emotion work

{{Short description|Management of one's own feelings, or work done in an effort to maintain a relationship}}

Emotion work is a sociological concept that refers the effort of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling; it's the work of changing your feelings or displaying feelings that you don't feel.

Emotion work includes suppressing strong emotions that you feel, and evoking or producing feelings that you do not feel. Emotion work may extend beyond management of one's own feelings to work done in an effort to maintain a relationship;{{cite web |last1= Cook |first1= Alicia |last2= Berger |first2= Peggy |title= Predictors of emotion work and household labor among dual-earner couples |date= April 2000 |website= cyfernet.org |publisher= CYFAR Program, University of Minnesota |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090501193538/http://www.cyfernet.org/parent/workandfamily/colorado_findings.html |archive-date= 1 May 2009 |url= http://www.cyfernet.org/parent/workandfamily/colorado_findings.html |access-date= 10 October 2010}} there is dispute as to whether emotion work is only work done regulating one’s own emotion, or extends to performing the emotional work for others.{{citation | last = Oliker | first = Stacey J. | contribution = Women friends and marriage work | editor-last = Oliker | editor-first = Stacey J. | title = Best friends and marriage: exchange among women | page = 124 | publisher = University of California Press | location = Berkeley | year = 1989 | isbn = 9780520063921 | postscript = .|url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6z09p0z3&chunk.id=d0e2459&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e2459&brand=ucpress}}

Hochschild

Arlie Russell Hochschild, who introduced the term in 1979, distinguished emotion work – unpaid emotional work that a person undertakes in private life – from emotional labor: emotional work done in a paid work setting.{{Cite journal | last = Hochschild | first = Arlie Russell | author-link = Arlie Russell Hochschild | title = Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure | journal = American Journal of Sociology | volume = 85 | issue = 3 | pages = 551–575 | publisher = University of Chicago Press | date = November 1979 | jstor = 2778583 | doi=10.1086/227049| s2cid = 143485249 }} [https://campus.fsu.edu/bbcswebdav/institution/academic/social_sciences/sociology/Reading%20Lists/Social%20Psych%20Prelim%20Readings/II.%20Emotions/1979%20Hochschild%20-%20Emotion%20Work.pdf Pdf.]{{cite book|last=Hochschild|first=Arlie R. |chapter=Ideology and emotion management: A perspective and path for future research|editor-last=Kemper |editor-first=Theodore D.|title=Research agendas in the sociology of emotions|pages=117–142|location=Albany, NY|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-0269-6|year=1990}} Emotion work occurs when people attempt to change their emotions or their emotional display for their own non-compensated benefit (e.g., in their interactions with family and friends). By contrast, emotional labor has exchange value because it is traded and performed for a wage.{{cite book|last1=Callahan|first1=Jamie L.|last2=McCollun|first2=Eric E.|chapter=Obscured variability: The distinction between emotion work and emotional labor|editor-last1=Ashkanasy|editor-first1=Neal M.|editor-last2=Zerbe|editor-first2=Wilfred J.|editor-last3=Haertel|editor-first3=Charmine E. J.|title= Managing emotions in the workplace|location=Armonk, NY|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|year=2002|pages=219–231|isbn=978-0-7656-0937-3|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nUiRnxzD68UC&pg=PA219}}

In a later development, Hochschild distinguished between two broad types of emotion work, and among three techniques of emotion work.{{citation | last = Hochschild | first = Arlie Russell | author-link = Arlie Russell Hochschild | contribution = Ideology and emotion management: a perspective and path for future research | editor-last = Kemper | editor-first = Theodore D. | title = Research agendas in the sociology of emotions | pages = 117–144 | publisher = State University of New York Press | location = Albany | year = 1990 | isbn = 9780585092379 | postscript = .}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=HkHgh2isxHIC&dq=ARLIE+RUSSELL+HOCHSCHILD+emotion+work&pg=PA117 Preview.] The two broad types involve evocation and suppression of emotion, while the three techniques of emotion work that Hochschild describes are cognitive, bodily and expressive.{{citation | last = Peterson | first = Gretchen | contribution = Managing emotions | editor-last1 = Turner | editor-first1 = Jonathan H. | editor-last2 = Stets | editor-first2 = Jan E. | editor-link1 = Jonathan H. Turner | title = Handbook of the sociology of emotions | page = 125 | publisher = Springer | location = New York | year = 2006 | isbn = 9780387307152 | postscript = .}}

