Social platforms such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have rekindled the initial excitement of cyberspace. Text-based, computer-mediated communication has been enriched with face-to-face communication such as Skype, as users move from desktops to laptops with integrated cameras and related hardware. Age, gender and culture barriers seem to have crumbled and disappeared as the user base widens dramatically. Other than simple statistics relating to e-mail usage, chatrooms and blog subscriptions, we know surprisingly little about the rapid changes taking place. This book assembles leading researchers on nonverbal communication, emotion, cognition and computer science to summarize what we know about the processes relevant to face-to-face communication as it pertains to telecommunication, including video-conferencing. The authors take stock of what has been learned regarding how people communicate, in person or over distance, and set the foundations for solid research helping to
This book is based on a substantial collection of video recordings of everyday medical consultations in the UK, and offers a micro-analysis of the visual and vocal aspects of the interaction between doctors and patients. Using actual examples, accompanied by numerous illustrations, Christian Heath explores the moment-by-moment coordination of body movement and speech by and between doctor and patient. He discusses various aspects of medical examination, leave-taking, and the ways in which the participants sustain each other's attention. He also raises certain practical issues of medical work, such as the use of records and computers during the consultation, and the impact of 'bureaucratic' demands on the flow of information between doctor and patient. The book reveals the delicacy and precision which enter into the articulation and synchrony of visual behaviour and speech, and throws light on the systematics - the social organization - underlying the seeming minutiae of everyday life.
In this book, Karl G. Heider studies the cultural constructions of emotions, examining how different cultures shape ideas and talk about emotion. The main subjects of the study are the Minangkabau, a matrilineal Muslim culture of three million people in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Comparative data come from the Central Javanese, also of Indonesia and reference is made to studies of American emotions. The Minangkabau have two different 'cultures of emotion', used depending on whether they are speaking their own regional language or the national language. And the Central Javanese have yet another culture of emotion when they are speaking the 'same' national language. Landscapes of Emotion will appeal to a range of readers in anthropology, psychology, sociology and Asian studies who want to understand how different cultures shape emotion.
The Individual, Communication, and Society is a collection of original essays on communication written by leading scholars in honor of the work of the late Gregory Bateson. Bateson, who began his career as a zoologist at Cambridge University, was one of the most provocative social scientists of the twentieth century. His major contribution was a theory of communication that integrated biological, psychological, and social phenomena. The theory had an important impact on the thinking of a number of influential anthropologists, psychologists, zoologists, and psychiatrists, who found Bateson's ideas not only relevant in their own research settings, but productive for the practical insights they offered into the nature of broader cultural systems. All of the chapters were written by scholars whose own work has been inspired by Bateson. The contributions are diverse, but each extends the implications of Bateson's concepts to the problems of human communication. The volume is designed not
Who gets called 'emotional'? And what does it mean when that happens? What tells us that a person is 'speaking from the heart'? The prevailing stereotype is that she is emotional, while he is not. In Speaking From the Heart Professor Shields draws on examples from everyday life, contemporary culture and comprehensive research, to reveal how culturally shared beliefs about emotion shape our identities as women and men. She shows how the discourse of emotion is fundamentally concerned with judgements about authenticity and legitimacy of experience, themes deeply implicated in creating and maintaining gender boundaries. This fascinating exploration of gender and emotion in a clear and engaging style takes up topics as diverse as nineteenth-century ideals of womanhood, weeping politicians, children's play and the Superbowl. It is a must read for anyone interested in the way emotion affects our everyday lives.
