Relationalism through Social Robotics

Social robotics is a rapidly developing industry‐oriented area of research, intent on making robots in social roles commonplace in the near future. This has led to rising interest in the dynamics as well as ethics of human‐robot relationships, described here as a nascent relational turn. A contrast is drawn with the 1990s’ paradigm shift associated with relational‐self themes in social psychology. Constructions of the human‐robot relationship reproduce the “I‐You‐Me” dominant model of theorising about the self with biases that (as in social constructionism) consistently accentuate externalist or “interactionist” standpoints as opposed to internalist or “individualistic”. Perspectives classifiable as “ecological relationalism” may compensate for limitations of interactionist‐individualistic dimension. Implications for theorising subjectivity are considered.     

The Third Way and Social Welfare: The Myth of Post-emotionalism

The “passive” welfare state was accused of promoting a dependency culture. “Active” welfare and the “what works?” approach of Britain's New Labour government is allegedly implicated in an age of post‐emotionalism, in which people are largely indifferent to the needs of others and committed primarily to their personal well‐being. This article, first, seeks to extend recent debates about agency and motivation in social policy and relate them to the notion of post‐emotionalism. Second, it draws on a recent empirical study of popular and welfare provider discourses, which suggests that popular opinion can accommodate an appreciation of human interdependency, while welfare providers remain committed to a public service ethos. None the less, Third Way thinking is associated with a narrowing of solidaristic responsibilities. The problem for the future of health, social care and state welfare policies lies not with the imagined consequences of post‐emotionalism, so much as with an ideological context that perpetuates a distorted ethic of responsibility.     

中国大陆社会心理学适应性重建初探--基于社会转型期知识社会学的视角

以社会转型为背景,以知识社会学为视角,梳理当前中国大陆社会心理学的两种主要范式———“实验社会心理学”与“本土（化）社会心理学”,揭示其与本土“历史—社会现实”的疏离状况,进而对其本体论的缺陷进行反思与批判,探讨以消解疏离为目标、以“本土（化）社会心理学”为基底、以“社会转型”为基本背景框架与研究内容、以本体论的重构为切入点与着力点的大陆社会心理学重建之路。     

From Pavement to Piazza: Grassroots Social Work to Counteract the Globalization of Marginality

This paper—inspired by the experience of grassroots social work in Naples begun by M. Borrelli in the 1950s—emphasizes that “consciousness‐raising” and “community development” can be useful processes to stimulate responsible social participation on the part of the most marginal individuals and groups. To overcome a bureaucratic and pietistic model of the welfare state which serves in the long run to increase their dependence and socio‐cultural subordination, there is a need for alternative social policies, capable of improving people's empowerment and social citizenship. Giving more resources and decision‐making power to the most marginal could amount to changing an unfair and oppressive society from the roots up. This goal remains a moral imperative for both professional and voluntary social workers who believe in a fair, non‐violent and ecological model of development. Unfortunately, in Italy as elsewhere, neo‐liberal reforms of welfare states are tending in the opposite direction, partly as a result of out‐of‐date functionalist theories and by means of a worrying process of welfare marketization and globalization that actually increases the exclusion and marginality of the lower classes. This paper takes issue with current neo‐liberal trends by returning to a territory‐based and resident‐focused image of social work. This way, non‐profit agencies can play a more active and stimulating role in support of communitarian networks and help avoid the risk of the Third Sector's alternative spur being compromised by the otherwise “commodification” of welfare. Only in this way might one stop the transformation of non‐profit organizations into mere private providers for a buyer/controller state, more business‐minded than really concerned with freeing the poor and the marginal “underclass” from subordination and exclusion.     

On the Social Dimensions of Moral Psychology

Contemporary moral psychology has been enormously enriched by recent theoretical developments and empirical findings in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and social psychology and psychopathology. Yet despite the fact that some theorists have developed specifically “social heuristic” (Gigerenzer, 2008) and “social intuitionist” (Haidt, 2007) theories of moral judgment and behavior, and despite regular appeals to the findings of experimental social psychology, contemporary moral psychology has largely neglected the social dimensions of moral judgment and behavior. I provide a brief sketch of these dimensions, and consider the implications for contemporary theory and research in moral psychology.     

