Social Science Information

The article takes theoretical inspiration from Peirce’s views on emotion categorization and proposes to apply these ideas to the analysis of an historical episode. The latter is the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and more specifically the emotions that Egyptians expressed in Tahrir Square following Mubarak’s resignation. The article compares the dynamics of these emotional expressions as narrated by the media, on the one hand, and as they can be reconstructed from the direct witnessing of raw video materials, on the other.

Since Darwin, emotions have been defined as adaptive reactions that increase the probability of survival. In this framework, a situation in which individuals fight for their life with an imposing, aggressive animal should be an ideal elicitor of emotions and their corresponding facial expressions. We tested the correspondence between the facial expressions of 22 bullfighters (toreros) and their reported emotions at different stages of the fight. Toreros reported intense experiences of happiness or fear, but there were no observable instances of the facial expressions predicted for these emotions (e.g. smiles). Instead toreros displayed frowning, nostril dilatation, parted lips, and, protruding funneled lips in particular. In a second study we found that 149 judges could not recognize toreros’ facial movements as expressions of emotion. Absence of a universal signal value strongly suggests that toreros’ expressions are not an undescribed expression of basic emotions. The observed non-correspondence between intense reported emotions and their predicted expressions casts doubt on one of the most popular assumptions in contemporary psychology and provides new evidence for an alternative theoretical view. In this view, facial expressions are not signals of emotion, but actions that are roughly coextensive with other processes and structures in the framework of an emotional episode.

This article deals with the expression of emotions in tweets. The aim is to observe the way users formulate their feelings in a technologically constrained yet expressively free communicative environment, in a context of written instantaneity which leaves place for the selection of context-adapted linguistic formulae. Comparison between emotional expressions involved in hashtags and the emotional lexicon used in the body of the messages shows some topical discrepancies and, more particularly, different degrees of denotational power. It also reveals a constructivist dimension of emotional expressions.

The present study examined narratives about situations in which individuals experience physical and/or moral disgust, and the similarities and differences between them. A thematic content analysis of participants’ narratives of personal physically or morally disgusting experiences as well as a lexical analysis using the computer program ALCESTE revealed that physical disgust emerges in an instantaneous reflex-like way during situations in which the individual is directly exposed to physical disgust elicitors. Physically disgusting events are described from an actor’s perspective and induce predominantly ‘pure’ disgust in the absence of other negative emotions. Furthermore, physical disgust, which strongly involves sensory modalities such as vision, odor, touch and taste, leads to more bodily reactions (e.g. nausea, tremor) and impels avoidance behavior. Morally disgusting events relate primarily to the observation of others as the victims of violence, betrayal and injustice (observer perspective), and involve judgments and reflections about the event, suggesting more in-depth cognitive elaboration. Morally disgusting events were found also to induce other negative emotions, such as anger and sadness. Our results suggest that these two types of disgust are sufficiently distinct to anticipate that they might differentially affect individuals’ social and moral judgments.

Why and how do norms emerge? Which norms emerge and why these ones in particular? Such questions belong to the ‘problem of the emergence of norms’, which consists of an inquiry into the production of norms in social collectives. I address this question through the ethnographic study of the emergence of ‘norms against violence’ in the political collective Occupy Geneva. I do this, first, empirically, with the analysis of my field observations; and, second, theoretically, by discussing my findings. In consequence of two episodes categorized as sexual assaults that occurred in their camp, the members of Occupy Geneva decided to tackle those issues in a general assembly. Their goal was to amend their first charter of good conduct in order to reform its norms and complete it with norms aiming to regulate ‘facts’ of ‘unjustified violence’. During a collective deliberation, new norms were devised, debated and consensually adopted. The writing of the new charter took place in a second general assembly during which the wording of the written norms was collectively decided. I show that indignation over the sexual assaults was the main motive that led to the collective deliberation, and that the entire process of the making of these norms was characterized by different collective emotions. Indeed, indignation, contempt and fear played major roles in the emergence of norms prohibiting violence, allowing punishment and exclusion of wrongdoers, and prescribing collective intervention against an aggressor to neutralize the threat represented. These findings prompt me to hypothesize that social norms emerge from emotions thanks to the latters’ internal structure; and that emotions provide causal and grounding explanations for this emergence. Thus, emotions allow us to answer the questions: ‘Why do norms emerge?’ and ‘Why do they have their specific forms?’ In short, I argue that social norms have emotional foundations.

This article offers some areas for consideration when seeking to understand the emotional dimensions of legal action. Beginning with the lessons of ethnomethodology, it suggests grasping emotions praxeologically, that is, as a practical accomplishment, in order to describe how emotional expressions are perceived and interpreted publicly and in context. Emotions thus appear as practical supports for coordination and understanding in interactional sequences.

Since the 1960s various currents within social theory have been undermining the functionalist and structuralist conceptions of the human agent as a passive automaton moved by obscure forces. While the emerging picture emphasizes the part played by cognition, implicit skill, and explicit knowledge, much less attention has been paid to the role of emotions in the active production and reproduction of the social world. The specialized sub-field known as the sociology of emotions has brought to sociological attention the topic of emotions but has been preoccupied mainly with how social structures of various kinds determine or constrain situated emotions. The aim of this programmatic article is to demonstrate the theoretical plausibility and the empirical viability of research on emotional mechanisms of social production and reproduction. On the basis of a critical reappropriation of the theory of structuration and interaction ritual theory, face-work and sacred-object establishment (or ‘enshrinement’) arise as mechanisms of social production and reproduction of which situated emotions are inherently constitutive. The conclusion points to the need for social theory to develop a concept of motivation integrating the ‘pulling’ and ‘pushing’ duality of emotional intentions as expressed in situated action.