Dr. Leon James
Dr. Diane Nahl
(c)1976
[10. 1] CHART T/2
This CHART introduces a method or system for keeping track of the many aspects of the
study of behavior. It is based on our work in ethnosemantics and represents a serious
attempt in theory construction in social psychology. The theory, in social psychology, is
an explanation of the basis for social acts. This explanation must be in dynamic terms, i.
e., it must specify functional causes of behavior. As shown in Part A of the CHART, we use
the terms "psychodynamics" and "ethnodynamics" to refer to the two
components we envisage for the underlying explanation of social behavior
("sociodynamics”). The practice, in social psychology, is envisaged as
reflecting local community standards of conduct ("ethnopractice"), which may be
empirically investigated through two methodological approaches called
"sociopsycholinguistics" and "ethnosemantics. "
Psychodynamics is the account of those dynamic features of behavior which pertain to
psychological or psychical or subjective realms of study. We use the terms,
"attribution, " "assessment, " and "judgment" to refer to
the three major areas of research that may be found in the contemporary literature in
social psychology. We specify the components of ethnodynamics as comprising three parallel
phenomenal processes to those in psychodynamics: attribution, which is a psycho- dynamic
process, depends on or rests on the process of "implicature. " As shown in Part
B, implicature is derived from "CCP" or Community Cataloguing Practices. Thus,
given a context of community practices in implication (the ethnodynamics of what leads to
what), an individual can perform psychodynamic acts, such as attributing x to y (~.,
"It's late" involves the psychodynamic process of attributing a quality
--lateness--to the on-going moment. Note that this psychodynamic process itself depends on
a community context or ethno-dynamic field: the appropriate ways for implying facts or
implicature (e.g., if it's 11 A. M. you cannot say it's late for lunch!). Similarly,
assessment rests on presupposition: ~g., if you say "It's late" you presuppose
or assume that whatever remains to be done will take longer to do than the amount of time
left to do it in. Thus, the assessment of a chunk of time in terms of its sufficiency, is
a psychodynamic process that itself rests on the ethnodynamic assumptions (community
practices) concerning how long things take. Finally, the making of a judgment, such as the
assertion that it is now late, rests on available expressions that are used in common by
community members; this involves the ethnodynamic concept of "meaning, " which
as the figure shows, is investigatable through reciprocally ratified recognitions
("RRR") or, more simply, through usage.
Part D presents a visual representation of the formal theoretical relations between the
psychodynamic and ethnodynamic components of behavior in social settings. The
"ethnosemantic hexagram" specifies six evolving phases that are superimposed on
the psycho- and ethno-dynamic components, to yield a model that may be further explored in
Part H and in CHARTS T/21 and T/23. This conceptual framework has strict formal
definitions and requires study in its comprehension. Specific examples are glen which show
how the formal features allow the enumeration of empirical propositions about behavior.
The following definitions and expansions further elaborate on the six propositions:
1 [The FORM of behavior] = the description of the units of behavior, or the description of
any possible act or state in a community (~ ~., units, sets, glosses, etc.).
[is given by] - can be defined by, or is fully specified by.
[TYPOLOGY] = the grouping of behaviors into sets on the basis of their characteristics,
origin, or name ~., EATING includes chewing, tasting, swallowing, etc. vs. READING, which
includes following the lines, commenting to oneself, turning the pages, keeping track of
the topics, etc. ).
[TAXONOMY] = the arrangement of groupings of behavior (~ "typology") into a
comprehensive system of classification (~., EATING, READING, WALKING VS. TALKING, DANCING,
SERVING, where the first "class" denotes solitary acts while the second denotes
interpersonal acts)~
[Glossary] = a cumulative list of explanatory statements, annotations or
"glosses" amounting to a theory of behavior (e. g., this CHART --T/2, Part H).
The above can be summarized as follows:
"The form of behavior refers to any listings that specify name, type, classification,
or annotation for the behavior, identifying it and showing its relation to other
behaviors, similar or different. "
2. [The STRUCTURE of behavior] = the formal or "mechanical" explanation of the
constitutive fragments that add up to behavior in social settings (e. g., [TALKING] =
[MAKING SOUND WAVES IN THE AIR] + [CONTRACTING THE ARTICULATORY MUSCLES] + [\USAGE OF
EXPRESSIONS] ) .
Thus: "All behavior is assumed to be explainable by mechanical, i. e.,
"formal" principles. These formal principles of the constituent structure of
behavior fall into three types: "Nuclear/Mineral", viz., non-living objects;
"Vegetative/Animal, " viz., living individuals and species; and
"Spiritual/Intellectual," ViZ., human communities and their members. The
explanations at each of these three levels are of a different type, though each
nevertheless, is mechanical or formal. The structure of behavior is the second phase (=Y)
in the full account of human behavior.
3. [The FUNCTION of behavior] = a sequential description of behavior amounting to an
explanation of its specifiable consequences.
[PHYSICODYNAMICS] = the laws of motion of physical bodies and their extensions (~.,
pressure, energy, fission, etc.).
[SOCIODYNAMICS] = the laws of social transactions in & community (e. g., law and
order, conformity, routine or standard procedures, etc. ).
[ASTRODYNAMICS] = the laws of transpersonal and transcendental or subtle relationships
(~., certain forms of consciousness and non-ordinary accomplishments).