However, the concept (if not the term) has been traced back as far as Aristotle: as Aristotle saw, the problem is not with emotionality, but with the appropriateness of emotion and its expression.{{citation | last = Goleman | first = Daniel | author-link = Daniel Goleman | contribution = Aristotle's challenge | editor-last = Goleman | editor-first = Daniel | editor-link = Daniel Goleman | title = Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ | page = [https://archive.org/details/emotionalintell200gole/page/ xiv] | publisher = Bantam Books | location = New York | year = 1995 | isbn = 9780553375060 | postscript = . | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/emotionalintell200gole/page/ }}

Examples

Examples of emotion work include when you actively work to try to seem indifferent or neutral, when you actually have very strong feelings. You might also feign interest in a conversation when you're actually feeling bored or uninterested. If someone just broke up with you, and you still love them, it takes a great deal of emotion work to convince yourself that you no longer love them or want to be with them. This effort of trying to change your emotions, to like someone less, or to begin to see someone only as a friend when you feel strong romantic feelings for them is an example of emotion work.

Emotion work also involves the orientation of self/others to accord with accepted norms of emotional expression: emotion work is often performed by family members and friends, who put pressure on individuals to conform to emotional norms.{{citation | last1= Ruberg | first1= Willemijn | contribution = Introduction | editor-last1= Ruberg | editor-first1= Willemijn | editor-last2= Steenbergh | editor-first2= Kristine | title = Sexed sentiments: interdisciplinary perspectives on gender and emotion | page = 9 | publisher = Rodopi | location = Amsterdam New York | year = 2011 | isbn = 9789042032415 | postscript = .|doi=10.1163/9789042032422_002}} Arguably, then, an individual's ultimate obeisance and/or resistance to aspects of emotion regimes are made visible in their emotion work.{{citation | last =Clarke| first = Odette | contribution = Divine Providence and Resignation: The Role of Religion in the Management of the Emotions of the Anglo-Irish Countess of Dunraven, Caroline Wyndham-Quin (1790-1870)| editor-last1= Ruberg | editor-last2= Steenbergh | title = Sexed sentiments: interdisciplinary perspectives on gender and emotion | page = 75 | year = 2011 | postscript = .|isbn = 9789042032415|doi=10.1163/9789042032422_005}}

Cultural norms often imply that emotion work is reserved for females.{{citation | last = Kimmel | first = Michael S. | author-link = Michael Kimmel | contribution = Gendered sexualities | editor-last = Kimmel | editor-first = Michael S. | editor-link = Michael Kimmel | title = The gendered society | pages = 237–238 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = New York | year = 2004 | isbn = 9780195149753 | postscript = . | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/genderedsociety00kimm_0 }} There is certainly evidence to the effect that the emotional management that women and men do is asymmetric;{{citation | last = Oliker | contribution = Women friends and marriage work | editor-last = Oliker | title = Best friends and marriage: exchange among women | page = 144 | year = 1989 | postscript = .}} and that in general, women come into a marriage groomed for the role of emotional manager.{{citation | last = Goleman | author-link = Daniel Goleman | contribution = Intimate enemies | title = Emotional intelligence | editor-last = Goleman | editor-link = Daniel Goleman | page = 132 | year = 1995 | postscript = .}}

Criticism

The social theorist Victor Jeleniewski Seidler argues that women's emotion work is merely another demonstration of false consciousness under patriarchy, and that emotion work, as a concept, has been adopted, adapted or criticized to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming a "catch-all-cliché".{{citation | last = Seidler | first = Victor J. | contribution = Masculinity, violence and emotional life | editor-last1 = Williams | editor-first1 = Simon J. | editor-last2 = Bendelow | editor-first2 = Gillian | editor-link1 = Simon Williams (sociologist) | title = Emotions in social life: critical themes and contemporary issues | pages = 209–210 | publisher = Routledge | location = London New York | year = 1998 | isbn = 9780203437452 }}

More broadly, the concept of emotion work has itself been criticized as a wide over-simplification of mental processes such as repression and denial which continually occur in everyday life.

Literary analogues

Rousseau in The New Heloise suggests that the attempt to master instrumentally one's affective life always results in a weakening and eventually the fragmentation of one's identity, even if the emotion work is performed at the demand of ethical principles.{{citation | last = Ferrara | author-link = Alessandro Ferrara | contribution = Beyond the limits of autonomy Rousseau's ethic of authenticity: B The limits of autonomy | editor-last = Ferrara | editor-link = Alessandro Ferrara | title = Modernity and authenticity: a study in the social and ethical thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau | page = 104 | year = 1993 | postscript = .}}

emotion work

Hochschild

Examples

Criticism

Literary analogues

See also

References

Further reading