ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the social bases of five emotions to illustrate how important social interaction is in experiencing and defining some of the most important social processes. It focuses on guilt, shame, jealousy, embarrassment, and love. Sentiment is very close to emotion in meaning, but when social psychologists use the term sentiment, they emphasize the social aspect of emotion. Social psychologists conducted an experiment where they asked participants to determine either the specific emotion or the affective significance of a facial expression that was coupled with a context. Guilt has a number of social functions, the first of which is socialization. A counterpart to the emotion of guilt is shame. Embarrassment is also social because it is contagious; an additional source of embarrassment is the embarrassment of others. Embarrassment requires an audience, and love requires an object of affection.
