Kimberly B. Rogers

Dissecting the Sociality of Emotion: A Multilevel Approach

In recent years, scholars have come to understand emotions as dynamic and socially constructed—the product of interdependent cultural, relational, situational, and biological influences. While researchers have called for a multilevel theory of emotion construction, any progress toward such a theory must overcome the fragmentation of relevant research across various disciplines and theoretical frameworks. We present affect control theory as a launching point for cross-disciplinary collaboration because of its empirically grounded conceptualization of social mechanisms operating at the interaction, relationship, and cultural levels, and its specification of processes linking social and individual aspects of emotion. After introducing the theory, we illustrate its correspondence with major theories of emotion construction framed at each of four analytical levels: cultural, interactional, individual, and neural.

The Affective Structure of Stereotype Content: Behavior and Emotion in Intergroup Context.

Affect control theory and the stereotype content model share explanatory goals and employ compatible measurement strategies but have developed in largely separate literatures. The present article examines the models’ commensurability and discusses new insights that can be gained by comparing theories. We first demonstrate that the unique measurement dimensions used by each theory (evaluation/potency/activity vs. warmth/competence) describe much of the same semantic content. We then show how simulation techniques developed by affect control theorists can be applied to the study of interactions with stereotyped groups. These simulations indicate broad consistencies between the theories’ predictions but highlight three distinctive emphases of affect control theory. Specifically, affect control models predict that actors are motivated to behave in ways that (1) are consistent with self-meanings, (2) maintain cultural norms about the suitability of behaviors and emotions to role relations, and (3) account for behavior and emotion in prior interactions.

Modeling Dynamic Identities and Uncertainty in Social Interactions Bayesian Affect Control Theory

Drawing on Bayesian probability theory, we propose a generalization of affect control theory (BayesACT) that better accounts for the dynamic fluctuation of identity meanings for self and other during interactions, elucidates how people infer and adjust meanings through social experience, and shows how stable patterns of interaction can emerge from individuals’ uncertain perceptions of identities. Using simulations, we illustrate how this generalization offers a resolution to several issues of theoretical significance within sociology and social psychology by balancing cultural consensus with individual deviations from shared meanings, balancing meaning verification with the learning processes reflective of change, and accounting for noise in communicating identity. We also show how the model speaks to debates about core features of the self, which can be understood as stable and yet malleable, coherent and yet composed of multiple identities that may carry competing meanings. We discuss applications of the model in different areas of sociology, implications for understanding identity and social interaction, as well as the theoretical grounding of computational models of social behavior.

Affective Meanings of Stereotyped Social Groups in Cross-Cultural Comparison

This paper compares affective meanings of various stereotyped social groups in U.S., German, and Japanese cultures along the three basic dimensions of emotional experience (evaluation, potency, and activity). Analyses exploring similarities in affective meanings between respondents revealed considerable consensus within cultures, but less across cultures. These analyses indicated greater consensus for the U.S. and German sample than for the Japanese sample, supporting past research which indicates that Japanese social perception is more contextualized than in Western cultures. Analyses of cross-cultural differences also identified meaningful patterns of culture-specific deviation, interpretable in terms of the placement of each national sample on cultural dimensions such as power distance, masculinity, and individualism/collectivism. We argue that affective meanings reflect the social order of specific cultures, making variations in consensus significant as affective meanings guide intergroup behavior and emotion.

Justice Standard Determines Emotional Responses to Over-Reward

How do people feel when they benefit from an unfair reward distribution? Equity theory predicts negative emotion in response to over-reward, but sociological research using referential standards of justice drawn from status-value theory repeatedly finds positive emotional responses to over-reward. Researchers have proposed methodological explanations for these different findings, but we propose a theoretical explanation—that over-reward based on local comparisons with an interaction partner creates guilt and other negative emotions, while over-reward relative to an abstract justice standard leads to more positive emotion. We describe two experiments that address methodological explanations for the status value findings: (1) lack of tangible rewards and (2) lack of sufficiently large over-rewards. We find that people who are over-rewarded relative to their referential expectations still report less negative emotion and more positive emotion than those who receive expected rewards. We report results from a third experiment that demonstrate support for our theoretical argument.

