Emotions are psychological states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, creativity, and motivation.
Guilt is a moral emotion that occurs when a person believes or realizes—accurately or not—that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation. Guilt is closely related to the concept of remorse, regret, as well as shame.
Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that guides psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work. Psychoanalytic theory came to full prominence in the last third of the twentieth century as part of the flow of critical discourse regarding psychological treatments after the 1960s, long after Freud's death in 1939. Freud had ceased his analysis of the brain and his physiological studies and shifted his focus to the study of the mind and the related psychological attributes making up the mind, and on treatment using free association and the phenomena of transference. His study emphasized the recognition of childhood events that could influence the mental functioning of adults. His examination of the genetic and then the developmental aspects gave the psychoanalytic theory its characteristics. Starting with his publication of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899, his theories began to gain prominence.
Feeling was originally used to describe the physical sensation of touch through either experience or perception, the word is also used to describe other experiences, such as "a feeling of warmth" and of sentience in general. Feeling is the nominalization of the verb to feel. In Latin, sentire meant to feel, hear or smell. In psychology, the word is usually reserved for the conscious subjective experience of emotion. Phenomenology and heterophenomenology are philosophical approaches that provide some basis for knowledge of feelings. Many schools of psychotherapy depend on the therapist achieving some kind of understanding of the client's feelings, for which methodologies exist.
In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism, is an unconscious psychological mechanism that reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli.
Arlie Russell Hochschild is an American professor emerita of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and writer. Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions which underlie moral beliefs, practices, and social life generally. She is the author of nine books including, most recently Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, a finalist for the National Book Award. In The Second Shift, The Managed Heart, The Time Bind and others of her books, she continues the tradition of C. Wright Mills drawing links between private troubles and public issues.
Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is an active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy, the aim of which is to resolve emotional and behavioral problems and disturbances and to help people to lead happier and more fulfilling lives.
Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. More specifically, workers are expected to regulate their emotions during interactions with customers, co-workers and managers. This includes analysis and decision making in terms of the expression of emotion, whether actually felt or not, as well as its opposite: the suppression of emotions that are felt but not expressed. This is done so as to produce a certain feeling in the customer or client that will allow the company or organization to succeed.
Passion is a feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something. Passion can range from eager interest in or admiration for an idea, proposal, or cause; to enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activity; to strong attraction, excitement, or emotion towards a person. It is particularly used in the context of romance or sexual desire, though it generally implies a deeper or more encompassing emotion than that implied by the term lust.
In sociology, social action, also known as Weberian social action, is an act which takes into account the actions and reactions of individuals. According to Max Weber, "Action is "social" insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course."
An emotional expression is a behavior that communicates an emotional state or attitude. It can be verbal or non-verbal, and can occur with or without self-awareness. Emotional expressions include facial movements like smiling or scowling, simple behaviors like crying, laughing, or saying "thank you," and more complex behaviors like writing a letter or giving a gift. Individuals have some conscious control of their emotional expressions; however, they need not have conscious awareness of their emotional or affective state in order to express emotion.
Researchers in psychology have proposed many different and often competing theoretical models to explain emotions and emotional expression, going as far back as James Charles Darwin's discussion of emotion as an evolved capacity. Though there is no universally accepted theory of emotion, theorists in emotion agree that healthy humans experience emotions and express them in a variety of ways, such as with their voices, faces, and bodies. The cultural norms and beliefs of a society also affect and shape the emotional expressions of its members, and expressions appropriate and important in one culture may be taboo in another.
Emotion work is understood as the art of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling.
Feeling rules are socially shared norms that influence how people want to try to feel emotions in given social relations. This concept was introduced by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in 1979. Hochschild's 1983 book, "The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling," discusses feeling rules in greater depth, especially in the occupational worlds of flight attendants and bill collectors. Hochschild draws on the work of sociologist Erving Goffman as well as labor scholar Harry Braverman to discuss the dramaturgical demands and emotional labor entailed by jobs in the service sector, in which workers must "perform" certain roles that entail abiding by certain feeling rules. She notes that women are more likely to have such jobs than men, and that analysis of feeling rules may therefore be especially relevant to understanding the gendered dimensions of labor. This work foreshadows themes from her later analyses of women's work, both paid and unpaid, e.g. in "The Commercialization of Intimate Life" (2003).
