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Title: The Odd Couple: The Compatibility of Social Construction


1
The Odd CoupleThe Compatibility of Social
Construction Evolutionary Psychology
  • Ron Mallon
  • University of Utah
  • University of Hong Kong
  • Stephen Stich
  • Rutgers University

2
(No Transcript)
3
The BIG Picture What I hope to show in this
talk
  • Evolutionary Psychologists (EPs) Social
    Constructionists (SCs) seem to have deep
    empirical disagreements about
  • the extent to which normal humans share innate
    mental mechanisms which
  • were shaped by natural selection
  • strongly constrain our psychology, our social
    interactions our institutions

4
  • While there may indeed be some important
    disagreements between SCs EPs on these points,
    there is another, less obvious issue dividing
    them
  • A philosophical disagreement about the meaning
    and reference of ordinary words for mental states
    and social phenomena words like anger, disgust,
    gender homosexuality

5
  • When this philosophical dispute is made explicit,
    it becomes clear that nothing much turns on it,
    and it can be easily set aside
  • When the philosophical dispute has been set
    aside, the empirical disputes between SCs EPs
    look much less serious
  • Rather than being adversaries, they look more
    like natural partners

6
Overview of the Talk
  1. Getting clearer on terminology (or why social
    constructionism isnt always a dirty word)
  2. A quick sketch of some SC work on the emotions
  3. A quick sketch of an emerging EP consensus about
    the emotions
  4. Whats left to fight about? Are emotions
    universal or culturally local?

7
  • The philosophy that underlies this dispute The
    thick description theory of the meaning
    reference of emotion terms
  • What it claims
  • How it underlies the debate over the universality
    vs. cultural locality debate
  • How to sidestep the problem posed by the thick
    description theory and make it clear that SCs and
    EPs need not be adversaries, since their theories
    are compatible complement each other

8
Getting clearer on terminology (or why social
constructionism isnt always a dirty word)
  • The terms Social Constructionism Evolutionary
    Psychology are both used for a variety of
    different views
  • Social Constructionism is sometimes used as a
    label for a (quite nutty) metaphysical view that
    denies the mind-independence of all reality
  • These radical social constructionists think that
    everything is socially constructed including
    atoms, galaxies and dinosaurs

9
  • Ill be focusing on a more modest and sane (and
    prima facie plausible) version of SC which holds
    that
  • important features of human psychology social
    life are
  • culturally caused and
  • local in character
  • SCs who fit this description need not endorse
    every aspect of what Tooby Cosmides call the
    Standard Social Science Model

10
  • Evolutionary Psychology is sometimes used for a
    specific cluster of views associated with
    Cosmides, Tooby Pinker.

11
  • Evolutionary Psychology is sometimes used for a
    specific cluster of views associated with
    Cosmides, Tooby Pinker.
  • We think of this as High Church Evolutionary
    Psychology

12
  • Evolutionary Psychology is sometimes used for a
    specific cluster of views associated with
    Cosmides, Tooby Pinker.
  • We think of this as High Church Evolutionary
    Psychology
  • Though we dont propose to offer a definition,
    our view of EP is decidedly Low Church and more
    inclusive.

13
The Social Constructionist Approach to the
Emotions
  • A primary concern of SCs concerned with the
    emotions is to describe the rich multifaceted,
    culturally local network in which the emotions
    are embedded.
  • Since understanding what informants say is a
    matter of great importance, SCs pay careful
    attention to a number of aspects of emotion
    discourse behavior in the target culture,
    including

14
  • the (often complex) circumstances under which
    people claim they or others experience the
    emotions picked out by various emotion words
  • the pattern of inferences drawn when someone is
    believed to be experiencing the emotion
  • the pattern of interactions that exist (or that
    people believe to exist) among emotions and other
    mental states
  • the ways in which both emotions discourse about
    emotions interact with the moral, political
    economic lives of people in that culture

15
  • When done well, the resulting ethnopsychological
    accounts result in fascinating thick
    descriptions (Geertz) of patterns of interaction
    that differ in important ways from the patterns
    in which our own emotions and emotion discourse
    is embedded.

