Entering and leaving the tunnel of violence

Micro-sociological dynamics of emotional entrainment in violent interactions

Bibliographic Data

ID2305665
AuthorsRandall Collins (University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume61
Issue2
Pages132-151
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-3921 • E-ISSN: 1461-7064
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0011392112456500
OpenAlexW2118323124
LanguageEN
Citations received35
References cited15

Evidence from close ethnographic observations, photos, videos, and interviews show that persons in violence-threatening situations experience the emotional state of confrontational tension/fear ( ct/f). This emotion constitutes a barrier that makes most violence abort. Given one of several interactional patterns that allow violence to proceed past this barrier, violence is largely clumsy, imprecise, and uncontrolled. Moments of violence are often experienced as perceptual distortions in the flow of time, vision, sound, and sense of self, an altered state of violent consciousness that the author refers to by the metaphor, the tunnel of violence. The latter part of the article extrapolates the theory to consider mechanisms by which this emotional tunnel is prolonged into episodes lasting longer than a few seconds. These mechanisms include: self-entrainment in one's own bodily rhythms; reciprocal micro-coordination between attacker and victim; audience or team entrainment. Some experienced individuals learn techniques to manipulate the emotional processes of the tunnel of violence for their own advantage. Greater awareness of micro-sociological processes hold out the prospect of heading off violence in the local situation itself

Consciousness · Criminology · Dynamics (music · Metaphor · Perception · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Unconscious mind · Critical Realism in Sociology · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Psychology · Social Power and Status Dynamics · Social Psychology · Sociology and Norbert Elias

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