Getting clear about the nature and basis of interpersonal relating is a central concern of many recent debates in the philosophy of mind. The first section of this chapter highlights some basic facts about the complexity and multifaceted character of interpersonal relating and briefly overviews some of its most prominent dysfunctions. Popular mind-minding hypotheses which claim that the dysfunctions in question are rooted in impaired capacities for attending to and attributing mental states to others are then (...) introduced. Next, recent evidence from cognitive psychology and neuroscience with which these mind-minding hypotheses must be made compatible is summarized. The important differences between two main philosophical frameworks-frameworks that offer opposing ways of understanding the nature of mind minding capacities are then highlighted. Focusing on these differences, the final section highlights how adoption of these philosophical frameworks matters to thinking about the prognosis and strategies for the treatment of certain mental disorders. (shrink)

What is it to know someone? Epistemologists rarely take up this question, though recent developments make such inquiry possible and desirable. This paper advances an account of how such interpersonal knowledge goes beyond mere propositional and qualitative knowledge about someone, giving a central place to second-personal treatment. It examines what such knowledge requires, and what makes it distinctive within epistemology as well as socially. It assesses its theoretic value for several issues in moral psychology, epistemic injustice, and philosophy of (...) mind. And it offers an account of the complex content in play if interpersonal knowledge is to be understood in terms of its mental states and their functions. (shrink)

An enduring question in the cultural study of psychological experience concerns how emotion may play a role in shaping moral aspects of children’s lives as they are mentored into socially preferred ways of understanding and responding to the world at hand. This article brings together approaches from psychological and linguistic anthropology to explore how cultural schemas of normativity are communicated, embodied, and enacted as children participate in day-to-day family activities and routines. Illustrative examples emanate from a videotaped corpus of naturalistic (...) interactional data that document the daily lives of 32 ethnically diverse U.S. middle-class families who reside in the Los Angeles, California metropolitan region. The article employs discourse and narrative analysis to examine how children are apprenticed into perceiving, appraising, and reacting to the emotions of self and others as culturally shaped indicators for proper comportment. Data analysis emphasizes how implicit components of caregivers’ interactions with children (i.e., gesture, gaze, facial expression) intertwine with explicit, verbal communication to constitute intricately layered affective messages that shape the evaluative frames through which children interpret, display, and respond to emotions. The article identifies two culturally salient childrearing practices, “pep talks” and “time outs,” that apprentice children into moral accountable relationships with others by encouraging them to manage their emotions in culturally preferred ways. Study findings suggest that parental communications conveying praise and approval—or conversely indexing disapproval—towards children are emotionally resonant motivational practices in this cultural milieu as children are mentored into culturally meaningful emotional management techniques. The article highlights how children actively employ semiotic socio-communicative resources and it closely traces their sense-making processes in tandem with their discursive contributions to the moment-by-moment interaction. It argues that emotion, morality, and interpersonal relations are critical in shaping children’s acquisition of consensually validated ways of perceiving, feeling, and responding to the phenomena they encounter in their day-to-day lives. This perspective aims towards contextualized understandings that render plausible connections between local contexts of everyday action and broader macro-level discourses and master narratives, such as those associated with a neo-liberal emphasis on cultivating citizens who learn to regulate their emotions on behalf of self and others. (shrink)

Richard of St. Victor's elaboration of the themes of interpersonal relations and of human love as self-transcendence links him to contemporary philosophical and theological interests.

How do social media affect interpersonal relationships? Adopting a Strawsonian framework, I argue that social media make us more likely to adopt the objective attitude towards persons. Technologically mediated communication tends to inhibit interpersonal emotions and other reactive attitudes. This is due to a relative lack of the social cues that typically enable us to read minds and react to them. Adopting the objective attitude can be harmful for two reasons. First, it tends to undermine the basis of (...) interpersonal relationships. In particular, I argue that friendship is a relationship between persons that requires the participant stance. Second, it is a morally risky attitude that makes us more likely to treat persons in problematic, thing-like ways. Some philosophers have rightly urged that social media are compatible with virtuous, Aristotelian friendship. Notwithstanding, I argue that the harms associated with the objective attitude are more pressing than they might appear if we restrict our focus to relatively virtuous people with the social competence to flourish in morally risky online environments. (shrink)

