The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
Thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
Psalms 23
Holiest of the Holy, perpetual comfort of mankind, you whose bountiful grace nourishes the whole world; whose heart turns towards all those in sorrow and tribulation as a mother’s to her children; you who take no rest by night, no rest by day, but are always at hand to succor the distressed by land and sea, dispersing the gales that beat upon them. Your hand alone can disentangle the hopelessly knotted skeins of fate, terminate every spell of bad weather, and restrain the stars from harmful conjunction. The gods above adore you, the gods below do homage to you, you set the orb of heaven spinning around the poles, you give light to the sun, you govern the universe, you trample down the powers of Hell. At your voice the stars move, the seasons recur, the spirits of earth rejoice, the elements obey.
“The Golden Ass,” Apuleius, trans. Robert Graves, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux publishers, 1951, 1976, p. 282. Written ca. 150 CE. An example of theos hypsistos.
Such sentiments are comforting, even inspiring, for some of us. To be the client of a top god must be a comfort indeed. To a rationalist, though, these are fanciful ideas that ask for an explanation. It turns out, according to anthropologist Alan Page Fiske, such ideas come from a place deep inside us that knows only a few ways to think about relationships.
Fiske is a cultural anthropologist who years ago did ethnographic research among the Woose (WOH-say) people of Burkina Faso in West Africa. Ethnographers embed themselves in a culture and take copious notes about what they see. As anthropologists they look for universal principles of cultural organization. Working within an alien culture reveals behaviors we don’t see at home and is thought to suppress ethnocentric obliviousness.
Fiske observed among the Woose that certain patterns of social relationships kept reappearing. Starting from this observation he developed his relational models theory, which hypothesizes that there are four models for social relations among people (and anthropomorphic deities), and that the four models are universal and exhaustive.
The relational models theory is supported by a large body of anthropological and social-psychological findings and has spawned a substantial amount of subsequent research, but hasn’t overwhelmed the field of social psychology. (Personal bias: I suspect that this is in part because only anthropologists are really transfixed by universal principles. Most social scientists seem engrossed in the particular and immediate.) Nevertheless, the elements I will describe are well-supported, consistent with the other research I’ve shared with you, and provide an integrating perspective on it.
Social psychologists in the Western tradition have to a great extent analyzed social interactions as people using instrumental means to achieve goals that are extrinsic to the social interactions. These theories often assume that people think of those with whom they interact in the same way they think about inanimate objects or members of other species. This has resulted in various theories of various interactions in terms of the characteristics of the situation and the imputed goals of the people involved.
Relational models theory provides a different paradigm, in which four types of relationship provide templates for a variety of culturally-specific patterns of social exchange relationships. The things that are exchanged aren't limited to physical things, but include things of social value, such as company, support, belonging, and so forth. The models are templates for social relationships. The models identify relational forms, but also the affective and evaluative patterns that go with them. The models form the structures within which interpersonal relationships exist. They carry a substantial practical and emotional importance.
Americans use the same four models as do the Moose, but in culturally-different ways. Each of these four models has been identified by numerous other researchers who of course have used different names for them.
There is evidence that people are actually positively oriented toward relationship, that they enjoy engaging in relationships, that they are committed to relationships that follow these models, that they consider themselves obligated by the implicit terms of these relationships, and that these forms are basic and may even be supported by special cognitive hardware.
Each of the four models is characterized by a view of social events that considers some features of the situation and neglects others. Which features are noted and ignored affects participants’ conception of the interaction, their intentions, plans, and expectations, their social motivations and emotions, and their judgments about the interaction. The model that is applied to a situation determines the relations and operations that are intelligible or significant, and these in turn establish the meaning of social justice in context. The models affect group decision-making and social influence. They form the basis for both defining and organizing groups, and hence for social identity. They form the basis for moral judgment and ideology. They provide a background for dealing with misfortune and suffering.
The existence of these patterns across many cultures suggests that they reflect not particular circumstances, but universal features of the human mind.
Features that are important under one of these templates may be invisible or irrelevant in another. For example, rank is undefined and unimportant within a communal sharing (CS) group or an equality matching (EM) group. The following sections describe the four models and the multiple behavioral effects that occur as the result of their orientation to relationship. The descriptions are general and abstract in order to encompass the many variations that have been found. It may help while reading to envision the common examples we are accustomed to in America:
| Model | Example |
|---|---|
| Communal sharing (CS) | Family or congregation |
| Authority ranking (AR) | Job or authoritative church |
| Equality matching (EM) | Friends |
| Market pricing (MP) | Market capitalism |
In the communal sharing or CS model people are equivalent and undifferentiated within the group. The commonalities that define the group are emphasized, while differences and even individual identities are de-emphasized. Members think of each other as sharing some essence, whether “blood” or “race” or something similar, and feel that it is natural to be sympathetic to other members. Close relatives often form a CS group. Groups that aren’t closely related often use language that likens the group to a family. CS groups often have rituals that involve repetitive stereotyped actions, such as religious worship and ceremonial meals.
Members of a CS group are equivalent to one another for the purpose of the group (e.g., sharing or collecting resources), but may not be equivalent in other social contexts.
Objects are treated as common possessions. The principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need” is followed. Contributions and distributions aren’t tracked in a CS setting. Membership in the group is sufficient. Objects in a CS context sometimes gain significance as symbols of relationships, as, for example, wedding rings or heirlooms. Land often is a common possession of the group either actually or symbolically, as in “homeland” or “motherland” or “sacred land” or “family home.” The land in this context represents the shared identity.
Work done by the CS group is also done in common, with everyone pitching in.
Consensus, unity, and conformity are sought in CS decision making. People seek to find the sense of the group. Diffidence and humility are encouraged. Consensus promotes group commitment, but desire for agreement can lead to incomplete exploration of issues.
The desire to be part of the group leads to a desire to be like one another, and to a particular desire not to be in contrast to the group. Failure to find complete agreement, for example, can disrupt the interpersonal equivalence that defines the group. When people form a group based on a common characteristic (nature, ancestry, origin, race, or caste), the group tends to be a CS group. A CS group tends to be the primary reference group for many people, and there is some thought that CS is the most fundamental form of social relationship. Membership in a CS group tends to merge individual identities into identities as group members. In this way membership in the group defines the kind, type, or essence of the individual.
