CDC Seminar: Alan Fiske - The Universal Mechanisms of Cultural Specificity in Social Relations

Date:

Wednesday, September 26, 2012 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm

To develop culturally informed proficiency to participate in social relationships, children need

to have innate models of the structures of the four basic forms of relationships. Children also

need to know the semiotic medium through which their culture will transmit specifications

regarding when, where, how, and with whom each model operates in their particular community.

Conformation systems theory posits that children know that the indexical medium for Communal

Sharing is consubstantial assimilation: people create a CS relationship by making their bodily

substances or surfaces the same by giving birth, nursing, feeding, commensal consumption,

intimate sex, blood-bonding, gentle touch, body surface marking, or rhythmic synchronous

movement. Children expect that the iconic medium of Authority Ranking, in contrast, consists

of relative positions on physical dimensions: ABOVE–BELOW, BIGGER–SMALLER, IN-FRONT–

BEHIND, STRONGER–WEAKER, BEFORE–AFTER, LOUDER–SOFTER, BRIGHTER–DIMMER . Equality

Matching consists of concrete ostensive operations — procedures that are operational definitions

of equality, such as taking turns, casting ballots, drawing lots, even alignment of action, one-to-

one correspondence of shares, reciprocating in-kind, or exacting eye-for-an-eye vengeance. The

medium of Market Pricing is abstract, arbitrary symbols whose meanings derive purely from their

conventional use: propositional statements in ads and contracts, bidding gestures, and, of course,

money, represented in coins and paper bills, checks, stock certificates, written account books and

statements, or digital electronic databases in hyperspace. Conformation systems theory posits

that the distinctive semiotic system specific to each relational model is the natural medium not

only for children’s discovery (and hence the cultural transmission) of its cultural specifications,

but also for its cognitive representation and for the constitution, coordination, and communication

of that relational model. Moreover, the conformation system of a relational model is uniquely

evocative of the relational emotions and moral motives essential to sustaining that particular form

of cooperative coordination.

To develop culturally informed proficiency to participate in social relationships, children need to have innate models of the structures of the four basic forms of relationships. Children also need to know the semiotic medium through which their culture will transmit specifications regarding when, where, how, and with whom each model operates in their particular community. Conformation systems theory posits that children know that the indexical medium for Communal Sharing is consubstantial assimilation: people create a CS relationship by making their bodily substances or surfaces the same by giving birth, nursing, feeding, commensal consumption, intimate sex, blood-bonding, gentle touch, body surface marking, or rhythmic synchronous movement. Children expect that the iconic medium of Authority Ranking, in contrast, consists of relative positions on physical dimensions: ABOVE–BELOW, BIGGER–SMALLER, IN-FRONT–BEHIND, STRONGER–WEAKER, BEFORE–AFTER, LOUDER–SOFTER, BRIGHTER–DIMMER . Equality Matching consists of concrete ostensive operations — procedures that are operational definitions of equality, such as taking turns, casting ballots, drawing lots, even alignment of action, one-to-one correspondence of shares, reciprocating in-kind, or exacting eye-for-an-eye vengeance. The medium of Market Pricing is abstract, arbitrary symbols whose meanings derive purely from their conventional use: propositional statements in ads and contracts, bidding gestures, and, of course, money, represented in coins and paper bills, checks, stock certificates, written account books and statements, or digital electronic databases in hyperspace. Conformation systems theory posits that the distinctive semiotic system specific to each relational model is the natural medium not only for children’s discovery (and hence the cultural transmission) of its cultural specifications, but also for its cognitive representation and for the constitution, coordination, and communication of that relational model. Moreover, the conformation system of a relational model is uniquely evocative of the relational emotions and moral motives essential to sustaining that particular form of cooperative coordination.