Appraisal theory is the theory in psychology that emotions are extracted from our evaluations of events that cause specific reactions in different people. Essentially, our appraisal of a situation causes an emotional, or affective, response that is going to be based on that appraisal. An example of this is going on a first date. If the date is perceived as positive, one might feel happiness, joy, giddiness, excitement, and/or anticipation, because they have appraised this event as one that could have positive long-term effects, i.e. starting a new relationship, engagement, or even marriage. On the other hand, if the date is perceived negatively, then our emotions, as a result, might include dejection, sadness, emptiness, or fear. Reasoning and understanding of one's emotional reaction becomes important for future appraisals as well. The important aspect of the appraisal theory is that it accounts for individual variability in emotional reactions to the same event.
Mirroring is the behavior in which one person unconsciously imitates the gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. Mirroring often occurs in social situations, particularly in the company of close friends or family. The concept often affects other individuals' notions about the individual that is exhibiting mirroring behaviors, which can lead to the individual building rapport with others.
Identity control theory is a theory in sociology concerned with the development of personal identity. Created by Peter Burke, it focuses on the nature of peoples' identities and the relationship between their identities and their behavior within the realm of their social structure. The identities of the individual are rooted in their social structure. Identity Control Theory was created based on traditional symbolic interaction views where people choose their own behaviors and how their behaviors correspond to the meanings of their identity. One of the main aspects ICT deals with is how individuals view their own identities and respond to the reactions to their identities of those around them. When an individual is acting according to the identity control theory they reflect on the identity they display and how others approve or disapprove of their identity. If the individual does not like the responses of others they will look at how they can change their views of their identity or their identity towards themselves to produce a positive outcome. One of the main benefits of this theory is how negative feelings can be prevented by individuals and by those around them. The people around someone who is displaying a certain identity have the ability to be more sensitive and prevent negative feelings if they understand identity control theory because they know what will bring out a negative response. On the other hand, the individual can prevent negative feelings that coincide with the teachings of identity control theory if they understand these teachings and can apply them to their own lives.
The sociology of emotion applies sociological theorems and techniques to the study of human emotions. As sociology emerged primarily as a reaction to the negative effects of modernity, many normative theories deal in some sense with emotion without forming a part of any specific subdiscipline: Karl Marx described capitalism as detrimental to personal 'species-being', Georg Simmel wrote of the deindividualizing tendencies of 'the metropolis', and Max Weber's work dealt with the rationalizing effect of modernity in general.
Emotions in the workplace play a large role in how an entire organization communicates within itself and to the outside world. "Events at work have real emotional impact on participants. The consequences of emotional states in the workplace, both behaviors and attitudes, have substantial significance for individuals, groups, and society". "Positive emotions in the workplace help employees obtain favorable outcomes including achievement, job enrichment and higher quality social context". "Negative emotions, such as fear, anger, stress, hostility, sadness, and guilt, however increase the predictability of workplace deviance,", and how the outside world views the organization.
Self-estrangement is the idea conceived by Karl Marx in Marx's theory of alienation and Melvin Seeman in his five logically distinct psychological states that encompasses alienation. As spoken by Marx, self-estrangement is "the alienation of man's essence, man's loss of objectivity and his loss of realness as self-discovery, manifestation of his nature, objectification and realization". Self-estrangement is when a person feels alienated from others and society as a whole. A person may feel alienated by his work by not feeling like he has meaning to his work, therefore losing their sense of self at the work place. Self-estrangement contributes to burnout at work and a lot of psychological stress.
The notion of commercialization of love, that has not to be confused with prostitution, involves the definitions of romantic love and consumerism.
