In a world filled with emotion, people commonly view them as “natural,” i.e. everyone feels happy, sad, angry, frustrated, etc… However, have you ever stopped to think how/why/what regulates your emotion in a variety of circumstances? Most people experience several emotions throughout the day; however, they do not outwardly express all of them, and in some situations, one may feel required to exhibit an emotion that is the exact opposite of the emotion they are internally feeling. This is emotion work, or “the act of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling” (Hochschild, 53). In several situations, we feel compelled to manage or change our emotions because it is inappropriate to exhibit what we are currently feeling. This need to feel a certain way in different situations demonstrates the concept of feeling rules. Feeling rules are “the social guidelines that direct how we want to try to feel” (Hochschild, 54). Although emotions may feel “natural” to us, it is society that regulates how and when to feel emotion; it is not our biological makeup that results in a need for us to regulate our emotions, but rather it is society that dictates which emotions are proper and improper.
All of us are subject to society’s regulation of our emotion, myself included. Throughout high school, I was a hostess at a local country club, and thus had the job of greeting customers and always maintaining a polite and cheerful demeanor. Although at times I may have been in a not-so-cheerful mood, I felt obligated to exhibit a certain outward appearance to customers, or as Hochschild states, “surface act” (Hochschild, 52). So, even though I wasn’t feeling cheerful, or was perhaps dealing with a customer who was unhappy himself or herself, I had to maintain a pleasant demeanor because it was expected of me, by myself and the customer, because society told us so.
