Recent work in the sociology of emotions has gone beyond the developmentof concepts and broad perspectives to elaboration of theory and some empiricalresearch. More work has been done at the micro-level than the macro-levelof analysis. At both analytical levels, emotion most commonly is treated as adependent variable, although increasingly, its role as an intervening andindependent variable in social processes is being recognized, especially withregard to problems in substantive fields as diverse as gender roles, stress,small groups, social movements, and stratification. Considerable gaps exist insociological knowledge about emotions; in particular, little is known aboutdistribution of different emotional experiences in the population, the contentof emotion culture, emotional socialization processes, emotional interactions,and relationships between social structure and emotion norms. More empiricalresearch is necessary, to build on the theoretical groundwork that has beenlaid. Problems in measuring emotional experience and aspects of emotionculture have not been addressed and are likely to become critical issues asempirical work accumulates in the future.