ABSTRACT
Societies are ultimately held together by the positive emotions that people feel toward social structures and culture; and, conversely, societies can be torn apart and changed by the arousal of both negative and positive emotions. Indeed, if there is a micro basis of social order and change, it is the arousal of emotions among individuals as they navigate encounters lodged within mesostructures and macrostructures. Emotions are the energy that sustains or changes social reality, and while much human energy is generated by biological and by transactional needs, emotions are nonetheless implicated in meeting these biosocial needs. More importantly, emotions represent an independent source of motivational energy – above and beyond biosocial needs – that has large effects on the structures and cultures of a society. Thus, we require some generalizations about how emotions emerging at the micro level of social reality can, under specifiable conditions, generate pressures for stasis or change in social structure and culture.