“CS is a central element in most religions, emerging in the form of communion rituals, sacrifices in which people share food with the gods, commensal meals, an ethos of universal love and caretaking, and the close bonds of religious communities.” [Fiske 1992, p. 698]
These manifestations of CS relationships suggest that there is a desire for more complete engagement in a CS relationship. A number of researchers have developed instruments that measure individual motivation to belong to a CS group. Desire for CS is common enough to be called a motive, and it is often shared widely and strongly enough to be called a value. In some cultures and some situations, this is strong enough to be called a norm, a moral standard, or an ideology. The strength of the desire for CS engagement can range from a motivation to a moral ideology.
We express and, presumably, we experience strong CS relationships as natural, enduring, and based on natural circumstances. We nurture our “own flesh and blood,” and we defend our “motherland” or “fatherland.” (This mirrors Pinker’s natural or naive biology of essence.) We often endow such groups with a long history and assume a responsibility to maintain its ostensible traditions. An example is the Mormon concern with maintaining family identity across generations.
The reified group needs protection from contamination or despoilment from alien influences, which often results in acceptance rituals or, in truly traditional settings, in purity taboos. (This echoes the role of disgust in group identity.) When misfortune befalls group members, it affects the group, and explanations for the misfortune are sought. The victim himself represents a sort of defilement of the group, and the victim may be treated as a disruptor of the group. Conversely, the victim’s misfortune may be attributed to transgressions by other group members. These behaviors arise from the notions of shared responsibility and shared fate that exist in such groups.
The same sense of communality that is expressed as kindness toward those of the same kind can also lead to the submerging of individual identity, “deindividuation,” seeing individuals including oneself as instances of types. Acts which may not be justifiable as individual acts may gain moral sanctification if they are done in defense of CS group interests.
Deindividuation applies not only to oneself and the members of one’s group, but even more to outsiders. Grievance toward an out-group member can become generalized grievance against the entire out-group by the same mechanism. Ethnocentrism seems to spring from this, assisted by the tendency to objectify and dehumanize outsiders. (In light of these mechanisms, the temperance of the American civil rights movement becomes morally astounding.)
CS compassion by the same logic ends at the group boundary. Perhaps this is the great human tragedy. Jesus’ mission can be viewed in these lights as an attempt to fortify his own CS community, which was under assault by the actions of the Roman colonizers, especially in Galilee, at the time of his mission. His appeals to authority then could be seen as means to this end.
“People in a CS relationship see themselves as similar to the other participants, try to make themselves similar, try to act in unison, and feel that it is right, good, and natural to do so, especially with people who share some bodily essence with them.” [Fiske 1992, p. 700]
All the behaviors cited above flow from the CS ingroup/outgroup model of social relationships.
When we use the authority ranking or AR relationship model we rank one another along some social dimension. People are not equivalent but are pointedly unequal. Those with high rank have their privileges and responsibilities, while those of low rank may have claims to care and protection. Higher rank is better.
Under an AR model, material things flow to the high-ranked preferentially. They get more and better things. Thus Donald Trump’s billionaire persona, in an AR frame, would be seen as a mark of rank. Offsetting these perquisites of rank there is often noblesse oblige, the obligation of the high-ranked to meet needs of those lower. If the high-ranked fail in this, norms or procedures may permit them to be replaced. (Like a presidential election here or in some African countries, where it is taken for granted that the president's party "eats" while he holds that office.) An AR organization can function as a means of redistribution, as in the NW Amerindian potlatch practice. Some material items, though, serve as markers of rank, such as thrones, crowns, big desks, and big cars.
Land has special significance in many AR systems because it marks the jurisdiction of the system and of the leader. Anyone within the jurisdiction is ipso facto under the jurisdiction of that person.
High-status individuals direct labor, and low-status individuals perform the less-pleasant tasks. In this sense Marx considered capitalism as equivalent to slavery.
Information flows up through the ranks and orders flow down. People emulate, admire, and defer to superiors. People in an AR system tend to respond to any of the symbols of authority. Scams can succeed based on the authority implied by the dress or language of the scammer. High rank can be achieved in a variety of ways, including age, gender, accomplishments, or charisma. Subordinates often show a willingness to defer. Cross-culturally gender and age commonly serve as a ranking scale for AR systems. Identity in an AR structure can be one’s position in the hierarchy, or it can be the individual whose authority one is under. Linguistic rules may require one to specify relative ranks when addressing another. Think of the use of “sirrah” or honorific titles in Shakespeare.
There is an important difference between hierarchical power based on coercion and power through legitimacy. Max Weber pointed out in 1922 that when hierarchical authority exists, it tends to be ideologically legitimated (see “system justification”). The will of the superior is automatically legitimate. The legitimacy of hierarchical systems and hierarchical decisions then assumes a moral form. Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget saw the respect of children for parents and other authorities as the basis for the human sense of moral obligation. Authority roles are commonly seen as accompanied by the moral obligation to use authority appropriately, especially in old and stable systems.
AR expresses itself religiously in the ritual veneration of ancestors and especially in the authoritative deity whose will governs the world. On the flip side of this is the belief that if one suffers, it is because of a violation of the deity’s will. Violation of religious strictures is seen as rebellion against the legitimate will of the deity.
The consistent occurrence of this and other signs that AR logic is internalized suggest that AR relationships are positively desired by many or most of us. RWA and SDO seem to measure acceptance or desirability of AR organization. Our national origin is unusual in that it was motivated by a desire to limit the AR authority of the overthrown government. In that sense it was unnatural.
While AR may be desired and/or desirable, there are well-attested opportunities for abuse in RA systems. For example, ”…any war demonstrates that most people will kill on command.” [Fiske 1992, p. 702] History shows that people who resist authority are highly likely to experience coercion and punishment. Legitimate coercion seems to be part of the AR model. Some AR systems, however, seem to be much more prone to violence than others, and the factors that differentiate the two outcomes aren’t well understood. (By the logic of legitimate coercion Trump’s followers may be keeping him politically alive to punish the country for not having been sufficiently deferential to him while he was in office. Perhaps we also transgressed his authority by not conducting the 2020 election to his liking.) The logic of AR shows up in the lack of symmetry in rules governing violence between individuals of different ranks. Fiske says that “harming a superior being is the focal taboo of AR relationships.” [Fiske 1992, p. 702] Hence "blue" lives matter more than black ones.
