Neither Individualistic nor Interactionist

Author(s):  
Ezequiel Di Paolo ◽  
Hanne De Jaegher

We summarize some of the main proposals of the enactive approach to social understanding and discuss some common misreadings of the notion of participatory sense-making. The emphasis on the role played by social interaction in the enactive perspective is sometimes misinterpreted as the adoption of an interactionist stance, whereby individual processes are less relevant. This is not the case, and we proceed to explain and exemplify the central role played by individual agency, subpersonal processes and subjective personal experience in the framework of participatory sense-making. This is clear from how social interaction is defined as involving the co-arising of autonomous relational patterns, not under the full control of any participant, but without loss of individual autonomy of those engaged in the social encounter. We discuss how interactive patterns can sustain a deep entanglement between brain, body and interactive dynamics during social engagement, as well as the functional role played in some case by collective dynamics. The enactive approach is neither individualistic, nor interactionist. However, we express skepticism regarding the usefulness of hybrid approaches, which perpetuate dualistic distinctions between mind and body. Instead, the tensions in the notion of participatory sense-making are elaborated dialectically, demonstrating how complex forms of social agency, including language, develop from the primordial tension in participatory sense-making.

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Eveliina Pennanen ◽  
Leena Mikkola

Work coordination, which here refers to organizing, planning, discussing, and negotiating work, is done through social interaction. Because coordination is essential to work quality and well-being at work, it is important to understand the processes that construct work coordination. This study aims to understand work coordination as a social interaction process by analyzing social interaction in nursing staff meetings of a Finnish hospital. Observations and approaches of inductive and descriptive qualitative analysis were used to examine eight sequential nursing staff meetings that took place in 2012. The results indicate that work coordination consisted of sense-making information, sense-making action, managing emotions, and managing positions of employees. Work coordination constructs the social reality of the workplace both on the task level and the relational level. Understanding that work coordination is not only a task-oriented process that deals with organizing practical tasks and duties but is also a process of constructing positions and relationships in work communities helps to identify and understand the possibilities that social interaction and its practices, such as workplace meetings, offer. The findings can be applied in the organizational context to evaluate and develop workplace interactions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Hultqvist ◽  
Urban Markström ◽  
Carina Tjörnstrand ◽  
Mona Eklund

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to compare users of community-based mental health day centres (DCs) and clubhouses in Sweden regarding reported social networks and social interaction and the stability of these over time. A further aim was to investigate social network predictors both cross-sectionally and longitudinally.METHODS: People regularly attending DCs (n=128) or clubhouses (n=57) completed questionnaires about social network and social interaction (social engagement and social functioning), self-esteem and socio-demographics at baseline and a nine-month follow-up. RESULTS: Perceived social engagement and social functioning did not differ between the groups and remained stable over time. Fewer in the DC reported having a close friend but there was no difference regarding having recently (the past week) seen a friend. When naming “someone with whom you can share your innermost thoughts and feelings”, the DC group named more professional contacts, fewer friends and more often “nobody” compared to the clubhouse group. Finally, on both occasions the DC group scored significantly lower on size of the social network compared to the clubhouse users. Self-esteem and having recently seen a friend could predict size of the social network in the cross-sectional perspective. Strong indicators of belonging to the group with a larger social network at follow-up were being a woman, attending a clubhouse programme and having scored high on social network at baseline.CONCLUSION & IMPLICATION FOR PRACTICE: Having friends and strengthening one’s self-esteem may be essential factors for the social network of people with psychiatric disabilities in a short-term perspective. Visiting clubhouses seems advantageous in a longer-term perspective.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Eveliina Pennanen ◽  
Leena Mikkola

Work coordination, which here refers to organizing, planning, discussing, and negotiating work, is done through social interaction. Because coordination is essential to work quality and well-being at work, it is important to understand the processes that construct work coordination. This study aims to understand work coordination as a social interaction process by analyzing social interaction in nursing staff meetings of a Finnish hospital. Observations and approaches of inductive and descriptive qualitative analysis were used to examine eight sequential nursing staff meetings that took place in 2012. The results indicate that work coordination consisted of sense-making information, sense-making action, managing emotions, and managing positions of employees. Work coordination constructs the social reality of the workplace both on the task level and the relational level. Understanding that work coordination is not only a task-oriented process that deals with organizing practical tasks and duties but is also a process of constructing positions and relationships in work communities helps to identify and understand the possibilities that social interaction and its practices, such as workplace meetings, offer. The findings can be applied in the organizational context to evaluate and develop workplace interactions.


