous 7, 51, 54

sources of 46–47

anxiety 10, 35

in response to repressed guilt 9, 40, 45

apes 1–2, 6

assertion–anger 4t, 5, 6t, 8, 8t

attribution, processes of

of Al Qaeda members 56

collective 47–48

extending reach of negative emotions 15–18

in failure to realize expectations 39–40, 50

and gang violence 52

self-attribution 15, 39, 46, 47

aversion–fear 4t, 5, 6t, 8, 8t

B

behavioral pathologies 43–45, 46

brain, emotional wiring in 4, 6, 10, 11, 44

C

categoric unit(s): social units or categories within a society, often differentially valued and treated by others 16, 32–33, 33–34, 48–49

Civil Rights movement 46, 57–58

class

stratification of 24, 30–31

and unequal distribution of emotional energy ix–x, 25, 37–38, 41, 45–46

collective actions 39, 50–59

feuds 51

and force for change in society 59–60

gang violence 51–53, 60

genocide 53–54, 60

revolutions 58–59

social movements 57–58

terrorism 17, 55, 56–57, 60

warfare 55–56

corporate units: social units that are constructed by f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Foreword
• Preface
• I. Why are Humans So Emotional?
• II. The Dark Side of Emotions
• III. The Stratification of Emotions
• IV. The Effects of Emotions on People and Societies
• References
• Glossary/Index