Autonomy And Social Interaction

This book makes a distinctive contribution to the growing discussion of autonomy. As the ability to determine one's life in both thought and action, autonomy is foundational among our many and varied values. Other philosophical treatments tend to emphasize the significance of autonomy for moral theory or institutional arrangements such as legal, political, or economic power structures. Kupfer, however, focuses on the context of social relations and interactions in which autonomous living occurs. He handles autonomy and social interaction reciprocally, so that the significance of each for the other is drawn out. In addition, key themes are threaded throughout, such as the nature of dependency, self-concept and self-knowledge, and authority.

'The Book of Answers' analyzes all the ways that we confirm questions in our everyday social lives. When do we answer with Yeah rather than He is, for instance; or when do we use more complicated forms of confirming? Relying on a large corpus of naturally occurring recordings of spontaneous social interaction, Tanya Stivers analyzes what each unique way of responding allows us to do.

This book examines how autonomy in language learning is fostered and constrained in social settings through interaction with others and various contextual features. With theoretical grounding, the authors discuss the implications for practice in classrooms, distance education, self-access centres, as well as virtual and social learning spaces.

This volume presents the reader with a stimulating tapestry of essays exploring the nature of personal autonomy, self-determination, and agency, and their role in human optimal functioning at multiple levels of analysis from personal to societal and cross-cultural. The starting point for these explorations is self-determination theory, an integrated theory of human motivation and healthy development which has been under development for more than three decades (Deci & Ryan, 2000). As the contributions will make clear, psychological autonomy is a concept that forms the bridge between the dependence of human behavior on biological and socio-cultural determinants on the one side, and people’s ability to be free, reflective, and transforming agents who can challenge these dependencies, on the other. The authors within this volume share a vision that human autonomy is a fundamental pre-condition for both individuals and groups to thrive, and that without understanding the nature and mechanisms of autonomous agency vital social and human problems cannot be satisfactory addressed. This multidisciplinary team of researchers will collectively explore the nature of personal autonomy, considering its developmental origins, its expression within relationships, its importance within groups and organizational functioning, and its role in promoting to the democratic and economic development of societies. The book is aimed toward developmental, social, personality, and cross-cultural psychologists, towards researchers and practitioners’ in the areas of education, health and medicine, social work and, economics, and also towards all interested in creating a more sustainable and just world society through promoting individual freedom and agency. This volume will provide a theoretical and conceptual account of the nature and psychological mechanisms of personal motivational autonomy and human agency; rich multidisciplinary empirical evidence supporting the claims and propositions about the nature of human autonomy and capacities for self-regulation; explanations of how and why different psychological and socio-cultural conditions may play a role in promoting or undermining people’s autonomous motivation and well-being, discussions of how the promotion of human autonomy can positively influence environmental protection, democracy promotion and economic prosperity.

"Building on a feminist conception of individual autonomy, explores the obligation of the state to foster autonomy in its citizens, particularly the most vulnerable, through social service delivery. Draws on both successful and less successful examples of service delivery to generate a theoretical account of the autonomy-fostering state"--Provided by publisher.

Negotiating Personal Autonomy offers a detailed ethnographic examination of personal autonomy and social life in East Greenland. Examining verbal and non-verbal communication in interpersonal encounters, Elixhauser argues that social life in the region is characterized by relationships based upon a particular care to respect other people’s personal autonomy. Exploring this high valuation of personal autonomy, she asserts that a person in East Greenland is a highly permeable entity that is neither bounded by the body nor even necessarily human. In so doing, she also puts forward a new approach to the anthropological study of communication. An important addition to the corpus of ethnographic literature about the people of East Greenland, Elixhauser‘s work will be of interest to scholars of the Arctic and the North, Greenland, social and cultural anthropology, and human geography. Her conclusion that, in East Greenland, the ‘inner’ self cannot be separated from the ‘public’ persona will also be of interest to scholars working on the self across the humanities and social sciences.

People are socially situated amid complex relations with other people and are bound by interpersonal frameworks having significant influence upon their lives. These facts have implications for their autonomy. Challenging many of the currently accepted conceptions of autonomy and of how autonomy is valued, Oshana develops a 'social-relational' account of autonomy, or self-governance, as a condition of persons that is largely constituted by a person’s relations with other people and by the absence of certain social relations. She denies that command over one's motives and the freedom to realize one's will are sufficient to secure the kind of command over one's life that autonomy requires, and argues against psychological, procedural, and content neutral accounts of autonomy. Oshana embraces the idea that her account is 'perfectionist' in a sense, and argues that ultimately our commitment to autonomy is defeasible, but she maintains that a social-relational account best captures what we value about autonomy and best serves the various ends for which the concept of autonomy is employed.

This book presents current research on self-regulation and autonomy, which have emerged as key predictors of health and well-being in several areas of psychology.

This book examines how autonomy in language learning is fostered and constrained in social settings through interaction with others and various contextual features. With theoretical grounding, the authors discuss the implications for practice in classrooms, distance education, self-access centres, as well as virtual and social learning spaces.

Social interaction is a dynamic, changing sequence of social actions between individuals (or groups) who modify their actions and reactions according to those of their interaction partner(s). In other words, they are events in which people attach meaning to a situation, interpret what others are meaning, and respond accordingly. Social interactions can be differentiated into: Accidental (also known as social contact) - not planned and likely not repeated. For example, asking a stranger for directions or shopkeeper for product availability. Repeated - not planned, bound to happen from time to time. For example, accidentally meeting a neighbour when walking on your street; Regular - not planned, but very common, likely to raise questions when missed. Meeting a doorman or a security guard every workday in your workplace, dining every day in the same restaurant, etc. Regulated - planned and regulated by customs or law, will definitely raise questions when missed. Interaction in a workplace (coming to work, staff meetings, playing a game, etc.), family, etc. In sociological hierarchy, social interaction is more advanced than behaviour, action, social behaviour, social action and social contact, and is in turn followed by more advanced concept of social relation. In other words, social interactions, which consist of social actions, form the basis for social relations. This handbook presents the latest international research in the field.