THE INTERPERSONAL MANAGEMENT OF CRYING AMONG SURVIVORS OF STROKE

This study concerns the social-interactional consequences of crying am ong survivors of stroke. The episodes of crying analyzed here took pla ce during interviews including the patients, the patients' spouses, an d an interviewer. This investigation innovates on past studies within the sociology of emotions by concentrating on the interpersonal dimens ion of emotional displays of persons with brain damage. This study als o contributes to research on stroke patients' ''pathological crying'' from the field of neuropsychology because it concentrates on the socia l, and not only the neurological or otherwise individual-level, nature of such crying. We first present overviews of both the sociology of e motions and the neuropsychology of poststroke emotionalism and address how our study contributes to both fields. We then discuss our partici pants and method of analysis and finally present our findings with res pect to the techniques of the management of crying exhibited by the st roke patients' interlocutors as well as by the patients themselves.