The function and contents of lay theories of emotion

What we believe about the social world, how we conceptualize it, and how we feel towards it, contributes to shape how we deal with it. In turn, the information that results from our transactions with the social world serves to construct, modify, enlarge, or update our knowledge (e.g., Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Fiske & Taylor, 1991). The focus of this chapter is people's lay theories of emotion, specifically in relation to gender roles and identities. A lay theory can be defined as a more or less coherent, rich, and structured set of beliefs in relation to a given domain or object of our social world, ourselves included. The richness of a lay theory is expected to be related to the culturally based subjective salience of the object it focuses upon (Mesquita & Frijda, 1992), a hypothesis that has been verified in relation to other kinds of knowledge schemata, such as the self-concept (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Lay theories of emotion are likely to be salient as well as extensive, because emotional experiences pervade our entire life, both directly and indirectly. The occasions to learn about emotions are countless. We learn from our own experiences, from others' reaction to them, from observing others experience emotions, or from emotional stories as told in novels or movies. Moreover, we are motivated to become emotionally competent, because, as most of us discover quite early in life, emotional incompetence is likely to result in social rejection, loneliness, or greater stress (e.g., Saarni, 1990).