The above can be jointly phrased as follows:
"To explain behavior, we must give a sequential description of it in such a way as to
specify the consequences of it; this is called the function of the behavior. For example,
the function of saying, "Excuse me" in "Excuse me, do you have the time
?" is to signal to the other person that you're about to ask something or say some-
thing. The consequence of saying "Excuse me" at that moment is that the other
person is given information about what's going on, information that the person uses to
react appropriately. (Compare to this, the function of saying, "This is a hold up.
I've got a gun!" Think, also, of the function of such behavior sequences as: looking
the other way [--so you won't have to meet someone]; lying about something [--so as to
avoid being punished]; applying for a job [-- so you could be hired], etc. etc.
The function of behavior involves three distinct types of explanations. The first concerns
the behavior of bodies as objects (e. g., planets, rocks, rockets, cars, runners, trapeze
swingers, swimmers, molecules, etc. ). These types of explanations of behaving objects
fall in the category of physicodynamics.
The second type is the category of sociodynamics and concerns the behavior of individuals
as interactions and transactions (e g., the way a particular coastline is shaped by the
action of the waves in that area, ~ ~., "the water has made the rocks smooth and
slippery"; the way trees affect the growth of plants in its shade; the way animal
species maintain territoriality relations; the way socialized persons follow conventions
of conduct among each other; etc. ).
The third type of functional account--astrodynamics--concerns the behavior of species as a
whole ~., lobsters have survived unchanged for millions of years; humans are existing
within several separate realities irrespective of their awareness of this; knowledge comes
from within; etc. ).
4. [The MEDIUM of behavior] = the observable features of behavior or, the manner of its
manifestation.
[PHENOMENAL APPEARANCE] = any information directly or indirectly based on the senses:
visual, auditory, touch, muscle sense, etc.
[RITUAL FRAMES] = conventional signals individuals use to identify and mark the shared
meaning of what's going on ~., words, expressions, gestures, names, routines, etc.).
[PRESENTATIONS] = displays performed by an individual and observable by others either
directly (when present) or indirectly (when reading or hearing of it) ~., actions,
utterances, decisions, belongings, etc. ).
Putting the above together, we have:
"Behavior always implies that it is observable. Therefore, it must occur in a medium
of observation. The senses (phenomenal appearance) form a medium for perception (noticing
things). Conventionalized signals or routines (rituals or ritual frames) form a medium for
reference or referring to things (talking about something, topic-alizing). Finally,
situated displays (presentations) form a medium for performance (doing something or
refraining from doing). Note that individual variations in perception, reference, and
performance fully exhaust all the categories of behavior manifestations (medium). "
5. [The CONTEXT of behavior or the CONTEXTUAL FRAME of behavior] = the background of
behavior, or its dramatic backdrop, i. e., its stage or its locale in place, time, and
historical sequence.
[PLANETARY REGISTER] = the logic of reality as given in experience and formulated in
intellectual endeavors (~., common sense; specialized senses--formal logic, mathematics,
graphs, musical notation system; international phonetic transcription, drawings,
blueprints, statistics, poetry, etc. etc.)~
[ETHNICITY REGISTER] = the habits and values that a person holds by virtue of one's daily
round and expressed in style, pattern, and rhythm of behavior or appearance.
[IDEOREGISTER or INDIVIDUAL VARIATION] = whatever is personal, biographical, or unique to
an individual ~., one's memory of an experience; one's desires; one's toothbrush; one's
diary; one's viewpoint; one's mother; one's pinky; etc. etc. ).
Putting it all together, now:
"All behavior occurs in a natural setting; that is, it can always be localized in
time, place, and historical context of situation, i. e., the circumstances that lead up
to, and create, the social occasion. We can categorize the context of any behavior into
three types: first, that pertaining to the necessary logic of reality ("Planetary
Register"'; second, that pertaining to the particular community in which one manages
one's daily round ("Ethnicity Register"); and third, that pertaining to the
biographical sequence one calls "me" and "my--"
("Ideoregister" or "Individual Variation).
6. [The CONTENT of behavior] = the natural history of a community as it can be captured in
memory, history, records, and reconstructions; the parts of the natural history of a
community are visible as individual behavior occurring on one's daily round (e. g., John
and Mary decided to get married; the snail was crushed by the falling coconut; people in
California use less water since there's been a shortage there (according to the news
today); Washington was given a very large household expense account by Congress according
to several documents presented recently to the Library of Congress by the Espin Estate;
etc. etc. ).
Part Four: Application
By way of illustration, consider the behavior of two people, Don and Mary, as
reconstructed from a piece of a transcript (see CHART R/4, Chapter 10).
| 1. Don: You picked up the film? |
| 2. Mary: Yes. |
Ask yourself, what information would you
have to reconstruct in order to render the exchange realistically meaningful ? Use the
ethnosemantic model given in Part H of this CHART to organize your answer.
Sample Answer
The above can be further summarized or paraphrased, giving us a recognizable dramatic
sketch of the social occasion recorded in the transcript segment:
"A real exchange is being reported between two people, Don and Mary. (54-52). The
exchange is a normal one (51-49) and consists of Don asking Mary whether she picked up the
film to which Mary responds affirmatively (48-46). Through reconstruction, we affirm that
Don and Mary are unique individuals (45-43), are probably American co-habitants of similar
age (42-40), and that they live somewhere in North America, possibly even in Hawaii (e.g.,
UH students!) (39-37). We can deduce that the exchange is indicative of their habitual
mode of interaction (33-31) so that Mary can respond to Don's particular concern about the
film being ready (36-34) as soon as she appears on the premises (30-28). Their readiness
to share a common imaginary "world out there" (27-25), with its particular
conditions and realities (24-22), has brought them face-to-face with each other, once
more, on a routine basis (21-19): they act and react, each on their own (18-16),
underneath the skin as well as in overt movement and gesture (15-13), producing and
processing bits of information (12-10). The exchange amounts to a transaction that can be
documented by supplying the background information (9-7), the type of moves exchanged
(6-4), and their official status (3-1).”
