The Role of Emotions in Qualitative Analysis: Researchers’ Perspectives

Qualitative research is an inherently social and relational endeavor that relies on and engages our emotions. Yet, researchers receive little guidance on how to engage emotions without being swayed by personal biases. Lustick (2021) developed a framework called “emotion coding” for systematically engaging thoughts and emotions in qualitative data analysis by asking what a chunk of data can teach us about ourselves, our participants, and our study. In this study, we interviewed 15 researchers who had tried using the emotion coding technique, about their impressions of this technique and the role of emotion in qualitative research overall. Framed by Goffman and Hochschild’s theories of emotion work, we find that emotions play a key role in researchers’ decisions throughout the research process, but that researchers are more likely to engage in emotion work (adjusting their feelings) when they perceive their participants hold a different level of privilege than they do. Emotion coding was a useful way to be more aware of their emotions and more intentional about how these emotions influence their findings and design decisions. We discuss implications for qualitative methodology.