9. STRUCTURES OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
"coalitions" or sub-groups. They talk more to each other, support each other, seek each other out, openly make declarations about each other that are favorable and binding, or bonding. Others may feel antagonistic, competitive they may express hostility, dislike, avoidance of one another. One member might be made into the excluded monad, and isolated from the rest of the group he may be a deviant through talk, gestures, or appearance.
great deal of attention by social psychologists, is that of cognitive dynamics. This includes the study of social attitudes. Here, attraction translates as the attribution of reward value to another person.
(This key is used for Forms A, B, C.)
|
1. No = D 2. No = DN 3. No = DNB 4. No = DB 5. No = DPB 6. No = DP 7. No = DPF 8. No = DF 9. No = DNF 10. No = N 11. No = NB 12. No = B 13. No =PB 14. No = P 15. No = PF 16. No = F 17. No = NF 18. No = UN 19. No = UNB 20. No = UB 21. No = UPB 22. No = UP 23. No = UPF 24. No = UF 25. No = UNF 26. No = U |
Yes = U
Yes = UP Yes = UPF Yes = UF Yes = UNF Yes = UN Yes = UNB Yes = UB Yes = UPB Yes = P Yes = PF Yes = F Yes = NF Yes = N Yes = NB Yes = B Yes = PB Yes = DP Yes = DPF Yes = DF Yes = DNF Yes = DN Yes = DNB Yes = DB Yes = DPB Yes = D |
In this example, the rated person received 0 "Yes" responses falling in category U (see KEY),8 for category D, and so on. Next you subtract D from U, N from P, B from F, giving us 2U, 8P, l0F as the results of the subtraction. anything less than 3, gets dropped. The final estimate of this individual's personality style is therefore "PF." Now you look up "PF: in the detailed tables provided by Bales (not shown here) and read its specifications. Doing this for group role type PF, we read statements of the following type:
1. How He Sees Himself and How Others See Him.
2. His Place in the Interaction Network.
3. What Ideas and Values Will He Express?
4. The Quality of His Interaction.
5. Conflicts and Coalitions With Others.
Personality Traits.
7. How He Sees His Parents.
8. His Effect on Group Satisfaction.
The summary characteristics of each personality type (or group role) were arrived at empirically through a statistical technique known as factor analysis By administering several hundred items under various group conditions, Bales and his co-workers were able to correlate them and note clusters of traits that go together ("factors"). When all the data are inter-correlated in a huge matrix, 27 clusters or typologies were identified and each type given a name. Now we need to explore the interactional characteristics of the 27 types. For this, Bales used an approach he called Interaction Process Analysis. A summary of the categories appears in the accompanying table (see next page):
An observer sits near-the group and with a specially prepared form records who talks to whom and the type of intervention it indicates: stating an opinion, asking a question, laughing, telling a story, and so on. The inter- action types for each group member are then tabulated and a key used for determining each person's type. For example:
| Interaction | Low Scores | High Scores |
|
1. Seems Friendly 2. Dramatizes 3. Agrees 4. Gives Suggestion 5. Gives Opinion 6. Gives Information 7. Asks for Information 8. Asks for Opinion 9. Asks for Suggestions 10. Disagrees 11. Shows Tension 12. Seems Unfriendly | N DF NB DB B U DN N UB P UF P |
P UB PF UF F D UP P DF N DB N |
This map shows that coalitions (lines) tend to occur in a group as a function of the members' personality type. Cluster a, is made up of 3 individuals, all of whom are high on U. Cluster b is a loose organization of moderates in U, while cluster c and d are on the D and P sides, respectively. Isolate; (0) appear in the N part of the space. Also noticeable, are key individuals who belong to more than one coalition, their function being to keep the overall network in a communicative structure.
