The Problem of Change in Emotions Research

New Standards for Anger in Twentieth-century American Childrearing

Bibliographic Data

ID2480908
AuthorsPeter N Stearns (0000-0001-7596-2878, Carnegie Mellon University, corresponding author)
Year1987
Volume10
Issue1
Pages85-99
Publication date1987-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSymbolic Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-6086 • E-ISSN: 1533-8665
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/si.1987.10.1.85
OpenAlexW2090057796
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited28

A considerable body of historical work has recently been devoted to the study of emotion. Particular attention has been drawn to major changes during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western emotional standards, and probably in emotional experience as well, as West European and American society moved toward more commercial, secular bases and as intense community ties diminished. This article summarizes and evaluates this literature, assessing the importance of dealing with change, and the causation and impact of change, in emotions research. Although change is not uniform in the history of the study of emotion, such that the early modern transformation of love, anger, grief, and other emotions stands out, important shifts have developed in more recent decades as well. The second half of the article offers a case study of one such shift, as childrearing standards toward anger moved from an emphasis on channeling the emotion toward useful ends to an effort to repress or defuse anger through talking-out. This change, with interesting echoes in American adult perceptions, can be explained by new behavioral science emphases (on aggression) but particularly by the shift toward a service, and thus customer-pleasing, economy

Aggression · Anger · Causation · Emotion work · Grief · Political science · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History of Emotions Research · Law · Moravian Church and William Blake · Psychology · Social Psychology