Irrelevant Side-Effects

CSGnet Archive CSG1995
1

[From Bruce Abbott (950327.1950 EST)]

Rick Marken (950327.1430) --

CHUCK TUCKER (950327) --

The research that you suggest (on controlling for distance from
another) has already been done both in the field (McPhail and
Wohlstein, ASR, 1986) and experimentally (by Schweingruber [forth-
coming]).

Excellent! Could you describe it for us?

Rick, this research has been around so long that even high-school students
are doing it for their science-fair projects. The paradigm involves having
either the experimenter or a confederate of the experimenter "invade" the
"personal space" of other people in ordinary circumstances, and then record
how these people respond. The basic design is thus essentially "the Test."
Sometimes the results are displayed as a boundary encircling the person,
usually further from the person in front than to the sides or in back.
Essentially this is the region which, if penetrated by another, will evoke
discomfort and (if possible under the circumstances) withdrawal to greater
distance. Several variables have been investigated. People from "latin"
cultures are said to tolerate a smaller boundary than people from germanic
curtures, for example. But don't ask me to recite actual studies--it's not
an area I've ever looked into myself.

I think it would be a good exercise to forget about the THEORY of control
(PCT) for a while and just look to see whether or not any particular
behavioral phenomenon we find interesting might actually involve control.
If we do this, I think we'll see that many of what are considered to be the
important phenomena of psychology (and sociology) are not important (in
the PCT sense) at all - they are just irrelevant side effects of controlling.

I'm not yet clear on what the difference is between a "side effect" of
controlling and an "irrelevant side effect" of controlling. For an airline
captain, his crew, and passengers, the responses of the captain to strong
clear-air turbulence during approach are a side-effect of controlling, but
they are hardly irrelevant.

Similarly, whether the drivers at the intersection I am currently
approaching are likely to stop on red and go on green may be a side effect
of their controlling a logical variable, but whether that "side effect" is
present or not may be mighty important for my well-being and thus, not at
all irrelevant.

Regards,

Bruce

P.S. Rick, thanks for the "stack." I should be able to get a copy of
Stuffit locally.

2

[From Kent McClelland (950327)]

Rick Marken (950327.1430)
Bruce Abbott (950327.1950 EST)]

On "space invader" research, Bruce is right when he says,

Rick, this research has been around so long that even high-school students
are doing it for their science-fair projects. The paradigm involves having
either the experimenter or a confederate of the experimenter "invade" the
"personal space" of other people in ordinary circumstances, and then record
how these people respond.

One of the folks to talk at length about this sort of research is
anthropologist Edward T. Hall in Beyond Culture and several other
moderately entertaining books from about 15 or 20 years ago. And of course
Rick's former teacher, Sacks, and his other ethnomethodologist buddies did
much the same kind of thing in the 50s and 60s with "breaching
experiments", where they broke minor norms of social interaction and
observed people's reactions to the disturbances.

Our problem for us here, I think, is to align our own perceptions of what
constitutes "sociologically interesting" research. Rick's view of what's
sociologically interesting probably wouldn't have much appeal for ordinary
sociologists, who, I would say, are aware of space-invader research, etc.,
but don't see it as particularly significant. They may well see it as an
"irrelevant side-effect" of something they consider more interesting,
perhaps cultural patterns or "the social construction of reality".

When Rick says,

I think it would be a good exercise to forget about the THEORY of control
(PCT) for a while and just look to see whether or not any particular
behavioral phenomenon we find interesting might actually involve control.

My perception is that sociologists have generally had no problem with
seeing behavior as involving control (but by "norms" or "society" or "the
organization"!). And they too have been big on "irrelevant side-effects"
of individual behavior (called "unitended consequences" in sociological
lingo). So if our objective is to capture the attention of sociologists
and get them seeing the world in PCT terms, what will Rick's proposed
research tell them that they don't already (they think) know?

I guess one thing I find sociologically interesting is the common
perception by sociologists and most other folks that when a large number of
people (in PCT terms) are collectively controlling perceptions involving
the same part of the environment, that the emergent outcome of all their
actions, the "virtual reference signal", resulting from the collective
action of lots of people all controlling different perceptions at once,
represents control by some hypothetical "collective actor", like "society".
Discovering such "social forces" and describing their operation has been
the focus of most orthodox sociological research ever since the days of
Emile Durkheim 100 years ago.

What sort of research would you propose to disabuse sociologists of their
belief in "collective actors" and other sociological fairy tales? I doubt
that "space invader" research will do it.

Kent