CSUSM Socioemotional Processes Contributing to Political Outlook Essay

A key insight of the sociological study of emotions is that our emotions and our social environments are interconnected.  Our inner emotional lives reflect and affect the social relationships, processes, and structures surrounding us.  I would like you to apply this insight to address the relationship between our emotional experiences and the levels of social solidarity we see in contemporary U.S. society.

Specifically, I want you to apply ideas from the sociology of emotions to analyze what many see as relatively high levels of political polarization in the U.S. (and in many other parts of the world).  For example, the U.S. political landscape is often portrayed as primarily split between two large groups with nearly diametrically opposed and fervently held views.  People within each group tend to share views closely, especially of the other group. Moreover, levels of negative between-group feelings are often characterized as high.  These feelings often even extend into relations among extended family members.  This is an oversimplification, but it provides a setup for the questions I would like you to address in your essay.

I would like you to use what you have learned in this class to write an essay about how social processes may be related to the development of one’s feelings about the political environment and how a society might end up in a state of high emotional polarization.   I would like you to approach this task by asking yourself what some of the various theories we’ve studied have to say about the process through which people experience their social landscapes cognitively and, more importantly, emotionally.  I would also like you to consider the role these emotional states play in promoting and/or eroding social solidarity (e.g., within personal relationships, or within/between groups, etc.).  Please include examples from your experiences/observations as applicable.

Apply any of the theories/perspectives developed in three different chapters of the Turner and Stets textbook to offer insights about these three questions:

1)      What socioemotional processes my may contribute to a person’s political outlook or worldview?

2)      How might these processes affect one’s feelings about other people who may or may not share their views?

3)      Using the framework of the theories, what might be effective strategies for reducing emotional polarization within society?

This means that you should have three theories/perspectives (one from each of three different chapters) applied to each of the questions, above.  Please address each of the theories you choose in a separate section.  Also be sure to answer each of the questions with each theory.  Your completed essay should thus have at least three paragraphs (one for each question) in each of your three sections (one for each theory/chapter).