SOCIAL BASES OF EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR

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Diagnosis and treatment is heavily influenced by the emotional reactions of patients to whatever disease (actual or presumed) they might have. The natural course of the disease is also influenced by the patient's emotions, e.g., fear, hope, anger, sadness or depression. But in spite of the widespread recognition of the importance of emotions for medical practice, our understanding of the emotions as conceived and experienced by people in everyday life is suprisingly meager. Most contemporary theories view emotions as biologically primitive responses; even social psychological theories tend to focus on physiological arousal as the central attribute of emotional experience. By contrast, the present proposal is based on the assumption that emotions are social constructions--transitory social roles, so to speak. Such a social-constructivist view focuses attention on the rules (social norms) that help constitute various emotions. In line with this, two of the studies being proposed are designed to explore the normative aspects of emotions. The first of these involves a logical/historical analysis of so-called "basic" emotions; the second is an in-depth analysis of one emotion that historically has been considered basic--one that, moreover, is extremely important in medical practice--namely, hope. Another problem that must be addressed from a social-constructivist view has to do with individual differences in emotional reactivity, i.e., the abilities and attitudes that facilitate the adoption of emotional roles. Two further studies are proposed that address this issue.