Synopses & Reviews
Praise for the first edition: "Profoundly originaland#133;terribly important."and#151;Studs Terkel
"The Managed Heart is written so accessibly that it appeals to both the academic and the general reader."and#151;Gail Sheehy, New York Times Book Review
"Perceptive study of 'emotional labor'and#151;jobs like those of [flight attendants], in which workers are trained to use emotion as actors do, but whoand#133;often end up unsure of what they really feel."and#151;New York Times Books of the Year, 1983
"A worthy study of the high, and often hidden, personal costs that people in certain occupations pay for agreeing to treat their feelings as merchandise."and#151;San Jose Mercury News
Synopsis
In private life we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through deep acting or "emotional work," just as we manage our outer expressions through surface acting. But what happens when this system of adjusting emotions is adapted to commercial purposes? Hochschild examines the cost of this kind of "emotional labor." She vividly describes from a humanist and feminist perspective the process of estrangement from personal feelings and its role as an "occupational hazard" for one-third of America's workforce.
About the Author
Arlie Russell Hochschild is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is author of The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work (2003), The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work (1997), The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home (1989), and The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling (California, 1983), all cited as notable books of the year by the New York Times. She is also author of The Unexpected Community (California, 1973) and she has received the American Sociological Association Award for Public Understanding of Sociology.