The development of a sociology of emotions is crucial to our understanding of social life as they hold the key to our understanding of social processes and sociological investigation. First published in 1997, Emotions in Social Life consolidates the sociology of emotions as a legitimate and viable field of enquiry. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the sociology of emotions using work from scholars of international stature, as well as newer writers in the field. It presents new empirical research in conjunction with innovative and challenging theoretical material, and will be essential reading for students of sociology, health psychology, anthropology and gender studies.

This book showcases new research and theory about the way in which the social environment shapes, and is shaped by, emotion. The book has three sections, each of which addresses a different level of sociality: interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup. The first section refers to the links between specific individuals, the second to categories that define multiple individuals as an entity, and the final to the boundaries between groups. Emotions are found in each of these levels and the dynamics involved in these types of relationship are part of what it is to experience emotion. The chapters show how all three types of social relationships generate, and are generated by, emotions. In doing so, this book locates emotional experiences in the larger social context.

Founded upon the psychoevolutionary theories of Darwin, Plutchik and Izard, a general socioevolutionary theory of the emotions - affect-spectrum theory - classifies a wide spectrum of the emotions and analyzes them on the sociological, psychological and neurobiological levels. This neurocognitive sociology of the emotions supersedes the major theoretical perspectives developed in the sociology of emotions by showing primary emotions to be adaptive reactions to fundamental problems of life which have evolved into elementary social relationships and which can predict occurrences of the entire spectrum of primary, complex secondary, and tertiary emotions. Written by leading social theorist Warren D. TenHouten, this book presents an encyclopaedic classification of the emotions, describing forty-six emotions in detail, and presenting a general multilevel theory of emotions and social life. The scope of coverage of this key work is highly topical and comprehensive, and includes the development of emotions in childhood, symbolic elaboration of complex emotions, emotions management, violence, and cultural and gender differences. While primary emotions have clearly defined valences, this theory shows that complex emotions obey no algebraic law and that all emotions have both creative and destructive potentialities.

The emotions have traditionally been marginalized in mainstream social theory. This book demonstrates the problems that this has caused and charts the resurgence of emotions in social theory today. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, both classical and contemporary, Simon Williams treats the emotions as a universal feature of human life and our embodied relationship to the world. He reflects and comments upon the turn towards the body and intimacy in social theory, and explains what is important in current thinking about emotions. In his doing so, readers are provided with a critical assessment of various positions within the field, including the strengths and weaknesses of poststructuralism and postmodernism for examinin

The development of a sociology of emotions is crucial to our understanding of social life as they hold the key to our understanding of social processes and sociological investigation. First published in 1997, Emotions in Social Life consolidates the sociology of emotions as a legitimate and viable field of enquiry. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the sociology of emotions using work from scholars of international stature, as well as newer writers in the field. It presents new empirical research in conjunction with innovative and challenging theoretical material, and will be essential reading for students of sociology, health psychology, anthropology and gender studies.

Unique study re-evaluating the role of emotions in social interaction.

Since the 1970s, the study of emotions moved to the forefront of sociological analysis. This book brings the reader up to date on the theory and research that have proliferated in the analysis of human emotions. The first section of the book addresses the classification, the neurological underpinnings, and the effect of gender on emotions. The second reviews sociological theories of emotion. Section three covers theory and research on specific emotions: love, envy, empathy, anger, grief, etc. The final section shows how the study of emotions adds new insight into other subfields of sociology: the workplace, health, and more.

"A thoughtful, scholarly yet accessible account of emotion that speaks to current debates associated with the ‘affective turn’ in disciplines including sociology, cultural studies, geography and psychology... invaluable for anyone wanting to understand contemporary engagements with affect, emotion and feeling." - John Cromby, Loughborough University "A lucid, engaging, and thoroughly insightful review of current social scientific thinking on emotions in social life by a leading scholar in the field... The book is sure to become essential reading for both students and researchers interested in emotion" - Jason Hughes, University of Leicester "A masterful exposition of the links between emotions and social relations... Empirically rich and theoretically deep, this is a highly readable book. - Svend Brinkmann, University of Aalborg This book is a compelling and timely addition to the study of emotions, arguing that emotion is a response to the way in which people are embedded in patterns of relationship, both to others and to significant social and political events or situations. Going beyond the traditional discursive understanding of emotions, Burkitt investigates emotions as a complex and dynamic phenomenon that includes the whole self, body and mind, but which always occur in relation to others.

Founded upon the psychoevolutionary theories of Darwin, Plutchik and Izard, a general socioevolutionary theory of the emotions - affect-spectrum theory - classifies a wide spectrum of the emotions and analyzes them on the sociological, psychological and neurobiological levels. This neurocognitive sociology of the emotions supersedes the major theoretical perspectives developed in the sociology of emotions by showing primary emotions to be adaptive reactions to fundamental problems of life which have evolved into elementary social relationships and which can predict occurrences of the entire spectrum of primary, complex secondary, and tertiary emotions. Written by leading social theorist Warren D. TenHouten, this book presents an encyclopaedic classification of the emotions, describing forty-six emotions in detail, and presenting a general multilevel theory of emotions and social life. The scope of coverage of this key work is highly topical and comprehensive, and includes the development of emotions in childhood, symbolic elaboration of complex emotions, emotions management, violence, and cultural and gender differences. While primary emotions have clearly defined valences, this theory shows that complex emotions obey no algebraic law and that all emotions have both creative and destructive potentialities.

Although collective emotions have a long tradition in scientific inquiry, for instance in mass psychology and the sociology of rituals and social movements, their importance for individuals and the social world has never been more obvious than in the past decades. The Arab Spring revolution, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and mass gatherings at music festivals or mega sports events clearly show the impact collective emotions have both in terms of driving conflict and in uniting people. But these examples only show the most obvious and evident forms of collective emotions. Others are more subtle, although less important: shared moods, emotional atmospheres, and intergroup emotions are part and parcel of our social life. Although these phenomena go hand in hand with any formation of sociality, they are little understood. Moreover, there still is a large gap in our understanding of individual emotions on the one hand and collective emotional phenomena on the other hand. This book presents a comprehensive overview of contemporary theories and research on collective emotions. It spans several disciplines and brings together, for the first time, various strands of inquiry and up-to-date research in the study of collective emotions and related phenomena. In focusing on conceptual, theoretical, and methodological issues in collective emotion research, the volume narrows the gap between the wealth of studies on individual emotions and inquiries into collective emotions. The book catches up with a renewed interest into the collective dimensions of emotions and their close relatives, for example emotional climates, atmospheres, communities, and intergroup emotions. This interest is propelled by a more general increase in research on the social and interpersonal aspects of emotion on the one hand, and by trends in philosophy and cognitive science towards refined conceptual analyses of collective entities and the collective properties of cognition on the other hand. The book includes sections on: Conceptual Perspectives; Collective Emotion in Face-to-Face Interactions; The Social-Relational Dimension of Collective Emotion; The Social Consequences of Collective Emotions; Group-Based and Intergroup Emotion; Rituals, Movements, and Social Organization; and Collective Emotions in Online Social Systems. Including contributions from psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, and neuroscience, this volume is a unique and valuable contribution to the affective sciences literature.