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 12
... examples offer more than verification that Americans are sympa- thetic . They provide implicit evidence that sympathy , like love ( Berger 1963 , 35—36 ) , is a socially guided phenomenon . According to our feeling rules , victims of ...
... examples offer more than verification that Americans are sympa- thetic . They provide implicit evidence that sympathy , like love ( Berger 1963 , 35—36 ) , is a socially guided phenomenon . According to our feeling rules , victims of ...
Page 13
... example , almost every culture has elaborate rules for how to show sympathy to the bereaved . Orthodox Jews should provide food and companionship for fam- ily and friends who are sitting shiva , gathering at home for several days to a ...
... example , almost every culture has elaborate rules for how to show sympathy to the bereaved . Orthodox Jews should provide food and companionship for fam- ily and friends who are sitting shiva , gathering at home for several days to a ...
Page 14
... example , quadriplegic John Callahan , whose syndicated column and cartoons make fun of the handicapped ( Cal- lahan 1992 ) ; this tactic appears to short - circuit the audience's propensity to make fun of the comic ( Potter 1988 ) ...
... example , quadriplegic John Callahan , whose syndicated column and cartoons make fun of the handicapped ( Cal- lahan 1992 ) ; this tactic appears to short - circuit the audience's propensity to make fun of the comic ( Potter 1988 ) ...
Page 19
... example , feeling for people we will never know — earthquake victims in Mexico or Japan , polit- ical targets in Bosnia , famine casualties in Somalia — may color our future sentiment for those peoples and decrease our sense of social ...
... example , feeling for people we will never know — earthquake victims in Mexico or Japan , polit- ical targets in Bosnia , famine casualties in Somalia — may color our future sentiment for those peoples and decrease our sense of social ...
Page 23
... example , taking the imaginative leap into another person's misery was often out of the question . Yet Americans can scarcely imagine what life would be like without sympathy . It provides us with social connection , occasional reprieve ...
... example , taking the imaginative leap into another person's misery was often out of the question . Yet Americans can scarcely imagine what life would be like without sympathy . It provides us with social connection , occasional reprieve ...
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