THE ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIOAFFECTIVE DIALOGUE

Abstract

This work provides an account of the neuropsychosocial genesis and organization of socioaffective dialogue. Socioaffective dialogue is a mutually reciprocated process of interaction, between two or more individuals, in which the arousal and regulation of affective states generates a co-evolving order of meaning that in-forms (gives shape to) action and behavior. The work is organized in three parts. Part I begins with a description, drawn primarily from Schore's (1994) work, of the neuropsychosocial origins of all social communication which develops in the socioaffective interaction between a mother and her new born infant. The interaction is organized along two dimensions: one involving the stimulation of positive emotional affects, and the second involving the regulation of the infant's aroused affective states. These interactions affect and direct the growth and transformation of the infant's brain and, when optimally organized, produce a stable, self-regulating “dialogical self,” marked by the onset of speech, at around eighteen months. Part II shows that the same two dimensions—affective arousal and control—continue to be operative in the adult world in communication in intimate relationships and in social collectives. A review of Sternberg's (1986) research on love and Bradley's (1987) research on communes reveals that stable social organization is generated when interaction along the two dimensions is coupled as a self-regulating communication system. Part III uses Bradley and Pribrams' (1998) theory of communication to explain this result. The theory views the interaction between the two orders as an information processing system. When optimally organized as socioaffective dialogue, the interaction gathers and communicates holographic-like descriptions of endogenous organization throughout a social unit to in-form collective organization. However, there are limits on the combinations of affective arousal and control which are functional. Failure to maintain combinations within the requisite limits may prevent the creation and distribution of meaning and, hence, jeopardize collective organization.