Emotional work (Hochschild)

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Under emotion work the American understands sociologist A. R. Hochschild an attempt emotions to strengthen, weaken or transform. Hochschild also includes the elicitation of an emotion. According to this, emotion work is the way in which emotions are adapted to social norms in the sense of emotional socialization ( emotion work ).

Emotional socialization

Within social groups, people observe their own feelings from childhood, how they themselves evaluate them and how the visible emotional expressions are judged and sanctioned by others . In the course of this emotional socialization process, individuals learn the emotional expectations they have in themselves and in others. The interaction partners expect that they harbor this or that external emotional expression for one another in a certain situation and that they themselves expect these expectations ( expectation expectation ) and are able to interact .

When emotions arise cognitively , i.e. through the evaluation of the event that triggers the emotion, they are either adapted to expectations or, as in most cases at the beginning of the socialization phase, they are corrected by the interaction partners of the environment. If people see their own emotional order endangered by unexpected displays of emotions by others, they try to restore it. This happens either through reminders (“You should say thank you!”), Ironic criticism (“We're not opening the dishwasher today, no ?!”), demands (“Be a little nicer to your sister!”) And the like. A large number of behavioral or emotional expectations therefore creates a large area of ​​tension from which the individual must seek out the most appropriate reaction. The overall picture of these norms of feeling is bundled into social roles , by taking which one learns the “right feeling”. As the number of roles increases, the individual actor knows which feelings he owes to others and which he is entitled to demand himself. The trigger conditions for reactions are thus conveyed through the roles.

A catalog of norms comes into play in emotional socialization . It is embedded in the respective emotional culture and contains emotional norms that indicate the “should” state of emotional states of mind expected by a society in certain situations. The existing catalog of norms is constantly being adapted, as people orient themselves towards the principles of avoiding pain and striving for reward and as many social relationships as possible. The target state is compared with the actual state in situations in which outwardly shown emotions are required.

If the expected emotional state in a situation coincides with the existing one, emotional harmony occurs; emotional work is not necessary in this case. However, if there is an emotional dissonance, the individual does emotional work. For example, if a bride feels a few hours before her wedding a great sadness about something that is not related to the wedding itself and that neither of the wedding guests nor her groom can understand, she hides the feeling. For example, instead of crying or looking downcast, she will pretend "happiness" and suppress the feeling of sadness.

Different types of emotion work

With the help of "Emotion work, subjective feelings and rules of feeling can be brought into harmony". There are different approaches to get there. The first possibility is surface acting . The corresponding emotion is only displayed externally, for example by an attached smile or an artificial laugh. A personal participation in the feelings does not take place, the emotion is not taken over internally. The approach takes place in the representation.

In contrast, the standing depth action or actions interior (engl. Deep acting ). The aim is to achieve the real feeling of the required feeling. Feeling adapts to the norm. The approach takes place with the inner feeling. The in-depth action itself can again be differentiated into two categories. First of all, deep acting concerns a self-compulsion to want to experience the required feeling. A will arises in the individual to evoke or suppress the feeling. Feeling the emotion is for its own sake. Examples of this would be “I looked at him and decided to fall in love with him” in fairy tales or the biblical command “You shall not covet your neighbor's house”. So not only should one not want to penetrate into the house, but not even bother to feel the will.

The other type of deep action is the so-called Stanislavsky method . It is a concept developed for actors in Russian theater not to strive for the first variant of " deep acting ". Instead, images from previous life should be called up that once made an emotion necessary for the current moment. This activation of the emotional memory should bring about laughter, crying or anger and the world of thoughts and memories should be used as a source.

See also

literature

  • Arlie Russell Hochschild: The Bought Heart. The commercialization of feelings . New, enlarged edition. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-593-38012-4 .
  • Lothar Laux, Hannelore Weber : Coping with emotions and self-expression . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-17-010371-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Laux, L. and Weber, H. (1993) Emotion Coping and Self-Presentation, p. 46
  2. ^ Hochschild, A. (1990) The bought heart, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, ISBN 3-593-34155-7 , p. 74
  3. ↑ Küpers, W. / Weibler. J .: Emotions in Organizations, page 101
  4. ^ Hochschild, A. (1990) Das gekaufte Herz, p. 79
  5. ^ Hochschild, A. (1990) Das gekaufte Herz, p. 78
  6. ↑ Laux, L. and Weber, H. (1993) Emotion Coping and Self-Presentation, p. 46
  7. ↑ Küpers, W. and Weibler, J. (2005) Emotionen in Organizations, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, p. 140
  8. ↑ Laux, L. and Weber, H. (1993) Emotion Coping and Self-Presentation, p. 46