16
  • An example Catherine Lutzs study of the
    emotions of the Ifaluk

17
  • song is an Ifaluk emotion akin to (what we call)
    anger
  • it has a strong moral component
  • to count as feeling song an Ifaluk must be
    justifiably angry at another person who has
    engaged in morally inappropriate behavior
  • thus two people cant be song at each other
  • there are many other Ifaluk words for emotions
    akin to anger that do not involve this moral
    dimension
  • there is no generic Ifaluk term that picks out
    all these sorts of anger
  • one sort of behavior that can provoke song is the
    violation of a taboo (e.g. working in the taro
    garden while menstruating)
  • another is ker, sort of excited happiness which
    can produce inappropriately loud talk or showing
    off

18
  • song does not lead to physical violence
  • it does lead to
  • refusal to eat or speak with the offender
  • gossiping about the offender
  • threats of fasting or even suicide
  • threats to burn down the offenders house
  • when a person recognizes that someones is song
    is directed at them, they typically experience an
    emotion the Ifaluk call metagu, a sort of fear or
    anxiety that leads to
  • calmer, more appropriate behavior
  • corrective action
  • paying a fine
  • apologizing
  • sending something of value to the aggrieved
    parties

19
Person 1
Person 2
Ker Misbehavior happiness/ excitement
Misbehavior
Song justifiable anger
Song
fear/anxiety Metagu
Metagu
Good, calm behavior
20
Evolutionary Psychology An Emerging Consensus
on the Emotions
  • Ekman To explain his well known finding that
    facial expressions of some emotions are
    cross-cultural universals, Ekman posited that
    these emotions are subserved by affect programs
  • largely automated or involuntary suites of
    coordinated emotional responses
  • subserved by innate mental mechanisms that are
    the product of natural selection
  • present in all normal members of the species

21
  • downstream of the affect program, the behavior
    that an emotion produces is strongly influenced
    by culture
  • display rules
  • posture, tone of voice
  • self reports
  • more complex patterns of cognitive, behavioral
    social activity

22
  • upstream
  • Ekman posited an appraisal mechanism which
    monitors stimuli triggers the appropriate
    affect program
  • by the mid-1990s Ekman had come to think that
    just about all the activity of the appraisal
    mechanism is affected by culturally local factors
  • Lazarus proposes that the emotion triggering
    mechanism includes an innate set of abstractly
    characterized conditions (core relational
    themes)
  • Anger A demeaning offense against me mine
  • Fear An immediate, concrete overwhelming
    danger
  • Sadness Having experienced an irrevocable loss
  • determining when these conditions have been
    satisfied requires culturally local beliefs
    information about culturally local norms, goals
    values

23
  • Robert Levensons Ekman-Inspired
  • Bio-Cultural Model

24
  • Robert Levensons Ekman-Inspired
  • Bio-Cultural Model

Affect Program
25


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
26


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
27


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Downstream Cognitive Social Activity
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
28


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Downstream Cognitive Social Activity
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
29
Whats Left to Fight About?Are emotions
universal or culturally local?
  • Far from being incompatible with each other, it
    looks like the evolutionary psychology and social
    constructionist approaches to the emotions are
    complementary
  • ethnopsychologies like the one that Lutz provides
    provide details about culturally local aspects of
    belief, values, etc.
  • Cognitive models like Levinsons give an account
    of the psychological mechanisms underlying
    emotions explain how innate, evolved mechanisms
    interact with culturally local beliefs values.

30


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Downstream Cognitive Social Activity
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
31
  • So whats left to fight about?
  • Evolutionary psychologists maintain that central
    parts of the emotion system are innate and
    present in all normal humans, and when they are
    triggered they produce emotions (like fear, anger
    sadness) which are cultural universals.
  • Since these mechanisms are homologous to
    mechanisms in other species, many non-human
    animals also experience emotions.

32
  • Social constructionists insist that emotions are
    a culturally local phenomenon and thus that
    people very different cultures have very
    different emotions.
  • song metagu are Ifaluk emotions which outsiders
    do not experience
  • amae (a pleasant sense of helplessness and desire
    to be loved) is Japanese emotion which Westerners
    do not experience (Harré)
  • accidie (boredom or disgust with fulfilling
    ones religious duty) is an emotion that was once
    common in the West but has now disappeared.

33
  • anger is unknown among the Inuit (Briggs)
    anger, as a specific emotion, is not universal
    across cultures (Averill)
  • sadness does not exist among Tahitians (Levy)
  • there are no universal emotions and there may
    well be some cultures in which there are no
    emotions at all (Shweder)

34
Whats Going On Here? The philosophical issue
that underlies the dispute
  • Far from being incompatible with each other, it
    looks like the evolutionary psychology and social
    constructionist approaches to the emotions are
    complementary
  • ethnopsychologies like the one that Lutz provides
    provide details about culturally local aspects of
    belief, values, etc.
  • Cognitive models like Levinsons give an account
    of the psychological mechanisms underlying
    emotions explain how innate, evolved mechanisms
    interact with culturally local beliefs values.

35
  • So why do they disagree about the universality or
    cultural locality of emotions?

