A life without a plan? Freelance musicians in pandemic limbo

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the already precarious conditions of freelance workers. The aim of this study is to understand what it means for freelance musicians to be in pandemic limbo. Thirteen Swedish professional freelance musicians in the classical genre were interviewed about their experiences in the midst of the pandemic. A theoretical frame of reference is offered with concepts from Bourdieu, sociology of emotions and emotional geographies. This enables an understanding of what it means as a freelancer to be dislocated and disrupted in relation to places and spaces of work and investments in time and emotions. The conclusions are about the ambivalent emotions and processes of emotional management that are caused by the pandemic. For freelance musicians, depending on their access to the live-settings of gigs, auditions and social venues, it is like being thrown back in time and place (back to where careers were slowly built). However, while at a distance from the normal run of careers, constructive processes of critical reflection and re-orientation have been initiated.     

Is it better to be happy or to be proud at school before doing a text comprehension task? First evidence with 10-year-old children

Introduction and objective

An experiment was conducted in a school context to examine whether joy and pride, two positive emotions, can promote children's acquisition of knowledge in a reading comprehension situation.

The irony of kinship migration and the control of emotions among Malayalis

The article analyses migrants' uses of irony in relation to normative conceptions of intergenerational affection, in Kerala (South India) and in the diaspora. It draws from current understanding of irony not only as a figure of speech but also as an emotionally-charged attitude of scorn and dissatisfaction towards a dominant view of society. The ethnography shows how irony emerges in context where present forms of mobility are set against a past of painful kinship ruptures, and aims at creating a distance between the subject and the emotional charge of the stories recalled. It suggests how the sociological understanding of emotions within processes of contemporary migration should go beyond the 'here and now' of research contexts, to interrogate the relevance of longer family histories. It also argues for the need to look beyond the dominant trope of nostalgia to look at how migrants' emotions towards kin might be moulded by recurrent – and often unresolved – ambivalence. Irony emerges as an important affective frame through which migrants express – and importantly try to control – conflicting emotions as displaced subjects. It constitutes an emotional work through which migrants make sense of events over which they do not feel they have total control, and yet with the intention of asserting their own truth about the parodies and paradoxes of family lives.     

Lifeboat politics in the Pacific: Affect and the ripples and shimmers of a migrant saturated future

Affect is explored in relation to the governance of irregular migrants and asylum seekers that turn such vulnerable individuals into a feared category. How are emotions as practices developed, fostered and enacted? The examples developed in the article focus on ‘illegal maritime arrivals’ (asylum seekers arriving by boat) and the emotionally charged response to them in Australia. The article argues that the state, far from embodying a detached and neutral arbiter utilising various steering mechanisms of care and due process, instead governs through fear and anxiety generated in relation to outsiders. The state draws on, and indeed creates, dispositions and feelings, generating a distinct politics of affect. The motif of the lifeboat is an example of a diversion from the anxieties and fears in everyday life; a metaphor for scarcity and a battle for survival. The asylum seeker as ‘illegal maritime arrival’ (boat person) is the exemplar of such a lifeboat politics in the Australian case.     

The emotional male victim: Effects of presentation mode on judged credibility

The emotional victim effect (EVE, i.e., that the emotionality of a victim's demeanor affects perceived credibility) is a robust research finding for female victims of rape but much less explored for other types of victims and crimes. In this article, we investigate the EVE with a male assault complainant. In addition, we vary the presentation mode via which the complainant is shown to the assessors. A sample of law students (N = 81) participated in an experiment where they viewed and assessed credibility of a male complainant who appeared either live or on video. The complainant behaved either in an emotional or a neutral manner. Result showed that the presentation mode but not the EVE affected the assessors' credibility assessments: The complainant was perceived as more truthful when communicating live, as opposed to via video. Practical implications, as well as the generality of the EVE, are discussed.     

