The Sociology Book

238

W

hen Karl Marx, in Das

Kapital, expressed

concern about mother-

and-child factory workers and the

“human cost” of labor, he said they

had become an “instrument” of

labor. This observation, and the

environment of brutalizing physical

work, led to his alienation concept,

whereby lack of fulfillment and

control leads workers to feel

disconnected and estranged.

Alongside Marx’s insights, two

models of emotion emerged in the

late 19th and early 20th century.

The “organismic” model, built

from the work of Charles Darwin,

William James, and Sigmund

Freud, identifies emotion as mainly

a biological process: external

stimuli trigger instinctual

responses that people express in

similar ways. From the 1920s, John

Dewey, Hans Gerth, Charles Wright

Mills, and Erving Goffman created

an “interactional” model. They

accepted emotion had a biological

component, but they maintained

that it is more interactive and

differentiated by a range of social

factors: culture is involved in the

formulation of emotion and people

manage feelings subjectively.

Following the translation of Marx’s

work into English in the 1960s,

alienation became a powerful

analytical tool for sociologists

trying to make sense of the

changes then taking place to

working conditions in North

America and Western Europe.

A state of mind

Inspired by these various ideas,

and drawing upon women thinkers

such as Simone de Beauvoir, US

feminist and sociologist Arlie

Hochschild has made the analysis

of the emotional dimensions of

ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHSCHILD

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Emotional labor

KEY DATES

1867 Karl Marx completes the

first volume of Das Kapital,

which inspires Hochschild’s

concept of emotional labor.

1959 Canadian sociologist

Erving Goffman publishes

The Presentation of Self in

Everyday Life.

1960s The burgeoning service

industries of Europe and

North America start to be

heavily gendered toward

women workers.

1970s Feminist thinkers begin

to turn their attention to the

negative consequences of

capitalism for women.

2011 Sociologists Ann Brooks

and Theresa Devasahayam

publish Gender, Emotions

and Labour Markets, which

combines Hochschild’s ideas

with globalization theory.

New service industries require workers

to possess “emotional resources.”

Because women are stereotyped as

more emotional, these industries

are heavily gendered toward

a female workforce.

Under capitalism, human

emotions are commodified:

in processing people, the

product is a state of mind.

Women workers are asked to

act in ways that create positive

emotional states to help ensure

future custom.

‘Sincerity’ is detrimental to

one’s job, until the rules of

salesmanship and business

become a ‘genuine’ aspect

of oneself.

Charles Wright Mills