Emotion Review

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Comment: Critical Questions for Affect Control Theory

Mikko Salmela
Emotion Review 2014 6: 138
DOI: 10.1177/1754073913512002
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138 Emotion Review Vol. 6 No. 2

The second claim made by Rogers et al. (2014) is that our

investigation of emotion takes place at multiple levels of
analysis, so our metatheoretical approaches need to be multilevel as well. Admittedly, it is fairly rare for a given study, or
even program of research, to be multilevel. However, since a
vast body of scientific knowledge demonstrates that emotions
have mechanisms and manifestations at levels of analysis
both higher and lower than the level of the person, it is critical
that we employ theories at these levels that can sensibly interact with each other when necessary. As an illustration of this,
the authors already offer a compelling description of how we
can link affect control theory to theoretical accounts of emotion at the neural level. They also note the prevalence of the
three dimensions of meaning (evaluation, potency, and activity)
across a wide array of research on emotion at different levels.
In addition to linkages at the conceptual level, practical
resources exist that can link research paradigms across different theoretical and methodological traditions. These include
numerous dictionaries of words normed in evaluation,
potency, and activity in various languages1 as well as a vast
library of words, sounds, and images normed in these dimensions2 and available for research purposes. This shared infrastructure could facilitate research at more microlevels of
analysis that could meaningfully connect to research at the
social and interpersonal levels of analysis.
The third claim, implicit both in the proposal made by
Rogers et al. (2014) as well as in my aforementioned comments,
is that there is payoff when different streams of intellectual
endeavors interact with one another around a common domain
of interest. Rogers et al. propose affect control theory as a
potential conceptual and methodological hub in a network of
theories that could connect our understandings of affective processes occurring in the brain, interpersonally, in larger social
structures, and within cultural institutions. I wholeheartedly

agree. What I support even more strongly, however, is the need

for such a hubor perhaps for multiple such hubs. In an article
describing an approach for modularizing theories of justice,
Markovsky et al. (2008) note that Theories within the fabric of
science are intertwined via threads that link intellectually adjacent theories (p. 348). When systematic cumulation of knowledge remains contained within insular, noninteracting,
theoretical traditions, it hampers our ability to see this larger
fabric of knowledge. Theories can only interact through points
of commonalityshared terms, principles. Scholars of emotion
from a broad array of disciplines and approaches should strive
to identify the instances where the outcomes predicted by a theory of interpersonal behavior become the inputs to a theory of
physiological response to stimuli and vice versa, where a theory
of interpersonal behavior intersects with a theory of the affective underpinnings of collective action, and so on. If we can
achieve that, then we will transform the various streams of systematic investigation of affective processes currently engaged
in parallel play into a rich and deep scientific understanding
of a multilayered process.

Notes
1 www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/ACT/data.html
2 http://csea.phhp.ufl.edu/Media.html

References
MacKinnon, N. J., & Heise, D. R. (2010). Self, identity, and social institutions. New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Markovsky, B., Dilks, L. M., Koch, P., McDonough, S., Triplett, J., &
Velasquez, L. (2008). Modularizing and integrating theories of justice.
Advances in Group Processes, 25, 345371.
Rogers, K. B., Schrder, T., & von Scheve, C. (2014). Dissecting the
sociality of emotion: A multilevel approach. Emotion Review, 6,
124133.

Comment: Critical Questions for Affect Control Theory

Mikko Salmela

Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland

Abstract
Affect control theory (ACT) is a sociological theory developed for modeling
and predicting emotions and social behaviors in social interaction. In
this commentary, I identify a few potential problems in the theory, as
presented in the target article (Rogers, Schrder, & von Scheve, 2014) and
elsewhere, and in its suggested compatibility with other major emotion
theories. The first problem concerns ACTs capacity to model emotion
generation insofar as emotions have nonconceptual content. The second

problem focuses on the limits of modeling interaction on the basis of fixed

affective meanings of identities. Finally, ACT has problems with explaining
the dynamic change of affective meanings, given its tenets that people
seek to maintain the established affective meanings of social roles and
situations and deflections are not expressed in behavior but compensated
by identity-confirming behavior.

