Orientation to Social Relations
Relations are Psychosocial
All relationships are simultaneously personal and social: they exist both within the psyche, imaginatively and emotionally, and within the social arena, publicly and formally.
The personal dimension is what breathes life into the relationship. It provides for sensitivity and flexibility, warmth and interest, pleasure and frustration, joy and sadness, closeness or distance.
A person may exist in a relationship either in an instrumental or mindful state.
The social dimension provides the context that shapes norms of feeling, enables civility and morality, ensures respect or deference, has legal implications, and confirms belonging through group-based identities and roles.
Examples:
Employment is based on a compact (personal) as well as a contract (social).
Marriage depends on formalization (social) as well as affection (personal).
Relations may be formed involuntarily as in families or communities, or voluntarily as in friendships, social circles, and employment.
Ceasing a relationship, whatever its quality, creates a sense of loss. This does not apply to interactions that are purely transactional.
Transactions are Psychosocial
Relationships that are transactional are not relationships at all. They are bureaucratic mechanisms for interacting created to serve a specific psychosocial function e.g. lodging a tax return lodged, buying a ticket, refunding a purchase, exchanging money, receiving information. In many cases, the person on the other side can be replaced by software or a machine—which is often the case nowadays even though that may be hidden.
When a person participates in such an instrumental transaction, they may be pleased or relieved that the function is performed. However the experience of indifference and disinterest can be distressing. If the transaction does not proceed as desired, then terms like mindless, cold-blooded and inhuman are used.
It is sometimes worthwhile to convert a transaction into a relationship e.g. with a waiter who regularly serves you in your regular restaurant. It is rarely a good idea to treat a natural relationship as a transactional interaction e.g. with a tradesman, tenant or teacher whose sensitivity to your needs and wishes is important.
Social Relations need Cultivation
As became evident in the search for in the previous section, a satisfactory relationship does not spring from feelings of empathy and affection alone, because these only address the personal dimension.
The social dimension of any relationship must be specifically addressed, developed and cultivated. In many cases, the social dimension is primary and then the label«» is appropriate.
Cultivation is a form of that draws on and .
Any social relation becomes part of a network. So when forming one social relation, you are unavoidably entering into something wider. Others then interact with you as representing a social unit.
The framework for clarifying social compatibility, just completed, not surprisingly turns out to be the foundation for understanding what is involved in cultivating social relations.
- Commence the taxonomic investigation of social relations.
Originally posted: 31-Oct-2026.
