The Sociology of Sentiments and Emotion

This chapter begins with a discussion of socially emergent properties of emotion that transcend psychological or physiological explanation. It distinguishes emotion as relatively undifferentiated bodily arousal, from sentiments as combinations of bodily sensations, gestures, and cultural meanings that we learn in enduring social relationships. The chapter examines several fundamental social processes that influence all sentiments and are crucial topics for sociological investigation. It explains the socialization of sentiments, the process by which a cultural vocabulary of sentiments becomes an interpretive resource of individuals. The chapter considers the management of sentiments, the normative regulation of expression and feeling by individuals and groups. An analytical distinction between emotion and sentiments emphasizes the difference between the psychological and sociological levels of analysis. The differentiation of sentiments is a social process that combines sensations and gestures together with social relationships and beliefs to form discrete sentiments.