Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Emotions are spontaneous, self-induced, or externally produced self-feelings. Examples include positive feelings of love, loyalty, pride, joy, and enthusiasm and negative feelings of hatred, sympathy, fear, anger, sorrow, sadness, jealousy, shame, and dejection. Emotions are both embodied and take symbolic forms. A sense of anger or joy has tell-tale somatic signs; often, it finds symbolic expression in voice, gestures, words, and tones, not to mention literary and artistic forms. Emotions have a distinct social character. They often occur in social situations and arise out of social interactions. A society has its emotion culture, which sets social rules and norms for the appropriate kinds of emotions on specific occasions and for the legitimate ways of publicly expressing emotions. The emotion culture of a society embodies and expresses the values of that society. If a feeling of indignation is directed at an act of injustice, it is because society condemns injustices. Emotion culture therefore resembles a habitus, an embodied cultural and social milieu that shapes feeling and action. Practical action activates emotion culture and is guided by it. Emotions condition and accompany collective action and social movements. Their absence or presence, as well as the types and intensity of emotions present, underpin every phase of a social movement from emergence to decline. Preexisting ... log in or subscribe to read full text