Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour最新文献

The unique linguistic profile of autistic people urges linguists to address the divergences in human language, its acquisition and use among major linguistic perspectives. Fitting with the dual roles of language (thought and communication), this paper adopts an internal pragmatic competence (IPC) and a (similar) pragmatic competence for external communication (PCEC) to elucidate how autistic linguistic profile discloses the divergences between nativism and constructionism on language use and acquisition (ultimately language proper). IPC justifies why autistic people resort not to mind-reading but to self-sufficient mental interactions among organism-internal submodules or nearly intact grammatical subsystems when abstractly processing linguistic and communicative needs, contra constructionists' assumption of sole intersubjective language use. PCEC, required for facilitating the authentic intersubjective language use, explains how the dysfunction of modular interactions and their interactions with outside contexts leads to autistics' sociopragmatic impairment and the double empathy gap. In this way, the divergences, along with the possible reconciliation between the two perspectives, can be expounded.

Discussions on the body frequently foreground in empirical studies of social representations. However, there is scarce theoretical literature within social representations theory focusing on embodied social representation. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of embodied, sensory experiences as part of social representation. More precisely, it attempts to elaborate how individual, social, bodily, and material layers work together in embodied social representation. This paper approaches the topic from four viewpoints: (1) social representation as action, (2) phenomenology, (3) embodied and socially situated cognition, and (4) sensory epistemologies and sensescapes. These approaches are used to provide insight into the conscious and unconscious processes of social representation and the multimodality of social representation. The paper contributes to the understanding of the role of sensory experiences and embodiment in the theory of social representations.

Public deliberation is a form of dialogue that allows members of the public to provide input on a policy issue. Public deliberation processes invite participants to engage with each other respectfully, learn about the topic and each other's perspectives, and then work together toward solutions to an issue that are broadly acceptable. In this article, we develop a discursive psychological analysis of public deliberation on the topic of childhood vaccination. In particular, we focus on how descriptions of a parent who did not have her children vaccinated were developed iteratively by a small group of deliberants; how these descriptions came to be accepted as factual; and how these descriptions came to be used to support normative claims about childhood vaccination. Our main argument is that we can develop a deeper understanding of deliberation processes if we understand participants' statements to be rhetorically organised. This is achieved by examining how descriptions of events or people that are relevant to the final conclusions of the group are developed in the course of deliberation; how they come to be accepted as factual and accurate by the group; and how they then become instrumental in supporting a final consensus position.

Determining the human activity that social processes consist in is a central task for the philosophy of the social sciences. This paper asks: which conception of agency arising from contemporary action theory is the most suitable for social science explanation? It is argued that a movement-centered, Davidsonian picture of agency is not suitable for explaining certain social processes such as strikes and boycotts because, instead of intentional bodily movements, they are explained by the intentional omissions of agents. I propose that instead of intentional bodily movements, social processes are better explained by phenomena in which an agent is taking an active relation both to her mental or bodily processes as well as to what is happening around her. Thus, to fully explain social processes, a comprehensive theory of agency that can account for intentional actions and intentional omissions and a conception of agency that includes both materialist and volitionalist aspects is needed.

As field change is often explained by recourse to agentic efforts of a few or revolutionary turbulence of many, this paper provides a complementary explanation of change grounded in the quotidian dynamics of physical objects and settings. Using the culinary and mountaineering fields, we demonstrate how attending to the materiality of objects and settings offers analytical leverage into the ways fields conflict and change. More specifically, we argue field instability is normal because, at the level of social action, mass and energy are inherently finite. As a result, actors responding to effects from distal fields may nevertheless collide over the objects and settings in which they are compelled to act.

Akrasia, otherwise known as ‘weakness of will’, is a state of mind whereby people act deliberately against their better judgment. This paper aims to provide a conceptual framework for understanding akrasia from psychosocial perspectives that assume the self is multiple and strongly interconnected with the relational flow of which it is a part. Drawing on key ideas from Dialogical Self Theory, we analyze the main dialogical dynamics that can generate akratic episodes with reference to how individuals organize their personal position repertoire, and to the relational and socio-cultural setting in which the actions are taken. The discussion enables us to identify some indicators to frame the tendency to betray one's good intentions, and to offer some suggestions on how to reduce the occurrence of the various forms of akrasia analyzed.

In this work, we intend to present a reading of current society as the extinction society. Extinction society here means the characterization, both social and individual, of a highly developed reality, especially in terms of personal freedom, unable to face global collective threats, first of all the climate disaster. This involves the risk, within a few generations, of the extinction of both the type of society that at least in the West we have been accustomed to for a few hundred years, and in the apocalyptic perspective of the species. The attempt to represent this question is addressed here by referring to some recent authors of cultural studies and sociology, to try and understand the principles of this extinction process. Following the analysis of what is in fact a process of individual liberation, that is, of increasingly advanced individualization, we proceed by looking at the macro-themes of consumption, politics and psyche. This is in order to understand the possible outcomes of this process and the overall sense of an extinction of the current society if not of the species.

This essay explores the concept of the self in the philosophies of Nagarjuna and Merleau-Ponty by examining how it is that, according to them, the self is empty and only conventionally real rather than intrinsically so. By analyzing the similarities between their philosophies, the essay aims to shed light on new ways of understanding perception, ethics, and our relationships with others. It will include an analysis of the no-self and the emptiness of entities, as well as an analysis of Merleau-Ponty's writings and philosophy to see how it is that, according to him, in order to better understand ourselves, we must understand the reality of our intersubjectivity and intertwining with the world. It will clearly be shown that Merleau-Ponty's existential phenomenology and the Madhyamikan school of thought coincide and offer powerful moral philosophies, while seeing the world as being completely separate from the self, distorts both our notions of ourselves and the world we are interconnected with. Virtue must be sought in samsara (perpetually being born into the world) and sunyata (emptiness that is itself empty of inherent existence), for samsara and nirvana (the end of karma) are one.

[Correction added on 03 April 2023, after the first online publication: First two sentences of the Abstract have been modified.]

A serious consideration of pain has largely been absent in sociology, especially physical pain's close neurobiological relative, social pain. Social pain is the process by which rejection and exclusion recruits similar neural circuits as physical pain, generating an affectual response that mirrors the response one feels from physical trauma. Pain is essential to any sociological analysis of motivation and action because, like many affective responses, it is a necessary ingredient in cognition and behavior; and, in many cases, it preconsciously commands and even controls how we think and act. While exploring this concept, it becomes apparent that sociology has an entire set of distantly related concepts that can be classified as different processes of social pain that reveal the structural, cultural, and situational conditions shaping the distribution of social pain. The paper concludes by thinking through the implications social pain portends for neuroscience and sociology.