EMOTION AND CULTURE
Issue Editor: Angelika Kofler
Papers
Jean Harkins and Anna
Wierzbicka
Language: A Key Issue in Emotion Research
Abstract
Linguistic
evidence shows significant differences in the use of
supposedly equivalent words for emotions in different
languages and cultural settings, even in the case of emotions
thought to be as basic or widespread as 'anger'. This paper
argues that such differences in usage often reflect
differences in semantic content, and shows how the NSM (Natural
Semantic Metalanguage) approach can provide a way of making
explicit both the similarities and the differences in meanings
of related emotion words. Stating the semantic components of a
word's meaning in this way also facilitates understanding of
these emotion words in their cultural and social context, in
relation to cultural values, norms of behaviour, and cultural
identity.
Paul Ekman
Should We Call it Expression or Communication?
Abstract
Two
issues are addressed. First is the matter of just what type of
information can be derived from observing a facial expression
of emotion. Seven different emotion domains are described.
Then problems inherent in the terms expression
and communication are
described as they apply to facial behavior. In this context
the argument that the face just signals about interactive not
emotional phenomena is shown to be a false and misleading
dichotomy.
Leslie Irvine
Reconsidering the American Emotional Culture: Co-dependency
and Emotion Management
Abstract
Popular
images of Americans often portray them as placing considerable
value on feelings. Scholarly work reveals a more nuanced
picture, in which a rhetoric of emotional intensity and
authenticity conceals a moderate “emotional culture.” This
paper examines the dissemination of that culture through a
popular self-help group called Codependents Anonymous (CoDA).
The psychospiritual discourse of codependency maintains that
emotions offer insight into the “real” self that one loses
through living in a “dysfunctional” society. The group’s
meetings consist of elaborate talk about “getting in touch
with” the emotions, and, consequently, with the “real”
self. This talk communicates techniques of emotion management
that minimize intensity and sanction strong emotions. Although
members stress the importance of “authentic” expression,
they cultivate moderate emotions. This moderation, and not the
eager intensity of popular imagery, best characterizes the
American emotional climate.
Peter N. Stearns
Emotional Change and Political Disengagement in the
Twentieth-Centuary United States: A Case Study in Emotional
History
Abstract
One
of the major contributions of historical study of emotion,
along with the analysis of changing emotional standards,
involves exploring the consequences of change. This article
sketches the principal features of the historical approach in
emotions research. It focuses particularly on the emergence of
a new, 20th-century emotional style in the United States, more
informal but also more hostile to intensity than the
characteristic 19th-century style. This change itself resulted
from a number of forces, including the rise of corporate
management and the service sector, and the new culture helped
translate these forces into novel behaviors. The culture
helped shape alterations in public life, after the new
standards were consolidated. In the United States, changes in
law, including defense in jealousy-motivated homicide and in
divorce law, reflected the shifts in emotional norms. The same
norms also helped to reshape the presentations of political
candidates, including oratorical forms, debate formats and the
organization of political conventions. More broadly, changes
in emotional norms played a role in the decline of union
movements and in rates of voter participation. The article
suggests several specific formats for analyzing the causal or
intermediary role of emotional norms and their relationship to
larger structural changes.
Angelika Kofler
Fear and Anxiety Across Continents: The European and the
American Way
Abstract
An
ongoing debate in cross-cultural emotion research
distinguishes between two schools of thought: Universalists
and differentialists do not agree to what extent emotions,
particularly so-called basic emotions, are experienced and
expressed similarly or differently across cultures. A survey
study with subjects from Europe (Austria) and the US (Florida)
yielded qualitative and quantitative data about fear and
anxiety experiences of 334 respondents.
The results showed that
„feeling rules“ for fear and anxiety differ across
cultures. Emotional experience and expressiveness, causal
attributions and coping modes were significantly different for
the European and the American respondents.
Also, anxiety
and fear, although they are often conceptualized as one,
deserve to be viewed as different
emotions. Anxiety refers to the more vague, self-directed
and performance-related emotion that is shaped and influenced
by the social context. Fear, on the other hand, relates to
specific threats to physical survival. The two emotions are
typically preceded by different antecedents, are experienced
differently and evoke different reactions. Three potential
models to conceptualize fear and anxiety are introduced.
