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 vi
... Rules of Sympathy Etiquette 158 6 Interpreting Deviance : The Sympathetic Response 194 7 Sympathy , Microhierarchy , and Micropolitics 8 Epilogue 252 Appendix : Research Strategies 261 References 226 281 Name Index 299 Subject Index 304 ...
... Rules of Sympathy Etiquette 158 6 Interpreting Deviance : The Sympathetic Response 194 7 Sympathy , Microhierarchy , and Micropolitics 8 Epilogue 252 Appendix : Research Strategies 261 References 226 281 Name Index 299 Subject Index 304 ...
Page x
... rules and psychic costs . I came to think of the cramped corridor as a sympathy way - station , where strang- ers temporarily thrown together by misfortune , with common concerns and plights , empathized and sympathized with one another ...
... rules and psychic costs . I came to think of the cramped corridor as a sympathy way - station , where strang- ers temporarily thrown together by misfortune , with common concerns and plights , empathized and sympathized with one another ...
Page 5
... rules and logics — the ingredients of " common sense " — and hand them down from generation to generation . Rules and logics help shape and circumscribe even the most private and interior of our mental processes . These interior ...
... rules and logics — the ingredients of " common sense " — and hand them down from generation to generation . Rules and logics help shape and circumscribe even the most private and interior of our mental processes . These interior ...
Page 9
... rules and logics for sympathy giving and getting that channel the flow of sympathy from one social actor to another . When and why do people owe , pay , claim , and receive this emotional resource ? What are the limits to how much ...
... rules and logics for sympathy giving and getting that channel the flow of sympathy from one social actor to another . When and why do people owe , pay , claim , and receive this emotional resource ? What are the limits to how much ...
Page 12
... 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 illness , natural disasters , and 12 CHAPTER ONE.
... 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 illness , natural disasters , and 12 CHAPTER ONE.
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