Work

Morbid Talk: Emotional Suffering and Local Interaction Order During the Contemporary Youth Mental Health Crisis

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: While mental health and suicide literatures have established a cultural turn, local group cultures are largely ignored. By examining how several groups of students in a rural high school navigate emotional distress in peer groups, this paper reveals the local emotion cultures structured by their own local interaction order. I identify morbid talk in which youth joke about suicide, trauma, and other emotional pain. Engaging in morbid talk temporarily relieves emotional tensions, generates social solidarity, and reproduces group boundaries. A local interaction order involving negative emotions emerges: Emotional pain must be expressed as humor, and one must obtain a moral license to do so. My findings thus bring forth the group variations in cultures of emotional distress, contributing to the emotion and the youth mental health and suicide literatures. I conclude by discussing future research directions.

Source: Social Psychology Quarterly

DOI: 10.1177/01902725261418321

Author: Jienian Zhang

Institution: New College of Florida

Language: English

Topic: Youth Culture and Social Dynamics

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: Western Colorado Community Foundation, Indiana University Bloomington, National Institute of Mental Health