There are profound, extensive, and surprising universals in literature, which are bound up with universals in emotion. Hogan maintains that debates over the cultural specificity of emotion are misdirected because they have ignored a vast body of data that bear directly on the way different cultures imagine and experience emotion - literature. This is the first empirically and cognitively based discussion of narrative universals. Professor Hogan argues that, to a remarkable degree, the stories people admire in different cultures follow a limited number of patterns and that these patterns are determined by cross-culturally constant ideas about emotion. In formulating his argument, Professor Hogan draws on his extensive reading in world literature, experimental research treating emotion and emotion concepts, and methodological principles from the contemporary linguistics and the philosophy of science. He concludes with a discussion of the relations among narrative, emotion concepts, and
The study of emotional expressions has a long tradition in psychology. Although research in this domain has extensively studied the social context factors that influence the expresser's facial display, the perceiver was considered passive. This 2007 book focuses on more recent developments that show that the perceiver is also subject to the same social rules and norms that guide the expresser's behavior and that knowledge of relevant emotion norms can influence how emotional expressions shown by members of different groups are perceived and interpreted. Factors such as ethnic-group membership, gender and relative status all influence not only emotional expressions but also the interpretation of emotional expressions shown by members of different groups. Specifically, the research presented asks the question of whether and why the same expressions shown by men or women, members of different ethnic groups, or individuals high and low in status are interpreted differently.
Affect and Social Behavior, first published in 1990, provides a comprehensive and integrative examination of research and theory into the role that emotion plays in influencing social behavior. The contributors investigate a number of important domains such as aggression, altruism, romantic attraction, and consumer behavior and the role that affect plays in instigating and regulating these behaviors. The chapters were written by some of the most prominent researchers in the field and they provide a review of research and theory in this important area of study.
Because of the complexity of human behaviour a great many research variables must be constructed from the building blocks of human judgement. A teacher's warmth, a psychotherapist's ability to create rapport, a patient's inner state - these all tend ultimately to be defined by the judgements of others. The purpose of this book is to describe the design, the analysis and the meta-analysis of studies employing judgements in sufficient detail that readers can conduct such studies, and more wisely evaluate them. While the author's examples are drawn primarily from research on non-verbal behaviour, the book is designed for any investigators employing judges, observers, raters, coders, or decoders, whether or not the behaviour being assessed is non-verbal. Judgment Studies: Design, Analysis, and Meta-Analysis constitutes a unique resource for advanced students and researchers in the behavioural and social sciences. It offers the first integrated summary of methodological issues in judgement
The last decade has seen a resurgence of interest in both the nature and expression of emotion and in the process of social interaction. Researchers from a number of disciplines - psychology, anthropology, psychiatry, ethology, sociology, linguistics, and semiotics - have been attacking what are really a series of overlapping problems. These range from studies of brain mechanisms in emotion at one end of the spectrum to detailed analyses of the rule structure governing conversational sequences at the other. This series is intended to be an easily identifiable resource for scholars and students with shared methodological concerns whose work derives from historically separate research traditions. Research monographs, scholarly surveys, methodological treatises, and multi-author collections will all be included if they break new ground.
Speech and culture most evidently differentiate people from animals. Yet, the biological precursors to verbal communication exists in animal communication and obvious links have been found between human and animal nonverbal vocal communication. In Nonverbal Vocal Communication specialists from several disciplines review the present knowledge on neural substrates of vocal communication, on primate vocal communication, and on precursors and prerequisites of human speech. Among other points, the book illustrates that animal vocal signals appear to be much more complex than mere expressions of effective states. The non-verbal communication data is complemented by comparative and developmental research of the preverbal period of human vocal communication. The book provides a forum for consideration of phylogenetic and ontogenetic continuities and precursors of verbal communication that will allow for critical interpretation of speech acquisition by a wide range of workers.
This 1993 volume brings together critical analysis of the phenomenon called interpersonal expectation - a sub-area of social psychology that studies how the expectations of one person affects the behavior of another in an interactive setting. The book is divided into three major sections: the first examines real-world applications of research on interpersonal expectations, such as in the courtroom, classroom, and operating room; the second considers the mediation of interpersonal expectations through verbal and nonverbal behavior; and the third outlines the emerging methodological and statistical techniques for understanding the implications of interpersonal expectations. Critical commentary and analysis by leading scholars in the field are presented and the book makes a major contribution to the study of interpersonal expectation.
When people are in a certain mood, whether elation or depression, that mood is often communicated to others. When we are talking to someone who is depressed it may make us feel depressed, whereas if we talk to someone who is feeling self-confident and buoyant we are likely to feel good about ourselves. This phenomenon, known as emotional contagion, is identified here, and compelling evidence for its affect is offered from a variety of disciplines - social and developmental psychology, history, cross-cultural psychology, experimental psychology, and psychopathology.
