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Universal Expressive Needs: A Critique and a Theory *
Author(s) -
Scheff Thomas J.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1985.8.2.241
Subject(s) - shame , anger , humanism , relation (database) , grief , epistemology , psychology , order (exchange) , sociology , social psychology , psychoanalysis , computer science , philosophy , psychotherapist , theology , finance , database , economics
This article proposes a theory of expressive needs common to all human beings, which grow out of biologically based “coarse emotions”: grief, fear, anger, shame, joy, and love‐attachment. In order to locate the new theory within the framework of existing thought on the relation between culture and biology, I classify, in a provisional way, the major theorists as belonging to one of the following schools of thought: instinctivist, culturist, or humanist. The weakness of each of these positions is outlined, and the way the new theory corrects the weaknesses is described.