The Joy of Science

Disciplinary Diversity in Emotional Accounts

Bibliographic Data

ID5337433
AuthorsKoppman (0000-0002-2254-950X, University of Arizona, corresponding author), Sharon Koppman, C L Cain (0000-0002-5149-3592, University of Minnesota), E Leahey (0000-0002-6023-9115, University of Arizona)
Year2015
Volume40
Issue1
Pages30-70
Publication date2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243914537527
OpenAlexW2154930000
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited78

Science and emotions are typically juxtaposed: science is considered rational and unattached to outcomes, whereas emotions are considered irrational and harmful to science. Ethnographic studies of the daily lives of scientists have problematized this opposition, focusing on the emotional experiences of scientists as they go about their work, but they reveal little about disciplinary differences. We build on these studies by analyzing Citation Classics: accounts about the making of influential science. We document how highly cited scientists retrospectively describe emotional aspects of their research and assess variation in these narratives across six diverse disciplines: Chemistry; Clinical Medicine; Neurobiology; Physics; Plant and Animal Science; and Psychology and Psychiatry. Using correspondence analysis, we develop a multidimensional model to explain disciplinary variation in scientists' accounts of emotions and link this variation to internal, external, and material aspects of the disciplines. We find differences in norms of appropriate emotional expression, or "feeling rules," between the "hard" and "soft" sciences, the basic and applied sciences, and the sciences that study living organisms versus those that study organs, cells, or atoms. By comparing accounts across disciplines and elaborating the structuring principles underlying these patterns, we integrate knowledge from varied case studies into an integrative and multifaceted model

Behavioural sciences · Citation · Discipline · Epistemology · Feeling · Narrative · Social science · Sociology · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Computer Science · Management and Organizational Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology

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