New Books In Psychology

In some ways, Hackman’s Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power (Flatiron Books, 2023) serves as a natural update to Arlie Hochschild’s classic, The Managed Heart. After all, in public life it’s most often the women members of the service economy—in retail, in nursing, teaching, and elsewhere—who are asked to exercise emotional skills that often go undervalued and, therefore, also under-compensated. Hackman goes further, however, by also exploring the private realm where men rarely help to fully join in to aid the household, whether in the form of childrearing, aid to ailing parents, and the marriage itself. As Hackman adroitly points out, the situation becomes even worse for black households because 50% of black women have a loved one who is incarcerated. This episode also naturally turns to how men could and should get out of the “man box” of an emotionally destitute existence that is harming themselves and those around them. Rose Hackman is a British journalist who