[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [xmca] Generalization Is Not Abstraction Again



Thanks, Martin. So let me put the chart into sentences using action verbs and see if I have it about right - and if it sounds about right as claims about emotions. I'll be the subject and you be the object. There are 12 pairs, which I'll number as I go. The subject-object relational direction along each axis, in the way I happen to be describing each point, is ... away, toward, toward, away. The first two points in each axis are the actions of the subject on themselves in relation to the object ... and the second two points are actions of the subject on the object in relation to themselves.
Hence, along the Intimacy-Belonging axis, I can 1) withdraw in fear,  
2) be attracted to you with love, 3) draw you to me with my desire, or  
4) repel you with my anger.  If I do these, correspondingly, you will  
feel 1) anxiety, 2) secure, 3) confidence, or 4) depressed.
Along the Status-Recognition axis, I can 5) withdraw in horror or  
dismay, 6) feel high esteem toward you, 7) shower you with my  
admiration, or 8) dismiss you with my contempt.  If I do these,  
correspondingly, you will feel 5) embarrassment and/or guilt, 6)  
humility, 7) pride, or 8) shame.
Along the Openness-Being axis, I can 9) withdraw in suspicion or  
dread, 10) feel accepting of you, 11) share my sense of wonder with  
you or 12) subject you to my rejection.  If I do these,  
correspondingly, you will feel 9) startled or panicked, 10)  
satisfaction, 11) delight, or 12) sorrow.
Do I have these about right?  And in and of themselves, do these  
emotional relations sound about right?  To me, some seem intuitively  
okay, some odd.  Does de Rivera believe these apply universally?
I like the idea that emotions are social relations, and not just  
individual body actions.  But I am not sure how to get from that idea  
to this chart.
Perhaps we could ask Dr. Lightman on the show Lie To Me.  He might  
know!   LOL
(Lie To Me is a US fictional detective-style show some may have seen  
about a social scientist expert on emotions and his colleagues using  
videos of microexpressions and so forth to solve investigations for  
the government, etc.  They always catch the bad guys in their lies.)
- Steve



On Jul 6, 2010, at 6:00 PM, Martin Packer wrote:

Thanks, Steve. And I just found this brief summary online, from the abstract of one of de Rivera's more recent publications:
"While emotions are usually treated as internal states, it is  
possible to view them as social relationships. From this  
perspective, the different emotions are not primarily understood in  
terms of facial expression, physiological pattern, hedonic tone, or  
level of arousal, but as different transformations of the  
relationship between person and other."
Martin

On Jul 6, 2010, at 7:31 PM, Steve Gabosch wrote:

Thanks Martin, I am thinking about your comments. Meanwhile, I am reposting your chart as a .jpg file (it was originally posted as a .pict file). Someone asked me how I opened it. I dunno, my computer just did. Might be easier for some to open this, hope it works.
- Steve



<from xmca jul 5 2010 Interpersonal movements of emot.jpg>



On Jul 6, 2010, at 5:08 PM, Martin Packer wrote:

Steve,

The diagram is just that, a synoptic look at a long monograph which I recommend as a good read. Yes, de Rivera was offering a "structural" - basically structuralist - analysis of the emotions. The basic idea is that each emotion is a movement, often literal and if not metaphorical, between two people. Each movement has both a subject and an object: to put it in very simple terms, I can push you away in anger, or I can withdraw from you in fear. In both cases you are the object of the emotion, I am the subject. The movement is in opposite directions, but in both cases it is along the dimension of intimacy. Other emotions involve movements along two other dimensions, which de Rivera names openness and status. The experience one has as the object of an emotion is different from ones experience as a subject. I should add that he has conducted cross-cultural comparisons of emotion.
de Rivera does write about the situatedness of these movements,  
though of course even the object of an emotion is in the world for  
the person who is a subject. In fact, he argues that each emotion  
provides a unique way of understanding a situation. For more of  
this I always recommend the article by Hall & Cobey, 'Emotion as  
the transformation of world.' So, on this analysis, although an  
emotion is an interpersonal movement, and so social, it is *also*  
an experience of the situation, and so individual.
I wanted to study moral conflicts, not in the form of what people  
say when they are asked to reason about hypothetical moral  
dilemmas (a la Kohlberg), but in terms of what people actually do.  
One clear component of a real, first-person moral conflict is its  
emotionality. How to look at that without reducing it to an  
individual subjective experience, chaotic and irrational (the  
empiricist approach) - or the result of some intellectual process  
of appraisal (the rationalist approach, common among cognitive  
psychologists)? What I came to argue was that emotion plays a  
central role in conflict: it structures the situation in a way  
that is immediate, unreflective, and with a strong sense of  
conviction. It is a disclosure, a first way of understanding what  
has happened, in action rather than in cognition, and it gives  
rise to practical concerns (an impulse to confess, or seek  
revenge...). This has many positive aspects, but it also makes it  
difficult to see the other person's point of view, or even to  
recognize that they *have* a point of view. The conflicts I  
studied only got resolved when people talked, even if only to try  
to convince one another to do what they considered the right  
thing, because then they found out that what they had taken to be  
'the facts' were only one interpretation. The values behind the  
facts started to become evident. I think many of us would  
recognize these characteristics of everyday conflicts.
Martin

On Jul 6, 2010, at 2:33 PM, Steve Gabosch wrote:

Martin, on the interesting chart you modified from de Rivera (1977) with the 12 pairs of subject/object interpersonal movement of emotions. It seems to deal with emotions in a decontextualized way - we don't see the situations that create these responses. Am I correct in that observation? The pairings it depicts are thought-provoking, but I don't understand some or most of them. The whole subject-object structure confuses me. The premise of the chart that emotions are a way of being engaged in the world, and that emotions are rational, or have rationality, makes sense - I am ok with that - but I don't see how this chart is connected to the world - it seems to detach emotions from their context. I just see an interesting list of oppositions and groupings of emotions without explanation. So I seem to be missing something. Could you explain this chart a little?
On the topic in this thread, I agree with David K that  
abstraction and generalization are two different processes.  I am  
not convinced yet that Vygotsky was always clear on that  
distinction - he seems to conflate the two in Ch 5 in some  
places, for example, but seems to have found great relief when he  
solved new aspects of this question in Ch 6, criticizing the  
block experiments and their thinking at the time for some  
important limitations in this regard.  At the same time, David  
points out the great pressures bearing down on psychologists and  
pedologists in the early 1930's, greatly distorting that  
conversation.  Lots of puzzles to work out in that Ch 5 to Ch 6  
transition on concept formation theory.
- Steve


On Jul 5, 2010, at 3:30 PM, Martin Packer wrote:

On Jul 5, 2010, at 4:58 PM, Martin Packer wrote:

an emotion is an interpersonal movement.
systematic structure to the emotions, captured in the diagrams with dimensions of intimacy, status, and openness. there is a rationality to emotion - emotion is a way of being engaged and involved in the world.
<Interpersonal movements of emot.pict>_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca