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To provide a comprehensive review of theoretical and research advances in affect control theory from 1988 to 2013 for academic and student researchers in social psychology.

Against the background of a concise history of affect control theory from its beginnings in the 1960s to its maturation in the late 1980s, a comprehensive review of research and publications in the last 25 years is reported in five sections: Theoretical Advances (e.g., self and institutions, nonverbal behavior, neuroscience, artificial intelligence); Technological Advances (e.g., electronic data collection, computer simulations, cultural surveys, equation refinement, small groups analysis); Cross-Cultural Research (archived data and published analyses); Empirical Tests of the Theory; and Substantive Applications (e.g., emotions, social and cultural change, occupations/work, politics, gender/ideology/subcultures, deviance, criminology, stereotyping, physiological behavior).

Reveals an impressive number of publications in this area, including over 120 articles and chapters and four major books, and a great deal of cross-cultural research, including European, Asian, and Middle-Asian cultures.

Because of limitations of space, the review does not cover the large number of theses, dissertations, and research reports.

No other review of affect control theory with this scope and detail exists.

This paper works at the intersections of affect control theory, expectation states theory, and social influence network theory. First, we introduce social influence network theory into affect control theory. We show how an influence network may emerge from the pattern of interpersonal sentiments in a group and how the fundamental sentiments that are at the core of affect control theory (dealing with the evaluation, potency, and activity of self and others) may be modified by interpersonal influences. Second, we bring affect control theory and social influence network theory to bear on expectation states theory. In a task-oriented group, where persons’ performance expectations may be a major basis of their interpersonal influence, we argue that persons’ fundamental sentiments may mediate effects of status characteristics on group members’ performance expectations. Based on the linkage of fundamental sentiments and interpersonal influence, we develop an account of the formation of influence networks in groups that is applicable to both status homogeneous and status heterogeneous groups of any size, whether or not they are completely connected, and that is not restricted in scope to task-oriented groups.

Identifies where status and identity processes converge in social interaction and when one process may become more consequential than the other.

Drawing upon existing experimental data, we illustrate how affect control theory and status characteristics theory make seemingly contradictory predictions in certain limited interactions and propose a theoretical framework to potentially reconcile these differences.

Three pivot points are identified at which status and identity processes meet and then one of the processes more strongly predicts interaction outcomes.

The chapter represents a starting point for future research examining situations where status and identity processes converge.

We suggest ways to empirically test related claims made by both theories in an array of circumstances.

After a vigorous debate in the late 1970s, the sociology of emotion put aside most discussion of whether or not the physiological arousal associated with emotion labels is differentiated. Since this early period, scholars have made great progress on two fronts. First, theories about the interrelationship of identity, action and emotion have specified a family of new concepts related to emotion. Second, a large corpus of research on the physiological correlates of emotional experience emerged. In this chapter, we review the well-developed control theories of identity and emotion, and focus on the key concepts that might relate to different physiological states. We then review the general classes of physiological measures, discussing their reliability, intrusiveness and other features that might determine their usefulness for tracking responses to social interaction. We then offer a highly provisional mapping of physiological measures onto the concepts that they might potentially measure, given past research about how these physiological processes relate to environmental stimuli. While any linkage between concepts and measures must be speculative at this point, we hope that this review will serve as a stimulus to theoretically guided research that begins to assess the validity of these new measures for sociological use.

Purpose – This paper proposes a new procedure for measuring affective responses during social interaction using facial thermographic imaging.

Methodology – We first describe the results of several small pilot experiments designed to develop and refine this new measure that reveal some of the methodological advantages and challenges offered by this measurement approach. We then demonstrate the potential utility of this measure using data from a laboratory experiment (N=114) in which we used performance feedback to manipulate identity deflection and measured several types of affective responses – including self-impressions and emotions.

Findings – We find warming of the brow (near the corrugator muscle) and cheek (near the zygomatic major muscle) related most strongly to emotion valence and self-potency, with those whose brows and cheeks warmed the most feeling less positive emotion and less potent self-impressions. Warming in the eye area (near the orbicularis oculi) related most closely to undirected identity deflection and to positive self-sentiments. Positive self-views and strong identity disruptions both contributed to warming of the eyes.

Implications – The rigor of contemporary sociological theories of emotion exceeds our current ability to empirically test these theories. Facial thermographic imaging may offer sociologists new assessments of affect and emotion that are ecologically valid, socially unreactive, temporally sensitive, and accurate. This could dramatically improve our ability to test and develop affect based theories of social interaction.

A theory of self and the identities it comprises may explain differences in academic and other cognitive performance because successful performances are associated with strong internal motivation. Identity control theory and affect control theory assume that individuals act to confirm identities, even when those actions have negative consequences. Cognitive performance, then, could be impaired if high performance is inconsistent with a salient identity. A developing theory explaining the relationship between identity maintenance and cognitive performance assumes that the effects of identity maintenance combine with other motivations to achieve. Anticipation of a performance relevant to an identity is assumed to put pressure on the identity, motivating performances consistent with it. Under some conditions identities may change to reflect different performance standards.

Searching for a job is an important process that influences short- and long-term career outcomes as well as well-being and psychological health. As such, job search research has grown tremendously over the last two decades. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of prior research, discuss important trends in current research, and suggest areas for future research. The authors conceptualize the job search as an unfolding process (i.e., a process through which job seekers navigate through stages to achieve their goal of finding and accepting a job) in which job seekers engage in self-regulation behaviors. The authors contrast research that has taken a between-person, static approach with research that has taken a within-person, dynamic approach and highlight the importance of combining between- and within-person designs in order to have a more holistic understanding of the job search process. Finally, authors provide some recommendations for future research. Much remains to be learned about what influences job search self-regulation, and how job self-regulation influences job search and employment outcomes depending on individual, contextual, and environmental factors.

Of contemporary interest in the sociology of emotions and social psychology of self is the question of the reciprocal relation of affect or emotion and self. This question is pursued by asking how affect or emotion impacts the identity theory variables of commitment, identity salience, and role performance as well as by asking how these identity theory variables impact persons’ affective responses. Brief reviews of the general literatures on emotion, the symbolic interactionist literature (from which theoretical frame identity theory derives) on emotion, identity theory itself, and characteristics of social sentiments and emotional outbursts allows the development of expectations about the interrelation of sentiments and emotional outbursts and identity theoretic variables.

The present chapter expands on recent research demonstrating an empirical link between theoretical constructs within affect control theory (ACT) and expectation states theory. I explore the utility of a joint application of the two theories, employing simulated interactions to examine status organizing processes.

Although simulation results do not constitute data by which theoretical claims can be tested, they are useful for developing new research questions. I report results from a series of simulated dyadic interactions using ACT’s Interact program to investigate potential emotional and identity processes that underlie the enactment of status differences, and to explore affective responses to the legitimation and delegitimation of status orders.

Simulation results call attention to a dynamic interplay between structural elements of the situation and the agentic behavior of interactants, suggesting that behavioral attempts to reduce deflections may lead to shifts in expectations over the course of interaction. Results raise the possibility that differences in affective impressions may produce expectations that are initially asymmetrical between interaction partners. Further, results suggest that the standardized tasks commonly employed in expectation states research may unintentionally generate affective responses that encourage status convergence.

Drawing on insights and methods from ACT, expectation states researchers can improve the scientific understanding of small group interaction. Employing simulated interactions, researchers can promote theoretical advancement by uncovering new lines of inquiry at the intersection of two prominent social psychological traditions. Simulations also provide a further tool for methodological refinement within the standardized experimental setting.