Keywords
affective meaning, emotional content, stability and change

Corresponding author: Mikko Salmela, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 24 (Fabianinkatu 24A), University of Helsinki, 00014, Finland.
Email: mikko.salmela@helsinki.fi

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Comments 139

Rogers et al. (2014) claim that ACT is compatible with appraisal

theories on the causation of emotions. The authors identify the
relationship between individual appraisals and culturally shared
affective meanings as an area for cross-disciplinary research that
is capable of elucidating the importance of the social for individual, emotion-generating appraisal processes (p. 130). My reservations about this idea relate to the nature of emotional
processing. ACT is a theory about affective meanings of concepts. Therefore, its applicability to emotion-generating appraisal
processes seems limited to those human emotions that have conceptual content. Yet we also have emotions with nonconceptual
content whose automatic appraisals emerge from mere perceptual
cues and are capable of contradicting our conceptual appraisals.
Appraisal theories respond to this problem by identifying the content of emotional appraisals in functional terms (Moors, 2009).
However, this option seems foreclosed from ACT that models
appraisal as computation of affective meanings of concepts. This
problem undermines ACTs capacity to model emotion generation insofar as emotions have nonconceptual content.
A second problem is associated with the content of affective
meanings, as represented by context-independent evaluationpotency-activity profiles. ACT theorists believe that it is possible to determine fixed meanings of distinct identities and that
the affective consequences of interaction can be predicted on
the basis of the agents identities and the type of interaction.
However, the affective meanings of some identities appear to be
context-dependent in the sense that they depend on the interactors and not merely on relative differences between the fixed
meanings of their identities. This is the case with hierarchical
organizations, such as the army. A drill sergeant is all powerful
and highly active in relation to the rookies but similar to them in
relation to the division commander. Even if differences between
the affective meanings of these identities can perhaps be represented in terms of mathematical values, the mathematical differences hardly capture the qualitative differences and their
implications in real interactions.
A third problem concerns the stability and change of affective meanings. Referring to Robinson and Smith-Lovin (1992),
the authors claim that people strive to maintain salient identities even when they carry negative meanings and lead to the
experience of negative emotions (Rogers et al., 2014, p. 128).
However, the plausibility of this claim seems to depend on
peoples acquiescence in the affective meaning of their identity. If people with stigmatized identities realize that the negative affective meanings of their identities result from a history
of oppression, as is the case with women, gays and lesbians,
and African Americans, for instance, theninstead of seeking
identity-confirming feedbackthese individuals tend to resent
people who treat them in terms of those identities and seek to

redefine their identities in social interaction. Indeed, Britt and

Heise (2000) highlight consciousness raising in the transformation of shame into pride in gay social movements. However,
they do not invoke ACT principles, so I interpret this evidence
in favor of my point.
More generally, adherents of ACT argue that the theory can
explain both peoples motivation to maintain affective meanings in social interaction and the dynamic change of meanings
as the result of large deflections from established meanings. Yet
it is not clear why large deflections occur in the first place and,
secondly, how they can contribute to change if maintenance of
established meanings is the default mode and deflections are not
expressed in behavior but compensated by identity-confirming
behavior whenever they happen. ACT claims that emotions
inform and identities motivate, whereas other emotion theories
suggest that emotions have both functions (e.g., MacKinnon,
1994). I believe that this dispute can be adjudicated by a distinction between expressive and instrumental behavior. Emotions
motivate expressive behaviors that inform both the subject and
others about the subjects interpretation of the situation. These
expressions influence social interaction thereby counting as
behavior. Expressions that deflect from established identities
give rise to the need for identity-confirming instrumental behavior. However, expressive and instrumental behaviors seem to
blur when expressions are consistent with ones identity. When
I snap at my colleague in response to her derogatory comment,
do I act out of my anger or my offended identityor both?
In spite of these reservations, I am sympathetic to the
authors idea of offering ACT as a conceptual and methodological hub for emotion research and theorizing at different
levels of analysis. Thus, in my theorizing on collective emotions, I find the authors proposal that shared affective meanings allow individuals to generate appraisals and emotions
more efficiently a plausible hypothesis for explaining the
effortless elicitation of collective emotionsinsofar as they
have conceptual content.

References
Britt, L., & Heise, D. R. (2000). From shame to pride. In S. Stryker, T. J.
Owens, & R. W. White (Eds.), Self, identity, and social movements
(pp. 252268). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
MacKinnon, N. (1994). Symbolic interaction as affect control. New York:
State University of New York Press.
Moors, A. (2009). Theories of emotion causation: A review. Cognition and
Emotion, 23, 625662.
Robinson, D. T., & Smith-Lovin, L. (1992). Selective interaction as a strategy for identity maintenance: An affect control model. Social Psychological Quarterly, 55(1), 1228.
Rogers, K., Schrder, T., & von Scheve, C. (2014). Dissecting the sociality
of emotion: A multilevel approach. Emotion Review, 6, 124133.

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