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1 results

  • 5 - The Interaction Engine and Social Life

  • Stephen C. Levinson, Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, The Netherlands
  • Book:
    The Interaction Engine
    Published online:
    16 May 2025
    Print publication:
    19 June 2025, pp 107-148
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  • Summary

    Humans spend a lot of time in social interaction compared to other animals. The reasons may be various: the need to service social relationships, to detect ‘free riders’, or to handle rapid changes in fluid social arrangements. Actual conversational usage though suggests the prime job is to navigate changing social relationships in a sea of micropolitics. One difficulty is the delicacy of social relationships, and the care that is usually taken to avoid potential loss of ‘face’ or social esteem, as shown by the danger of teases. Social relationships are constructed through three key modes of exchange: reciprocal exchanges of intimacies, reciprocal exchanges of respect, and asymmetrical exchanges of intimacy to juniors and respect to seniors. Even the most complex societies are constructed partly through these three modes, which have some parallels to primate grooming patterns.