Emotion and Social Structures : The Affective Foundations of Social Order

develops the argument that emotions play a key role in linking individual social action and the emergence and reproduction of social order. To do so, this book integrates theoretical models and empirical evidence from a wide range of disciplines, in particular psychology, cognitive science, and social and affective neuroscience. Christian von Scheve investigates the ways in which social structures serve as a basis for explaining the elicitation and experience of emotions, as well as how emotions influence social action and ensuing social structural dynamics.

The past decades have seen significant advances in the sociological understanding of human emotion. Sociology has shown how culture and society shape our emotions and how emotions contribute to micro- and macro-social processes. At the same time, the behavioral sciences have made progress in understanding emotion at the level of the individual mind and body.

embraces both perspectives to uncover the fundamental role of affect and emotion in the emergence and reproduction of social order. How do culture and social structure influence the cognitive and bodily basis of emotion? How do large-scale patterns of feeling emerge? And how do emotions promote the coordination of social action and interaction? Integrating theories and evidence from disciplines such as psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, Christian von Scheve argues for a sociological understanding of emotion as a bi-directional mediator between social action and social structure.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the sociology of emotion, microsociology, and cognitive sociology, as well as social psychology, cognitive science, and affective neuroscience.