Emotion and Social Life: A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis

This paper attempts to present a largely symbolic interactionist analysis of some aspects of emotion and, in doing so, to indicate the utility of the sociological study of emotion. I begin by examining, from a general sociological perspective, the socialization of effective experience and expression. Several major symbolic interactionist propositions are then used to analyze the emergent, constructed character of the actor's experience of emotion and the importance of both definitions and internal stimuli for the construction of feelings. Finally, the manner in which role-taking emotions (feelings that presuppose role taking) facilitate social control is treated, using symbolic interactionist tenets. I conclude by arguing for the necessity of sociological investigations of emotion for a full understanding of both emotion and social life.