Informality: a Window on Contemporary Emotions History

Abstract

An intriguing and pervasive development in the history of the past century – in the United States and at least some other societies – has been the rise of greater informality in interpersonal relations. Almost everyone knows this has been happening – a class of college students can offer a number of valid illustrations (with a heavy dose of habits on social media), and some have lived through even more extensive changes in, for example, the way people dress. But the phenomenon is dramatically understudied, taken for granted rather than assessed or analysed. There is a serious historical topic here that should be addressed by a wider audience, with several dimensions for further evaluation.