36
  • So why do they disagree about the universality or
    cultural locality of emotions?
  • Blame Canada Philosophy

37
  • The most widely discussed philosophical account
    of the meaning reference of terms for the
    emotions other mental or psychological states
    is due to David Lewis
  • David K. Lewis
  • 1941-2001

38
  • jargon
  • meaning is (roughly) what a person must know to
    understand the term
  • reference is what the term picks out
  • meaning ? reference the morning star the
    evening star have the same reference, but
    different meaning

39
  • some central ideas of Lewis theory
  • ordinary language mental state terms can be
    treated as theoretical terms
  • theoretical terms are implicitly defined by the
    theory in which they are embedded
  • the definition is just a long description that
    includes everything the theory claims about the
    thing the term refers to
  • so I will call this sort of theory about the
    meaning of a theoretical term a description
    theory
  • these implicit definitions are holistic because
    (i) the theory implicitly defines all of its
    theoretical terms, and (ii) the entire theory
    contributes to the meaning of every theoretical
    term

40
  • the theory which implicitly defines mental state
    terms is commonsense psychology our
    extensive, shared understanding of how we work
    mentally which is common knowledge among us
    (Lewis)
  • mental state terms express package deal
    concepts since commonsense psychology provides
    an implicit definition for all of them
  • if Lewis theory is correct then a cultures folk
    psychological theory implicitly defines the
    emotion words they use

41
  • Ethnopsychologies like the one provided by Lutz
    are intended inter alia to provide an account of
    the cultures folk psychology (their shared
    understanding of how they work mentally)
  • Question How much of the detail in a rich
    ethno-psychology contributes to the meaning of
    ordinary mental state terms?
  • austere opulent
  • description theories description theories

42
  • What about reference?
  • since the meaning of a theoretical term is
    given by a long description, the natural idea (
    the one urged by Lewis) is that the term refers
    to whatever fits the description
  • but we cant require the fit to be perfect, since
    if we did, then any small error in the theory
    would make all the theoretical terms refer to
    nothing
  • Lewis suggests that a term refers to whatever
    more or less fits the description but that is
    intentionally vague

43
high accuracy

at one end of the spectrum are high accuracy
accounts of reference that require that most
descriptions fit at the other end are low
accuracy accounts that allow a referent to fit
many fewer descriptions
low accuracy
44
high accuracy
low accuracy
austere
opulent
45
high accuracy
thick description
low accuracy
austere
opulent
a thick description account of the meaning
reference of ordinary mental state terms is
opulent high accuracy
46
  • But what does all this have to do with the
    dispute about whether emotions are universal or
    culturally local?
  • Assume that thick description account is correct

47
  • Among the Ifaluk it is common knowledge (i.e.
    part of their folk psychological theory) that
  • if a woman goes into the taro garden when she is
    menstruating, it will provoke song
  • if a man goes into the birthing house, it will
    provoke song
  • if you are really song at me, I cant be song at
    you
  • when a person realizes that someone is song at
    him, he typically experiences metagu
  • etc., etc., .
  • There is no emotion, among us, that fits all of
    these descriptions
  • So there is no emotion in our culture that counts
    as an instance of song song does not exist here.

48
  • Much the same argument can be run in the opposite
    direction
  • Among us, it is common knowledge (i.e. part of
    our folk psychological theory) that
  • if someone shouts racial epithets it is likely to
    provoke anger
  • if some gives someone else the finger it is
    likely to provoke anger
  • if you are really angry at me, I can be angry at
    you too
  • when one person provokes anger in another person,
    it will often lead to a heated exchange of words
    and will occasionally lead to physical
    confrontation violence
  • etc., etc., .
  • There is no emotion among the Ifaluk that fits
    all of these descriptions
  • So there is no emotion among the Ifaluk that
    counts as an instance of anger anger does not
    exist among the Ifaluk.

49
  • N. B. These arguments make no assumptions at all
    about the psychological mechanisms underlying the
    emotions. Thus they are compatible with any
    account of those mechanisms, including the
    account favored by evolutionary psychologists.
  • All that the arguments require are
  • the thick description account of meaning
    reference
  • the fact that there are substantial differences
    between our folk psychology ( what we commonly
    believed about mental states) and Ifaluk folk
    psychology ( what they commonly believe)

50
  • Is this the argument that leads Social
    Constructionists to the conclusion that emotions
    are culturally local?
  • Though they dont use the philosophical jargon
    (or take account of important philosophical
    distinctions like meaning vs. reference) a good
    case can be made that they do indeed have
    something like this argument in mind.

