ABSTRACT
Social interaction is based, in part, on reciprocal induction of phylogenetically evolved affective signals expressed through language and gesture. Appetitive behaviour advances sequentially by responding to frames of a simulated world— the world that seems to surround us. "Social orientation" to the situation one presently occupies is similar to one's orientation in and to the spatial environment. Social orientation, which is not dissimilar from processes involved in the dynamic formation of one's sense of self in the here-and-now, is accompanied by an anxiety concerning one's standing in the present social environment and the social order and rules that apply to one. Self-awareness, the self experienced in the here-and-now, accompanies appetitive behaviour that— when being performed in accordance with social norms and the law— achieves and maintains social relatedness, conditions under which instinctive libidinal interactions can take place.
