Strategies for the Social Science of Emotion
It seems to me that advances in our understanding of
emotions will continue to be minimal until we have developed unambiguous
definitions for particular emotions, rather than rely on current usage. The
vernacular language for emotions in most languages is confused and confusing,
especially English.
Many
authors have noted that English is extremely broad and vague in its usage of
the word love. A typical comment is by Solomon (1981, pp. 3-4):
Consider… the wealth of
meticulous and fine distinctions we make in describing our feelings of hostility:
hatred, loathing, scorn, anger, revulsion, resentment, envy, abhorrence,
malice, aversion, vexation, irritation, annoyance, disgust, spite and contempt,
or worse, "beneath" contempt. And yet we sort out our positive
affections for the most part between the two limp categories,
"liking" and "loving." We distinguish our friends from mere
acquaintances and make a ready distinction between lovers and friends whom we
love "but not that way." Still, one and the same word serves to
describe our enthusiasm for apple strudel, respect for a distant father, the
anguish of an uncertain romantic affair and nostalgic affection for an old pair
of slippers…
In
spite a steady stream of such commentary, most current social science studies
of love do not define what they mean by love, using the vernacular word as if
it has a singular meaning. Calling diverse relationships by the name of love
could serve to disguise the separateness and alienation that is rampant in
modern societies (Scheff, forthcoming).
The
quote from Solomon also points to an extremely important, but much more
specific issue in emotion lexicons. His catalogue of words for what he calls
hostility (anger) implies the issue of inclusion in an emotion class. Anger, he is saying, is signified by a large
class of vernacular words. What is included and excluded is a vital issue for
emotion studies.
For
example, consider what is known as the valence of emotions: which are painful,
and which are pleasurable? With some of the discrete emotions, the answer is
determined almost entirely by language. For example, in English, subjects will
respond quite clearly and emphatically that shame is a painful emotion. But if
you ask a French-speaking subject, she or he might reply: which kind of shame,
honte (disgrace shame) or pudeur (modesty)? In English, the positive variants
of shame have different names that exclude them from the shame class, leaving
only the negative variants. For this reason alone, in English shame is purely
negative, but not negative in French and most other languages.
An
example of research which trips over this issue are the studies in social
psychology to determine if embarrassment and shame are separate emotions. There
are several that find them to be separate, rather than related, emotions. The
methodology is to ask the subjects the question, are they separate or related?
The subjects of these studies, being English-speaking, of course respond that
they are separate. But if one did the same study with Spanish speaking
subjects, the opposite finding would result. In Spanish, the same word,
verguenza, can be used to mean either shame or embarrassment. Most languages of
modern societies differentiate between the two emotions, but most languages of
traditional societies, don’t. Just as the broadness of the word love could
serve as a disguise for alienation, the narrowness of the word shame might do
the same, by covering over situations of embarrassment or shame by using less
painful words (Scheff 2003).
I
propose that the main task in the social science of emotion currently is
pre-scientific. The scientific approach to problem solving is organized in
terms of theory, method and data, but there are situations in which the basic
issue is the formulation of the problem and the concepts, before theory,
method, and data can be moblized.
Many
examples have occurred in the history of physical science. Brahe, the Danish
astronomer, spent his adult life trying to determine the orbit of Venus. He
made stunningly accurate observations of the position of the planet during his
lifetime, but he assumed, like everyone else at that time, that the planets
revolved around the earth. For this reason he was unable to solve the problem.
His formulation was basically flawed, because his conception of the planetary
system was erroneous.
Kepler,
Brahe’s assistant, took on the problem after Brahe died. For years he continued
to find the problem unsolvable. In his exasperation, Kepler developed a bizarre
model in which orbits were determined by transparent solid polyhedrons. The
model itself was useless, but in his flight of fancy he had accidently placed
the sun, rather than the earth, at the center. Although Kepler’s observational
and mathematical skills were far inferior to Brahe’s, he quickly solved the
problem in light of the new conceptualization (Koestler 1967).
Investing
virtually all research resources in method and/or data might be called the
Brahe error. The modern disciplines of history and linguistics present one
version of this errror, to the extent that they focus entirely on descriptive
data. Modern psychology presents another version, to the extent that it focuses
entirely on experimental method. Economics and the theory wing of sociology, on
the other hand, make what might be called the Kepler error, to the extent that
they focus on fanciful theories of economic or social systems, as if Kepler had
stayed with his polyhedrons.
It
seems to me that to this point, most studies in the social science of emotions
are based on either the Brahe error or the Kepler error. Before using refined
methods like experiments, scales, and still photos, or abstract theories like
evolution or exchange, we need to clearly define the discrete emotions.
References
Koestler,
Arthur. 1967. The Act of Creation. New
York: Dell
Scheff,
Thomas. 2003. Shame in Self and Society. Symbolic Interaction. 26: #2,
pp. 239-262.
------------------ Forthcoming. Attachment and Attunement: Defining
Love.
Solomon,
Robert. 1981 Love : emotion, myth, and metaphor. Garden City, N.Y. :
Anchor Press/Doubleday.
993
words