Thus, a person's position in group space is to be plotted simultaneously within all three dimensions. A person high on U, P, and F earns the type UPF An opposite type to UPF is DNB, i.e., one who earns high scores on D, on N, and on B, simultaneously. Pure types such as U or P or N (etc.) are high in that direction while being insignificant (near zero) in the other directions. Some characteristics of the pure types are given by Bales as follows:
1. TYPE U = Upward Direction
2. TYPE D = Downward Direction
3. TYPE F = Forward Direction
The27 types (26 + 1 Average on everything) are thus combinations of the three basic dimensions. For example:
You may wish to pursue this interesting and productive system by studying Bales' book. Such an investigation is likely to give you a better understanding of group structure and individual behaviors within a group. The theme in this kind of approach is the idea that a person's behavior is to be assessed by the effects he produces on others, and that these effects fall into a relatively small numbers of types. Once an individual is typecast, his behaviors are to be understood as resultants of these group defined tendencies (directions).
10. COMMUNITY AS SHARED DAILY ROUND
| CO-MUNITY = |
{*co- i.e., "together with"
{*MUNITY, i.e., "public exchange" |
In summary, community implies a social setting for routine exchanges between individuals (= Daily Round).
|
ROUTINE =
EXCHANGES = CREATE = SOCIAL = SETTINGS = DAILY ROUND
repeated and practiced, hence, produces inter-personal
| expectations; ritualized inter-actions, i.e., transactions; transactions imply agreed-upon procedures, rituals, rules; actualize or make real; the manifestation of natural phenomena; non-solitary individuals; implies an instinctive tendency to aggregate and do routine things together with others or in groups; the place and time where the co-participants interact, either in reality, or, in supposition through symbolic access rituals (e.g., having an exchange with someone in a daydream); title given to the principle "ROUTINE EXCHANGES CREATE SOCIAL SETTINGS." |
The conceptual diagram or CHART makes visible important characteristics of community life as these are derivable from the Daily Round Principle. The diagram makes a number of stipulations or definitions which can be visually read:
the possibility of community life. As well, the diagram specifies the natural order of these conditions, from beginning to end, and recycled. Such a diagram will be referred to as a hexagram (*hexa- = 6; -gram = ordered components or stages). This particular hexagram is entitled "The Daily Round Principle" and can be adequately paraphrased by the sentence "ROUTINE EXCHANGES CREATE SOCIAL SETTINGS." This sociodynamic ecology is made up of "field forces" that act upon the individual and influence behavior. This influence manifests itself in framed sequences of behavior (Stages V + VI). This refers to the obvious fact that-individual behavior is sequenced in time and in order of component behaviors. As well, sequenced behavior components have natural "breaking points" where one sequence ends and another begins. These breaking points are boundary markers or lines, hence they frame the behavior sequences into a unit we can call "presentations," or behavioral presentations, or performances.
Community vs. Society. Exchanges in social settings is the phrase we use to refer to societies that are accessible to our observation, and hence they constitute the context of social psycho1ogy. Exchanges in social settings are always perceived by the observer as occurring within natural units or episodes. These episodes form the subject matter of social psychology. Episodes appear to us as a narrative, i.e., a sequenced description whose components correspond to a sequence of events in time and place (see "dramatic movement"). We can listen to someone's narrative of an episode of events; we can also create a story-line in our imaginings as we observe our surround. In both cases we are acting as Witness, i.e., as self-observers, or as observers of our selves.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
[=the study of routine behaviors in social settings]
| SOCIETY | Community |
| SIMULATION TECHNIQUES |
WITNESSING TECHNIQUES |
|
[=observer acts as if from outside the group] |
[=observer acts as a co- participant, member from within] |
| EXPERIMEN- TAL SET-UPS | SURVEYS TESTS, & INTERVIEWS ETHNO- | GRAPHIES
| GENERAL DAILY | ROUNDS INVESTIGATIVE DAILY | ROUNDS |
The diagram depicts the methodology of social psychology to comprise five distinct technologies of investigation. Each technological approach yields its own particular information.
