The emotions of powerlessness

Abstract

After briefly considering cognitive aspects of powerlessness, we propose that the affective basis of powerlessness is comprised of four primary emotions–acceptance–acquiescence, anticipation–expectation, sadness, and fear. Plutchik’s psychoevolutionary model of primary emotions, together with a partial classification of pairwise combinations of these four emotions, enables a theoretical model hypothesizing that powerlessness also involves six secondary-level emotions – fatalism, pessimism, resignation, anxiety, submissiveness, and shame. A quantitative content analysis of 564 life-historical interviews of Australian Aborigines and Euro-Australians was used for structural equations models relating objective and subjective powerlessness. The results of these analyses fit the data. Cultural and sex difference in the manifest variables were analyzed. This work aspires to contribute to alienation theory, to establish a linkage between alienation theory and the sociology of emotions, and to develop hierarchical, lexical categorization analysis.

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