In her work, How Emotions are Made, Lisa Barrett makes many bold assertions. Her mission throughout the book is clear \u2014 she\u2019s seeking to debunk long held theories of emotion. Obviously, this is no small task, so Barrett\u2019s book is filled with plenty of interesting evidence, some empirical and some more philosophical in nature. One of the claims she makes is that emotions are socially constructed rather than a purely biological phenomena. Barrett\u2019s theory of emotions as social concepts brings into question whether or not there are differences between the ways in which men and women experience and understand emotion. Barrett\u2019s work suggest that within American culture, men and women share the same emotional concepts. Note that these concepts are not considered to be gendered and men and women have equal access to these concepts. However, as seen in many psychological and sociological studies, men and women seem to experience emotion in vastly different ways. In this blog, I will seek to use Barrett\u2019s work to make sense of this contradiction. <\/p>\n
First, to fully understand the puzzle on the table, it is important to nail down what Barrett means when she uses the phrase \u201cemotional concepts\u201d. Within her book, Barrett claims that people within the same culture have constructed ideas such as fear and anger. When widely agreed upon, these words become meaningful as emotion (Barrett, 133). Thus, the emotional concept is born. While some people may have a hard time buying into the idea of emotions as a social reality, it is important to consider that many aspects of human existence are socially constructed. As Barrett herself points out, everything from \u201cyour job\u201d to \u201cyour government and laws\u201d is socially constructed (Barrett, 133). This seems to support that it is at the very least plausible that emotions could simply be a product of society. <\/p>\n
Now that we have solidified this working definition of emotional concepts, we can move on to examining the first branch of the puzzle. According to Barrett\u2019s theory, men and women within the same culture \u2014 in this case we are considering the United States \u2014 should share the same emotional concepts. This is in part because emotional concepts are not supposed to be gendered. It is also because men and women within the same society have equal access to these emotional concepts. The idea of equal access can be supported by the fact that most schools in the United States are co-ed. This means that from an early age, boys and girls are exposed to much of the same literature, films, music, etc. <\/p>\n
While men and women \u2014 in theory \u2014 share the same emotional concepts, they tend to have very different emotional styles. For example, women are much more likely to cry during a particularly sad movie scene, and men are much more likely to show explosive moments of anger. While there are many different theories to explain these perceived differences, it seems that if Barrett\u2019s notion of emotional concepts was reliable, men and women would generally experience emotion in the same way. <\/p>\n
One possible way to resolve this discrepancy is to consider that while emotional concepts are not gendered, men and women do tend to have different emotional concepts. This idea could be supported through Barrett\u2019s idea of \u201cemotional granularity\u201d. According to Barrett, emotional granularity is \u201cabout accurately determining one\u2019s emotional state\u201d (Barrett 3). In other words, it\u2019s about being able to accurately determine \u2014 and perhaps even articulate \u2014 the way you are feeling. For example, when a woman is beginning a new romantic relationship, she will often describes herself as feeling giddy. This word choice is careful. The word giddy could be considered to be an offshoot of a more general term like excitement, so the key here is the precise use of language. Because the word giddy has the connotation of a romantic form of excitement, the woman who identifies herself as feeling giddy shows that she has high emotional granularity. Men, however, tend to describe their emotions in less exact terms. For example, when receiving a bad grade on a paper they may tend to use phrases such as \u201cI\u2019m pissed\u201d. Someone with more emotional granularity would likely say or think something more along the lines of \u201cI\u2019m disappointed in my grade\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m resentful towards my professor\u201d.<\/p>\n
So, if men and women have access to the same emotional concepts, why do they show such differences in emotional granularity? It seems to me that the cause of this issue is the way that men and women have been trained to act by society. While men are certainly at least familiar with the emotional concepts of \u201csadness\u201d and \u201clove\u201d, they have been socialized to shy away from feeling that way. Within our society, men are expected to be hyper-masculine. That means placing emotional concepts like anger first and putting different concepts like love on the back burner. On the other hand, women are socialized in the opposite way. It is not only okay, but expected that they experience a wider array of emotions. Women are allowed to be vulnerable in ways that men often are not. This means that they are likely to have much more emotional granularity, especially when it comes to sub-concepts of ideas like sadness, love, and compassion. Women, however, are not as freely able to experience the emotion of anger. This can be seen by the way that society tends to describe women\u2019s outbursts. Rather than use the word angry, women are often described as bitter, scorned, petty, or hysterical. <\/p>\n
It is my belief that this difference in emotional granularity between the genders is the cause of the differences seen in men and women\u2019s emotional experiences. While it is true that they may share the same emotional concepts, it seems that men and women engage with them in different ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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