ABSTRACT

In this chapter, I consider directly the obvious fact that many if not most human activities are situated within a social context. In other words, we do not just behave to satisfy our organismic needs, express our traits, and achieve our personal goals; we also act to communicate or share feelings with others, to enact or follow social norms, and to facilitate the functioning of our groups and social organizations. Indeed, human behavior is profoundly conditioned by the social context, and no understanding of scientific consilience can be complete without considering the social interaction level of analysis in some detail (see Fig. 2.1), Thus, one aim of this chapter is to canvass some important concepts at this level of analysis, and to try to show that effects of this level are irreducible to effects at lower levels of analysis, such as neurobiology, cognition, and personality. Of course, the primary aim is to examine the nature of optimal human being from the social interaction perspective.