Representing the Mental World in Children's Social Behavior: Playing Hide-and-Seek and Keeping a Secret

This study examined the relationship between children's developing theory of mind and their ability to engage in two social behaviors which have, as their cognitive underpinning, the representation that what one knows may not be accessible to others. Children of 3, 4, and 5 years, in a quasi‐naturalistic setting, played hide‐and‐seek and also were required to keep a secret about a surprise. The ability to play hide‐and‐seek was significantly related to children's ability to refrain from disclosing the secret, and there was a significant relationship between these behaviors and children's social cognition, as measured by theory of mind tasks. The relationship between these social behaviors and tasks measuring executive function was not significant once age was taken into account. With regard to the development of these social behaviors, few 3‐year‐olds, but most 4‐year‐olds, and almost all 5‐year‐olds could successfully play hide‐and‐seek and keep a secret. This study demonstrates the importance of the conceptual understanding of mental states in the young child's social world.     

Cultural System vs. Pan‐cultural Dimensions: Philosophical Reflection on Approaches for Indigenous Psychology

The three approaches for conducting psychological research across cultures proposed by Berry (1989), namely, the imported etic, emic and derived etic approach are critically examined for developing culture‐inclusive theories in psychology, in order to deal with the enigma left by Wilhelm Wundt. Those three approaches have been restricted to a certain extent by the pan‐cultural dimensional approach which may result in the Orientalism of psychology in understanding people of non‐Western cultures. This article is designated to provide the philosophical ground for an alternative cultural system approach to construct culture‐inclusive theories in psychology. Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” (Shweder et al., 1998), the alternative strategy contains two steps: First, based on Bhaskar's (1975, 1978) critical realism, all universal mechanisms should seek to represent the operation of the human mind. Second, based on Archer's (1995) analytical dualism, the mechanisms of the universal mind may be used as frameworks for analyzing any cultural tradition. The culture‐inclusive theories thus obtained represent the synchronic morphostasis of a cultural system, which may be used as theoretical frameworks for conducting either qualitative or quantitative empirical research in studying the diachronic morphogenesis of socio‐cultural interaction in a particular culture.     

Kurt Lewin's Leadership Studies and His Legacy to Social Psychology: Is There Nothing as Practical as a Good Theory?

This paper re‐examines Kurt Lewin's classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between advanced “Galileian” science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and backward “Aristotelian” science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value‐laden concepts that he criticised as “Aristotelian”. Such concepts, especially those of “democracy” and “autocracy”, affected the way that he analysed the results and the ways that later social scientists have understood, and misunderstood, the studies. It is argued that Lewin's famous motto—“there is nothing as practical as a good theory”—is too simple to fit the tensions between the leadership studies and his own views of what counts as good theory.     

Optimistic but Confused: Perceptions about the Mission and Core Values of Social Work in Vietnam by Vietnamese Policy‐makers,Social Work Faculty and Practitioners

In 2010, the Vietnamese government officially recognized social work as a profession. This study explores whether key stakeholders in the development of social work in Vietnam (i.e. policy‐makers, pioneering educators, and practitioners) had reached a shared understanding about the mission and core values of Vietnamese social work by the end of 2015. An exploratory survey was conducted with 65 participants representing key stakeholders of social work in Vietnam. Participants had a shared but rather generic, at times vague, and overly optimistic view of the mission of Vietnamese social work as a “helping profession” that would be able to solve every social problem and present in all areas. There was a strong, unanimous desire for Vietnamese social work to focus on human dignity, social justice, and individuals’ rights, mixed with the preservation of Vietnam's collective, community‐based culture under the central guiding role of the state.     