Note that this version proceeds from the end (54-52) of the hexagram and moves upward
towards the beginning (3-1). There is a relationship between the direction of analysis
(upwards or downwards) and the purpose we have for doing the analysis: going from Phases I
to VI (downward or forward) reveals a synthetic orientation towards the reconstruction of
an event, while going from Phase VI to I (upwards or backwards) reveals an analytic
orientation. In psychology, the latter is involved in the prediction and control of
behavior, and the former involves the natural history of behavior (etiology, ontology,
evolution). Both are necessary to gain an understanding of the sociopsychologlcal relation
between setting and behavior, standardized and unique, community and individual.
[10.2] CHARTS T/7, T/8, T/9, T/11
These CHARTS depict the general plan we envisage for the empirical investigation of
community practices through the analysis of records to be found as part of the day-to-day
living procedures of individuals sharing a daily round schedule. This approach has been
strongly favored by ethnomethodologically oriented social scientists (Chapter 8). This
approach views records as codable features of one's experience in a community; thus, by
studying naturally occurring records, we study the properties of experience as recognized
by the community. "Anecdotes, " (CHART T/7) for example, are descriptive records
people readily produce and which the community treats as either valid or invalid
representatives of what happened (~ Chapter 9). "Lexical domains" or vocabulary
(CHART T/8~ form a cross- cultural grid or semantic map that represents whatever
information is coded and kept track of in a community. "Literacy" (CHART T/9)
subsume an indefinitely large collection of items of information; each item is
representable by an expression that is recordable and filable, and called "an
orthograph " Individuals wishing to refer to a subjective experience may use
orthographs to convey standard pieces of information to others who are familiar with the
orthographic system used. Hence, the process of communicating depends on a pool of
sharable orthographs. The shared pool of orthographs (CHART T/9) in a community coalesce
and organize themselves into catalogued domains such as stories, proverbs, formulaic
expressions, conventionalized usage, etc., all of which represent the community's habitual
ways of cataloguing facts or information. We call this CCPs or Community Cataloguing
Practices. The shared pool of orthographs may be termed the display repertoire. Thus, a
dictionary for example, contains the total repertoire of Words available in the shared
community pool. Members of a community may have access to all the catalogued items though
their ability to use them in actual communicative acts may vary to considerable extent, as
we know from everyday practice. Linguist Charles Fillmer (CHART T/ll) has elaborated
methods for collecting data on individual knowledge of formulaic or conventionalized
expressions in everyday circumstances.
[10.3] CHARTS T/12. T/14. T/15. T/16. T/17
The basic theoretical problem of meaning and communication is to explain how a
conventional or standard item such as an orthograph, linguistic expression, or symbol, can
be used by an individual to refer to a unique experience, observation, or event. How can
the pre-established symbol (i. e., meaning) function as an indexical pointer in the
here-Iam-now (i.e., referent)? CHART T/12 shows that reference or particular indication is
achieved through the use of situational disambiguation. In other words, pre-established
meaning attaches to catalogued orthographs: this meaning is general, i.e., ambiguous,
non-identifiable, abstract, conceptual, ideal, ideational. Its existence makes up the
field of linguistics and logic, both being the study of sentences. Mathematics is a
general, multi-purpose notation system of orthographs. Other systems are musical,
neurosemantic, biochemical, geometric, metaphoric, analogic, and 80 on. All of these
involve the notation of the sentence or the proposition as the basic unit of expression In
mathematics, propositions. are expressed as formulae; these are operational procedures
specifying algebraic steps on two sides of an equation sign which serves as an assertion
that the two independent operations are functionally equivalent. Functional equivalence is
also the basis in, for example, the meaning of words, sentences, orthographs, titles, and
so forth. Here the user asserts that there is an equivalence between thing signified and
symbol: the process of signifying is thus the operational procedure for situational
reference in everyday life. Now we must figure out or derive from the referring process
that which it refers to: that i8 the equivalence relation we propose, assist, or affirm,
when we predicate something to be true about the world (e.g., "It's late. " or
"I found my mother's letter. ")
The study of the referential value of orthographs is called "semantics ~ Semantics
has numerous aspects (conceptual, grammatical, neurologic, psychologic, ideologic,
ethnologic, and so forth); in all of these, its investigation involves three standard
components, as shown in CHART T/14. Note that the apparatus of communicating includes
three components. Firstly, it includes pre-established elements (FORM or FORMS), that
combine with each other to form compounds (STRUCTURE or STRUCTURES), which define or
specify a particular situation or state (FUNCTION). In the example given, FORM identifies
the orthographs (enclosed in square brackets and notated in capital script); STRUCTURE
identifies the compounds through orthographic symbols ("punctuation marks"); and
FUNCTION identifies the situational context (~ ~., husband says to wife, at home, at
around 10:30 p.m.: "I am hungry" --which is interpreted as "I'd like to eat
something, . . . and etc. "
Further facts and properties of orthographs are presented in CHARTS T/15, T/16, T/17. The
facts in T/15 are verifiable by the reader. We present several illustrations to indicate
the nature of semantic investigations. As can be seen, everyday situational semantics is
rich, complex, formal, and conventionalized. We use the term register modality to refer to
the various presentation channels available in the use of orthographs. Empirical research
could disentangle the taxonomy of modalities for the occurrence of orthographs in a
community. Such research amounts to the cataloguing of situational markers, i.e., a local
ethnography.
