Predicting Emotions in Everyday Social Interactions

Abstract

Social workers appreciate that emotions are an important component of the human experience. Advances in sociology offer improvements in measuring, explaining, and predicting emotions. However, empirical appraisals of theories are limited, based on researcher fabricated events, and have yet to compare theories. The purpose of this study was to test and evaluate the predictive abilities of two theories that have potential to inform social work practice and research: Affect Control Theory (ACT) and Social Interactional Theory (SIT). From subject- provided social interactions, findings demonstrate the ability of both theories to predict ordinary emotion. Whereas SIT predictions were generally more precise, this accuracy would have been lost without the precise emotion measurement capabilities of ACT.     

Dogmatism and Competitive Relationships Between Soccer Teams

In the framework of intergroup relationships, Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Real Conflict Theory (RCT) both hypothesize a positive relationship between social identification and ethnocentrism in threatening en-vironments. The RCT proposes that conflict for scarce resources between groups determines ingroup identification while the SIT predicts that intensity of social identification leads to outgroup hostility in threatening contexts. An examination of these relationships is undertaken in a competitive sports context with the help of the dogmatism scale. Relationships between Belief and Activism Toward One Cause, as a social identification measure, and Out-group Authoritarian Intolerance, as an ethnocentrism measure were studied across two experimental conditions (neutral vs. competitive). The results describe a positive effect of Out-group Authoritarian Intolerance, measured in the neutral condition, on Belief and Activism Toward One Cause, measured in the competitive condition, validating RCT. The results are discussed based on complementary individual and collective analyses (i.e., dogmatism and intergroup relationship theories) of ethnocentrism.     

Theory in social work—some reflections on understanding and explaining interventions Teori i socialt arbete—några reflektioner om att förstå och förklara interventioner

This article reflects on theory in social work. With a starting point in the contemporary discussion of evidence-based social work, we raise questions about the role of theory. To understand empirical data, we need theory. The arena of social work is an open field for many academic disciplines, and theories used for understanding social work are mostly imported from general social science. Theory has to be built on an empirical base, and in order to be regarded as a social work theory this empirical base should come from social interventions. Therefore, the challenge for social work is to develop theories of its own. Theory development in social work could be in contrast to existing non-theoretical research and conceptual models without a base in social facts, as well as to prevailing perspectives in social work practice, such as reflective social work. In this article we sketch a model of the field of knowledge in social work and elucidate the multifaceted aspects that exist in social work. Finally, we argue for an awareness of the levels, or social domains, in social work practice on the one hand and the scientific explanations on the other hand.     

Are crisis communicators practicing what we preach?: An evaluation of crisis response strategy analyzed in public relations research from 1991 to 2009

Quantitative content analysis is used to evaluate crisis response strategy analyzed in more than 18 years of research published in crisis communication literature in public relations to reveal its effectiveness, nature, and contextual application. Analysis of 51 articles published in 11 different journals using two dominant theories in public relations crisis communication literature, Benoit's Image Restoration Theory and Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory, indicates a lack of diversity in cases analyzed by scholars, gaps between theory and practice, and pressing directions for future research in crisis communication.     

Agency: The Internal Split of Structure

In this article I first examine the ways in which the dual terms of structure and agency are used in sociological theories. Then, relying on Lacan's notions of split-subject, the formula of sexuation, and forms of discourses, and Laclau's theory of ideological hegemony, I argue that agency in most current sociological formulations is but a posited other of the structure that dissolves if examined closely; it is similar to the Lacanian fantasmic object. To resolve the fundamental paradoxes in structure-agency theories, I reformulate structures as paradoxical, incomplete, and contingent symbolic formations that are always partial and unstable due to their inclusion and exclusion operations. Consequently, social transformational agency consists in the structural inconsistencies that open structural gaps available to social actors. As a result, agency can be recognized in two moments conceived as two symbolic gestures. From this perspective, agency as such is always a possibility qua potential and its efficacy is always retroactively recognized-actualized from within a new social structure or symbolic order.     

In Dispraise of Justice

Ancient and modern theories of justice are analyzed for the purpose of beginning to develop a new theory which is consistent with the symbolic interaction research tradition and the lived experiences of interactionists. The Reflexive Theory of Justice emphasizes lived emotions, meaningful interpretations, social process, the reality of gender and other structured categories of interpretation, the primacy of pragmatic context, and the personal nature of justice. Justice is an inevitable and ongoing struggle for each individual life.     

The theory evaluation scale: An epistemological tool for analyzing social work theories

The profession of social work places a strong emphasis on the utilization of theories in classroom settings as well as in clinical milieus. Therefore, it is understandable that social work students, scholars, researchers, and practitioners feel compelled to make sense of theoretical underpinnings in their professional lives. This study sought to develop an instrument to critically appraise social work theories. Through Qualtrics, a panel of 14 internationally recognized experts in social work theories assessed the content of 16 items, which emanated from the literature on scale development. All of these items were described in accordance with Lawshe’s (1975) content-validity framework. Nine of the original 16 criteria survived expert scrutiny to constitute the Theory Evaluation Scale. Coherence, conceptual clarity, philosophical assumptions, connection with previous research, testability, empiricism, limitations, client context, and human agency were the final criteria on the empirically supported instrument. Implications for research, practice, and social work education are discussed.     

