El estudio psicosocial de las emociones: una revisión y discusión de la investigación actual

Abstract

The social psychology study of emotions: Research review Research on emotions has been an outstanding area of work in the Social Sciences. Social Psychology has also made relevant contributions to the development of this area. In this paper, we analyze some of these contributions, especially those that conceive emotions as socially constructed phenomena. Specifically, we pose a discussion on the general characteristics of the social psychology of emotions and, based on this discussion, we underscore those possible lines of inquiry in which current research on the subject can find continuity. This work is the result of a review of last scholar publications. Such publications have been organized according to their thematic specificity and latter classified in one of the following categories: (1) Perception of the nature of emotions; (2) processes of consumption of emotions; and (3) discursive practices on emotions. As of the first category, we have taken into account current outstanding research on the perception of the nature of an emotion. Such research can be synthesized in five looks: anthropologic, semantic, communicative, identity-building, and the one that escapes from social control. In regard to the second category, research that deals with emotions as an object of consumption has been analyzed. Finally, the third category has been treated through the review of research that is based on the idea of emotion as a linguistic production. Keywords,/b>: Psychology of emotion; social psychology of emotion; discourse studies of emotion; social construction of emotion.