CHART T/16 presents the program of research we are envisaging. The first edition of this
Workbook (1977) was made up of 27 T/CHARTS, 29 R/CHARTS, and 32 E/CHARTS. We have retained
this numbering and classification system in the current Edition, though space demands
required us to reprint only some of these
(for the full picture, see the first edition, therefore). As can be seen in CHART T/16,
the "T-CHARTS" are formal representations of our theoretical resolutions
concerning the nature and character of social situations. The "R-CHARTS" are
structural representations illustrating research strategies and involves notational
proposals for the theory of expressions (i.e., community sanctioned taxonomies). The
"E-CHARTS" are functional representations presenting actual selections culled
from the daily round arena, hence possessing a historicalized existence (~., formulaic
expressions, situationally and historically annotated). The social psychology of
individual variation seeks to understand how the situation affects behavior while still
allowing for individual style and uniqueness.
CHART T/17 shows a particular functional characteristic of situated orthographs (~ ~.,
historicalized). Note that orthographs independently presented by two individuals coalesce
structurally to form a pair. Such pairs, or adjacency- pairs, constitute a molecule of
interactional discourse, i. e., discourse chunks produced jointly by two or more
individuals. You can appreciate the fact, in the light of this discussion, that
conversation is a sociopsychological phenomenon comprising a ritual of taking turns at
talk, as may be represented in a transcript. Note that in actual conversational episodes
on the daily round, there are many occasions when the ideal or normative turntaking
practice is replaced by irregular patterns of interactional discourse (e.g., people
talking at the same time, or overlapping--see Winskowski, 1975). What is being said in a
conversation can thus be represented in a transcript by notating the orthographs and
orthographic collections produced through the interactional discourse accomplishments of
two or more conversationalists engaged in a social episode on the daily round. The
methodological problem exists as to the
interpretability of such notations of conversations. Naturally occurring speech tends to
be indexical and elliptic; that is, the speakers point to features of the setting without
using orthographs (indexicalizing) or complete orthographs (ellipsis). Hence, if only the
orthographic content of a conversation is available, its inter- pretability is
problematic, vague, subjective. This is clear from the "Nixon transcripts. "
However, annotated transcriptions allow objective and empirical investigations for
transcripts based on either audio and videotapes (or both).
One type of annotation is called stage directions. .This is familiar to us in fictional
dramatizations where the convention is used to place content in quotation and stage
directions in regular script (e. g.," 'Enough! ' he yelled with impatience and anger
as if he couldn't take any more of it. "). The detailed description of annotated
transcripts will be found in Chapter 9.
[10. 4] CHART T/18
This CHART represents an application of the double hexagram (see Index) to the problem of
saying anything ("situational predications"). The CHART may be read by going
from SITUATION (what, why, how; and who, when, where) to PREDICATION (it was, it is, it
will be; and it could be, would be, should be). For example, what it was equals a
MICRODESCRIPTION, or it would be equals a PROBABILITY STATEMENT, and 80 on. There are 36
locations within the four Cartesian quadrants enclosed within a double hexagram matrix.
This CHART is therefore a general solution to all predications, i. e., it is an exhaustive
catalogue. The CHART is not complete as marginal values are untitled. It awaits further
research and contributors are welcome to contact us with new solutions. The student may
wish to look up the 36 solutions in the dictionary and the thesaurus and in that light
examine the validity of (1) the marginal definitions for each term, and (2) the
progressions specified, both horizontally and vertically. ~ g.,
"Report-Judgment" is the third horizontal progression ("how it--"),-
while Assessment-Reasoning is the fourth vertical progression ("--it could be"),
and 80 on. The color coding corresponding to the six Phases are compatible with CHART T/2,
hence the 36 solutions ought to be further supported by the content of the 54 categories
there, as color coded. For further details on morphotopology and its relation to the genes
of intellect, see cover design, Appendix, and Index.
[10.5] CHARTS T/19, T/20, E/9
These three CHARTS present a theoretical synthesis of the various views in our culture
concerning the person, the individual, or the individual's "personality. " Part
(a) shows our currently inadequate representation of the Ancient Hawaiian conception of
the self in terms of three elements, each having their own function in living. The middle
self is our talking or intellectualizing aspect: this implies that our actions and
feelings are functional outcomes of our interior dialogue (see Chapter 9 for the role of
interior dialogue on the daily round). The middle self relates through talk to the other
two aspects of a person. The relation to the higher self is one-way, i. e., one is
passively subject to beneficence or not. The other relation, to the lower or basic self,
is reciprocal though dominant themes may render it one- sided. For example, teaching may
be the function of the relationship flowing from the middle self to the basic self.
Praying is expressed by the relationship between basic self flowing towards the high self.
This sets up a political situation since the middle self can now attempt to affect events
in the world by getting, cajoling, persuading, etc. the basic self to intercede through
prayer. Thus there evolves a psycho- politics of praying which is vested in the knowledge
of the kahuna, and his relation- ship to his own triumvirate of selves. In this manner,
and by this mechanism, the community is weaved into a network of interdependent persons.
