Emotional climate: Social structure and emotional dynamics

The basic idea of emotional climate is relatively easy to grasp. I have in mind an objective group phenomenon that can be palpably sensed-as when one enters a party or a city and feels an atmosphere of gaiety or depression, openness or fear-only, as the term "climate " implies, I am less interested in temporary moods than in more pervasive emotional phenomena that are related to underlying social structures and political programs. I have in mind, for example, the climate of fear which existed in Chile during the Pinochet regime and which has recently changed to a climate of hope (see, for example, Becker et al., 1990). THE CONCEPT OF EMOTIONAL CLIMATE While emotional climate is an appealing idea, it is an idea that is relatively difficult to make into a precise concept that can be objectively measured. How does one distinguish between temporary moods and pervasive climates? Is an emotional climate objective or subjective? How does a national mood differ from an individual's emotion? How can climates be described? And how can one measure an emotional climate when people in different neighborhoods, regions or social classes may feel quite differently? How does emotional climate function, and how does it relate to underlying social-political structures? I shall attempt to deal with these issues but the