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In this paper, I sum up more than 20 years of research and reflection on jealousy. A chronological account of this work is followed by a thematic summary of the findings and some discussion of the relationship between sociology and psychology. Sociological analysis shows that jealousy and other emotions are shaped by social situations, social processes, and social forces. Micro‐sociology reveals that jealousy is learned. Jealousy reflects the life experience of the individual. Meso‐sociology reveals that jealousy is socially useful, indeed, indispensable to social order. Jealousy reflects the institution of marriage and the prohibition of adultery. Macro‐sociology reveals that jealousy is shaped by society and culture. Jealousy reflects the history and the values of a people—and the relevant values vary from time to time and place to place. In the United States, for example, a new and more negative view of jealousy emerged after about 1970 as a result of the sexual revolution and the women's movement.

The articles in this Special Issue of the IJSSP, entitled ‘Sociology of Emotions’, were, with two exceptions, presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association held in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., from August 19–23, 1995. These outstanding papers do much to develop the theoretical grounding of two closely related fields of inquiry ‐ the social psychology of emotions and the sociology of emotions. No social relations are carried out in the absence of either thought or emotion. It immediately follows that the sociology of emotions is not so much a nascent, exotic sub‐discipline of sociology as it is a level of analysis that must be carried out if meaning is to be found in any social system, in any social process, or in any social relationship of the everyday world.

This memoir records my experiences with, observations of, and reflections upon the racial segregation that prevailed as I was growing up white in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the 1950s and 1960s. As part of the last generation to remember the Jim Crow South, I offer these verbal snapshots of the last days of de jure racial segregation – an exercise in retrospective symbolic interactionism.

It is argued that the sexual revolution thesis lacks conviction. Changes in sexual attitudes and practices popularly thought to be “modern” are not “original” in any essential sense. The evidence for and theories about such changes and their nature are critically examined.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.