Social identity is defined by interdependence status, especially and primarily, the family
(both blood and adopted). Though social reality provides the appearance of independent
individual activity on the daily round, in actuality, that appearance is maintained
through con- sensus by means of the triumvirate of selves that constitute each person.
However, the triumvirate of selves are not social selves: they are pure in form, each
having
its own psychogenetic structure and sociopsychological function, hence "idealized,
" relative to "us," as persons. The idealized relations are to be construed
as ethno- dynamic and human community based. Hence, ethnodynamic and psychodynamic
conceptions portray the world to the individual onlooker (see E/9).
Our representation of the Catholic glossary in Part (b), shows a more evolved, more
complex, less primitive, schema: it embroils the socialized person into a fantastic
confrontation. The person has a soul and the soul relates to God, therefore the person
relates to God. This basic and simple doctrine is contextualized deep within the
historicalized community. That is, there are provided social and sociopolitical mechanisms
for reward and punishment of the person according to his accomplishments. That accounting
is inescapable and belongs to the economics of birth on this planet. Four modalities of
conduct on the daily round are provided as unavoidable media for existing: the person may
pray, sin, suffer, or be redeemed. There are no other possibilities, whatever the person
does or fantasizes. This quadrilateral of life themes adjoins the upper and lower worlds,
or perhaps, the upper world and its detractors.
Part (c) portrays the individual in the grips of avoidance of relationship with the
various selves. The outcome of inner fights, outer conflicts, incompatible dispositions,
repressed emotions, or their opposites in balance, rationality, assuredness, spontaneity,
determines the adjustment quality of the individual's life: low vs. high self-esteem, low
vs. high vitality.
The psychodynamics of the behavioristic school eliminates the personified titles of the
points of the triangle (Part [d]). Instead, we find processes that have operational
definitions: first, learning, which is the topical focus of the interaction between the
environment and individual variation in behavior; second, personality, which in the
topical focus of social psychology relates communality socialization practices to
individual variability; third, language, which i8 defined in behavioral terms as the
mediator between community practices and environmental effects upon the individual.
Jewish Mystical tradition is portrayed in Part (e). The six points of the Star of David
are titled to symbolize six daily round precepts of the Chassid or Practitioner: (1) The
study of the teachings, which gives wisdom and enlightenment in daily living; (2)
relationship with others and creatures within the social contract (society); (3) love,
which is in the Heart and which stems from the soul, and the soul's direct and immediate
connection with God; (4) the vitality which comes from spiritual practice and flows from
divine energy; (5) unity and the human experience of consciousness are symbolized by
breath which is imminent; (6) creativity which comes from meditating on the Holy Name, the
source of all inspiration.
Part (f) shows the abstractness of God relative to the other systems. God is what's left
over after everything has been defined. God is absolutely nothing. It It is the sound of
AUM to which all progresses and from which all emanates, except God, which is nothing.
This system shares, with Christianity, the notion of redemption, in this case viewed
however from a transpersonal, rather than biographical perspective. Sinning is Karma,
Suffering is Reincarnation, and Hell is the Astral Plane. When the Soul is ready to come
in from the cold, so to speak, i.e., when it is redeemed, it too departs and only AUM is
left. Unity of the Self through Atman and Buddah, educates man's consciousness towards
unity and oneness. Meditation yields a frontier man's path towards perfect understanding,
liberation, gratuitousness .
Finally, we present our own synthesis in CHART T/20. Here, human race is given an
operational definition not unlike our elaboration of the theory of orthographs (CHARTS
T/12-T/17); thus, human race is the idealized locus for sudden memory, where the latter i8
represented by billions of individual experiences symbolized by "I", in the
English first person pronoun. These individual and subjective experiences coalesce into a
bio-organism, called culture. The analogy drawn earlier is that of all orthographs being
catalogued in a dictionary: here, all memories, all ideas, all sensations, summate into a
display repertoire for the human race. From this pool, called Sudden Memory, and idealized
as encompassing all historical times on the planet, springs all the available experiences,
emotions, thoughts, themes, that an individual person has available. Transcendence of time
and place, resolves the social person's memories; it re-connects fragments. Thus, when
interior dialogue stops, fragmentation of the person ceases. The "I" becomes
available to Sudden Memory: the individual person has transcended sociality. In the end,
the solitary cell is there, there is no redemption, but the whole is also there, therefore
obviating all along the need for anything at all.
Data in the DRA collection shows that praying and the use of elevated registers are common
features of the daily round (see Chapter 9, Section [9. 3. III-V. 3]). Though our coins
claim about this nation that "In God We Trust, " though our courts of law allow
us to swear by the Bible, though the legislature opens its session with an invocation, yet
all of this has left our scientists unimpressed. Prayer is not a scientific concept; in
the eyes of scientific psychology praying is a superstitious practice whose efficacy
cannot be proven under experimental conditions of testing. If praying is effective, why
can't the scientist see it? Are we to say that praying, so common on the dally round, and
officially a part of our local and national community, is a superstition? Perhaps the
daily round approach may ultimately give us the answer to this intriguing puzzle.
Systematic documentation of biographical records, deposited in archival collections, may
contain the data that would surely illuminate the wisdom contained in all of man's
fantastic elaborations in thought and word of man's own nature.
