Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IRRITATION (Irritation and Human Sociality)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-10-01 al 2025-03-31
Irritation is a pervasive feature of the human experience, and of human sociality in particular, yet it has been very little studied by social and natural scientists. Research on irritation as it bears on interpersonal relationships, rather than as a physical reaction to a sensory experience, is particularly thin.
This project investigates irritation as a feature of human sociality in diverse cultural contexts, with a particular focus on issues related to cooperation and morality. It brings together methods and approaches from anthropology and psychology, combining in-depth ethnographic research in four culturally distinct environments with methods of systematic experimental comparison. The primary aim of this project is to develop a comprehensive account of irritation that brings together the social, cultural, and psychological dimensions of it, and of emotional life more generally. The secondary aim is to bring the analysis of irritation into dialogue with the analysis of two fundamental features of human sociality: cooperation and morality. On the one hand, it might be felt that irritation is a threat to our close relationships; that if taken too far it will compromise the very patterns of cooperation and care on which these relationships depend. And yet the pervasiveness of irritation, not least among very close kin, suggests something else: that in some sense we may need irritation – even that it is a constitutive feature of human sociality.
Investigating the role irritation plays in the maintenance and disintegration of cooperative relationships, and in moral judgements, will enlarge our understanding of the emotional side of human sociality. This pioneering work will develop a sophisticated, culturally grounded theory of irritation, capable of entering into critical dialogue with mainstream psychological and evolutionary theories of human sociality, and make broader methodological contributions to studies of intimate experience and emotional life.
This project investigates irritation as a feature of human sociality in diverse cultural contexts, with a particular focus on issues related to cooperation and morality. It brings together methods and approaches from anthropology and psychology, combining in-depth ethnographic research in four culturally distinct environments with methods of systematic experimental comparison. The primary aim of this project is to develop a comprehensive account of irritation that brings together the social, cultural, and psychological dimensions of it, and of emotional life more generally. The secondary aim is to bring the analysis of irritation into dialogue with the analysis of two fundamental features of human sociality: cooperation and morality. On the one hand, it might be felt that irritation is a threat to our close relationships; that if taken too far it will compromise the very patterns of cooperation and care on which these relationships depend. And yet the pervasiveness of irritation, not least among very close kin, suggests something else: that in some sense we may need irritation – even that it is a constitutive feature of human sociality.
Investigating the role irritation plays in the maintenance and disintegration of cooperative relationships, and in moral judgements, will enlarge our understanding of the emotional side of human sociality. This pioneering work will develop a sophisticated, culturally grounded theory of irritation, capable of entering into critical dialogue with mainstream psychological and evolutionary theories of human sociality, and make broader methodological contributions to studies of intimate experience and emotional life.
During the first two years of the project, the following work has been completed:
i) Recruitment of 3 postdoctoral researchers,
ii) Completing pilot interviews in China, Finland and the US, analysis of the data and writing article 1. Submitting Article 1: Kajanus, A. & Stafford, C. (in press.) “Irritation, cooperation and human relationships” in journal Current Anthropology. The article introduces irritation and human sociality as a field of study, develops a framework in relation to cooperation and morality, and outlines directions for further study.
iii) 6 months of initial conceptual work, literature review, ethics review and preparations for fieldwork,
iv) Exploratory surveys in 2 countries (completed),
v) Development and piloting of 5 experiments (current stage in brackets): Daily diary survey (launched in 3/4 countries), Irritation and cooperation, economic game for adults (piloting), Irritation and cooperation, economic game for children (piloting), Irritation and social norm violation, vignette study (piloting), Sensory irritation and moral judgement, vignette study (paradigm development).
vi) 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Sri Lanka, China, Zimbabwe, and Finland completed,
vii) 5/6 months of interim analysis and method development completed, with the entire research team. This work has focused on initial data analysis, conceptual development and design of further comparative methods (both ethnographic and experimental) between 2 phases of fieldwork.
i) Recruitment of 3 postdoctoral researchers,
ii) Completing pilot interviews in China, Finland and the US, analysis of the data and writing article 1. Submitting Article 1: Kajanus, A. & Stafford, C. (in press.) “Irritation, cooperation and human relationships” in journal Current Anthropology. The article introduces irritation and human sociality as a field of study, develops a framework in relation to cooperation and morality, and outlines directions for further study.
iii) 6 months of initial conceptual work, literature review, ethics review and preparations for fieldwork,
iv) Exploratory surveys in 2 countries (completed),
v) Development and piloting of 5 experiments (current stage in brackets): Daily diary survey (launched in 3/4 countries), Irritation and cooperation, economic game for adults (piloting), Irritation and cooperation, economic game for children (piloting), Irritation and social norm violation, vignette study (piloting), Sensory irritation and moral judgement, vignette study (paradigm development).
vi) 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Sri Lanka, China, Zimbabwe, and Finland completed,
vii) 5/6 months of interim analysis and method development completed, with the entire research team. This work has focused on initial data analysis, conceptual development and design of further comparative methods (both ethnographic and experimental) between 2 phases of fieldwork.
Irritation might play an important role in both the maintenance of cooperative relationships and their disintegration. A comparative study of the role irritation plays in different types of real-life cooperative relationships across cultural contexts will therefore add much needed nuance to the understanding of the emotional side of human cooperation. Moreover, while it is generally acknowledged that ‘contextual factors’ of the cultural-historical environment have an integral role in the evolution of our species and in individual psychological development, research on human cooperation remains in need of studies that take such factors as a starting point to engage critically with these models of human behaviour.
Building on rich ethnographic material from four countries, methods of more systematic comparison, including quantitative observation and experiments, have been collaboratively developed by the research team. The aim of this approach is to cut across the social, physical and psychological dimensions of the emotion of irritation, to bridge the gap between anthropological work on emotions that tends to steer away from individual psychology and systematic comparison, and psychological work that predominantly focuses on the individual and draws from WEIRD samples, and does not account for the broader cultural-historical context that emotional subjectivities are embedded in.
A further contribution of the project is epistemic and methodological. The overall ethos in anthropology in the recent decades has been particularistic: ethnographic findings are reported about one or the other cultural context, but insufficient effort is dedicated to systematically comparing findings that emerge from different contexts. However, there have been a number of recent calls for reclaiming and rethinking the comparative project of anthropology. For the most part, however, such calls remain abstract. This project contributes to developing contemporary, systematic, and scientifically valid methods for cross-cultural comparison in anthropology, drawing from and in dialogue with psychology.
Building on rich ethnographic material from four countries, methods of more systematic comparison, including quantitative observation and experiments, have been collaboratively developed by the research team. The aim of this approach is to cut across the social, physical and psychological dimensions of the emotion of irritation, to bridge the gap between anthropological work on emotions that tends to steer away from individual psychology and systematic comparison, and psychological work that predominantly focuses on the individual and draws from WEIRD samples, and does not account for the broader cultural-historical context that emotional subjectivities are embedded in.
A further contribution of the project is epistemic and methodological. The overall ethos in anthropology in the recent decades has been particularistic: ethnographic findings are reported about one or the other cultural context, but insufficient effort is dedicated to systematically comparing findings that emerge from different contexts. However, there have been a number of recent calls for reclaiming and rethinking the comparative project of anthropology. For the most part, however, such calls remain abstract. This project contributes to developing contemporary, systematic, and scientifically valid methods for cross-cultural comparison in anthropology, drawing from and in dialogue with psychology.