Analysis Of Arlie Hochschild On Emotional Work

The situation in which I will be referring to throughout this essay is a family dinner celebrating my brother’s engagement to his fiancé whom my mother approves of but my father does not. The works of Arlie Hochschild on emotional work will be used to analyze the situational context. Arlie Hochschild is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley whose area of interest is in how individuals manage their emotions and perform emotional labor in places that require control over one’s character such as their workplace. Her work suggests the idea that emotion and feeling are social. In this Hochschild (1983) means that there are rules to how we feel in every situation such as birthday parties and trying to stay happy at them

A discrepancy between one’s internal and external state means that there is an imbalance of one’s emotional equilibrium. With or without dissonance, the individual is alienating themselves from the rest of the group because they are disconnected from their emotions. My internal state at the celebratory dinner did not match the positive facade I put up, because prior to the event, my car was towed and I anticipated an uncomfortable gathering with both of my parents under one roof. I used deep acting by telling myself that I was there for my brother’s engagement and that I should be happy for him just as my family was. I changed a personal part of myself to fit the context of the

During our family dinner, I noticed that my father was disinterested in talking to her, he preferred to sip on his beer and not speak to anyone. He did not perform any emotional work which challenged the context of the situation, because he was the only one who was not up to par with our levels of positivity. In most situations, we prefer not to challenge the context of the situation, especially if during the event, the individual’s job is to contribute to the norms of the particular event. My father’s attitude was most likely attributable to the norms of his gender. Emotions permeate behavior and attitudes. My father’s strong disapproval of my brother’s engagement translates into negative emotions that he did not use surface or deep acting to suppress during the dinner. One might argue that he used deep acting because his emotions of frustration were suppressed, but he was not surface acting because he did not fake feelings of happiness. Men and women are assigned gender norms, these expected behaviors are socially constructed just as emotions are. However for men and women, they are expected to use emotions differently than one another. Men are not expected to suppress their stronger emotions such as anger, whereas women