51
  • Across languages, the range of implications,
    suggestions, and connotations of psychological
    state terms do not easily map, at least not
    lexically and to adequately understand the
    meaning of the terms in either language is to
    understand a good deal about different local
    systems of values and particular ways of life.
    (Shweder, 1994)
  • Emotion words are treated here as coalescences
    of complex ethnotheoretical ideas about the
    nature of self and social interaction. To
    understand the meaning of an emotion word is to
    be able to envisage (and perhaps to find oneself
    able to participate in) a complicated scene with
    actors, actions, interpersonal relationships in a
    particular state of repair, moral points of view,
    facial expressions, personal and social goals,
    and sequences of events. (Lutz, 1988)

52
  • Obviously, Evolutionary Psychologists and others
    who reject the view that emotions are culturally
    local must reject the thick description theory of
    meaning reference.
  • How much of a problem is this?

53
high accuracy
thick description
low accuracy
Producing an alternative to the thick description
theory is no problem at all. There are lots of
alternatives on the market.
54
high accuracy
thick description
low accuracy
Producing an alternative to the thick description
theory is no problem at all. There are lots of
alternatives on the market.
55
  • In addition to all these, philosophers like
    Putnam and Kripke have offered alternative
    causal/historical theories of reference
    according to which the reference of a term fixed
    by the circumstances in which it was introduced
    and its transmission history in the language.
  • If any of these alternative accounts of meaning
    reference is correct, then the argument for
    cultural locality collapses.

56
  • So the situation is this
  • Those who think that emotions are culturally
    local are (tacitly or explicitly) adopting a
    thick description account of the reference of
    emotion terms.
  • Those who think that emotions are universal are
    (tacitly or explicitly) adopting some other
    account of the reference of emotion terms.

57
Whos Right? And Why It Doesnt Matter
  • To settle the universal vs. culturally local
    dispute, it looks like we have to determine which
    account of reference is correct.
  • And that might sound like bad news because
  • philosophers and linguists arent even close to
    figuring out which account of reference is
    correct. Even worse,

58
In Deconstructing the Mind, I argued that the
issue may well be moot, since neither
philosophers nor linguists have given us a
coherent account of what a theory of reference is
supposed to do, thus we dont really have a clear
idea of what it would be to get a theory of
reference right.

59
  • But actually this is not such bad news since, for
    two rather different reasons, it doesnt much
    matter which side is right.
  • Reason 1 The dispute is almost entirely
    isolated from the empirical theoretical claims
    that SCs EPs want to make.

60
  • A SC who thinks that emotions are culturally
    local can accept everything in the Levinson-style
    EP model and everything an EPist wants to say
    about the evolution of the components of this
    model.

61


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Downstream Cognitive Social Activity
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
62
  • A SC who thinks that emotions are culturally
    local can accept everything in the Levinson-style
    EP model and everything an EPist wants to say
    about the evolution of the components of this
    model.
  • All the SC need insist on is that many beliefs,
    norms, goals values are culturally local. And
    this is not a claim that (sensible) EPists are in
    the least inclined to dispute.

63
  • Reason 2
  • No matter who is right about the meaning
    reference of ordinary language emotion terms,
    each side can easily say what it wants to say
    with the help of a bit of technical language.
  • To see the point, lets once again assume the
    thick description account is correct.

64
  • The EPs must concede that anger (the emotion
    picked out by the ordinary English word) is not
    universal.
  • But they can still maintain that there is a
    family of emotions in different cultures, all
    subserved by the same innate affect program
    emotion prototype or core relational theme
    that subserve anger in our culture.

65


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Downstream Cognitive Social Activity
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Anger Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
66
  • We can then simply introduce a technical term,
    core anger, to refer to all of these emotions.

67


Norms
Values
Goals
Beliefs
Downstream Cognitive Social Activity
Subjective
Self-Report
Experience
Interpersonal
Facial
Facial
Program
Expression
Anger Emotion
Prototype
Voice Tone
Vocalization
Program
Intrapersonal
Motor
Motor
Behavior
Program
Physiologic
Physiologic
response
Support
core anger
Appraisal System
Cultural learning
Display and feeling rules
68
  • EPs who have conceded that anger is not universal
    can claim, instead, that core anger is universal.
  • And this, surely, captures what they really want
    to claim.

69
Conclusions
  • The most conspicuous disagreement between SCs
    EPs who study the emotions is not an empirical
    disagreement about minds, cultures or evolution.
  • Instead, it disagreement about the universality
    or cultural locality of the emotions.

70
Conclusions
  • That dispute is rooted in a philosophical dispute
    about the meaning reference of ordinary
    language emotion terms.
  • And nothing much depends on that philosophical
    disagreement. It does not matter who is right.

71
Conclusions
  • Once the philosophical dispute is set aside, it
    should be easier for Social Constructionists and
    Evolutionary Psychologists to stop seeing each
    other as enemies and start seeing each other as
    natural allies in the attempt to understand the
    emotions.

72
  • Blessed are the peacemakers
  • for they shall be called the children of God
  • Matthew 59
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