The Social as Heaven and Hell: Pierre Bourdieu's Philosophical Anthropology

Many authors have argued that all studies of socially specific modalities of human action and experience depend on some form of “philosophical anthropology”, i.e. on a set of general assumptions about what human beings are like, assumptions without which the very diagnoses of the cultural and historical variability of concrete agents' practices would become impossible. Bourdieu was sensitive to that argument and, especially in the later phase of his career, attempted to make explicit how his historical‐sociological investigations presupposed and, at the same time, contributed to the elaboration of an “idea of the human being”. The article reconstructs Bourdieu's philosophical anthropology, starting with his genetic sociology of symbolic power, conceived as a form of critical theory (latu sensu), and concluding with an account of the conditio humana in which recognition (“symbolic capital”) appears as both the fundamental existential goal through which human agents strive to confer meaning on their lives and the source of the endless symbolic competition that keeps society moving. The agonistic vision of the social universe that grounds his sociological studies returns in his philosophical anthropology under the guise of a singular synthesis between Durkheim's thesis that “Society is God” and Sartre's idea that “hell is other people”.     

Social Representations,Alternative Representations and Semantic Barriers

Social representations research has tended to focus upon the representations that groups have in relation to some object. The present article elaborates the concept of social representations by pointing to the existence of “alternative representations” as sub‐components within social representations. Alternative representations are the ideas and images the group has about how other groups represent the given object. Alternative representations are thus representations of other people's representations. The present article uses data from Moscovici's (1976/2008 ) analysis of the diffusion of psychoanalysis to examine how people engage with alternative representations. It is demonstrated that there can be more or less dialogical relations with alternative representations. The analysis concludes by considering seven “semiotic barriers” which work to neutralise the dialogical potential of alternative representations, thus on the one hand enabling groups to talk about the views of others, while, on the other hand, remaining unchallenged by those views.     

Social psychology as a stable interpretative framework irrefutably committed to the scientific study of persons and society

Despite repeated opportunities to reconsider their natural science ambitions, social psychologists have not done so, and there are no obvious signs of this changing. Why? This paper pursues an answer to this question by defining the field after the fashion of Michael Polanyi's thought. According to Polanyi, interpretative frameworks develop from our primitive bodily encounters with the world and then are shaped by language into the vast conceptual systems of our culture. Concerning frameworks erected on our most fundamental beliefs (e.g., science), he says that we “live in [them] as in the garment of our own skin.” Frameworks such as this are not objects of critical evaluation but of commitment, and social psychology, as an outgrowth of positive philosophy, is an interpretative framework in this sense. Professionals' recent responses to the field's political makeup and replication failures demonstrate this. They aim primarily at preserving a natural science understanding of social psychology and point to the influence of belief-stabilizing mechanisms Polanyi finds operative in folk religious practices. These mechanisms appear at work also in psychology as a whole. They are implied, for instance, in the field's resistance to Sigmund Koch's authoritative judgement against its scientific self-conception in the latter half of the 20^th century. Noting this reveals the broader implications of this paper's definition of social psychology, but it also urges questions about truth and relativity that cannot be ignored. These questions are addressed briefly in the end where it is suggested that what psychology needs most of all is a change of heart, and that this will happen, if at all, not primarily through argument and evidence, but through persons who authentically believe in the veracity of a different framework.     

Social Representations Theory: A Progressive Research Programme for Social Psychology

The study “Psychoanalysis—its image and its public” intimates that common sense is increasingly informed by science. But common sense asserts its autonomy and, in turn, may affect the trajectory of science. This is a process that leads to many differentiations—in common sense, in scientific innovation and in political and regulatory structures. Bauer and Gaskell's toblerone model of triangles of mediation provided a distillation of their reading of “La Psychanalyse.” Here it was argued that representations are multi‐modal phenomena necessitating the use of multiple methodologies (comparative and longitudinal; qualitative and quantitative). In this paper we briefly summarise these arguments and elaborate ways in which social representation theory can be considered a progressive research programme. “Progressive” because as the theory has developed it has extended the range and depth of its conceptual basis; it provides a new synthesis for the social scientific understanding of the phenomena of common sense and of representation; it acts as an antidote to the reductionism of public opinion and, finally, it is a stimulus to depart from disciplinary silos. However, there remain unresolved issues: how to segment the relevant social milieus and how to close the feedback loop from common sense to science?     