Researchers, educators and clinicians have long recognized the profound influence of the mid‐twentieth century focus on interpersonal relations and relationships on nursing. Today, in nursing, as well as in medicine and other social sciences, neuroanatomy, neurobiology and neurophysiology have replaced interpersonal dynamics as keys to understanding human behavior. Yet concerns are being raised that the teaching, research and practice of the critical importance of healing relationships have been overridden by a biological focus on the experiences of health and (...) illness. As a way to move forward, we return to Hildegard Peplau's seminal ideas about the transformative power of relationships in nursing. We propose that Peplau's formulations and, in particular, her seminal Interpersonal Relations in Nursing can provide direction. We do not propose that her formulations or her book be simply transposed from the 1950s to today's classroom and clinic. But we do believe that her ideas and writings are dynamic documents containing concepts and derived operations that can be brought to life in clinical practice. Finally, we explore Peplau's transformative idea that nursing is, at its core, an interpersonal process both to acknowledge an idea that has shaped our past and can guide us into our future. (shrink)

The paper outlines a structuralist unification between two existing relational theories of the self, i.e., Beni's Structural Realist theory of the Self and Gallese's Embodied Relational Self. Each one of these theories provides a structuralist account of some aspects of the self but leaves out some other aspects which are indispensable to a comprehensive account of the self. SRS accounts for the reflective aspects of the self, and ERS accounts for the environmental and social aspects of the self. In this (...) paper, I argue that when paired with one another, SRS and ERS could amend one another's shortcomings, without giving way to a non-relational conception of the self. I draw on neurology of the connection between Cortical Midline Structures and the mirror neuron system to inform my unifying proposal. I also show that an informational framework can underlie the union. (shrink)

First published in 2005, Economics and Social Interaction is a fresh attempt to overcome the traditional inability of economics to deal with interpersonal phenomena that occur within the sphere of markets and productive organizations. It makes use of traditional economic concepts for understanding interpersonal events, while venturing beyond those concepts to give a better account of personalised interactions. In contrast to other books, Economics and Social Interaction offers the reader a rigorous effort at extending economic analysis to a (...) difficult field in a consistent manner, sensitive to insights from other behavioural and social sciences. This collection represents an important contribution to a growing research agenda in the social sciences. (shrink)

It is clear a relational approach to the study of empathy is gaining traction across multiple disciplines. Both commentaries on “A Relational Framework for Integrating the Study of Empathy in Child...

Empathy is an extensively studied construct, but operationalization of effective empathy is routinely debated in popular culture, theory, and empirical research. This article offers a process-focused approach emphasizing the relational functions of empathy in interpersonal contexts. We argue that this perspective offers advantages over more traditional conceptualizations that focus on primarily intrapsychic features. Our aim is to enrich current conceptualizations and empirical approaches to the study of empathy by drawing on psychological, philosophical, medical, linguistic, and anthropological perspectives. In doing (...) so, we highlight the various functions of empathy in social interaction, underscore some underemphasized components in empirical studies of empathy, and make recommendations for future research on this important area in the study of emotion. (shrink)

Work-related satisfaction has critical benefits. To predict work-related satisfaction, we investigated how a counterpart’s expressions of emotional complexity (both positive and negative emotions), positive emotions, and negative emotions influenced a perceiver’s work-related satisfaction during discussions over different work-relevant ideas. We conducted a three-wave coworker survey (N = 529) and an experiment with a confederate as a task partner (N = 378). The results consistently showed significant positive impacts of a counterpart’s emotional complexity and positive emotion expressions on a perceiver’s work-related (...) satisfaction by enhancing the perceiver’s positive emotions and evaluation of the counterpart’s openness. Conversely, a counterpart’s negative emotion expression significantly decreased a perceiver’s work-related satisfaction by reducing perceived counterpart openness. We also did not find a perceiver’s negative emotion as a significant mediator of the associations between the three emotional expressions and work-related satisfaction. Therefore, our investigation highlights similar positive effects of emotional complexity and positive emotion expressions and suggests that an expression of both positive and negative emotions promotes satisfaction by enhancing positive emotions and openness perception. (shrink)

A good summary of Merleau-Ponty's theory of intersubjectivity, drawn from the Phénoménologie de la perception and La structure du comportement. Barral sees Merleau-Ponty's work in this area more as a groundwork for further investigation than as a satisfactory philosophy of the person-in-relation itself; since this topic is a central one in Merleau-Ponty, her study is a helpful introduction to much of his philosophy.—J. J.