The functional similarities that show up in all these manifestations of AR relationships again suggest that this relational model is deeply embedded in our minds. AR systems exist to establish authority.
Social exchanges in equality matching (EM) relationships are evenly balanced, although the balance may be restored only over time. Taking turns is an example of an EM relationship. The even balancing of exchange supports the basic premise of an EM relationship, that each participant is entitled to equal treatment. Sports contests, bridge clubs, and car pools are examples that might be organized on an EM basis.
Equality matching is distinct from the other three modes. It appears across cultures. In some cultures, particularly Melanesia, EM seems to be the principal model used, or at least the most-recognized by the Melanesians, who have elaborate, expensive, and entirely symbolic systems for maintaining EM relationships. Christmas gift exchanges in America can be a form of EM. EM exchanges are often used for the purpose of establishing or maintaining social relationships.
A distinguishing feature of EM is that equivalent things are exchanged, and that one is usually exchanged for one, although the exchanges can occur after delays, and deficits and surpluses can build up. The equivalence rules themselves (what is equal to what) are culturally-determined. In my family we drew names and exchanged gifts not to exceed $X in cost.
The units to be exchanged could be dinner parties, small favors, etc. Rotating credit associations are common in other parts of the world. Each member periodically makes an equal contribution to the kitty, which is awarded in full to each member according to rules that assure that each contributor always eventually recoups their contributions, despite additions and departures from the association. Each member receives a cash windfall at some point that exactly balances their contributions, plus whatever social and psychological benefits they receive from being part of the association. No interest is given or received. Interest is a concept that belongs to Market Pricing.
Physical items under EM can also have a symbolic meaning, basically as membership badges. In some situations inequalities in possessions can disrupt the EM relationship, and it is important either to conceal the disequilibrating possessions or to rid oneself of them.
The EM model can be used to organize work. When work is exchanged on an EM basis, for example in harvesting or building, there may be visible self-initiated efforts to match contributions, as for example in bucking hay or putting on a church buffet. EM seems never to be the basis for permanent production systems because such systems generally require numerous kinds of incommensurate labor inputs. In the U.S., EM can show up as equal demands on the workers within a work group. Over-producers and under-producers can both be subject to informal sanctions, even when market pricing incentives are offered officially.
The EM model provides EM methods for decision-making. One man, one vote is one of these. Rotating leadership roles is another, flipping a coin is another. Social influence can also be distributed by EM logic when one good turn merits another. That situation, however, is subject to manipulation and cheating, which destroy the EM zeitgeist.
The payoff from an EM relationship is the relationship itself. Exchanging dinners, for example, is a way to continue to meet and eat on an equal basis.
Like CS or AR, EM has been characterized as a motive, a value, a norm, and a moral obligation. The concern with equal outcomes as a primary goal exists only in the EM form of relationship. Equal outcomes imply equality of individuals and vice versa. “Such a distribution means disregarding relative contributions to a task and ignoring differing needs and even self-interest.” [Fiske 1992, p. 704] Equality matching is useful for maintaining relationships of equality, but not for productive efficiency (use MP) or clear lines of authority (use AR).
Research has demonstrated that participants in an EM relationship are almost indifferent to whether they receive an equal share or a much larger share, but they are very averse to receiving anything less than an equal share. People will accept no share at all rather than a smaller-than-equal share, which indicates that the equality is itself an important reward.
EM relationships can morph into AR relationships if equality is exceeded on one side. If a cumulative inequality can’t be corrected, obligation or indebtedness results, which converts the relationship to an AR or MP model.
In the American system EM models are used in the sense of “equality under the law.” At least formally all Americans have the same legal rights and protections.
The EM model perversely is a common source of conflict and violence. This can occur because of failure to adhere to EM rules of turn-taking and equal distribution. EM models also can justify tit-for-tat retribution for wrongs. The notion that things should be equal leads to frustration and the search for culprits when they aren’t equal. It can encourage jealousy and envy.
As with the other models, the basic premise, equality, results in these congruent features of the EM model.
When exchanges are based on the ratio of values given and received, a market pricing (MP) model is in force. Prices, wages, and other market transactions have this nature.
Market pricing has had such a dominant role in Western thought since the Industrial Revolution that students of social behavior have long tried to explain CS, AR, or EM relationships in terms of market pricing logic. These explanations claim that participants calculate their advantage in these other relationships as if they were planning an MP exchange.
MP systems often use a common base for proportional exchanges. In modern economies that base is money. The proportional value of the exchanged items is what is important. Prices are established by the markets in most parts of modern economies. Land, in MP terms, is a capital investment to be used in production or held for appreciation.
Many decisions in an MP system are made by applying mathematical logic to market prices. Markets ideally aggregate market-wide information about relative values, and in this arms-length sense markets serve a function of social communication. Markets determine the price and remuneration of labor, and hence its value to the person who provides it. Technology and competition allow and determine the specialization of labor.
Human values affect the system largely through markets, for example through the prices people are willing to pay for goods or the labor they are willing to perform at market rates. MP systems lead people to organize into corporations and other legally-defined forms, including specialized institutions that support and profit from the markets in various ways, such as banks, insurers, and stock exchanges. Labor unions and other organizations exist to manage labor for various purposes. American colleges and universities are an important part of this system. Specialization of function occurs at the level of organizations as well as within organizations. A mix of all four models is used to manage relationships within these organizations.
Through markets everyone has a theoretical relationship with everyone else, but this relation is through the abstract mechanism of pricing. In comparison to the three other relational models, market pricing relationships are barren of human features. Other market participants for the most part are distant, and their social stakes are only of instrumental concern. Focus is on pricing, purchasing power, and the accumulation and investment of surpluses. People in the U.S. often find their identity in their role within the system of production.
As with the three other relationship models, it’s probably incomplete to think of MP relationships as emerging only from the interplay of people’s self-interests. There is also a motivation to participate in MP relationships, that varies between individuals. It goes by various names, including “achievement motivation,” the motivation to make the mo$t out of situations. This motivation explains, e.g., billionaires who continue to risk their superabundant possessions in quest of even more. MP systems in some ways provide an ideal context for this orientation, offering complex opportunities in which odds can be estimated, effort provides an advantage, and social trade-offs are hidden by markets and computational rationality.