Relating Individual Control, Social Understanding, and Gender to Child–Friend Interaction: A Relationships Perspective

According to a relationships perspective, it is critical to consider how the individual behaviors and characteristics of both partners shape their social interaction. Adopting a relationships approach to the investigation of children's friendships, we examined how preschool children's and their friends’ controlling behaviors, social understanding, and gender were related to their dyadic interaction. Child–friend dyads (n = 49) were videotaped in two laboratory play sessions (free play and sharing task), and child interviews assessed understanding of emotions and false beliefs. Both children's indirect control was associated with coordinated play during the free play session, and both children's direct control was associated with conflict during the sharing task. Moreover, dyadic interaction varied as a function of study children's social understanding, friends’ social understanding, and play session. An interaction between gender composition and play session also emerged for dyadic conflict. Multiple regression analyses suggested that study children's controlling behaviors accounted for associations between dyadic interaction and more ‘distal’ individual factors (i.e., social understanding, gender). The findings underscore the need to examine how both children's individual competencies are related to the quality of their dyadic interaction and illuminate how the associations between individual factors and dyadic interaction are moderated by the interactive context.     

Micro‐situational Foundations of Social Structure: An Interactionist Exploration of Affective Sanctioning

Micro‐interaction dynamics of affective sanctioning have been widely acknowledged but rarely related to the emergence of social phenomena. This paper aims to highlight the constitutive force of interaction activity by critically analysing two sociological models, Bourdieu's theory of practice and Barnes's Performative Theory of Social Institutions (PTSI). Such a comparison allows me to reveal two differing models of social phenomena currently operating in sociological debates: an extrinsic structuralist model which tacitly conveys macro‐structural phenomena as prior and determinant of individuals and their micro‐interactions, and an intrinsic structuralism model which prioritizes individuals’ interactions and conceives them as constituting both the individual and the structural. I argue that the latter's emphasis on the dynamics of mutual susceptibility to affective sanctioning as underpinning consensus among inherently heterogeneous individuals provides a platform to further support the tenets of Interactionism and helps to expose Bourdieu's over‐deterministic methodological individualism prevalent in most sociological theory. I conclude that by conceiving emotions as causal, rather than the effect of social forces, sociological theory can provide an explanation of both individual practices and systemic phenomena which resolves macro‐structural tensions. In doing so, I suggest an ontological understanding of the “social” which supports the Interactionist central tenet that the local takes priority over wider structural phenomena.     

Mainstream Discourse and the Construction of Public Understanding of Women's Employment

1949年后在妇女就业知识上存在着三种主流话语。一是计划经济时代，妇女就业知识以“革命话语”来叙述，实现了对妇女参加公共领域劳动的动员；二是从计划经济向市场经济转型的过程，妇女就业知识是以“素质话语”被叙述的，其在力图将妇女推回家庭领域的过程中压低了女性劳动力的价格；三是市场化时代，妇女就业知识以“男性强势话语”被表述，显示了市场经济与父权制的有机结合。与此同时，有关妇女就业知识的女性主体性也在形成，它显示出女性自主意识及其对人权话语的使用。

关键词: 革命话语素质话语男性强势话语

There have been three types of mainstream discourse relating to public understanding of women's employment since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The first was the “revolutionary discourse” that dominated the era of the planned economy. During this period, knowledge about women's employment was heavily influenced by revolutionary discourse, and women were mobilized to take up positions in virtually all areas of social life. The second occurred in the transition from a planned to a market economy. During this process, knowledge of women's employment was constructed by a so‐called “quality discourse,” which depressed women's wages in the course of driving them back into the home. The third important mode of discourse took place in the era of marketization, and saw knowledge about women's employment constructed by male‐centered hegemonic discourse in an organic union between the market economy and the patriarchal system. Meanwhile, female subjectivity in regard to knowledge about women's employment is taking shape. At the same time, women's sense of autonomy in relation to understanding of employment has started to grow and exhibits self‐awareness and use of the discourse of human rights.     