This frame diagram shows that observations of society through the experimental set-up ("results") simulates a social setting (shaded area) through instructions
(iv) which are acted out by subjects (iii) recruited within a research organization (ii) having a legitimate or recognized place in society-at-large (i). For this technique to work there must already be a tradition for experimentation creating the availability of individuals who are capable of acting out the role of Subject. This is true whether the Subject is to respond verbally or through a motor response that can be recorded visually by an observer or by an instrument. Note that experiments are set-up so that the investigator and the subject agree to ignore, or accept, tacitly, the existence of frames (i) through (iv) while the results are being produced during the experiment. Before and after "briefings" insure that the simulation comes off within legal and ethical bounds.
An important question: Why are these excluded? The answer: because there is not an exact correspondence between the notation system (report) and the event ("what happened"). The up-grading of the Subject (any person, anywhere, any time) to that of Witness is empowered or enabled by the Court of Law (surrounding rules; Law and Order). Our society depends on the existence of Witnesses who are the architects of signed declarations, depositions, and observations under oath. Bank checks, citizenship papers, and promissory notes or contracts all depend on the validity of the assumption that there is an exact correspondence between the report and the event.
"the course as a whole") (see PP. ). Note very carefully the function of such forms: they gather declarations rather than objective descriptions. Since these declarations do not necessarily represent what happened, they cannot be used as objective, natural history data of students' actual experiences. To get at that, we need: (i) reports of on-going events as they occur, no later. As well, we need, (ii) to restrict the format of the students' reporting to records of their observations, not anything else.
As we see it, Buddha exploited this principle for pedagogic reasons. In our terms, we would say that training in socio-legal literacy--saorogatese--increases self-awareness. It is this very principle that we are applying in this course of study. The approach provides training in objectifying one's experiences on the daily round through the use of particular formats of reporting. These formats serve the role of specifying what you need to report, and in what detail. The reason you can use this format of reporting is the academic literacy you've already acquired. Academic literacy and socio-legal literacy share the basic feature of objective reporting: the writer and the reader use common agreements as to what an expression means and what conditions fulfill its validity. Psycholinguistics and ethnosemantics are study programs whose practice yield particular notation systems, i.e. formats of reporting events that correspond strictly to mere witnessings, and nothing else.
Synopsis 10: Community as Shared Daily Round.
Bird Stories (9) by Leon James
11. SOCIAL BEHAVIORISM
The first diagram shows the genesis of the self.
Start reading the diagram in the lower right hand corner. There you notice familiar things on your daily round: EDUCATION, SOCIAL MEMRERSHIP, SUB-GROUPS, S0CIAL RELATIONS and PROJECTS. All of these involvements may be titled social participations.
piddles on it. But it will also reflect itself: its branches will be seen on the trunk and they each will reflect each other's parts. In these reflections, what is "outside" the tree (environment) and "inside" the tree (structural parts), are treated alike--they are all the objects reflected in the mirrors. Thus it is that the tree reflects itself as it reflects other objects: the self is treated as object.
|
Stimulus Change (ANTECEDENT ) | Behavioral Effects (CONSEQUENT) |
|
Cars, motorcycles, delivery trucks
Overflying birds (silent and distant) Overflying birds (calling out and near) Birds perching in the vicinity, searching for seeds Mice running about near or in food dish Cat on a hot wire mesh roof Bird in distress (broken wing, inexperienced young birds, or the born handicapped) New object introduced into cage ( food dish, plaything, branches ) |
Almost always adapted except for young birds who have just emerged their nestbox. The cockatiels (only) often moving their heads, adjust their eyes and appear to peer into the sky The cockatiels (particularly) excitedly, using a strident whistle All adult birds act excited in noises and flying about (untill Al1 birds show total asaptation than the mice who run when a bird starts feeding ). Panic when the cat jumps on or total adaptation when cat sleeps grooms itself. Excited involvement by parents mild interest by others. Quick adaptation ( first few minutes, Studied avoidance, adapting growth depending on object and prior adaptation. |
This bar graph is only approximate and needs to be checked out by systematic observations (in that case, the graph becomes the hypothesis or prediction). It shows the effect of an intervention such as an average size noise or novel sight during different activities in the aviary. Thus, panic (flying about in
discoordinated fashion) is evoked by an "average stimulus change" only during quiet perching or "sleeping." The same intensity disturbance has less of an effect, as you go to the right on the graph. The least reactive period occurs during an activity which I shall describe in a subsequent story (#12) and for which I find no better label than "praying!"
