Charles Horton Cooley

The chapter is a reconstruction of the topic of emotions in the works of Charles Horton Cooley. Three dimensions are stressed: the relevance of the I-feeling in the social construction of the self; the moralizing and civilizing function of the primary groups and their function in the domestication of emotions; the political dimension of domesticated emotions which, once they are converted into social sentiments, may have a relevant integrative function. The chapter tries to show the relevance of Cooley’s somewhat unsystematic approach to emotions. Cooley anticipates the idea of emotional management; he hints at a civilizing process, affecting, inter alia, emotions; and he envisages the relevance of integrative values, so prefiguring Parsons’ idea of societal community.