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Toward a General Sociological Theory of Emotions
Author(s) -
Turner Jonathan H.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5914.00095
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , symbolic interactionism , arousal , psychoanalytic theory , face (sociological concept) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , interactionism , power (physics) , epistemology , sociology , psychoanalysis , social science , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics
Key ideas from expectation‐states theory, symbolic interactionism, dramaturgical analysis, power‐status theories, attribution theory, and psychoanalytic theories are combined in an effort to generate a more general theory of emotional arousal in face‐to‐face interaction. The level of emotional arousal in interaction is seen to reflect the degree of incongruity between expectations, including expectations for confirmation of self, and actual experiences. Such arousal involves the conversion of primary emotions into first and second‐order combinations. The nature of emotional arousal is, however, further complicated by the activation of defense mechanisms and attribution processes. The composite theory is formalized into a series of propositions which can serve as hypotheses for empirical tests.