Theory of practice,rational choice,and historical change

If we are to believe the proponents of the Theory of Practice and of Rational Choice, the gap between these two paradigmatic approaches cannot be bridged. They rely on ontological premises, theories of motivations and causal models that stand too far apart. In this article, I argue that this theoretical antinomy loses much of its edge when we take as objects of sociological investigation processes of historical change, that is, when we try to specify in theoretical terms how and in which conditions historical actors enact and endorse shifts in patterns of relations as well as shifts in the symbolic and cognitive categories that make these relations significant. I substantiate this argument in light of the distinction between two temporalities of historical change: first, the long waves of gradual change and, second, the short waves of moments of breaks and ruptures. Along the way, I develop an argument about the conditions of emergence of self-limiting norms and the centrality of epistemic beliefs in situations of high disruption.     

Granite and green: thinking beyond surface in place studies

Through their dense range of empirical sortings, Kaufman and Kaliner, in this issue of Theory and Society, are effective in showing mechanisms through which places replicate themselves over time, but also in how their cultural and economic profiles can shift. Their work points to the utility of matched comparisons of historical interaction, both symbolic and material, as tool for understanding trajectories of stability and change.     

The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity: “Real” Identities and Intergroup Relations in a Transylvania Internet Forum

Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross‐fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interactionist theories of authenticity. We first disambiguate two forms of authenticity that are commonly studied but not clearly differentiated in symbolic interactionist research—self‐authenticity, which emphasizes selves, and social authenticity, which emphasizes social identities. We then argue that relationality and its three pairs of interactional tactics—verification and denaturalization, adequation and distinction, and authorization and illegitimation—are particularly useful in conceptualizing social authenticity. We draw on data from an interethnic internet forum to show how members of two ethnic groups, Hungarian and Romanian, employ these relational tactics to authenticate their own ethnicity as the rightful inheritors of a place‐based Transylvanian identity, and to limit the other ethnicity's similar identity work. We then clarify the significance of social authenticity for the interactional study of category‐based identities by widening our discussion to other contestations over social identities in everyday life.     

Fear of the "Alien Other": Cultural Anxiety and Opinions about Japan

American public opinion toward Japan grew more negative coincident with 1980s "Japan-bashing" media messages. Two theories of opinion formation provide explanations for this. Democratic representation theory understands opinions as rational responses to new information. Cultural interpretation theory holds that public opinion is based on one's receptiveness to media discourse. Opinion is neither a rational response to information nor the passive acceptance of elite dictates. People differentially interpret media messages and form opinions in a process that is shaped by media attentiveness and their subjective cultural anxieties. Survey data permit an indirect test of the two theories applied to anti-Japan opinion. OLS regression analysis performed on GSS for four time periods reveals that anti-Japan opinion is rooted less in "rational" responses to personal economic insecurity or fear of increased global competition than in racial attitudes and domestic social-cultural concerns. America's negative opinion toward Japan in the 1990s is better understood as domestic anxieties that are redirected toward a symbolic target that the mass media has highlighted.     

Personal identity and social identity: two different processes or a single one? / Identidad personal e identidad social. ¿Dos procesos diferentes o uno solo?

Abstract

Personal identity, or the definition of oneself in terms of personal idiosyncratic attributes, and social identity, or the definition of oneself in terms of affiliations with different categories or groups, have often been examined as two separate phenomena in the psychosocial literature. However, there are at least two theories which have deliberately researched the relationship between the two. One of these theories has done so for almost five decades (Social Identity Theory), while the alternative approach (Identity Fusion, or the visceral sense of oneness with the group) began to be developed less than one decade ago. The purpose of this special issue is to survey how approaches grounded upon both theories have attempted to explain some individuals’ extreme behaviours for their group. It also includes studies that examine the origins of identity fusion, the processes that relate it with extreme behaviour (such as the extension of familial ties to groups or the acceptance of violence), as well as a subtle demonstration of how group identity can affect interpersonal relationships.     

The Self as Self‐Fulfilling Prophecy

Using a combination of psychoanalytic and symbolic interactionist ideas, this article portrays the development of the self as a self‐fulfilling prophecy (SFP). A prominent psychoanalytic version of this idea is presented by Lacan's two mirror theories of the self. A prominent and more familiar symbolic interactionist account of the self as self‐fulfilling prophecy is the formulation by William I. Thomas and Dorothy Thomas, which suggests that once situations are defined as real, they are real in their consequences. The aim of this article is to show that these two perspectives can be reconciled in interesting ways, because both recognize that emotions are part of the world “out there” of external goals and the world “in here” of the person's inner life. Emotions are therefore “bilevel.” The SFP creates a fault line in the self and a consequent emotional vulnerability when that line is engaged or disturbed. This article explains how this self‐fulfilling prophecy works and explores the weaknesses it inflicts on the self.     