Moral legitimacy in MP systems occurs in a rational-legal context. Rightness is defined by laws and regulations, and the motivation is to maximize productivity or efficiency, which are measured in terms of the common standard of value. While prices and values are set by a market that abstractly responds to human values, right is established by a formal system of legislating and rule-making. These rules are not used only at market interfaces, but also for control within organizations. People see such rules as artificial creations and judge the goodness of the rules in terms of their perceived effects. Control of the rule-making process is contested.
Market pricing requires that markets function. For this reason market decisions should be made voluntarily by independent market actors. The voluntary and contractual nature of MP transactions leads to the felt sense that these agreements are freely made, and because of that the consequences of such an agreement are seen as the responsibility of the persons who entered the agreement. Whether success or failure, a person who enters an agreement is seen as deserving the outcome. This theory is unfortunately based on idealizations of reality. Market actors are constrained by market circumstances outside of their control. An important example of this affects the sellers of labor, AKA workers. Buyers have a structural advantage whenever there is a surplus of product. While firms have the ability to determine their level of output, workers have no such control of labor markets. Information asymmetries favor sellers over buyers. Size and wealth often favor organizations over workers, vendors and customers.
If anomie, as they say, is lack of regulation by social constraints, MP perhaps is anomie.
Each of these four descriptions includes a sketch of the stakes we can have in our relationships. Belonging, identity, and nurturance are just a few of the benefits we may hope for from CS relationships. Identity, standing, and order may come from AR systems. Social access on an equal footing from EM. Brass in pocket, achievement status, and other perquisites from MP. The form of the relationship determines its logic. Its logic determines what behaviors are supportive of the relationship and which are subversive.
Conflict arises when someone sees another as violating the organizing principle of the relationship model. Research has shown that there tends to be consensus among participants as to which model is in use, even though there is great variation between cultures in which model is used in a specific situation. There are cultural rules about which model applies in what situation and about how each model is executed when it applies. Violations of these rules are often seen as violations of an implicit contract and violations of trust. The CS and AR models are so fundamental to social existence that they are observable among other mammals. Children understand the rules and actively impose CS, AR, and EM rules in their play environments.
The tests that have been applied to the relational model theory have included mis-identification experiments. Seven such studies found that people who we confuse (with one another) are often people with similar relations to us in the terms of the active relational model. My mother sometimes still calls me “Scott Brad Ross,” stringing together the names of her three sons, when she feels the need to address me from a position of authority (AR). I repeatedly switch the name of my younger sister with that of my daughter. They’re not a lot alike, except that I have a somewhat protective feeling toward each. (Sorry, Peggy. Sorry, Everywoman. I don’t do that with my wife, but that’s probably TMI.)
Some of the four models are better suited for some tasks. CS, with consensual decision making, wouldn’t work well in military situations. AR, on the other hand, permits rapid decisions, but it also supports information restriction. AR can give subordinates informational power over their superiors. Succession can be problematic in AR systems. There are no costs within CS groups for monitoring and controlling contributions and distributions. No accountants, no straw bosses. There are costs, though, for free riders and for the “tragedy of the commons,” the tendency to over-exploit things that are held in common. It is hard to make subtle gradations or distinctions within CS groups. That would fly in the face of the group’s organizing principle.
Fiske said in his 1992 paper that “the four models are the major sources of social conflict.” You might think just the opposite. This statement isn’t too surprising, though, if you consider that the four models are also the framework for our social behavior. [Fiske 1992, p. 716]
If, as Fiske would have it, your life is a hodgepodge of different-type relationships, what about all the things I wrote about in The Mark and the Draw?
They’re still there. RWA, SDO, belief in a just world, and all those other scales measure the attributes of people. CS, AR, EM, and MP are types (models) of social relationships. We live in a complex matrix of formal organizations and informal relationships, some of which persist while others are transient. These organizations and relationships use combinations of the four relationship types to organize themselves.
Consider a business. It acquires resources and earns income through MP relationships. It organizes its work mostly on AR principles. CS and EM relationships pop up within work groups or in after-hours Xmas gift exchanges. Golf matches with the boss might be either equal or authoritarian, depending on the organization and the boss.
People gravitate toward situations inside organizations and toward relationships that suit their own inclinations more or less well, and are more or less satisfied as a result. Duckitt et al. 2001 used the term “hierarchy-enhancing” to designate roles that tend to promote hierarchical behaviors and are attractive to those who are high in SDO (social dominance orientation).
If you are high in RWA, it is likely you will be comfortable in authority ranking (AR) organizations. Most businesses and many churches will feel comfortable to you. You may on the other hand be uncomfortable with sensitivity training or ambiguous power relationships or open-ended task assignments. You may find comfort in CS relationships among your family members, and you might also have CS relationships at your church or in your bowling team or even, I imagine, within your militia group. Organizations have options as to how they organize themselves, and we have options as to which organizations and relationships we participate in.
We use our relationships to accomplish both material and psychological functions. This topic is as vast as human experience. All effort is individual, yet no one exists in isolation. Susan Fiske, sister of Alan Page Fiske (whose work I’ve been discussing), is a social psychologist and spends her days studying and educating about it. Regarding the psychological opportunities inherent in group identity she remarked about an opportunity available to those who have the need: “Prejudice maintains self-image by allowing us to ally ourselves to some in-group that seems better by comparison.” [Fiske 2012, p. 117] Our group identity can support and reinforce our values.
We apparently have quite flexible strategies for feeling good about ourselves. Feeling bad about oneself is painful and debilitating, as I've heard. We compare ourselves to in-group members, but when that’s ineffective, comparisons with the in-group retreat, and comparisons with out-groups (whether envy or scorn) move to the forefront. When we compare ourself as an individual, we are most likely to compare ourself to other in-group members. When we compare ourselves as a group member, we make inter-group comparisons. So when we hear from someone that he is proud to be white, he is making an inter-group comparison and regarding himself as a group member. He's also expressing a view of non-white people.
Within-group comparison is more common because we tend to be around in-group members, and it’s also more concrete. Inter-group comparisons are more abstract and less likely to be constrained by observed reality. [Fiske 2012, p. 119]
Group membership entails adhering to group norms, whether these are merely statistical (averages) or normative (rules). We assimilate to an in-group prototype by comparing ourselves to other members. In this way groups tend to become more homogeneous over time. [Fiske 2012, p. 122] Modern research, including discoveries about our mirror neurons, show that this process of assimilation is encouraged and guided by innate mechanisms that urge us to observe and imitate whether or not we intend to. [Iacoboni 2008]
Our affiliations with organizations and in relationships have a lot of power over us. Strong connections have powerful effects.