12. THE NATURE OF DRA DATA
of Honor, may serve as the Court, or as is more usual in the life of a society, a fourth person, forming a quartet, serves as the Court. Thus, the two parties having an exchange, plus the witness and the Court representative (officer, notary) form the minimal unit that can function as a community.
Daily Round Techniques For Keeping Track
The daily round approach to social psychology follows the schema depicted in this diagram. Empirical analysis is the context for prearing, obtaining, and collecting reports, either by the subject, the experimenter, or the
"participant-observer"' acting as either subject (as in self-modification of behavior) or experimenter (as in experimental results, or in ethnographies, or in investigatory reporting). Thus, the student of social psychology must first learn the literacy skills that allow him to be an objective reporter of his own subjective life and experiences. This is facilitated through the use of standardized formats of reporting: tables and forms to be filled in with Information about one's biography--coupled with the abi1ity to read these data, i.e.,. give a numerical characterization of them through statistics. Once the report is finished, it is annotated: the two together form the witness' testimony. The Daily Round Archives (DRA) was the name we thought of to title such a collection for testimonial data contributed by students of the daily round approach to social psychology. We call depositors Society's Witnesses (SW's) to reflect the idea that community life can be transformed into scientific data through the evidence established by individuals acting as witnesses, in addition to acting as subjects.
Synopsis 12: The Nature of DRA Data: Reporting and Witnessing.
Notice the information contained in this graph. Highest activity levels occur after sunrise and after the midday break. Lowest levels occur during the hot hours around noon, and after sunset. The curve is "bimodal" and "inverted" (like two inverted "U" curves next to each other). This circadian bi-modality can be seen more easily by plotting a longer time curve, as follows:
One of the most intriguing phenomena I've observed about the birds is the "praying" activity they engage in during the mid-day low. I shall describe this activity in my next story [no. (12)].
13. THE DAILY ROUND ARCHIVES--DRA
| SPECIALIZED ANNOTATION SKILLS |
| Elementary | Advanced |
|
GRAPH CHART FIGURE DIAGRAM SCHEDULE CALENDAR INDEX POSTER COUNTING GEOMETRY SCHEMATIC DRAWING PERSPECTIVE DRAWING COLORING IN TITLING PUNCTUATION MARKS |
LOGIC ALGEBRA TOPOLOGY DRAFTING COMPUTER GRAPHICS SYNTAX CHEMICAL REACTIONS PROGRAMMING GENE CODE MUSIC NOTES PHONETICS TAXONOMY ALGORYTHMIC DISPLAYS POETIC PATTERNS THEMATIC PATTERNS |
You can see that logic, grammar, math, art, and poetry, among others, fall in the category of advanced annotations. You may agree about algebra and music notes, but what about poetic and thematic "patterns"? Why not? The phenomena of semantics, metaphor, versification, and "themes" are also annotations because they involve the phenomena of arrangement, hierarchy, and proportionality, no less than taxonomy, or for that matter, the algorithmic, recurrent marks or drawings that underlie the work of artists (shapes, ratios, colors, patterns).
Now that you have a better comprehension of annotation skills, we may go into some concrete examples showing how reporting and its annotation together form the witness' testimony, or evidence.