Findings from the study also suggest that social norms
prescribe a taboo on
anxiety, but not on fear, that is more normative for
Americans than for the European respondents. Within this
context gender differences were also found.
As empirical research about social norms is often at
loss for sensible instruments, the study furthermore explored
potential methodologies to identify types of individuals that
may be particularly useful „cultural
informants.“ Results suggest that the
Social Desirability scale could indicate normative
attitudes and the Self-Monitoring scale could provide
information on socially appropriate
behavior during and after emotional events.
Caren S. Neile
Poetry after Auschwitz: Emotion and Culture in Fictional
Representations of the Holocaust
Abstract
The
German-Jewish thinker T.W. Adorno believed that "to write
poetry after
Auschwitz is barbaric." In fact, the response of
many survivors of the Nazi Holocaust has been the opposite of
artistic expression: silence.
This paper
is concerned with the emotional undercurrent in the
fiction of three Jewish
writers who, defying Adorno's opprobium,
built international reputations through "poetry"
not only after, but concerning, the European Jewish
experience in World War II. The dual pull of testimony
and silence is among
their primary concerns. Jerzy Kosinski was a Polish Jew;
Elie Wiesel and Aharon Appelfeld were born
in Romania.
Three well-known novels by these authors, The Painted
Bird
(1965); The Gates of the Forest (1965) and Tzili:
The Story of a Life
(1983), describe the travels of young Jewish refugees,
in each case clearly alter egos for the authors, who were
themselves child survivors.
Three major themes emerge in these novels: exile,
identity and the power and limitation of language.
The paper suggests that all three themes are
uniquely Jewish metaphors for survivor guilt, and that
this guilt is shared
by the writers themselves.
Bernard Poche
L'identité collective, mode sensible d'appréhension du
monde
Abstract
What
sociologists call “social link” is not a problem of
functionalist analysis, but is closely connected with the
sensitiveness of the individual towards his social group,
through the corresponding material context. So collective
identities are not a problem of political structures or of
economical positions, but a question of self reference of the
group through its history and its representations, among which
language (usual forms of speaking and not necessarily official
language) and manners are more important than civic and legal
considerations. These representations of identity are in fact
an autonomous form of the social knowledge.
Noëlle Burgi-Golub
Emotion as a Dimension of Ethical and Moral Motivation
Abstract
In a
world in flux in which the scientific certainties derived from
earlier social paradigms are being challenged by the intrusion
of phenomena not confinable within the bounds of
"rational actor" assumptions, the edge of
objectivity of the social sciences is being tested.
Emotion
as a Dimension of Moral Motivation graples with this
epistemic problem by arguing that emotion - defined here as
"that which sets the mind and judgment in motion" -
is a proper, indeed necessary object for contemporary analysis
and the renewal of methodological enquiry. Through an analysis
of the dynamics of identity and exile, and a critique of
traditional sociological approaches to identity, the author
argues that the finality of the social sciences should not be
to seperate the realms of social imagination and reality, but
rather to try to understand the social realities which emerge
from their encounter.
The
central hypothesis of the paper is that emotion is the
primordial source of ethical judgment, as illustrated in
universals such as the sense of justice and dignity. Emotion
indeed provides crucial insights into the central questionings
of contemporary sociology over identity, individual and
collective and sheds light on the formation of political and
ethical judgment. Considered from the point of view of
political responsibility, emotion becomes a dimension of moral
motivation.
Olivia M. Espin
The Role of Gender and Emotion in Women's Experience of
Migration
Abstract
This
paper focuses on the emotional implications of the crossing of
borders and boundaries, both geographical and psychological,
implied in the process of immigration. It discusses the main
issues and consequences of the process of crossing borders and
boundaries for women immigrants in terms of country,
transformation of gender and family roles, and language.
Particular emphasis is placed on how these issues affect the
emotional life and development of women and girls.The life
narrative as an expression of as well as a tool for the study
of emotions is discussed. The paper is based on data from a
study on immigrant women conducted by the author. Some
suggestions about aspects of these experiences that are yet to
be explored are presented.