Summary The task of this article is to review the principle of relational determination, as described by Solomon Asch (1952) which expands over Karl Duncker’s (1939) critique of ethical relativism. Relational determination has much to offer to the therapeutic community first with regard to interpersonal relations and social relations. My main goal is to extend this relational analysis to intrapsychic life, which may expose new potentialities for internal conflict resolution and personal integration, predicated on the cultivation of relational understanding (...) (i.e., recognition of relational determination in organization of conscious experience). But this approach is best illustrated in its application to value differences and conflict across societies, which are typically viewed from the absolutist or relativist perspective. The principle of relationality casts doubt on elementaristic assumptions common to both (e.g., meaning constancy). Such assumptions lead to some ill-considered conclusions: of irreconcilable moral differences dividing both individuals and groups, deprived of any basis in understanding. Those views fail to consider the contexts underlying the meanings and valuations we impute. When these are taken into account, Duncker’s hypothesis of an invariant relation between meaning and value finds support. Value differences (or changes) need not represent fundamental differences in morality, but instead (factual) differences in understanding of the situation. If so, then value differences may indeed be both understandable and reconcilable. Relational determination reveals this same potentiality with regard to intrapsychic conflict, where the same presumption of irreconcilable differences must be overcome. Work by Erich Neumann provides a valuable depth psychological perspective on this inner conflict, which accords surprisingly well with the relationality principle in particular and field theory in general. From that vantage point, psychological defenses may be recognized as structural properties of yet unreconciled psychical fields. Gestalt theory’s relational view, which aligns well with Neumann’s account of a “new ethic” helps to reveal the processes by which these defensive postures might abate, as value realms that earlier dwelt in hostile opposition develop more of a conscious and respectful relation with each other, as the individual inches toward greater wholeness. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes processes potentially contributing to interpersonal anxiety transfer, including object-directed social appraisal, empathic worry, and anxiety contagion, and reviews evidence for their operation. We argue that these anxiety-transfer processes may be exploited strategically when attempting to regulate relationship partners’ emotion. More generally, anxiety may serve as either a warning signal to other people about threat (alerting function) or an appeal for emotional support or practical help (comfort-seeking function). Tensions between these two interpersonal functions may account for (...) mutually incongruent interpersonal responses to expressed anxiety, including mistargeted interpersonal regulation attempts. Because worry waxes and wanes over time as a function of other people's ongoing reactions, interpersonal interventions may help to alleviate some of its maladaptive consequences. (shrink)

Mentalization is a process of social cognition that involves making inferences about one’s own behavior and the behavior of other people on the basis of unobservable mental states. Particularly in psychodynamic approaches, mentalization is conceptualized in the context of activation of internal representation of emotional relationship. In this study, we checked whether mentalization constitutes a predictor of relational satisfaction in the context of one’s own and the partner’s specific attachment. The research sample was composed of 32 heterosexual couples living together (...) for at least two years. Three tools were applied: the Mental State Task, Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures, and the Relationship Assessment Scale. The results indicate a strong negative effect of one’s own attachment anxiety and avoidance, and a strong effect of the partner’s attachment anxiety on the relationship satisfaction for both men and women. In women, the incremental validity of mentalization in predicting satisfaction in the relationship beyond the attachment of their partners has been observed. The results are discussed in the context of the intrapsychic and interpersonal aspects of mentalization and attachment. (shrink)

This chapter explains the interpersonal addition theorem. The theorem leads to two remarkable points. Firstly, it links the aggregation of good across the dimension of people with its aggregation across the dimension of states of nature. The result is that, in favourable circumstances, it links the value of equality in the distribution of good with the value of avoiding risk to good. The chapter also explains this link. The second point is even more remarkable. The theorem shows that general (...) utility is the sum of individual utilities. Since these utilities represent the general and individual betterness relations, this may seem, at first glance, to say that general good is the total of individual good. Joined with the addition theorem Bernoulli's hypothesis implies the utilitarian principle of distribution, which implies in turn that there is no value in avoiding inequality in the distribution of good between people. The chapter discusses the assessment of Bernoulli's hypothesis. (shrink)

Why comply with epistemic norms? In this paper, I argue that complying with epistemic norms, engaging in epistemically responsible conduct, and being epistemically trustworthy are constitutive elements of maintaining good epistemic relations with oneself and others. Good epistemic relations are in turn both instrumentally and finally valuable: they enable the kind of coordination and knowledge acquisition underpinning much of what we tend to associate with a flourishing human life; and just as good interpersonal relations with others can be good (...) for their own sake, standing in good epistemic relations is good for its own sake. On my account, we have reason to comply with epistemic norms because it is a way of respecting the final value of something that also tends to be an instrumentally valuable thing: good epistemic relations. Situating the account within the recent social turn in debates about epistemic instrumentalism, I argue that the dual-value aspect of good epistemic relations can explain important anti-instrumentalist intuitions, in a well-motivated way, within a broadly instrumentalist framework. (shrink)