[10. 6] CHARTS T/21, T/23, T/24, T/25
These four CHARTS, along with CHART T/2, constitute the sketch of a unified theory in
social psychology. CHART T/2 outlines the topical structure for the study of all aspects
of behavior. It is based on developments from our work in morphotopology and outlines the
hexagrammatic system in the functional analysis of behavior. CHART T/21 is a visual
portrayal of the components needed in a sociopsychological theory of action. Our model
clearly has topological properties, in which case we are on safe grounds with Eminent
Social Psychologist, Kurt Lewin, who has invented field theory in social psychology
(1954~. Further familiarity on our part is needed with both field theory and topography to
profit from the work of others. Cooperation from mathematically oriented thinkers will be
greatly welcomed.
CHART T/23 outlines a three-factor theory of social competence. It amounts to an ennead
(=based on 3 x 3 = 9 components). The three wheels in Part 1, are each defined by three
internal components:
wheel A --> SOCIETY/COMMUNITY/SETTING wheel B --> ETHNICITY/TOPIC FOCUS/ROLE
COMMITMENT wheel C --> REPUTATION/STYLE/INTERPRETATION
The triadic components of each wheel are obtained from the list provided in CHART T/25.
Wheel A derives from the zero element TERRITORIALITY (=social episodes + involvement).
Wheel B derives from VARIABILITY (=involvement + spontaneity). Wheel C derives from
BIOGRAPHY (=spontaneity + presentations). It is necessary to collate, in study, the
various parts and sub-parts of the five basic CHARTS being discussed here.
Note that CHART T/25 organizes the three principal components of territoriality,
variability, and biography at eight distinct levels. (This can also be seen from T/24) Thus:
Derivations for VARIABILITY and BIOGRAPHY can be similarly made at each of the eight
levels. Further "peeling" or splicing of the system in other directions can be
explored to great benefit in understanding.
We may now return to CHART T/21 which presents a particular application of the theoretical
ideas outlined in the morphology CHARTS (T/2, 22, 23, 24, 25).
The Psychodynamic Phase: INVOLVEMENT
1. [SOCIAL SETTING] ___A___ [INVOLVEMENT]
2. [SOCIAL SETTING] ___B___ [CONVICTION]
3. [CONVICTION] ___C___ [INVOLVEMENT]
The definition of social setting as a "sociocultural field" (see Part 2),
entails some dynamic notion related to the social environment. We call this dynamic field,
sociodynamics, which includes two components: psychodynamics and ethnodynamics (~ CHART
T/2). Now we raise the following question: what precisely is the mechanism (i. e., formal
explanation) whereby an individual in a social setting behaves as if the setting was a
dynamic field ? Proposition A, indicated by the "A" on the arrow, i8 an answer
to this question: the mechanism in question is titled "involvement. " We can
thus say that social settings create or, occasion the occurrence of, a dynamic relation or
dependence between an individual and the setting.
Involvement is. thus. the name of the dynamic process whereby the setting occasions the
individual's dependence on it.
Involvement is a crucial component of social action. It is the pre-condition for
spontaneity (arrow AA), which is the immediate cause of action. In other words, social
action may be conceptualized as analyzable into two phases: the involvement phase and the
spontaneity phase. These two phases are dependent on different conditions, hence to
understand or predict an act, the investigator needs to look at the functional antecedents
of both the involvement and the spontaneity phases. The involvement phase is conditioned
by a psychodynamic process we might call conviction, while the spontaneity phase is
conditioned by an ethnodynamic process we might call precipitation.
The psychodynamics of conviction can be described as follows:
TABLE?
The antecedents of conviction (arrow B on the CHART) are psychodynamic, in the sense that
they include such processes as set, habit, selective sensitivity, attentional filtering,
hyper- and hypo-sensitivity, orientation reflexive. automatic sequences of focus, and
other aspects of dynamic, information processing activities. Note that these attentional
and orientation mechanisms are embedded into a background context of situation. We might
call this the level of normalcy (Goffman). or the level of adaptation (Helson), or the
line of sincerity (J.&G., 1975-77), or the ordinary, regular daily round environment
of a socialized person.
The expression "daily round" indicates the re-current, re-gularized, routinized,
schedule of an individual living in a community. This regularity entails a psychological
dependence: the individual, once regularized or habituated to a social setting, becomes
functionally connected to it through psychodynamic "hooks", which we have titled
"involvement. " These hooks, or situational dependencies, need to be empirically
investigated, and described. Much evidence has been accumulated by experimental
psychologists on the nature of these "hooks. " Thus, the antecedents of
conviction (B-->) are psychodynamic hooks linking the individual's attentional
processes to setting factors or "stimuli. "
The description of the antecedents of conviction has been explored in two broad areas in
psychology. One might be called implicit psychology, and the other, neurosemantics .
Implicit psychology is the term we use to refer to the research and theory, quite vast,
dealing with such psychodynamic processes as: attitude formation; cognitive flexibility;
imagery; problem solving heuristics; interpersonal perception; attribution; evaluation;
judgment; and so forth.
Neurosemantics is the term we use to refer to the research and theory, also vast, dealing
with the psychodynamic-neurophysiological interface of socialized behavior. Neurosemantics
refers to the availability pattern of attentional mechanisms: i. e., whether you notice X
or Y or Z in a setting depends functionally on prior (antecedent) habits of focus. These
habits are viewed as grounded in neurophysiological function. Thus, one might say that the
individual is hooked to a setting through connections established between situation cues
("semantic") and the body's connection is therefore a neurosemantic one -
Jakobovits and Nahl, 1975-77, Vol. 3, Series I: Experiments in Neurosemantics).
