Sociological Realms of Emotional Experience

Abstract

The authors examine self‐reported emotional experiences of individuals in a large probability sample of Americans, using two theories in the sociology of emotions as lenses to apprehend social order in emotional processes. Viewing emotions as indicators of individuals’ positions in a three‐dimensional affective space (e.g., Heise, Smith‐Lovin, MacKinnon), the authors find emotional station correlates with a variety of social structural, circumstantial, and individual‐level variables. Viewing emotions as the focus of emotion norms and emotion management efforts (e.g., Hochschild), the authors arrive at new postulates about how transformations of emotions can be achieved in social support groups and other types of social institutions. A further demonstration that emotions reflect multiple sociological realities develops through the examination of sex differences in emotional experience. The authors find that there are concrete though subtle sex differences in the experience, structure, transformation, and contextual significance of emotions. The analyses suggest complementarities between affect control and emotion management that may have been overlooked in other studies.

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