Definition
Social affordances are possibilities for social interaction or possibilities for action that are shaped by social practices and norms.
Affordance
The term “affordance” was coined by James Gibson to refer to what things or events in the environment afford to an organism. For instance, a rigid flat surface affords support and locomotion to terrestrial animals. It is stand-on-able and walk-on-able (Gibson 2015). The water surface of a lake does not afford support to a terrestrial animal, but it does to some flies. Thus, the same part of an environment may afford different things to different species or organisms. This is because affordances are relational in nature, they are both a fact of the environment and a fact of the organism. According to Gibson, affordances are neither subjective nor...
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de Carvalho, E.M. (2020). Social Affordance. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1870-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1870-1
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