Social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence: A study in one English local authority

This paper aims to explore childcare social workers' attitudes towards female victims of domestic violence in England. The study discusses the concept of “mothering” and the processes through which mothers are potentially denigrated rather than empowered. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with social workers in a single child protection agency to investigate their perceptions of domestic violence, its gendered nature, and the implications for their practice. Participants' responses were coded using thematic analysis. The results demonstrated social workers' cognisance of the challenges domestic violence poses for abused mothers in terms of the ability to safely parent their children. Although the study is not without its limitations, it nevertheless indicates the need for a more holistic approach to safeguarding children within domestic violence settings. Moreover, it underscores the necessity for improving awareness about the prevalence and importance of domestic violence as a child safeguarding concern within social work training. Indeed, improved training would help to develop social workers' knowledge and understanding of service provisions and partner agencies, thus potentially improving practice in this critically important area.     

Associations Between Behavioral Inhibition and Children's Social Problem‐solving Behavior During Social Exclusion

The current study examined the associations between the early childhood temperament of behavioral inhibition and children's displays of social problem‐solving (SPS) behavior during social exclusion. During toddlerhood (the ages of two to three), maternal report and behavioral observations of behavioral inhibition were collected. At the age of seven, children's SPS behaviors were observed during a laboratory social exclusion task based on the commonly used Cyberball game. Results showed that behavioral inhibition was positively associated with displayed social withdrawal and negatively associated with assertive behavior during the observed social exclusion task at seven years of age. These results add to our understanding of inhibited children's SPS behaviors during social exclusion and provide evidence for the associations between toddler temperament and children's social behavior during middle childhood.     

What are the Links Between Theory of Mind and Social Relations? Review,Reflections and New Directions for Studies of Typical and Atypical Development

Twenty years after research on children's ‘theory of mind’ began, this field continues to be a leading influence in the study of developmental psychology and psychopathology. In this review we examine the contribution of research on children's theories of mind to our understanding of children's developing social relationships. Evidence shows that for both typical and atypical populations this relationship is neither uniform nor unidirectional. Theory‐of‐mind skills are multifaceted and the nature of the developmental relationship between different aspects is not yet known, and there is evidence that theory‐of‐mind skills both transform and are transformed by interpersonal and family relationships and by language communities. To understand the multifaceted and complex nature of development in this area, we need clearer definitions of the skills under investigation, as well as research designs that capture the transactional nature of the relationship between theory of mind and social relations. Addressing these issues should help to clarify (i) the processes by which children's developing understanding of others is influenced by the social environment, and (ii) issues concerning the specificity of theory‐of‐mind impairments in atypical populations and the processes by which these impairments develop.     

G.H. Mead's Understanding of the Nature of Speech in the Light of Contemporary Research

The following analysis demonstrates that G.H. Mead's understanding of human speech (what Mead often referred to as “the vocal gesture”) is remarkably consistent with today's interdisciplinary field that studies speech as a natural behavior with an evolutionary history. Mead seems to have captured major empirical and theoretical insights more than half a century before the contemporary field began to take shape. In that field the framework known as “Tinbergen's Four Questions,” developed in ecology to study naturally occurring behavior in nonhuman animals, has been an effective organizing framework for research on human speech. It is used in this paper to organize the comparison of Mead with contemporary scholars. The analysis concludes that Mead was, in a sense, “beyond” the Four Questions by recognizing the limitations of reductionist methods in understanding the nature of conscious phenomena, especially language. Mead's socially situated model of the nature of human speech makes him relevant to today's field where some see an undervaluation of the treatment of language as a social process.