Many studies require standardized and replicable protocols composed of emotional stimuli. To this aim, several databases of emotional pictures are available. However, there are only few images directly depicting interpersonal violence, which is a specific emotion evocative stimulus for research on aggressive behavior or post-traumatic stress disorder. The objective of the current study is to provide a new set of standardized stimuli containing images depicting interpersonal situations. This will allow a sensitive assessment of a wide range of cognitions (...) linked to social interaction. To this aim, 240 participants rated the valence and arousal of 79 pictures collected from online sources in 2018. Results showed a distinctive pattern of valence and arousal regarding the picture content and specific associations between those two dimensions. Taken together, these results suggest a good reliability of the selected images. In conclusion, our study provides an open access set of recent pictures depicting interpersonal situations along with normative valence and arousal ratings, that are available for download from: https://osf.io/ak4m7/?view_only=None. (shrink)

There is a dearth of research focused on the engagement of information technology (IT) professionals. This study analyzed the relationship between emotional and social competencies and the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment in an organization as they relate to employee engagement. Validated instruments were used and data was collected from 795 IT professionals in North America to quantitatively analyze the relationship between emotional and social competencies, role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE), with the quality of the (...) IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment, and those perceptions with employee engagement. The study results indicate that specific emotional and social competencies and RBSE relate differently to the quality of the perceptions of the interpersonal environment. The study also reveals how the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment relates to how much they engage in the organization. The findings indicate that the relationship between achievement orientation and the perceived interpersonal environment was positive and the relationship between influencing others and the perceived interpersonal environment was negative. Understanding such relationships offers much needed insight to practitioners and can benefit organizations that wish to increase the engagement of their IT professionals. The findings also can support practitioners to more effectively select and develop talent with the desired motives and traits. By doing so, organizations can experience increased employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention, resulting in higher productivity, quality, and profitability. (shrink)

We propose a view of identity beyond the individual in what we call interpersonal interidentities (IIIs). Within this approach, IIIs comprise collections of entangled stabilities that emerge in recurrent social interaction and manifest for those who instantiate them as relatively invariant though ever-evolving patterns of being (or more accurately, becoming) together. Herein, we consider the processes responsible for the emergence of these IIIs from the perspective of an enactive cognitive science. Our proposal hinges primarily on the development of two (...) related notions: enhabiting and coenhabiting. First, we introduce the notion of enhabiting, a set of processes at the individual level whereby structural interdependencies stabilise and thereafter undergird the habits, networks of habits, and personal identities through which we make sense of our experience. Articulating this position we lean on the notion of a tendency towards an optimal grip, though offering it a developmental framing, whereby iterative states of selective openness help realise relatively stable autonomous personal identities with their own norms of self-regulation. We then extend many of the notions found applicable here to an account of social coenhabiting, in particular, we introduce the notion of tending towards a co-optimal grip as central to the development of social habits, networks of habits, and ultimately IIIs. Such structures, we propose, also emerge as autonomous structures with their own norms of self-regulation. We wind down our account with some reflections on the implications of these structures outside of the interactions wherein they come into being and offer some thoughts about the complex animations of the individual embodied subjects that instantiate them. (shrink)

Shared agency is of central importance in our lives in many ways. We enjoy engaging in certain joint activities with others. We also engage in joint activities to achieve complex goals. Current approaches propose that we understand shared agency in terms of the more basic phenomenon of shared intention. However, they have presented two antagonistic views about the nature of this phenomenon. Some have argued that shared intention should be understood as being primarily a structure of attitudes of individual participants (...) and their interrelations (Bratman, Searle, Tuomela and Miller). Others have claimed that shared intention should be regarded as being primarily a normative transaction which gives rise to interpersonal obligations (Gilbert). In contrast to these approaches, I propose a compromise view. I argue that shared intention involves a complex socio-psychological structure which ensures, in the absence of special circumstances, the existence of relevant moral obligations. My argument involves two main steps. First, I show that shared intention includes important relations of mutual reliance between the participants. Then, I argue that the existence of these relations of mutual reliance in shared intention helps us explain why, failing special circumstances, shared intention generates those obligations. This provides, in my view, a solution to the vexed question of the relation between shared intention and interpersonal obligations. (shrink)