Forgive them for I have sinned: The relationship between guilt and forgiveness of others' transgressions

We propose that guilt leads to forgiveness of others' transgressions. In Study 1, people prone to experience guilt (but not shame) were also prone to forgive others for past misdeeds. In Study 2, we manipulated harm‐ and inequity‐based guilt; both increased forgiveness of others' transgressions. Further, the effect of guilt on forgiveness was mediated by identification with the transgressor. In Study 3, we replicated the guilt–forgiveness relationship and examined three other plausible mediators: capability for similar wrongdoing, empathic understanding, and general identification; only identification with the transgressor satisfied the criteria for mediation. In Study 4, we induced guilt by asking participants to harm a friend or stranger. Guilt induced by harming a friend led to greater forgiveness of third‐party transgressors, and again, identification with the transgressor mediated the effect. We discuss the implications of these results for understanding how the prosocial effects of guilt extend beyond the boundaries of a single interpersonal relationship.     

Gender difference in emotional reactions and sexual coercion in casual sexual relations: An evolutionary perspective

This study tested four predictions derived from (evolutionary) sexual conflict theory. The central hypothesis was that men and women possess different emotional mechanisms that motivate and evaluate sexual activities. Women’s mechanisms are associated with their perception of partners’ ability and willingness to invest. For men these associations are weaker or inverse. Regression analyses of survey data from 194 college students revealed the following. As incidence of casual sexual relations increased (SOI Behavior), men reported less concern about partners’ intentions and less Worry–Vulnerability in response to casual sexual relations than women did; these gender interactions were significant. Regular sexual relations with partners with whom they did not desire emotional involvement showed the same pattern of gender differences. The Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) measured the incidence of sexual coercion in casual sexual relations. For women, but not for men, SOI Behavior was associated with all levels of sexual coercion. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

The epistemic innocence of motivated delusions

Delusions are defined as irrational beliefs that compromise good functioning. However, in the empirical literature, delusions have been found to have some psychological benefits. One proposal is that some delusions defuse negative emotions and protect one from low self-esteem by allowing motivational influences on belief formation. In this paper I focus on delusions that have been construed as playing a defensive function (motivated delusions) and argue that some of their psychological benefits can convert into epistemic ones. Notwithstanding their epistemic costs, motivated delusions also have potential epistemic benefits for agents who have faced adversities, undergone physical or psychological trauma, or are subject to negative emotions and low self-esteem. To account for the epistemic status of motivated delusions, costly and beneficial at the same time, I introduce the notion of epistemic innocence. A delusion is epistemically innocent when adopting it delivers a significant epistemic benefit, and the benefit could not be attained if the delusion were not adopted. The analysis leads to a novel account of the status of delusions by inviting a reflection on the relationship between psychological and epistemic benefits.     

The impact of emotional labor on work-family outcomes

Theory and research on emotional labor at work is applied to the study of the work-family interface to explore how emotional experiences in both the work and the family domain relate to the experience of work-family conflict and work-family enrichment, and ultimately attitudinal and health outcomes. Emotional intelligence is also examined as a moderator of the relationship between emotional labor and affective responses to work and family life. A model focusing on emotional experiences in the both the work and family domains is proposed and tested using path analysis. Results indicate that emotional labor in both the work and family domains relate to affective responses to each respective domain, which in turn relates to work-family conflict and work-family enrichment. In turn, consistent with previous research work-family conflict relates to domain-specific satisfaction (job, life) and health outcomes (burnout, depression). Partial support was found for the proposed moderating effect of emotional intelligence.     

The social face of emotion recognition: Evaluations versus stereotypes

The goal of the present paper was to demonstrate the influence of general evaluations and stereotype associations on emotion recognition. Earlier research has shown that evaluative connotations between social category members and emotional expression predict whether recognition of positive or negative emotional expressions will be facilitated (e.g. Hugenberg, 2005). In the current paper we tested the hypothesis that stereotype associations influence emotion recognition processes, especially when the difference between valences of emotional expressions does not come into play. In line with this notion, when participants in the present two studies were asked to classify positive versus negative emotional expressions (i.e. happy versus anger, or happy versus sadness), valence congruency effects were found. Importantly, however, in a comparative context without differences in valence in which participants were asked to classify two distinct negative emotions (i.e. anger versus sadness) we found that recognition facilitation occurred for stereotypically associated discrete emotional expressions. With this, the current results indicate that a distinction between general evaluative and cognitive routes can be made in emotion recognition processes.