Preemptive Emotion Work Among Families of Seriously Ill Children

• In Event: 288 - Section on Sociology of Emotions Paper Session. New Directions in the Sociology of Emotion

Abstract

Drawing on data gathered over the course of a year and a half of field work at a Ronald McDonald House affiliated with an elite university research hospital, and interviews with 18 families of children with life-threatening illnesses, I examine how people navigating intensive emotional situations engage in what I call preemptive emotion work. While much previous work in the sociology of emotion has examined how people work on emotions after they have emerged in interaction, I argue that people in emotionally fraught circumstances actively steer social interactions in ways that will prevent difficult emotions from arising. Families also sought or avoided medical information in order to meet emotional goals or protect fragile emotional states, such as hopefulness. This data points to the need to expand conceptualizations of emotion work to draw greater attention to strategic efforts made before potentially disruptive emotions arise in interaction.

Author

• Amanda Marie Gengler, Wake Forest University