Social Interaction and Control

Abstract

Social interaction is obviously a very broad topic which can be approached from several directions. I shall below distinguish between two logically independent yet closely related “dimensions” and concentrate on them. First, we have the behavioral or overt point of view: that an agent’s (observable) actions are somehow related causally or generationally is taken as the basis of a characterization of interaction. Secondly, we have the covert or, perhaps better, explanatory (or, more widely, justificary) dimension. Here we characterize interaction in terms of the agents’ interdependent attitudes, such as intersubjective utilities (wants) and loop beliefs, which serve as their reasons for acting and which, accordingly, must be referred to in the (best) explanation (viz. social psychological explanation) of their actions. In Chapter 7 we characterized some aspects of this second dimension of social interaction and below we will discuss both of these dimensions starting with the first, or overt, dimension.