Emotion work is understood as the art of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling. Emotion work may be defined as the management of one's own feelings, or work done in an effort to maintain a relationship; there is dispute as to whether emotion work is only work done regulating one’s own emotion, or extends to performing the emotional work for others.

Hochschild

Arlie Russell Hochschild Arlie Russell Hochschild (; born January 15, 1940) is an American professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and writer. Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions that underlie moral beliefs, practices, and ...

, who introduced the term in 1979, distinguished emotion work – unpaid emotional work that a person undertakes in private life – from

emotional labor Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. More specifically, workers are expected to regulate their emotions during interactions with customers, co-workers, clients and man ...

: emotional work done in a paid work setting.Pdf.
/ref> Emotion work has use value and occurs in situations in which people choose to regulate their emotions for their own non-compensated benefit (e.g., in their interactions with family and friends). By contrast, emotional labor has exchange value because it is traded and performed for a wage. In a later development, Hochschild distinguished between two broad types of emotion work, and among three techniques of emotion work.Preview.
/ref> The two broad types involve evocation and suppression of emotion, while the three techniques of emotion work that Hochschild describes are cognitive, bodily and expressive. However, the concept (if not the term) has been traced back as far as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

: as Aristotle saw, the problem is not with emotionality, but with the ''appropriateness'' of emotion and its expression.

Examples

Examples of emotion work include showing affection, apologizing after an argument, bringing up problems that need to be addressed in an

intimate relationship An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Although an intimate relationship is commonly a sexual relationship, it may also be a non-sexual relationship involving family, friends, or ...

or any kind of

interpersonal relationship The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...

, and making sure the household runs smoothly. Emotion work also involves the orientation of self/others to accord with accepted

norm Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envir ...

s of emotional expression: emotion work is often performed by family members and friends, who put pressure on individuals to conform to emotional norms. Arguably, then, an individual's ultimate obeisance and/or resistance to aspects of emotion regimes are made visible in their emotion work. Cultural norms often imply that emotion work is reserved for females. There is certainly evidence to the effect that the emotional management that women and men do is asymmetric; and that in general, women come into a marriage groomed for the role of emotional manager.

Criticism

The social theorist Victor Jeleniewski Seidler argues that women's emotion work is merely another demonstration of

false consciousness In Marxist theory, false consciousness is a term describing the ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the ex ...

under

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...

, and that emotion work, as a concept, has been adopted, adapted or criticized to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming a "catch-all-cliché". More broadly, the concept of emotion work has itself been criticized as a wide over-simplification of mental processes such as repression and

denial Denial, in ordinary English usage, has at least three meanings: asserting that any particular statement or allegation is not true (which might be accurate or inaccurate); the refusal of a request; and asserting that a true statement is not true. ...

which continually occur in everyday life.

Literary analogues

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

in ''

The New Heloise ''Julie; or, The New Heloise'' (french: Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse), originally entitled ''Lettres de Deux Amans, Habitans d'une petite Ville au pied des Alpes'' ("Letters from two lovers, living in a small town at the foot of the Alps"), is ...

'' suggests that the attempt to master instrumentally one's affective life always results in a weakening and eventually the fragmentation of one's identity, even if the emotion work is performed at the demand of ethical principles.

Hochschild

Examples

Criticism

Literary analogues

See also

References

Further reading