The Alternative Model of Personality Disorders integrates several theoretical models of personality functioning, including interpersonal theory. The interpersonal circumplex dimensions of warmth and dominance can be conceptualized as traits similar to those in AMPD Criterion B, but interpersonal theory also offers dynamic hypotheses about how these variables that change from moment to moment, which help to operationalize some of the processes alluded to in AMPD Criterion A. In the psychotherapy literature, dynamic interpersonal behaviors are thought to (...) be critical for identifying therapeutic alliance ruptures, yet few studies have examined moment-to-moment interpersonal behaviors that are associated with alliance ruptures at an idiographic level. The current study examined the concurrent and cross-lagged relationships between interpersonal behaviors and alliance ruptures within each session in the famous Gloria films. Interpersonal behaviors as well as alliance ruptures were calculated at half minute intervals for each dyad. We identified distinct interpersonal patterns associated with alliance ruptures for each session: Gloria ’s warmth was positively related with withdrawal ruptures concurrently in the session with Carl Rogers; Gloria’s dominance and coldness were related with increased confrontation ruptures in the session with Fritz Perls concurrently, while her coldness was also predicted by confrontation ruptures at previous moments; lastly, both Gloria’s dominance and Albert Ellis’s submissiveness were positively related with withdrawal ruptures. These interpersonal patterns demonstrated the promise of using AMPD dimensions to conceptualize momentary interpersonal processes related to therapy ruptures, as well as the clinical importance of attuning to repetitive, dyad-specific interpersonal cues of ruptures within each session. (shrink)

We are social animals that seek to connect with others of our kind. This common thought stands in need of elaboration. In this article, I argue for three theses. First, that we pursue certain forms of communicative interaction for their own sake insofar as they are ways of connecting with another. Second, that interpersonal connection is a metaphysically primitive emotional relation which resists reductive analysis in terms of the states of individuals. And finally, that our desire for interpersonal (...) connection has a strong claim to being explanatorily and normatively prior to our desires for mutual-attachment, interpersonal belonging and approbation. (shrink)

When managing their emotions, individuals often recruit the help of others; however, most emotion regulation research has focused on self-regulation. Theories of emotion and aging suggest younger and older adults differ in the emotion regulation strategies they use when regulating their own emotions. If how individuals regulate their own emotions and the emotions of others are related, these theorised age differences may also emerge for interpersonal emotion regulation. In two studies, younger and older adults’ intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion (...) regulation strategy choices were examined via self-report and behavioural assessments of regulating the emotions of another participant (Study 1; N = 80) and of a virtual human (Study 2; N = 100). Across both studies, younger adults reported greater intrapersonal suppression but not greater reappraisal. Younger and older adults were generally similar (supported by Bayesian analyses) for both self-reported and behavioural interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. Behavioural interpersonal emotion regulation was not related to self-reported intra- and interpersonal preferences. These results suggest interpersonal emotion regulation in ageing may show distinct patterns from theorised age differences in intrapersonal emotion regulation. (shrink)

Current research on second-person relations has often overlooked that this is not a new topic. Addressed mostly under the heading of the “I–thou relation,” second-person relations were discussed by central figures of the phenomenological tradition, including Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, but also quite extensively by much lesser-known authors, such as Karl Löwith, Ludwig Binswanger, and Semyon L. Frank, whose work has been undeservedly neglected in current research. This paper starts off by arguing that, in spite of the rightly acknowledged (...) differences between the Husserlian and the Heideggerian approaches to the investigation of the social world, both approaches converge in the claim that the I–thou relation is founded on more basic forms of sociality. In a second step, against the background of Frank’s and Binswanger’s challenges to that claim, I argue that Löwith’s proposal that the I–thou relation is a primordial form of sociality can be vindicated by conceptualizing I–thou relations as close personal relationships (paradigmatically exemplified by companion friendships and romantic partnerships). After assessing how Löwith’s approach to the I–thou relation stands vis-à-vis Heidegger’s and Husserl’s views, I conclude by suggesting how Löwith’s approach can contribute to current research on second-person relations. (shrink)

The article deals with relational aspects of mental disorders. The author takes into account the influence of mental illness on intersubjectivity and interpersonal relations in three aspects: “attitude to the illness,” that is, changes in the functioning of the subject and difficulties in dealing with the experience of mental illness; “dialogical relationship” in the form of difficulties in maintaining social cognition and entering into relationships with others; “social consensus,” that is, difficulties in adapting to the social world and a (...) common sense deficit. The analysis is made with reference to phenomenological research in contemporary philosophy of psychiatry. The result of this study is a reconstruction of a “different existence,” in other words, presentation of the transformation of the life-world and the specific way of inhabiting the world of a person in a mental crisis. Symptoms and experience of the illness are presented in the light of human possibilities of transformation. The analysis emphasizes the role of patients’ subjectivity and their efforts to find the meaning of a painful situation. The study of subjective aspects of disorders aims to reveal their consequences for understanding how to deal with mental crisis and to understand the positive aspects of the recovery process. (shrink)