Implicit psychology and neurosemantics are, thus, two psychodynamic accounts of the
antecedents of conviction.
The consequences of conviction (C-->) are also psychodynamic processes. They include
behavioral characteristics such as persistence, motivation, drive. Purposive behavior,
goal orientation, strategy, and so forth. These psychodynamic consequence of situational
reactivity are the empirical, observable indices of involvement. In summary, then, we can
say that involvement is a psychodynamic hook governing the individual's attentional
conduct in a setting through habituation and imparting a coherent direction to the
sequencing of acts. This statement is represented in the CHART by the triangle [A. B. C,
].
The Ethnodynamic Phase: SPONTANEITY
4. [INVOLVEMENT] --AA--> [SPONTANEITY]
5. [INVOLVEMENT] --BB--> [PRECIPITATION]
6. [PRECIPITATION]--CC--> [SPONTANE ITY]
The ethnodynamic phase of spontaneity is represented in the CHART by the triangle [AA. BB.
CC. ]. The pathway, AA, is a possible occurrence. This is a direct route coupling the two
sociodynamic phases. Automated programs in behavioral sequencing, i_, spontaneity, has two
antecedents: one, psychodynamic, which proceeds from involvement (AA), and leads to
spontaneous action. For example, judgemental acts in B, or goal-directed orientations in
C, produce involvements which directly trigger spontaneous acts of movement of the eyes,
head, and face, or voicing in talk. Think of tasting your soup as a situation: as you
place it in your mouth, you assess, evaluate, and judge the sensations; that produces
involvement which can be observed by the goal-directedness of the activity. At the next
phase, you react spontaneously by running off automatic sequences such as swallowing,
managing the food in the mouth, placing more soup in it, and so on. Should anything occur
that yields an involvement incompatible or conflictual with the on-going one, the
spontaneity of the on-going behavioral sequence is interrupted and a new sequence is
initiated, governed by the new involvement (~., you find a stone in your soup, or you find
it too salty, etc. ).
This direct route between involvement and spontaneity may be conditioned by other factors
to be mentioned; these are added on as contextual features of any particular social
occasion, and we title these, precipitation. The antecedents (BB-->) and consequence
(CC-->) of precipitation are interposed between involvement and spontaneity and act as
a ethnodynamically charged "buffer zone" between the two. That is, the
psychodynamic consequences of involvement and conviction are modifiable through
ethnodynamic antecedents and consequents of precipitation. The latter is thus the link
between a pre-established habit and its applicability to any particular occasion.
Precipitation modifies the character and style of spontaneous acts, which otherwise would
have a rigid character or one-to-one relation.
Antecedents of precipitation (BB-->) include emotionalizing episodes; discourse
thinking reports; interior dialogue; and other forms of microdescrlptions and annotations,
including indexing and cataloguing. Consequents of precipitation (CC-->) include
presentations, performances, enactments, records, and so forth. These are topological
phenomena in that they are transforms of involvement such that an underlying or deep level
mechanical process (A, B, C) is transformed into a surface, visible process (AA, BB, CC.
). The underlying level is both psychodynamic and pre-topical (~ CHART T/2; and HEXAGRAM
in Index): the surface level is ethno- dynamic and topical.
Conditions for the etiology of individual variability may be found in both phases of an
act. In the psychodynamic phase of involvement, habituation phenomena to topic focus
(i.e.,what we notice on any particular occasion) operate cumulatively; hence, individual
history or biography sets up implicit and neurosemantic patterns of automatic adjustments
to a setting. These patterns are unique and difficult to recover or reconstruct. In the
subsequent ethnodynamic phase, spontaneity is conditioned by topicalization phenomena (~,
what we represent symbolically or through content) which operate ritually, i.e., by
conventionalized routines; hence, individual uniqueness in cumulative history gets
transformed into the standardized, according to transformation procedures dictated by
community prac- tices in language use, meaning, interpretation, coherence, continuity,
precedence, and so on. All of these imply that precipitation is a phenomenon closely
related to what we've called ethnicity, local ethnography, style, standardized imaginings
(see these in the Index ).
Note, finally, the term enactology, which is defined in the glossary (part 2) as the
topological study of social settings. The drawing in the CHART (T/21) attempts to
symbolize the notion that the two phases of an act are solid, even if formal,
mechanism--the two triangles; these are then projected onto a surface, i. e., they undergo
a topological transformation--striated surface. Thus, acts occur in a field whose
dimensionality is fundamentally altered. This alternation is seen, in ethnosemantics, as a
quantum jump, from the pre-topical to the topical, and is represented in the hexagrammatic
morphology by the double line (~ cover design and Appendix for details on this). The
theory of social acts is thus an accaunt of the details of how ethnodynamic rituals
spontaneously condition svchodvnamic involvements and habits. This i8 essentially and
purely the problem of how the standard conditions the unique, how, in other words, the
social occa- sion demands the adaptation of learned habit and style to the particular set
of conditions.
