UCLA

Enduring social relationships structured the emergence of human uniqueness and remain the cornerstone of human adaptation across societies. However, there is little systematic comparative data on the patterning of human relationships and the psychological mechanisms underlying their variation. The present research develops a theoretical framework for the functional organization of affect as it regulates social-relational behavior, and tests implications of this framework with quantitative data from 20 months of fieldwork in Yasawa, Fiji. Chapter 1 uses "contempt" as a case study to develop the ASE (Attitude-Scenario-Emotion) model of affect, in which attitudes, as enduring representations of the fitness affordances of other persons, adaptively moderate constellations of emotions as embodied reactions to relational events. I sketch five attitude dimensions that map onto distinct social affordances: love, like, respect, hate, and fear. Decomposing "contempt" in these terms, the core of this cultural model is not a basic or uniquely human emotion but an ancient attitude of no respect and its emotional consequences. This account resolves the "special case" of contempt. Chapter 2 presents a series of interviews that investigate the conceptual structure of the Yasawan affect lexicon. Results suggest that Yasawans use distinct sets of terms to refer to attitudes and emotions; the predicted set of social attitudes anchor the conceptual organization of Yasawan affect; these attitudes differentially and adaptively moderate emotions across social scenarios; and each attitude is emotionally pluripotent. Chapter 3 investigates dyadic social attitudes and relational behaviors within the male social network of one Yasawan village. I describe three relational economic games that integrate recipient identities and other-other tradeoffs while maintaining decision confidentiality. Target need and "chiefliness" drive receiving and buffer against being taken from, while target income drives being reduced at a cost. Attitudes towards targets fully mediate receipt and loss, but not suffering spiteful reduction. These games tap the egalitarian ethos of Fiji, while illuminating the roles of endogenous attitudes and impersonal inequity aversion in structuring Fijian hierarchy. Together these studies advance the comparative endeavor to describe and explain, ultimately and proximately, variation in social relationships as they structure and support human adaptation.