“Hierarchy” seems to have two distinct meanings in social science. The first meaning of hierarchy is simple rank ordering, in which each thing has a rank. Each thing is “above” or “below” each other thing, and it is better to be above. This meaning of hierarchy is pertinent to the inter-group comparisons that a person who is high in SDO likes to make. This meaning of hierarchy is also the meaning pertinent to authority ranking (AR) relationships.
The second meaning of hierarchy is a specific form of rank ordering that’s used in business and military organizations. This form is called “bureaucratic hierarchy.”
You see bureaucratic hierarchy when you look at an organization chart. Each manager has subordinates (lower beings) who “report” to him or her. All employees have a superior, excepting the top boss. (This person really does have people over him, but they’re not usually shown on the chart. The reasons for this are various.)
Each of the “reports” of a single manager is part of a rank ordering. They’re below the boss and above their own subordinates. There’s not in general a rank ordering among the reports of a single manager, nor is there a formal rank ordering among those on different branches of the tree structure. Most of the people in most organizations have people above them but no one below. There may be rules or norms of equality among org-chart peers. It can be complicated, and it’s always important to those involved.
The most important features of bureaucratic hierarchy are: 1) everyone has a boss; 2) a boss can have multiple subordinates. The subordinate is accountable to his boss, who can reward or punish him to the extent of terminating his membership in the organization. Except on routine matters, the subordinate communicates with the rest of the organization, if at all, then through his boss. The structural characteristics of bureaucratic hierarchy lead to important functional characteristics: 1) power is concentrated; 2) an unlimited number of people performing specialized functions can be directed by one boss through the tree structure; 3) information flows can be controlled. Information can be sped up, slowed down, or confined to selected members.
Bureaucratic hierarchy probably originated, as its origin story says, with military organizations. Bureaucratic technology has grown in effectiveness over time, with the growth of the large empires and beyond. The technology of bureaucracy now includes all of our large organizations. Although it is ancient, and it is an instance of the basic AR relationship model, it is neither simple or natural. Effective use requires attention to detail both to suppress non-approved relationships and to compensate for bureaucracy’s inherent vulnerabilities. Today we have position descriptions, human resource departments, policies and procedures, financial controls, audits, written performance evaluations, administrative law, state, local, and federal regulation, and on and on, to keep our bureaucratic organizations functioning smoothly.
All of this managerial effort is necessary to get the organization to pursue its legitimate purposes to the exclusion of other purposes. To prevent its resources from being shanghaied by its members. The reason these organizations exist is that no one would pursue the organizations’ goals effectively without such rewards and punishments. That’s why they call it work.
Bureaucracies brought us the electric light, the automobile, the caramel macchiato, Social Security, and COVID vaccines. Also income tax and the Defense Department. Bureaucracies also took control of Germany for Adolf Hitler’s political party.
That’s the macro view of bureaucratic hierarchy. At the individual level, bureaucracies are the most significant organizations in most of our lives, for most of our lives. We depend on them not only for our livelihoods, but also for our status and reputation. They control what we do and how we do it for the largest part of our waking hours. They control how we interact with other people during those same hours. They control our experience of how people do or don't work together and how order is maintained among people. They determine how labor is specialized, what skills are valuable, and how valuable they are. Forget what you learned in school (also a bureaucracy), you’re in the real world now.
Bureaucratic hierarchy exists because it’s the most effective way to accomplish certain types of goals. A person or a group with power resources (typically, money) can use bureaucratic organization to control the efforts of others in a uniform way, thus realizing their own objectives through others. Further, they can express power while limiting the power they bestow on others. Further again, they can expand the size and the power of the bureaucratic organization practically without limit.
Bureaucratic organization also has drawbacks. Bureaucracies can fall short or fail in a variety of well-known ways.
But the ways bureaucracies can fail aren’t important for my current purpose. It’s the ways they can succeed. From the perspective of ideology, because it is a form of social relationship, bureaucratic hierarchy has relational power over its participants. We’ve seen that this power can be large, affecting the participant’s sense of self, his/her sense of justice, and his/her sense of the possible.
As a member of a bureaucratic hierarchy, your basic agreement to do certain work for certain compensation is an MP agreement. You may also have various EM or CS relations, usually informal, among the people you work with, or you may get your fix of these elsewhere. But it’s the AR relationship between your boss and you that determines what you’ll spend your days doing, who you’ll be doing it with, how much autonomy you’ll have, and what your prospects are. The AR relationship is the big one in your life. If your personal circumstances are such that you don’t need to depend on an AR relationship yourself, you still live surrounded by people who do.
I don’t mean to overstate this, and I don’t claim that this is a balanced view overall, but your investment in an AR relationship teaches you a number of important realities:
The list could be extended, but I think this list makes my point, which is that authority ranking, and especially bureaucratic hierarchy, promotes a set of mind that can fairly be called “authoritarian.” It supports values that would be approved by those high in SDO or RWA.
This is not an argument that these features are desirable or undesirable, productive or unproductive, necessary or unnecessary. It is an argument that these characteristics flow from the nature of bureaucratic hierarchy. The fact that organizations have programs in place to control such effects confirms their existence. Entering such a milieu is often the first goal of young people once they leave the (bureaucratic hierarchical) education system. Many of us spend most of our lives as members of such organizations. It is natural that we would consider bureaucratic hierarchy to be paradigmatic.
I’ve alluded to the role of bureaucracy in enabling the ancient empires, culminating, in the Western world, in the empires of Alexander and then of Rome. I’ve described the metamorphosis of Jesus’ personal ministry into the authoritarian structure of the churches. Like other managed social systems, this developed under the guidance of those in power to accomplish the goals that they deemed important. It was done by some to others, using bureaucracy as a tool. (For more detail, see God On Our Side: The Christian Soul and Moral Ideology.)
The collapse of monarchic rule and the development of industrial capitalism were major forces in the promotion of bureaucratic hierarchy. Somewhat surprisingly, many of the bureaucratic features of today’s world were established during the Enlightenment, the very period that Americans associate with freedom and equality.
