Misery and Company: Sympathy in Everyday LifeIn a kind of social tour of sympathy, Candace Clark reveals that the emotional experience we call sympathy has a history, logic, and life of its own. Although sympathy may seem to be a natural, reflexive reaction, people are not born knowing when, for whom, and in what circumstances sympathy is appropriate. Rather, they learn elaborate, highly specific rules—different rules for men than for women—that guide when to feel or display sympathy, when to claim it, and how to accept it. Using extensive interviews, cultural artifacts, and "intensive eavesdropping" in public places, such as hospitals and funeral parlors, as well as analyzing charity appeals, blues lyrics, greeting cards, novels, and media reports, Clark shows that we learn culturally prescribed rules that govern our expression of sympathy. "Clark's . . . research methods [are] inventive and her glimpses of U.S. life revealing. . . . And you have to love a social scientist so respectful of Miss Manners."—Clifford Orwin, Toronto Globe and Mail "Clark offers a thought-provoking and quite interesting etiquette of sympathy according to which we ought to act in order to preserve the sympathy credits we can call on in time of need."—Virginia Quarterly Review |
From inside the book
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Page xi
... American Journal of Sociology in 1987. Any project that has gone on for a decade owes a huge debt to the colleagues , students , friends , and family who have suffered through it . Of course , Bernard Goldstein suffered most severely ...
... American Journal of Sociology in 1987. Any project that has gone on for a decade owes a huge debt to the colleagues , students , friends , and family who have suffered through it . Of course , Bernard Goldstein suffered most severely ...
Page 5
... American's sympathy values and practices into sharper focus . The contrasts force us to realize that sympathy has a social life of its own . Feeling rules ( Hochschild 1979 ) and social logics ( Davis , Gardner , and Gardner 1941 ) ...
... American's sympathy values and practices into sharper focus . The contrasts force us to realize that sympathy has a social life of its own . Feeling rules ( Hochschild 1979 ) and social logics ( Davis , Gardner , and Gardner 1941 ) ...
Page 7
... Americans . His words do not square with evidence that , in the days when he was writing , parents in European cities were abandoning as many as a third of their children to almost certain death ( Boswell 1988 ) . This custom was ...
... Americans . His words do not square with evidence that , in the days when he was writing , parents in European cities were abandoning as many as a third of their children to almost certain death ( Boswell 1988 ) . This custom was ...
Page 8
... Americans . To investigate Americans ' experiences with sympathy , I conducted a series of studies , both quantitative and qualitative . Some of the techniques I used , such as surveys and interviews , are rather standard . However ...
... Americans . To investigate Americans ' experiences with sympathy , I conducted a series of studies , both quantitative and qualitative . Some of the techniques I used , such as surveys and interviews , are rather standard . However ...
Page 10
... American " ) , in which case I identify them by " race . " To shorten the lists of characteristics ( for the sake of economy and readability ) , I do not specify that my respondents from Jewish , Italian , Irish , German , Polish ...
... American " ) , in which case I identify them by " race . " To shorten the lists of characteristics ( for the sake of economy and readability ) , I do not specify that my respondents from Jewish , Italian , Irish , German , Polish ...
Contents
2 | |
Forms and Process | 26 |
Sympathy Entrepreneurs and the Grounds for Sympathy | 80 |
4 The Socioemotional Economy Social Value and Sympathy Margin | 128 |
5 Sympathy Biography and the Rules of Sympathy Etiquette | 158 |
The Sympathetic Response | 194 |
7 Sympathy Microhierarchy and Micropolitics | 226 |
8 Epilogue | 252 |
Research Strategies | 261 |
References | 281 |
Name Index | 299 |
Subject Index | 304 |
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Common terms and phrases
accounts actions actor American Appeal asked attention believe cards chapter characters claim consider create cultural described display economy emotions empathy example exchange expect experience explained feel sorry felt Field notes follow friends gifts give giving sympathy grounds husband important individual instance interaction Interview involved judge kind label less lives logic look luck married mean moral mother never notes obligation offer parents percent person plights poor presented Press principle problems reactions receive reciprocity relationship respondents role rules sense sentiment situation social society socioemotional Sociology someone sometimes story sympa sympathetic sympathizee sympathy margins talk things thought tion trouble understand usually victims vignette woman women worker worth York young