Affectivity and Social Expression
Affectivity and Social Expression

Author(s): Raluca Bălăiţă
Subject(s): Communication studies
Published by: Editura Lumen, Asociatia Lumen
Keywords: Cognition; emotion; affectivity; social communication; expression;
Summary/Abstract: An essential dimension not only of mental life, but also of relationships, the affectivity is built socially, its conventional manifestations varying depending on the social values acknowledged within a given group.An individual relates to the world simultaneously by cognition and emotion, so that the reason/passion dichotomy which, for a long period of time, has represented a red thread in the history of Western philosophy has been revised. Emotions are not opposed to reasonable conduct, but respond to a personal logic and certain implicit social norms, being in a direct relationship with the meaning the individual gives to events.Emotions are connected to social communication, represent “a way of affiliation to a social community” (David Le Breton) and the expression of relating to a situation, interlocutors, message. In this article we insist on the idea that affectivity, emotions correspond to certain reactions of the individual to a given situation which manifest by a series of physiological and psychological changes translated into mimicry, gestures, attitudes, words expression modalities which are acquired during a learning process and by constantly relating to the other members of the social group.

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