SOC 423: Sociology of Emotions Robert E. L. Roberts
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Instructor’s Comments
Topic 4: Symbolic Interactionist and Freudian Approaches
This week, we turn our attention to two major theoretical traditions attempting to articulate connections between our inner and outer lives: Symbolic Interactionism and Freudian theory. Both traditions reside intellectually within the field of Social Psychology, which lies in the intersections of sociology and psychology.
Symbolic Interactionism and Emotions
Symbolic interactionism is one of the most influential theoretical paradigms sociologists use to understand connections between self and society. The foundational insight of this paradigm is that humans develop and manage their sense of self through the process of interacting with others. The primary currency of interaction is believed to be symbols (whether in the form of words, gestures, or other actions) that have shared meanings among interacting people. Self identities emerge from the process of exchanging symbols in the various relationships and contexts we occupy over the life course.
Symbolic interactionist theories of emotions tend to focus on links between the presentation and management of self identities, on the one hand, and the symbolic exchanges that unfold in daily interaction, on the other. In simplest terms (and it’s good to keep things simple) the theories argue that we tend to feel positive emotions when our interactions affirm our self identities and negative emotions when our identities are disaffirmed. I tend to think of it as the “I’m OK, you’re OK” approach to understanding how emotions are linked to interactional dynamics.
As you’ll read in Chapter 4, symbolic interactionist theories owe a debt of gratitude to George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley. If you’ve taken the sociological theory course, you’ll probably remember each theorist’s theory of self development: Mead’s “I, Me, and Generalized Other” and Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self.” In broad strokes each theorist argued that our personal identities, our innermost senses of self, are forged by the information we receive from others with whom we interact. For Mead, the self has three primary parts: one impulsive and egoistic (the “I”), one reflexive and socially oriented (the “Me”), and one that represented our understanding of what other people believed to be socially appropriate behavior (the “Generalized Other”). Cooley argued, perhaps more simply, that we come to know who we are by the ways in which others react to us (people are like mirrors in which we see ourselves reflected).
Both Mead and Cooley offered early insights about the social aspects of emotion. Mead’s approach was to look at emotions as resulting from success and failure to satisfy impulses and goals in interaction with others. For example, Person A might
SOC 423: Sociology of Emotions Robert E. L. Roberts
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have the impulse to become friends with Person B. Person A would then look for ways to manipulate the flow of situations and meanings in ways that would make this potential friendship more likely to happen. If things begin to fall into place, Person A will experience more positive emotions and continue to pursue the course of action that is working. If things don’t begin to work out, Person A will try other courses of action as a way to avoid the negative emotions that ensue from failure.
Cooley’s approach was to argue that we would experience positive emotions when the images of ourselves reflected back to us from others confirmed the self images that we had internalized over our lifetime. One example of this kind of dynamic is when Person A desires that any Person B acknowledge any particular distinguishing statuses possessed by Person A. Think of the professor who always wants to be referred to as “Dr.” (fill in last name here). Refer to them only by their first name and they have a negative emotional reaction. Or consider a person (“Will”) who believes everyone finds him nice and charming. Every interaction is just smiles and sunshine for Will. This idea of the self as being good and likeable becomes part of Will’s identity structure. [I’m nice and people like me]. And then someone comes along and responds to him like he is evil incarnate. Will starts out in the dog house and can’t do a thing to get on the person’s good side. Imagine the emotional toll Will might experience from that encounter.
Chapter 4 presents several theories that build on the insights of Mead and Cooley. The theories nearly universally examine how the affirmation or disaffirmation of identities in interaction produces emotional states which, in turn, shape interaction and self development. All of the theories tend to focus on the role that this interplay of emotion and symbolic interaction serves a social control function: supporting subsets of behaviors that are socially acceptable. As you read through them, I’d like you to consider the ways and degree to which the theories apply the self- affirmation/positive emotion (and/or self-disaffirmation/negative emotion) framework outline above.
One of the interesting things about these theories is that they consider ways in which the dynamics of our multiple identities and roles interact in situations to produce complex emotions. For example, one might have certain work, school, family, and friend identities that may be at odds in certain situations. Think of being at work in a very controlled environment and two of your friends drop in to see if you can drop everything and leave work to go to a party. The conflicting press of expectations from your friends and boss might produce feelings of discomfort. It’s like your friend identity is at odds with your employee identity. Moreover, the tension between these two identities may cause ripple effects across any of your other identities (e.g., parent, child, student, professional, etc.) that connect to them. It’s interesting to see to what extent these kinds of identity conflicts unfold during the day and their impacts on the emotions we feel.
SOC 423: Sociology of Emotions Robert E. L. Roberts
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Considering Freud
You might be asking yourself: What is Sigmund Freud doing in a survey of the sociology of emotions? People tend to think of Freud as a key figure in the development of psychology and psychiatry. We might think of psychoanalysis, a client reclining on a couch recounting dreams (windows to the subconscious), and a therapist busily jotting down notes: the stereotypical representations we see in movies and cartoons. How is that relevant to sociology?
Yet, if you read Freud’s work closely, many of his ideas have great relevance for sociology. His work on the relationship between social and self-processes is one example. Like Mead, Freud argued that our interactions with others (especially significant others like parents and siblings) profoundly influence our psychological development. He even provided a blueprint for linking biological, psychological and social processes in the understanding of social action and the structure of society (e.g., in Civilization and Its Discontents).