Silvan Tomkins was one of the most influential theorists on emotion and emotional expression. Over a period of 40 - some years - until his death in 1991 - he developed a set of original, important ideas about the nature of affect and its relationship to cognition and personality. Tomkins dealt with fundamental questions in a fresh and provocative way, establishing affect as a separate, biological system, and providing compelling data on discrete affect expressions. Several years before his death, Professor Tomkins agreed to bring his papers (unpublished and published) together into Exploring Affect for Cambridge Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction. He worked with Paul Ekman and Klaus Scherer to develop a structure for the book that would synthesize his theory of emotion. Unfortunately, he died before he was able to complete the process. Virginia Demos, who knew Professor Tomkins well, took on the enormous task of compiling the papers and writing connective material for the book.
How do bilinguals experience emotions? Do they perceive and express emotions similarly or differently in their respective languages? Does the first language remain forever the language of the heart? What role do emotions play in second language learning and in language attrition? Why do some writers prefer to write in their second language? In this provocative book, Pavlenko challenges the monolingual bias of modern linguistics and psychology and uses the lens of bi- and multilingualism to offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between language and emotions. Bringing together insights from the fields of linguistics, neurolinguistics, psychology, anthropology, psychoanalysis and literary theory, Pavlenko offers a comprehensive introduction to this cross-disciplinary movement. This is a highly readable and thought-provoking book that draws on empirical data and first hand accounts and offers invaluable advice for novice researchers. It will appeal to scholars and researchers
The role of affect in how people think and behave in social situations has been a source of fascination to laymen and philosophers since time immemorial. Surprisingly, most of what we know about the role of feelings in social thinking and behavior has been discovered only during the last two decades. This book reviews and integrates the most recent research and theories on this exciting topic, and features original contributions from leading researchers active in the area. The book covers fundamental issues, such as the nature, and relationship between affect and cognition, as well as chapters that deal with the cognitive antecedents of emotion, and the consequences of affect for social cognition and behavior. The book offers a highly integrated and comprehensive coverage of the field, and is suitable as a core textbook in advanced courses dealing with the role of affect in cognition and behavior.
Recent ideas concerning the development of self and identity have stressed the importance of moving away from an approach which is mainly concerned with outcomes, to one which focuses instead on processes of development and, more specifically, on a relational perspective on these processes. Identity and Emotion, first published in 2001, focuses on the individual development of identity and the processes involved. By working from emotions and a dynamic systems perspective the book offers an exciting approach to human identity and its development across the lifespan. The contributors to the book are specialists in this new approach, and offer challenging ideas on the development of identity as a self-organizing process. The book offers a wealth of ideas and insights, but also concentrates on the ways these insights can be translated into research.
In this fascinating book, Anna Wierzbicka brings psychological, anthropological and linguistic insights to bear on our understanding of the way emotions are expressed and experienced in different cultures, languages, and culturally-shaped social relations. The expression of emotion in the face, body and modes of speech are all explored and Wierzbicka shows how the bodily expression of emotion varies across cultures and challenges traditional approaches to the study of facial expressions. As well as offering a perspective on human emotions based on the analysis of language and ways of talking about emotion, this intriguing and controversial book attempts to identify universals of human emotion by analysing empirical evidence from different languages and cultures. This book will be invaluable to academics and students of emotion across the social sciences.
In his important book, first published in 1997, Thomas Scheff offers an approach to researching human behavior which relates the smallest parts of social interaction to the greatest wholes of social structure. These are the details and connections usually found only in the finest novels, but Scheff combines the insights of the humanities and social sciences to capture the same evocative details of sight, sound, and context, better to understand what he calls 'human reality'. He puts a fresh emphasis on the importance of emotions in the social bond, and describes in newly subtle ways the outer and inner lives of persons in real life, such as inner-city children, and in fiction, such as Jane Austen's heroines. By closely observing the significance of words and gestures in the context in which they occur, he is able to illuminate the connection between people's lives and the society in which they live.