Henry Fielding was a barrister and Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County, a member of the English gentry. He was the author of "An Enquiry Into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers, &c. with some Proposals for Remedying this Growing Evil," and also the author of the novel “Tom Jones,” and was considered progressive and humanitarian in his day. Is “An Enquiry...” satire?
The great Increase of Robberies within these few Years, is an Evil which to me appears to deserve some attention; and the rather as it seems (tho’ already become so flagrant) not yet to have arrived to that Height of which it is capable, and which it is likely to attain. For Diseases in the Political, as in the Natural Body, seldom fail going on to their Crisis, especially when nourished and encouraged by Faults in the Constitution. In Fact, I make no Doubt, but that the Streets of this Town [Westminster], and the Roads leading to it, will shortly be impassible without the utmost Hazard, nor are we threatened with seeing less dangerous Gangs of Rogues among us, than those which the Italians call the Banditi. [Fielding 1751, p. 1]
....
Of too frequent and expensive Diversions among the Lower Kind of People
First then, I think, that the vast Torrent of Luxury which of late Years hath poured itself into the Nation, hath greatly contributed to produce, among many others, the Mischief I here complain of. I am not here to satirize the Great, among whom Luxury is probably rather a moral than a political Evil. But Vices no more than Diseases will stop with them, for bad Habits are as infectious by Example, as the Plague itself by Contact. In free Countries, at least, it is a branch of Liberty claimed by the People to be as wicked and as profligate as their Superiors. Thus while the Nobleman will emulate the Grandeur of a Prince; and the Gentleman will aspire to the proper State of the Nobleman, the Tradesman steps from behind his Counter into the vacant Place of the Gentleman. Nor does the Constitution end here. It reaches the very Dregs of the People, who aspiring still to a Degree beyond that which belongs to them, and not being able by the Fruits of honest Labour to support the State which they affect, they disdain the Wages to which their Industry would intitle them, and abandoning themselves to Idleness, the more simple and poor-spirited betake themselves to a stage of Starving and Beggary, while those of more Art and Courage become Thieves, Sharpers and Robbers. [Fielding 1751, p. 3]
....
Now what greater Temptation can there be to Voluptuousness, than a Place where every Sense and Appetite of which it is compounded, are fed and delighted, where the Eyes are feasted with Show, and the Ears with Musick, and where Gluttony and Drunkenness are allured by every Kind of Dainty; nay where the finest Women are exposed to View, and where the meanest Person who can dress himself clean, may in some Degree mix with his Betters, and thus perhaps satisfy his Vanity as well as his Love of Pleasure.
It may possibly be said that these Diversions are cheap; I answer, that it is one Objection I have to them. Was the Price as high as that of a Ridotto, or an Opera, it would, like these Diversions, be confined to the higher People only, besides the Cheapness is really a Delusion. Unthinking Men are often deceived into Expence, as I once knew an honest Gentleman who carried his Wife and two Daughters to a Masquerade, being told that he could have four Tickets for four Guineas; but found afterwards, that in Dresses, Masques, Chairs, &c. the Night’s Entertainment cost him almost Twelve. I am convinced that many thousands of honest Tradesmen have found their Expences exceed their Computation in a much greater Proportion. And the Sum of seven or eight Shillings (which is a very moderate Allowance for the Entertainment of the smallest Family) repeated once or twice a Week through a Summer, will make too large a Deduction from the reasonable Profits of any low Mechanic.
Besides the actual Expences in attending these Places of Pleasure, the Loss of Time and Neglect of Business are Consequences which the inferior Tradesman can by no Means support. To be born for no other Purpose than to consume the Fruits of the Earth is the Privilege (if it may be really called a Privilege) of very few. The greater Part of Mankind must sweat hard to produce them, or Society will no longer answer the Purposes for which it was ordained. [Fielding 1751, p. 5]
Fielding goes on to discuss drinking and gaming “among the vulgar” as additional causative factors. Not much “I’m OK, you’re OK” is to be found here. Justices of the peace in Fielding’s era were powerful local officials whose responsibilities included setting wage levels. Fielding is credited with setting up the Bow Street Runners, London’s first full-time paid police force.
Patrick Colquhoun (ka-HOON), 1745-1820, spent five years from age 16 to 21 trading in Virginia colony, then returned to government and business in Scotland. At age 37 he became Lord Provost of Glasgow, during which time he also founded Glasgow’s Chamber of Commerce and Manufacturing and served as its leader. He built links with Prime Minister William Pitt while lobbying for business interests in London. In 1785 he moved to London and was appointed a magistrate in the East End.
His “Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis,” which runs over 440 pages in photographic reproduction, describes the depredations which were occurring on the Thames and within its environs at that time. It includes detailed statistics on the losses born by trade and a detailed enumeration of how many of the “meanest persons” he believed to earn their daily ale through extra-legal means. (The grand total was 115,000.) The annual loss to “commerce” (the merchants) was over two million pounds, an enormous amount at that time.
Colquhoun oversaw the formation of the Thames River Police together with Jeremy Bentham and John Harriot. The force was established by government permission and funded by a trade group of West Indian merchants (who dealt in the products of slavery).
Colquhoun reported that the traders’ first annual investment of £4,200 pounds earned them £122,000 pounds in savings. Well done, Patrick.
The most memorable recollection I have (having read it more than a year ago) is that shipbuilders ought immediately to end the customary practice of allowing workers to take away a piece of wood each day as part of their pay. Such a change would represent pure profit to the merchant community.
The improvident, and even the luxurious mode of living which prevails too generally among the lower ranks in the metropolis, leads to much misery and to many crimes.
Accustomed from their earliest infancy to indulge themselves in eating many articles of expensive food in its season; and possessing little or no knowledge of that kind of frugality and care which enables well-regulated families to make everything go as far as possible, by a diversified mode of cookery and good management:—Assailed also by the numerous temptations held out by fraudulent Lotteries, and places of public resort and amusement; and above all, by the habit of spending a great deal of valuable time as well as money unnecessarily in public-houses; where they are often allured, by low gaming, to squander more than they can afford, scarcely an instance can be found of accommodating the expenditure to the income, even in the best of times, with a considerable body of the lowest and more depraved orders of the people inhabiting the capital; and hence a melancholy conclusion is drawn, warranted by an estimate generally assumed to be correct, that, including gamblers, swindlers, and all classes of criminal and depraved persons, “above twenty thousand individuals rise every morning without knowing how, or by what means they are to be supported through the passing day; and in many instances even where they are to lodge on the following night.” [pp. 32-33. Colquhoun never indicates why the last portion is within quotes.]
