ABSTRACT
This chapter is dedicated to George Herbert Mead and it examines the social theory of the pragmatist as it relates to the sociological understanding of emotional phenomena. Mead’s reflections on emotions are distinguished from other classical sociological formulations by one peculiarity. Mead’s main contribution to the study of emotions lies in the idea that the interactive material of emotions constitutes a non-reflexive social act that precedes the specialization of this same material in more socially determined symbols and cognitions. Linguistically mediated and cognitively reflexive human communication is always rooted in the social nature of primitive instincts, whose affective content is represented by emotions. Ultimately, Mead helps us to understand that emotions are not completely private nor completely externalized, or definable as social solely in terms of cultural constructions connected to social beliefs, norms and roles. The social nature of emotions is essentially the outcome of an extended complex of intersubjective relationships, which are the foundation of human social acts within the world.
