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Contexts for Experience with Emotion, with Special Attention to Television

  • Chapter
The Socialization of Emotions

Part of the book series: Genesis of Behavior ((GOBE,volume 5))

Abstract

There are many events in everyday life that potentially involve emotion. Most of them represent opportunities for affect socialization. Usually, we think of these events as the face-to-face interactions in which children participate as principal actors. But a quick examination of how children actually spend their days readily reveals several other contexts in which they experience emotions themselves or see others’ emotions. I begin this chapter by presenting a typology for categorizing these contexts. After considering the utility of this approach, I turn to an extended discussion of one special context in which children experience their own and others’ emotions. It is television viewing, the pastime par excellence of American children, an activity that commands more of their time than attending school, interacting with parents, and playing with friends. To end the chapter, I present several propositions about how and when television operates in affect socialization, particularly in contrast to other affect socialization contexts that children encounter in their everyday lives.

The writing of this chapter was partially supported by Grant MH37611 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, California, 90024, USA

    Aimée Dorr

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  1. Aimée Dorr
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rutgers Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

    Michael Lewis

  2. Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California, USA

    Carolyn Saarni

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© 1985 Plenum Press, New York

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Dorr, A. (1985). Contexts for Experience with Emotion, with Special Attention to Television. In: Lewis, M., Saarni, C. (eds) The Socialization of Emotions. Genesis of Behavior, vol 5. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2421-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2421-8_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9474-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2421-8

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