Freud’s contribution to the sociology of emotions can be traced to his conception of the processes underlying our experience of self. His view was that the self is the result of three interrelated processes, which he labeled “id,” “ego,” and “superego.” Let me take a few moments to briefly describe this idea.
Like Mead’s “I”, Freud viewed the id as human mental and behavioral processes that are completely oriented to satisfying basic urges and impulses. The id is unconstrained by social rules and norms. The id is selfish. The id is all about what the id wants and needs. Babies are all id. The id wants cake, now!!! The id wants that toy over there…right now? The id wants, wants, and wants, everything…now. The thing is, if we were all id, society would not be possible.
One important function of the id is that it provides the energy and motivation for individual behavior. Freud labeled this energy as libido, often thought broadly to be rooted in an innate sexual drive, but also needs for feeling loved and seen positively by others. The libido is important because it provides energy and motivation for personal action. The problem, though, is that if we’re all driven by selfish motivations society could not exist as we know it. Freud could see that most human social action was directed in seemingly non-selfish ways. What constrained and directed the id’s impulses?
In order to answer this question, Freud conceptualized two levels of control mechanisms within the internal dynamics of one’s thoughts and feelings. One level of control mechanisms is the ego (like Mead’s me). For Freud, the ego represented processes through which people attempted to find successful ways to manage and achieve the one’s id impulses. If you want that piece of cake, and you’re not six months old, crying your head off will probably not work. If you’re a toddler, you probably wouldn’t be able to make a cake on your own. In the face of the challenge of getting some cake, people learn, through learning about their physical resources,
SOC 423: Sociology of Emotions Robert E. L. Roberts
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the opportunities in the environment, and by interacting with the people in their environment, what kinds of strategies will work to achieve id impulses. So, you, as a toddler, might learn to put on your cutest face and say something like, “Daddy, you make the best cakes in the world. Wouldn’t it be grand to have a bit of cake?” You may even learn to suppress the id impulses because they learn that some impulses are not socially acceptable (like stealing the cake from the bakery).
Another control mechanism is the superego. This represents processes through which people internalize the larger social norms and expectations of society. This serves as a reference point in determining what impulses are appropriate and the appropriate ways to achieve them.
Okay, that’s a primer on Freud. What does this do to help us understand social aspects of emotions? The primary contribution comes from Freud’s analysis of what happens when our ego processes fail to reconcile superego constraints and id impulses. Another way of putting this is: What happens when we do things that others let us know are socially inappropriate through their disapproval? Freud argued that the combination of failing to successfully satisfy id impulses within the confines of social acceptability led to feelings of shame, fear, anxiety, and guilt. He theorized that we learn to shield ourselves from these painful emotions by developing defense mechanisms.
Taking this idea further, Freud argued that invoking defense mechanisms tends to distort the flow of interaction in negative ways, with consequences for each of the interactants’ current and future emotional states. I might manage my guilt for having forgotten to pick up my spouse’s dry cleaning by blaming her for “not having reminded me” (a fictional account ☺). This aggressive defense would then rightfully lead her to experience feelings of disappointment and resentment. She might then employ her own set of defense mechanisms that would then exacerbate my shame/guilt, leading to more defenses and more distortion of the flow of interaction. Freud argued that prolonged periods of such distorted interaction and invoking of defense mechanisms could lead to repressed negative emotions the lurked and grew under the surface of our day-to-day consciousness.
The two theories described in Chapter 5 both apply these elements of Freud’s theory to attempt to explain aspects of what happens in your micro-social interactions and its relation to macro-social processes. Thomas Scheff argues that some cultures make it easier to avoid acknowledging shame in micro-level interactions with other people. He hypothesizes that this suppression leads to the accumulation of anger…a kind of collective unconscious rage that threatens to make the society more violent and prone to engaging in wars. Jonathan Turner makes a similar, but more nuanced, argument. He theorizes that people have innate needs and expectations for receiving positive feedback (self-verification) in those interactions. The expectation rules for achieving positive feedback are often spelled out in larger societal structures and organizations (e.g., workplaces, schools, legal codes, etc.). When positive feedback does not meet expectations, people then experience negative emotions. Following
SOC 423: Sociology of Emotions Robert E. L. Roberts
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Freud, Turner sees this leading to a greater likelihood of repressed negative emotions, which threaten to erupt in socially inappropriate ways (like overreacting to seemingly minor transgressions). Prolonged experiences of negative interactions may also lead people to have less commitment to the larger society and institutions that provide the rules for social interaction expectations.
Discussion Questions
Begin our discussion by posting answers to the following questions. use the readings and your own experiences to deepen your answers.
1) Give at least three examples of how your (or someone you know well) emotions have been linked to the affirmation/disaffirmation of identities in interactions. Please use insights from at least three different theorists covered in Chapter 4. Stronger answers will demonstrate understanding of the subtle ways in which multiple and sometime conflicting identities may interact in certain situations to produce a range of emotions.
2) Use Freudian perspectives from Chapter 5 to analyze at least two of your recent emotional experiences. In what ways might the id, ego, and superego processes have been involved in the experiences? What kinds of emotions did you feel in the experience? To what extent do you think repressed emotions played a role in the experience?
3) Apply at least one of Scheff’s and/or Turner’s insights about the link between micro-social encounters and larger scale social processes. Specifically, what might be a real-world example of Scheff’s claim that the widespread and persistent experience of unacknowledged shame might lead some societies to be more prone to war? Alternatively, what might be a real-world example of Turner’s claim that the widespread and persistent experience of not receiving positive self-verification might lead to people feeling less connected to and supportive of larger social institutions in society?
