3 June 2022
In a new paper, AICE member Disa Sauter together with colleagues offer an enriched account of Social Functionalist Theory, detailing how emotion, culture, and relationships constitute each other.
The AICE researcher Disa Sauter together with Dacher Keltner (University of California at Berkeley), Jessica L. Tracyc (University of British Columbia), Everett Wetchler (University of California at Berkeley), and Alan S. Cowen (University of California at Berkeley) published a new theoretical paper, exploring bidirectional relationships between emotion, relationships, and culture through an enriched SFT lens.
Here is the abstract of the paper:
"Social Functionalist Theory (SFT) emerged 20 years ago to orient emotion science to the social nature of emotion. Here we expand upon SFT and make the case for how emotions, relationships, and culture constitute one another. First, we posit that emotions enable the individual to meet six “relational needs” within social interactions: security, commitment, status, trust, fairness, and belongingness. Building upon this new theorising, we detail four principles concerning emotional experience, cognition, expression, and the cultural archiving of emotion. We conclude by considering the bidirectional influences between culture, relationships, and emotion, outlining areas of future inquiry."
Link to the paper