Where the Heart Functions Best: Reactive-Affective Conflict and the Disruptive Work of Animal Rights Organizations

We studied the emotive aspect of institutional work performed by U.S. animal rights organizations (AROs) attempting to disrupt industrial practices in modern factory farming operations (FFOs) perceived to be abusive to animals. Drawing on an inductive, qualitative analysis of interviews with ARO advocates as well as textual and visual archival data collected from AROs’ websites, we argue that the suppression of emotion plays a critical role in AROs’ disruptive work. We found that advocates were motivated to suppress their emotions by a perceived incompatibility between their reactive emotional displays and their affective commitment to institutional work, or what we label reactive-affective conflict. We show how two triggers of reactive-affective conflict – potential supporters’ investment in the status quo and emotive norms governing institutional work – encourage ARO advocates to suppress their emotions in face-to-face interactions with audiences while attempting to elicit emotions via visuals as their ...