Symbolic Interactionism as Affect Control

A synthesis of symbolic interactionism and Affect Control Theory showing how emotion, meaning, and identity dynamically organize social life.

What happens when meaning, emotion, and identity are not separate forces―but expressions of a single, organizing system of social life?

In Symbolic Interactionism as Affect Control, Neil J. MacKinnon offers a major synthesis of symbolic interactionist theory and Affect Control Theory, showing how shared cultural meanings shape not only how we interpret the world, but how we feel, act, and sustain a sense of social order. Moving beyond traditional divides in sociological thought, the book demonstrates how affective meaning operates as a core mechanism linking cognition, motivation, identity, and emotion.Drawing on the foundational work of George Herbert Mead, as well as contemporary advances in social psychology, MacKinnon traces how individuals continuously evaluate and produce social events through culturally learned affective expectations. He shows how identities are stabilized through interaction, how emotions function as both signals and regulators of meaning, and how role behavior can be systematically analyzed within a unified theoretical framework.

Clear, rigorous, and integrative, Symbolic Interactionism as Affect Control lays out Affect Control Theory in a structured sequence of propositions and applications, making it accessible to readers in sociological theory, social psychology, and the sociology of emotion. Chapters move from core concepts―symbols, cognition, and affect―to applied analyses of roles, identity processes, emotional dynamics, and reidentification, culminating in a broader argument for theory integration and future research directions.

For scholars seeking to bridge classical interactionist traditions with contemporary affective science, Symbolic Interactionism as Affect Control offers both a theoretical roadmap and a compelling rethinking of how social reality is constructed and maintained through emotion and meaning.

Neil J. MacKinnon is Professor at the University of Guelph.