|
papers
books index cards staple ashtray telephone pencils pens ashes and dirt |
some typed some carbons some written out some, in piles some, by themselves some, written on some, blank ruler paper clips nuts lighter lamp scotch tape dispenser |
Let us call this a report. To generate this report, one must have used some general annotation skills: counting, labeling, writing, editing, arranging, and so on. Now let us annotate this report using more specialized techniques. We can classify the items in the report, and show the relations between them, as follows: (see next page)
| ANNOTATION OF LIST (1) |
| Handwritten or Typed | Printed | Office Equipment | Other |
|
papers index cards | books | stapler pencils pens ruler clips scotchtape dispenser index cards | ashtray telephone ashes and dirt nuts lighter lamp |
| List 1 | List 2 |
|
Okinawa, Summer 1967
Okinawa, Summer 1971 Big Island, Spring 1972 California and Nevada, Spring 1973 California, Summer 1973 Maui, Spring 1974 Washington, D.C. and California, Spring 1974 Maui, Spring 1978 California, Texas and Arizona, Summer 1978 |
Kuhio Elementary School Kaahumana Elementary School Washington Intermediate School McKinley High School |
These two data-segments of the overall report, were annotated by a title. You can no doubt guess, that the title annotation for List 1, turns out to be TRAVEL, and for List 2, EDUCATION. You can know this because you recognize the places and can figure out backwards, what the items were given for. However, there were additional annotations which it would be next to impossible for you to guess. Thus, the two lists quoted here formed part of a much larger table; there were in fact a total of 43 categories to be reported on. By knowing what categories there are, and which ones fall next to each other into sub- groups; it is possible to gain additional understanding of the significance of the items separately. Here is a partial breakdown:
TITLE ANNOTATIONS
1. Name of Person
2. Psychology 222
3. Spring 1978
4. Research Report #l
5. Zones of Reporting
|
A. CURRENT STATUS IN COMMUNITY
B. BACKGROUNO C. TOPIC FOCUS etc. |
Some of the title annotations, or format of reporting (same thing), are shown in this diagram. As you go towards the right, the organization becomes more embedded. Thus arabic numerals are at the outermost level. Five categories fully exhaust the system. One step to the right, yields Roman numerals; here, three of the total of six are shown. One more step to the right, yields capital alphabets; three of the four are shown (A-C) for Category "I," and more occur with categories "IV" and "V," not shown. One more step to the right, and we get to the categories (unmarked) that also contain the two titles of Example 1 (Education and Travel). By knowing the location of a report within its larger segment, or format, the meaning of the content is rendered more interpretable. Thus, you know through the annotations, that the two lists in Example 1 are the places of travel and the educational background, as reported by a student in this course last semester for one of the Research Reports. These annotation facts allow you to relate to the information given, to decide whether it is relevant to you--for example, whether you can contrast it with your own lists you can make up.
| Example 2: Community Connections |
|
a. Mr. C. Y.
b. Mrs. C. Y. c. C Y. d. Mrs. T. | 49 49 20 50 | M F F F |
Japanese Japanese Japanese Japanese |
Dept. of Agriculture Secretary College Student Waitress |
What is this list? At the moment you only know (i) that they are people, possibly local residents, and (ii) that they are probably "connections" some- body has in this community. Now let's fill in a few more annotations:
| II. TRIBE |
Community Connections
(i) Category of People
With these additional annotations, you can see that the information given in Example 2 belongs to one of the sub-categories of this student's "Community Connections," namely, ". . . Acquaintances of the Family." This more precise localization within the body of the report helps you make the data more meaningful. Now there are two additional categories nested within each of the a Categories of People":
|
(1) Age
(2) Sex (3) Ethnic Group (4) Occupation (5) How I came to know the person (6) How well I know the person |
By providing two additional titles, sub-categories (5) and (6), the information in sub-categories (1) through (4), as given in Example 2, may be rendered even more meaningful. For example, item "b," sub-categories (5) and (6), contain the following information:
(5) "I came to know Mrs. C. Y. because she is our neighbor, and
(6) "I've known Mrs. C. Y. far about 14 years, ever since my fami1y
1. "Julie: You know, since we're going to be traveling all over . . .
2. "Sandra: Oh, you guys going ride to--the Am Trak? (Julie nods.)
3. "Julie: Yea, from . . . Texas to, uh, Phoenix, Arizona. So that's
4. "Sandra: And Jeana's going to meet you over there? (Julie nods.)
5. Julie: (to Jan) Yeah, huh?
7. "Jan: I was going to tell you . . . You know Anaheim? What we