How would you feel if you were working in the service sector where you deal with customers who make you feel angry, irritated and humiliated? Such customers trigger your emotional negative responses. However, controlling these emotions is crucial to succeed in such a career. I work as a party assistant at an indoor playground where my job requires me to manage my emotions when dealing with both adults and children. My duties range from maintaining a clean environment for children to supervising birthday parties and assisting both adults and children. In many cases, I am required to be positive when interacting with unpleasant adults who are complaining about the play area or the service that I provide. By doing so, I am engaging in emotional labour which is a type of emotional management. This paper will demonstrate how sociological imagination explains my behaviours according to the “feeling rules” by analyzing different sociological theories.
Emotion labour involves people managing their feelings, as part of their job, to react according to …show more content…
Symbolic interactionists define socialization as the development of one’s sense of their own culture not simply by following roles and expectations, but by developing a deeper awareness and understanding of them (Brym and Lie 2012: 53). They argue that by doing emotional labour as a job, workers learn how to truly manage their feelings. Roles define the expected behaviours that are accepted in society while norms are more specific to certain groups (Brym and Lie 2012: 53). Symbolic interactionists argue that managing my emotions at work is product of socialization since I have been taught to obey “feeling rules” by both primary and secondary socializing agents. For instance, I have been socialized to respect people and therefore I respect my
Emotion labour involves people managing their feelings, as part of their job, to react according to …show more content…
Symbolic interactionists define socialization as the development of one’s sense of their own culture not simply by following roles and expectations, but by developing a deeper awareness and understanding of them (Brym and Lie 2012: 53). They argue that by doing emotional labour as a job, workers learn how to truly manage their feelings. Roles define the expected behaviours that are accepted in society while norms are more specific to certain groups (Brym and Lie 2012: 53). Symbolic interactionists argue that managing my emotions at work is product of socialization since I have been taught to obey “feeling rules” by both primary and secondary socializing agents. For instance, I have been socialized to respect people and therefore I respect my