There is a profound dialectic of complementarity and reciprocity in this relation between
the setting and the individual, the ethnodynamic and the psycho- dynamic, the standardized
and the particular. This figure attempts to specify this
interesting conceptual dialectic or form. On the right, you see depicted the fact that the
antecedents and consequent9 of conviction are etiological or formative processes, e. g.
personality, individuality, uniqueness, style, subjectivity, etc. These pertain to
biographic records, psychohistory, and other psychodynamic records. The outside frame of
ethnodynamics encompasses 'personality' and surrounds it with reference points, norms,
standards, conventions, rituals, etc. Now, however, moving over to the left, the
particular vs. the standardized dialectic takes a reciprocal transformation (as in a/b =
b/a relation). Now you'll note that the psychodynamic involvements in a setting (triangle
ABC on the CHART - T/21) eventuate from setting factors already in the field (light
striations on the left of CHART T/21). For example, you bring the soup to your mouth, you
notice the color, vapor, etc., and you think about the T. V. program last night where the
person was poisoned by something in the soup ! This particular and unique setting or
social occasion--i. e., your thinking about the poison while tasting the soup today--is
unique with respect to the episode and its official history, but is standard with respect
to the settin~ involvement. The latter assertion (underlined) is justified by the concept
of STANDARDIZED IMAGININGS (see Index) which designate implicit psychological or cognitive
processes involving private speech, interior dialogue, discourse thinking, and so forth.
These cognitive processes are standardized versions of dramatized interpretations of
on-going features of a setting. In other words, the "stories" or narrative
sequences that occur to one in a setting are standardized versions of norms, models,
themes, etc., which are familiar to regulars on a daily round. Hence the poison story that
occurs to you as you taste the soup today. The story line is standard ("Maybe It's
Poisoned ! ") but the occasion or episode is unique ("This one, today, right
now!"). Thus, there is a reversal in the polarity of the two dynamic processes with
respect to the dialectics of unique vs. standard:
There are interesting deductions here, which will only be
briefly mentioned. This theory called enactology implies that behavior in social settings
has at least two independent aspects or versions. The forward version is explanatory in
the synthetic sense: it offers a progression, a development, a phasal notation. It is the
study of morphology, of etiology, of growth, of evolution, of metamorphosis, of
transformation and so forth. In the hexagrammatic structure of behavior (see Index)
outlined in CHARTS [T/2; 22-251, the forward progression is indicated by the ranking of
the six components from Phase I ("White") to Phase VI ("Black"). In
the writings of 19th century humanists, the morphology of the forward progression of
behavior wa9 referred to as necessity and contrasted with choice.
"Choice" in behavior entails a psychology of predection. Predictability implies
degrees of it, hence, unpredictability, as well. For the humanists of our twentieth
century, scientific rigor a~l prediction are anti-freedom, hence, anti- choice. Thus we
are caught on the pendulum between necessity and choice.
Choice and prediction imply the possibility of "control. " In the hexagrammatic
system, the backward direction entails choice, hence predictabilitv This is the analytic
technique, from Phase VI to Phase I. Different methodologies issue from the two
directions. (~ additional discussion on this in Jakobovits and Nahl, 1975-77, Vol. 1,
Series II, Appendix. )
One final note. CHARTS [T/2. 21-25] are keyed to one another using the hexagrammatic
notation system we've described. There are many implications and deductions that may be
drawn from such a conceptual framework, some of which may be empirically demonstrable. To
practice the extraction of proposi- tional relations, note how correspondences in
morphological structure lead to new statements of conceptual relations now otherwise
apparent--thus justifying the efforts in learning the notation system.
For instance, the triangles [A . B. C. ] and [AA. BB. CC. ] in CHART T/21 summate to
produce the triangle [A. B. C. ] in CHART T/23. Therefore, we can note further properties
of [involvement] and [spontaneity] which are not apparent in T/21; namely, that
[SOCIAL SETTING] ------A------> [INVOLVEMENT] is a dynamic that has three components:
[community/setting/society] (T/23). Going further, we note that
[ COMMUNITY/SETTING/SOCIETY]
is a trigrammatic conceptual unit corresponding to the light trigram, i. e., Phases
[I/II/III]. This may now be taken in at at least two directions. One is to go to CHART T/2
and explore the morpholofical properties of this trigram (i.e., it corresponds to
[FORM/STRUCTURE/FUNCTION]
of behavior). Or, a second direction is to note that it is titled territoriality (Part 2,
T/23) which then leads to strung out propositions in the form seen in Part 6, T/23.
| Parts | One | Two/TD> |
ThIs algorithmic procedure may be followed with the other components and subcomponents in
any direction. The gain in conceptual power is considerable. For instance, in the example
traced above we started with the gross notion that the setting somehow get us involved,
and end up with more specific and complex notions such as:
- our involvement in the setting is a function of territoriality;
- territoriality has three dynamic components called community, setting, and society;
- community is territoriality that is operative for all and is
investigatable through the study of typology, philology, psychology, etc.;
- setting is territoriaIity that implicates traits ascribable to people generally, and is
investigatable through sociodynamics, engineering, pragmatics, etc.
-society is territoriality that encompasses the setting of an event, and is investigatable
through glossaries, statistics, jurisprudence, etc.;
-explanations about involvement that employ the forward progression of territoriality
([COMMUNITY --> SETTING --> SOCIETY]) implies a necessary developmental sequence
from formative components (W= Phase I) (i.e., TYPOLOGY OPERATIVE FOR ALL), to functional
components (G = Phase III) (i.e., DAILY LOG ENTRIES FOR THE SETTING OF AN EVENT). These
functional components of territorality thus illuminate the further workings of involvement
in settings.