....
If we were to examine the history of any given number of these our miserable fellow-mortals, it would be discovered that their distresses, almost in every instance, have been occasioned by extravagance, idleness, profligacy, and crimes:—and that their chief support is by gambling, cheating, and thieving in a little way. [33]
....
It is truly pitiable to behold the abject condition of the numerous classes of profligate parents, who with their children, are, from invincible and growing habit, constantly to be found in the tap-rooms of public-houses; spending in two days, as much of their earnings as would support them comfortably in their own dwellings; destroying their health; wasting their time; and rearing up their children to be prostitutes and thieves, before they can distinguish between right and wrong. [34]
Colquhoun proceeds to advocate the control or abolition of pubs, together with moral exhortations to the "improvident," stricter regulation of domestic servants, and other similar measures, to control this problem. Essentially nothing has changed from Fielding’s 1751 analysis except the capitalization rules. Colquhoun never gets around to supporting his implicit claims about the household economies of the people he’s deriding. We’re meant, I think, to take that on faith. You see here also the caste-conscious “down-splaining” that Wilkerson describes in “Caste.” [Wilkerson 2020]
Europe in the 18th century was a vast arena of military conflict. Large armies were needed to sustain and maintain kingdoms and states. This led to the use of training to provide “martial” men. Through training such men could be built rather than found. Training was a form of power that could gradually be applied to the bodies of peasants to transform them into soldiers useful to the state in the type of moveable mass formations needed for the day's military tactics.
Training was a novel form of power at that time in its intensity and ubiquity. Training gradually, step by ordered step, built skills of strength and speed and habits of compliance. It relied on controlling the soldier at a very detailed level, his gestures and postures, through constant surveillance and supervision. Discipline became the requisite of a good soldier. The drill of training turns into the habit of obedience and docility, which can be measured and encouraged. Fighting on the battlefield was just an extension of training drills.
At the same time that training became central to the military process it was also being applied in schools, hospitals, and, as needed, in manufacturing. This was a technique of many small details patiently executed. Effective training was a great part of the success of such military leaders as Frederick “the Great” of Prussia and Napoleon Bonaparte. [Foucault 1977, pp. 135-8]
In his 1977 book "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,” French historian Michel Foucault connects this newly-enhanced technology of training to our major modern institutions, while on his way to explaining the modern institution of carceral prisons.
Foucault analyzes the structures that were developed to support this particular technology of control. In space, the subjects have to be enclosed; they have to be partitioned so that each person has his allotted and expected place; functions must be assigned to places; and ranks must be used to associate people with roles in a flexible and clear way. Activity needs to be controlled. Time-tables are used to establish regular cycles and sequences; the trained acts are elaborated over time; they are finely standardized and controlled, as in the movements of ballet, handwriting, or the "classical" playing of musical instruments. Objects are joined with the body, as the soldier with his musket or the workman with his tools; acts are repeated until they are done habitually and without reflection. Prescribed processes are developed to prepare children for defined roles; one attains a role by completing the prescribed process.
These structures and processes allowed and almost required observation, oversight, measurement, and examination. Norms of performance were established. Failure to follow rules was no longer the only type of infraction; failure to achieve norms on schedule became a punishable infraction.
Norms became not just declarative but imperative. The words "normal" and "abnormal" received their peculiar modern meanings. Why after all should it be abnormal to be abnormal? Aren't we all abnormal, that is, aren't we all individuals? Children began to be left behind, victims to the needs of the impatient system. The regime of standard examinations and the documentation of exams resulted in the individual’s parallel existence as a “file” or a “case.” Control could be exerted in the absence of the subject.
Such is the provenance of our legal system and many other modern institutional forms. We adopted English common law wholesale when we accepted our 1789 Constitution. I don’t know the true extent to which the colonial governments were or weren’t exact copies of the English, but I do know that our colonies were governed by the English monarchy until our Revolution. Departures from the King’s will were by his gracious permission. Concessions, when they were made, were made to his like-minded friends.
I don’t know to what extent our Founding Fathers would agree or disagree with Fielding or Colquhoun, but I do know that the Fathers restricted the franchise to the propertied. (We didn’t hear much about this in school.)
Incidentally, at the time that Colquhoun wrote his treatise the English had had to stop transporting their surplus and undesirable citizens to America. Here they were sold into time-limited bondage when they arrived. (See Penal transportation.) Before the English were able to replace this market for problematic humans, by increasing transportations to Australia, they set up a system of “prison hulks,” unseaworthy ship hulls, in the Thames estuary, to serve as a disposal mechanism (by disease) for these same people. These hulks were still in use when Dickens wrote “Great Expectations” immediately before our war over chattel slavery.
And such is the origin of our systems for establishing and managing norms of behavior and accomplishment. In today's world these structures and procedures are the environment we grow up and then spend our working years in. In many ways we hardly notice them and don't remark about them. People who don't respect their logic or their underlying values, though, face unpleasant futures within these institutions. In the terms of the relational models theory, these systems fit authority ranking (AR) and market pricing (MP) organizations, but are completely inimical to the logic and tone of equality matching (EM) and communal sharing (CS) relationships. In fact, we actively try to shield our CS and EM relationships from them. A beer after work can have quite a different dynamic if the boss is there.
This brief synopsis of organizational structures has pointed out that different structures are useful for different purposes, and that different structural forms promote different values. Market pricing organizations managed through authority ranking principles are in many ways quite dominant among us.
This isn't new knowledge. Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and other 19th century researchers were very interested in the effects that these quickly-growing forms were having on the economy; on political processes; and in the lives of the once-peasants who were most dearly affected by them. Franz Kafka wrote about the bizarre and impenetrable behaviors such organizations can exhibit when designed to dominate. I recommend “The Castle.”