2005 ◽  
pp. 26-56
Author(s):  
Eileen Day

In considering the implications of what it means to be moving towards an Interaction Society, my research into intraorganisational email illuminates some of the inherent social complexity and the subtle nuances of its use within organisational life. A range of significant insights emerged through a deep hermeneutic understanding of the ways that people within the study were constructing email as an everyday part of their workplace. As a consequence, I have constructed a new concept, message web to encapsulate the social interaction and human sense-making activities around email in association with its technical capabilities as daily life is being played out within organisational cultures today. In this chapter, I tell an ethnographic story concerning just one strand of the case study organisation’s message web: the copying function of email. And being an ethnographic story, I’ve also embedded reflective glimpses of my research processes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 90-97
Author(s):  
Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Ladeedah is an audio novella that takes place in a Black utopic space after “the improvised revolution.” Ladeedah is a tone-deaf, rhythm-lacking Black girl in a world where everyone dances and sings at all times. What is Ladeedah's destiny as a quiet, clumsy genius in a society where movement and sound are the basis of the social structure and the definition of freedom? This excerpt from Ladeedah focuses on Ladeedah's attempts to understand the meaning of revolution from her own perspectives—at home, at school, and in her own mind and body.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.


1970 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-126
Author(s):  
Марина Орап

У  статті  висвітлено  методологічні  та  практичні  засади  вивчення  онтогенезу  соціального  інтелекту. Складність вивчення даного соціально-психологічного феномену пов’язана із дотичністю його  до багатьох явищ, які описують умови успішності соціальної взаємодії особистості. Проаналізовано наявні  теоретичні   підходи   до   визначення   змісту   та   структури  соціального  інтелекту,   до   взаємозв’язку  останнього  з  іншими  видами  інтелекту.  Визначено,  що  дослідження  соціального  інтелекту  молодших  школярів слід здійснювати на основі розуміння останнього як здатності, що виникає на базі комплексу  інтелектуальних,   особистісних,   комунікативних   і   поведінкових   рис,   що   зумовлюють   прогнозування  розвитку  міжособистісних  ситуацій,  інтерпретацію  інформації  і  поведінки,  готовність  до  соціальної  взаємодії і прийняття рішень. Здійснене пілотажне емпіричне дослідження прогностичних можливостей  дітей  молодшого  шкільного  віку  продемонструвало  наявні  позитивні  кореляційні  зв’язки  між  рівнем  розвитку здатності до передбачення найбільш адекватного сценарію розвитку подій у соціальній ситуації  та рівнем розвитку мовленнєвого досвіду. Найбільш тісний взаємозв’язок виявлено між рівнем розвитку  здатності  передбачати  адекватну  вербальну  відповідь  у  ситуації  комунікації  та  рівнем  розвитку  мовленнєвої компетентності та мовленнєвої діяльності дітей молодшого шкільного віку. Таким чином,  були зроблені попередні висновки про наявність взаємозв’язку між мовленнєвим досвідом та прогностичним  можливостями у складі соціального інтелекту дитини молодшого шкільного віку The  article  outlines  the  methodological  and  practical  principles  of  studying  the  ontogenesis  of  social  intelligence. The complexity of studying this socio-psychological phenomenon is associated with its attractiveness to  many  phenomena  that  describe  the  conditions  for  the  successful  social  interaction.  The  existing  theoretical  approaches to the definition of the content and structure of social intelligence, to the interrelationship of it with  other types of intelligence are analyzed. It is determined that research of social intelligence of junior pupils should  be carried out on the basis of the understanding of this kind of intelligencer as an ability that based on a complex of  intellectual, personal, communicative and behavioral features. This complex predetermines the forecasting of the  development  of  interpersonal  situations,  the  interpretation  of  information  and  behavior,  readiness  for  social  interaction  and  decision-making.  The  research  of  the  prognostic  possibilities  of  primary  school  children  demonstrated the positive correlation between the level of development of the ability to predict the most adequate  scenario of the development of events in the social situation and the level of development of speech experience. The  closest relationship is found between the level of development of the ability to provide an adequate verbal response  in the context of communication and the level of development of speech competence and speech activity of children  of junior school age. Thus, was done a conclusion about the existence of a relationship between speech experience  and prognostic possibilities in the social intellect of a child of junior school age.   


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document