Neil J. MacKinnon – författare

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.

This incisive book defines and unpacks the concept of morality. Neil J. MacKinnon summarizes, compares and evaluates theories of morality from both psychological and sociological perspectives, which as separate disciplines are unable to capture the breadth and complexity of this topic.The Social Psychology of Morality addresses key issues in the study of morality, including scientific research versus moral philosophy, the psychology of moral judgment, and the scope, locus and origin of morality. Chapters provide detailed insight into core principles including social intuitionist theory, dyadic morality theory, affect control theory and the social psychology of conscience. Informative and accessible, this book advocates for the field to recognise that morality exists at the social, interactional and individual levels of reality, as both subjectively internalized phenomena and objectively manifested behavior.Approaching the concept of morality from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, this book is an invaluable resource for students and academics specialising in the social psychology of morality, the sociology of morality and moral psychology. Its comprehensive literature review is also of benefit to those studying sociology and social policy and sociological theory.