Students, professors, managers, and highly-paid consultants closely study the myriad forms of such organizations. They are, of course, primarily interested in accentuating the efficient and eliminating the ineffective. Theory X and Theory Y are an old staple in business schools. According to Theory X, workers won't be effective unless they're closely watched over. According to Theory Y, workers want to contribute and are able to manage themselves. Sound familiar? Enlightened analysis suggests that if you treat employees as feckless, they will act fecklessly. If you trust your employees and give them more freedom and information, they will be more productive. But notice that, just as [Fiske 1992] predicted, these statements evaluate outcomes in terms of the system's fundamental organizing value, the ratio of output to input, or productivity. Not that there's anything wrong with productivity--I became an industrial engineer because at that age I thought productivity to be a central value. No, the problem isn't that productivity's unimportant, it's that important human considerations are logically and emotionally incongruent with the organizations' fundamental goal.
We have hierarchical laws and hierarchical public institutions. Because they're hierarchical, they're authoritarian. The analyses of Fielding and Colquhoun, described above, illustrate that our law enforcement and criminal justice systems were motivated by a desire to channel the activities of the underclass without either respect or noticeable concern for the dominated group. You could argue that things have changed, that our modern systems retain no trace of that, but I think you would frustrate and exhaust yourself in the attempt and convince nobody.
American law protects members of organized religions from enforced violations of their consciences. Exemptions from public policy exist or are sought based on beliefs about reproductive rights, adoption rights, “conscientious objection” to the draft. These carve-outs preferentially protect those who refer to an organized group as the authority for their belief. This is systemic authoritarianism.
The bureaucratic form systematically blunts our sense of responsibility to one another. Who has not encountered a bureaucratic stone wall? The functionary who implements it says "I don't know," or "That's the policy," or "There's nothing I can do." Sometimes you see their discomfort. They truly don't know, or perhaps have been told not to engage with you. The functionary becomes an emotional weapon directed at you or alternatively an emotional punching-bag between you and the organization, so you smile and back off. This is bound to happen in a world of complex rules and competing interests, but at the same time it's frustrating, disempowering, and dehumanizing. The identical mechanism can be used for worthy or unworthy ends without any visible difference. And how many times does this scenario repeat?
Bureaucratic hierarchies need supervisors and managers to implement AR methods of control. They must be comfortable wielding AR techniques on behalf of the organization. There is probably a natural limit on how authoritarian they can be; the staff will let them know, to the extent they're allowed to, when the managers go to far. On the other hand, there is often by design a huge imbalance of power between boss and subordinate. Organizations usually have systems in place to avoid excesses, but the situation, as the saying goes, is a "crazy-maker." The system often provides its greatest rewards, more money and more power, to those most adept at effectively wielding authority.
There has been some discussion among people who talk about these things, as to whether authoritarianism may have a natural "advantage" over liberalism in the war for hearts and minds. Here's an example. God (or gods, or gods and spirits) can provide an explanation for any phenomenon whether observed, reported, or imagined. The Hellenes had daimones of all kinds who tended to all sorts of functions. Early Christians believed that physical and spiritual afflictions were caused by demons. The more that is explained by natural order, the less need there is for gods and spirits, but on the other hand, scientific understanding is work, while attribution to incorporeal spirits is natural and apparently easy. Objects in the physical world move through the impetus of a mover. This idea extends to support the idea of a prime mover who makes everything happen. In modern science we have seen that systems can dynamically organize, perpetuate themselves, and occur naturally. Systems such as whirlpools or the solar system or genetic life. Understanding of these processes didn’t enter Western thinking until the age of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. It's still much harder to understand these than to ignore them. Advantage, hierarchy?
The growth of authority ranking (AR) organization has brought insidious ways of thinking about ourselves into our world. If I said that “Whites have higher intelligence than blacks,” would you accept it? I hear you sputtering, but explain to me why. Someone compared the intelligence scores and it’s a fact. Get over it. (I don't know whether there is such a fact, but suppose there is, and hang with me.)
The problem with such a statement, I propose, isn't "higher" but “intelligence.” We know that our intelligent minds are made up of an unknown number of special-purpose processors. Your X processor perhaps works better than mine, and my Z processor perhaps works better than yours. I know some things, a mix of the true and the un-true. You know different things. There might, I suppose, be ways in which my brain might "dominate" yours (be better in every way), if I select few enough dimensions to compare. Maybe my blood circulates better than yours, or you have a wasting condition, or we're different ages. (Do I hear you say that you want to choose the dimensions?)
But “intelligence” lumps all these factors together, so that nobody’s sure exactly what it is. What’s the functional meaning of “intelligence?” One use for it is that it allows you to rank-order people. "Intelligence" is a product of the process of comparing people that Foucault described. It applies a label and a number that carry connotations and denotations that aren’t logically justified. It’s like “smart” or "clever." Intelligence may be culturally biased indeed, in its details, but the fundamental problem with it is that its primary use is to allow people to be ranked for no particular purpose other than allocating opportunities and rewards. “Intelligence” is a hierarchy-enhancing ideological concept.
Why are we compelled to rank things? It creates one winner and countless also-rans. Can't we see what a waste it is, to cheapen all in order to raise one up? Besides, what can "best movie" or "best song" possibly mean? Why do we enjoy flattening all the dimensions of complex, substantial things into just one meaningless dimension? It makes me tired.
We live in a society that's dominated by AR and MP organizations because they get important work done. They serve our material and practical needs, but for most of us at best they fail to meet other vital needs, which we try to satisfy through CS and EM relationships on the side. A reasonable case can be made that much of what has gone by the name "mental illness" is really the outcome of too much AR (authority ranking) and MP (market pricing).
AR and MP organizations encourage habits of thought and behavior that are quite inconsistent with citizenship in a representative democracy, much less with intellectual and spiritual hygiene: suppression of discussion, deference to authority, evasion of moral responsibility, lack of rights, instrumental treatment of others. How well can representative democracy work in such an environment? Is it relevant to peoples' lives? How is healthy diversity possible?
Next: Where We Stand
More information:
[Colquhoun 1796] “A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis," Patrick Colquhoun, 1796, Scholars Select.
[Fielding 1751] “An Enquiry Into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers, &c. with some Proposals for Remedying this Growing Evil,” Henry Fielding, Esq., ECCO.
[Fiske 1992] “The Four Elementary Forms of Sociality: Framework for a Unified Theory of Social Relations,” Alan Page Fiske, “Psychological Review,” Vol. 99, No. 4, 1992.
[Foucault 1977] “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,” Michel Foucault, trans. Alan Sheridan, Vintage Books, 1977, published 1995.
© 2021, Ross A. Hangartner