ABSTRACT
Just as emotional dynamics are embedded in human biology and the selection processes that generated this biology, so emotions are embedded in social structure and culture. We are now on more familiar terrain for sociologists, but surprisingly, sociology in general and the sociology of emotions in particular reveal relatively little consensus over the nature of culture and social structure. Most approaches in the sociology of emotions view structure in relatively narrow terms, typically as status (prestige) and power (authority) within a group or relatively small network. In contrast, the incorporation of culture is somewhat more expansive, focusing upon emotion ideologies and vocabularies, feeling and display rules, expectation states, and norms of justice. Still, even though conceptualizations of culture are more macro, most work in sociology on emotions is decidedly micro in emphasis and pays comparatively little attention to the meso-and macrolevel forces and structures that determine the distribution of power and status or the emotion vocabularies, ideologies, and rules that govern encounters in small groups.