Powerful emotions: symbolic power and the (productive and punitive) force of collective feeling

This article argues that emotions can be a medium of social power. Using qualitative interview material from American Jews discussing anti-Semitism and its relationship to contemporary politics, it engages recent scholarship on emotions and political contention and shows how emotions make effective the various forms of symbolic exclusion by which group members exercise what Bourdieu calls symbolic power. It also explores the emotional connections to group membership by which some “excluded” members can engage in symbolic struggle over “the principles of vision and division” Bourdieu (Sociological Theory 7(1), 14–25, 1989) that define the group. Finally, it shows how emotions work to incite discipline in some group members, inspiring them to conform to dominant definitions of group membership so as to avoid both symbolic struggle and exclusion.     

国内外城市群研究的理论与实践

本文对城市群的理论发展和研究成果做了概括性的回顾和梳理。重点叙述了国外的圈层结构理论、田园城市理论、区域规划理论、中心地理论、增长极理论、大都市带理论、城市空间相互作用理论、核心一边缘理论，以及国内的点轴系统理论和双核（港城）模式，还对国内外其他学者的相关研究作了简单的介绍。     

Cyclops Cave

Written in the post‐structural traditions of symbolic interactionism, Cyclops Cave is a biographic‐interview‐based and fact‐and‐fiction‐plotted ethnodrama of anti‐Semitism in Soviet higher education. This project is premised on the theories of the “social self”—namely, the “looking‐glass racialized self,” constructed by the dominant ethnic “supremacy,” and the theories of racial stigma as an outcome of the racialized “me” production. Showing the stigma experiences of former Soviet Jewish academics from 1970 to the 1980s, the play adds a new illuminative and self‐interpretive case of a race‐situated symbolic interaction and deconstructs the “root image” of Soviet anti‐Semitism through interpreting the informants' stigma incidents and interactional conflicts between their “selfhood” symbols.     

Public Relations and Symbolic Politics

In German-speaking countries public relations scholars emphasize the role of public relations (PR) in society in their theorizing. These scholars seek to understand PR as a macro-level, or sociological, phenomenon in contrast to the micro-level, or management, emphasis of scholars in the United States. This article builds a sociological theory of PR by comparing it with the practice of symbolic politics as conceptualized in political science. The theory states that both PR and symbolic politics develop and use symbols—signs that influence and guide conceptions—to achieve their purposes. They also rely heavily on journalistic media. Media reality, however, frequently departs from extramedia reality. The difference between these two types of reality makes it possible for symbolic politics and PR to influence the gap and perhaps to separate the symbolic world from the external world. On the other hand, attention is a scarce resource, and increased activity in PR and symbolic politics eventually will have a declining marginal social utility.     

Pierre Bourdieu and the sociology of religion: A central and peripheral concern

Although some of Bourdieu’s most basic concepts have their roots in the sociology of religion, religion itself has, in appearance, only a marginalized status within his work. This article focuses on the genesis of religious field and how the theories of Durkheim, Mauss, and Weber fold into the notion of field defined by Bourdieu. Religious field must be understood within the symbolic economy as well; divisions of symbolic labor are therefore discussed in relation to segmented and non-segmented societies. Finally, Bourdieu’s analysis of institutions, in particular the Catholic Church, further help us understand the use and evolution of religious field in his work and shed light on the sociologist’s understanding of the movement from religious beliefs toward aesthetic ones.     

Whatever Happened to Critical Mass Theory? A Retrospective and Assessment

Between 1983 and 1993 the authors published a series of articles and a book promulgating and explicating "Critical Mass Theory," a theory of public goods provision in groups. In this article we seek to trace the growth, change, or decline of the theory, primarily through an analysis of all journal citations of the theory. We find that the majority of citations are essentially gratuitous or pick a single point from the theory, which may or may not be central to the theory. However, we identify four lines of theorizing that creatively use substantial parts of Critical Mass Theory in their own development: (1) theories relevant to issues in communication studies such as interaction media and shared databases; (2) Macy's work on adaptive learning models; (3) Heckathorn's models of sanctioning systems; and (4) theories that are centrally concerned with issues of influence in collective goods processes. A few additional, less- developed lines of work are also discussed. None of this work identifies itself as being itself "Critical Mass Theory," but many of the innovations and assertions of the theory are important bases for its development.     

Situation,Structure, and the Context of Meaning*

Two of the approaches at the forefront of contemporary sociological interest in meaning, symbolic interactionism and structuralism, share an interest in the role of signs and symbols in social life, yet take radically different standpoints concerning the nature of signs and the locus of meaning. Symbolic interactionists stress the ongoing process of the “situation” as the determinant of meaning, whereas structuralists claim that meaning must be sought at the deeper level of “system” or “structure” rather than at the surface. By comparing some foundational concepts underlying these traditions, such as the nature of the sign in Peirce and Saussure and Durkheim and Mead, and then exploring recent developments in structuralism and symbolic interactionism, a critical appraisal of their theories of meaning is made in the context of an emerging semiotic sociology.