The Stratification of Emotions: Some Preliminary Generalizations

Abstract

Like all valued resources, positive and negative emotions are unequally distributed in a society and constitute an important basis of social stratification. In this article, a general conceptual scheme and a more specific theory of emotions are employed to offer a preliminary explanation of the dynamics of emotional stratification. This theory attempts to explain which specific positive and negative emotions will be aroused and distributed across the social class system as well as among members of differentially evaluated social categories. The theory emphasizes the importance of repression and subsequent attribution processes as central to understanding the nature, intensity, and distribution of negative emotions among individuals in lower social classes and devalued social categories. By viewing emotions as not just reactions to the unequal distribution of other resources but, rather, as a valued or punishing resource in their own right, it becomes possible to better understand how micro-level dynamics occurring in face-to-face encounters are affected by, and have effects on, meso-level and macro-level social structures and their respective cultures. In particular, the distribution of emotions can help account for both the processes of legitimatization of macrostructures and, at the same time, de-legitimization of, and collective action against, macrostructures. This analysis of emotions questions much recent theorizing and commentary, often within postmodern analysis, about the authenticity of people’s emotions in contemporary society. The stratification of emotions is as real as inequality in money and power, and it has significant effects on the dynamics of human societies.