Distinguishing Normative Processes From Noise A Comparison of Four Approaches to Modeling Impressions of Social Events

This research evaluates the relative merits of two established and two newly proposed methods for modeling impressions of social events: stepwise regression, ANOVA, Bayesian model averaging, and Bayesian model sampling. Models generated with each method are compared against a ground truth model to assess performance at variable selection and coefficient estimation. We also assess the theoretical impacts of different modeling choices. Results show that the ANOVA procedure has a significantly lower false discovery rate than stepwise regression, whereas Bayesian methods exhibit higher true positive rates and comparable false discovery rates to ANOVA. Bayesian methods also generate coefficient estimates with less bias and variance than either stepwise regression or ANOVA. We recommend the use of Bayesian methods for model specification in affect control theory.

Emotions and Affect as Source, Outcome and Resistance to Inequality

While sociologists usually focus on the material aspects of inequality, its emotional outcomes are one of the reasons we care about it. People who occupy the lower positions in unequal social structures experience negative, impotent, and unengaged feelings that depress their quality of life. This chapter explores how affective meanings, transmitted by cultural systems and individual interactional experiences, help to create and re-create patterns of inequality. We first explore how affective meanings translate cultural sentiments into local interactions, creating inequality as it is experienced in everyday life. Self-identities and emotional responses of the stigmatized often reinforce these cultural responses, leading the disadvantaged to self-destructive responses. After discussing how affect and emotion create inequality, we discuss the related topic of how people experience structural emotions as a result of occupying a disadvantaged social position. We document the stress of not being able to verify valued identities or control life circumstances. Finally, we discuss the ways in which emotions can motivate people to resist inequality, by forming coalitions through affective commitments, by recognizing solidarity with other like-minded people in social movements, and by forming subcultures where affective meanings can generate positive structural emotions.

Measuring Affect and Emotions

Theoretical advances in the sociology of emotions depend on precisely measured constructs. This chapter begins with a discussion of key the features of affect and emotion invoked by various theories in the sociology of emotions, in an effort to identify the measurement needs of this field. The range of theories in the sociology of emotions requires methods of measuring affect associated with cultural symbols and feeling states that are (1) experienced versus expressed, (2) discrete versus dimensional, and (2) directed versus diffuse. Importantly, the utility and testability of some sociological theories would benefit also from measures that minimally intrude into ongoing social interaction. These requirements combine to form a daunting task. This chapter assesses evidence concerning the validity of various classic and emerging methods of measuring affect and emotion. Specifically, this chapter reviews methods organized around three broad approaches—self-report, physiological measurement, and observational—highlighting their theoretical utility along the dimensions described above.

Expectation States, Social Influence, and Affect Control: Opinion and Sentiment Change through Social Interaction

Abstract Purpose The present research builds on three complementary theories to explore how social influence processes in interaction bring about opinion and sentiment change: expectation states theory, affect control theory, and social influence network theory. Methodology/approach An experimental study is used to test intersections between the theories and assess how performance expectations, affective impressions of group members, and emergent perceptions of their influence work together to generate opinion and sentiment change. Findings Respondent opinions shifted in the direction of group leaders’ opinions, regardless of behavioral interchange patterns. Opinion change was greater when a third group member shared the leader’s opinion. Change in affective impressions was shaped by the group leader’s opinion, the assertiveness of their behavior, and the support of a third group member. The perceived influence composition of the group predicted opinion and sentiment change, above and beyond the effects of conditional manipulations. Features of the group interaction led to inferences about status characteristics that reinforced the influence order of the group. Research implications The chapter tests hypotheses from earlier work and explores status signals not yet tested as predictors of opinion change – behavioral interchange patterns and the degree of support for one’s ideas. In addition, it examines inferences about status characteristics following the group discussion, and influence effects on the prevailing definition of the situation. Originality/value This chapter contributes to recent integrative work that explores the relationship between performance expectations, affective impressions, and social influence. Synergistic processes forwarded by earlier research are tested, along with several newly proposed linkages.

Answering the Call for a Sociological Perspective on the Multilevel Social Construction of Emotion: A Comment on Boiger and Mesquita

Boiger and Mesquita (2012) present a social constructionist perspective on emotion that argues for its multilevel contextualization through social interactions, relationships, and culture. The present comments offer a response to the authors’ call for input from other disciplines. We provide a sociological perspective on emotion construction at each of the contextual levels discussed by Boiger and Mesquita, and discuss a model that can address interdependencies between these levels. Our remarks are intended to identify additional literature that can be brought to bear on multilevel emotion construction and to put forward some ideas for future research on the subject.