The good, the strong, and the lively: Using Affect Control Theory to address structure and culture in qualitative research

Symbolic interactionist research, especially qualitative work, has been criticized for inattention to structural power differences. This paper approaches the problem methodologically, proposing a theoretically-based coding schema to connect interaction to structure and culture. Affect Control Theory (ACT) is a symbolic interactionist theory that posits the basis of human behavior in language rather than in social structure (Heise, 1979; Smith-Lovin and Heise, 1988; MacKinnon, 1994). While commonly applied quantitatively, recent theoretical advances (MacKinnon and Heise, 2010) have drawn on phenomenological and postmodernist insights to emphasize the contingent and dynamic nature of identity and social action, facilitating application to the qualitative study of interactions and unstructured events. As Heise (2019) argues, social institutions, including power and valence, are captured in language and recognized (and acted upon) by actors in the course of every day interactions. Situations are comprised of events, which are viewed as linguistic Actor-Behavior-Object (ABO) statements, with the Actor, Behavior, and Object person all identified by labels, each of which is associated with established cultural affective meanings or sentiments. Each label in the ABO sequence is assessed for its sentiments along the three dimensions of Evaluation (goodness-badness), Potency (powerfulness-powerlessness) and Activity (liveliness-quietness). Assessment of events with EPA sentiments includes modifiers such as adjectives, characteristics, and moods, and can theoretically expand to social institutions, ideologies, and macro-level interactions (MacKinnon and Heise 2010; Heise 2019). This paper will demonstrate how these EPA dimensions can be applied as a qualitative coding schema tapping power, valence, and activation.