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The Define situation screen allows you to specify how an interactant sees self and others. An interactant adopts an identity (or role) for self and complementary identities for others.
Select a experiencer with the topmost pop-up menu. An experiencer is the interactant whose views are being displayed. Select an interactant who is being viewed with the lower pop-up menu .
The full list of identities can be accessed by using the scroll-bar at the side of the list. Select an identity for a person by clicking on the appropriate word or phrase in the list. The selected item will be highlighted. You can unselect an item by clicking on it again.
Cop-crook example. Person 1 could see himself as a cop and the other person as a crook. Representing this view involves two steps. (1) Having selected Person 1 in the experiencer pop-up menu, you select Person 1 in the lower pop-up menu, then click on cop in the identity list. (2) With Person 1 still selected in the experiencer pop-up menu, select Person 2 in the lower pop-up menu, and click on crook in the identity list.
A social happening can be analyzed using definitions for just one person. Results reflect that person's sex and view of others. However, you have to define multiple people in order to see how different gender cultures interact, and to see how different definitions of a situation cause people to perform unexpected actions for one another.
After you are done defining Person 1, you may select Person 2 in the experiencer pop-up menu in order to specify Person 2's name, sex, and definition of the situation. Interact allows you to specify the definitions of the situation for up to four people.
You will find that Person 1's definitions of self and others have been reproduced for Person 2 as a shortcut for dealing with interactants who have identical definitions of the situation. However, you may change the selections as you wish.
In advanced mode the form shows a list of characteristics that a person may have. A characteristic defines something special about the person, aside from the person's identity. A characteristic can be a mood like depressed, a personal trait like intelligent, a general status like rich, or a moral condition like evil. Interact combines the characteristic with the person's identity to form an overall concept.
Cop-crook example. Here is how you would modify the cop-crook situation by selecting young and old as characteristics of the two people. (1) While specifying Person 1's self view, click on young in the list of characteristics. (2) While specifying Person 1's view of Person 2, click on old. That would mean that Person 1 sees himself as a young cop and he sees Person 2 as an old crook.
In advanced mode the form shows a list of settings where the interaction can occur. Making a selection from the settings list adds the selected setting to the experiencer's definition of the situation. The setting influences how the experiencer feels about events and what events the experiencer expects will happen.
Cop-crook example. You could have the cop conscious of interacting with a crook during an interrogation by clicking interrogation in the settings list when the experiencer menu shows Person 1.
In advanced mode, Interact shows the Evaluation- Potency-Activity (EPA) profile for a selected setting, identity, or modifier. The computed profile for a combination of identity and modifier also is shown.
Interact 's EPA profiles have been obtained empirically from people in a given culture. The first number in an EPA profile is a measure of Evaluation (positive for good, nice; negative for bad, awful). The second number indicates Potency (positive for powerful, big; negative for powerless, little). The third number indicates Activity (positive for lively, noisy, active; negative for still, quiet, inactive). Experiment with the exhibit, Three Dimensions of Affective Meaning, to get a feel for EPA measurements.
You can make additions to sentiment lists by entering EPA profiles in the number boxes below each list. Click in box to get a cursor. Type an EPA profile with the three numbers separated by spaces and/or commas, and press the Enter key. You will see a new entry in the list whose "word" is composed of the numbers that you entered. The entry is not a permanent addition to the list, but the entry does remain available until you end your Interact session, or load a different culture. The temporary entry can be used in defining a situation just like regular words in the list.
The new entry uses the same EPA profile for both males and females. It passes through all concept gates.
A drop-down menu titled "Institution" appears at lower left in the form. This allows you to gate concepts in the settings list and in the identities list so that only concepts related to a specific social institution are displayed.
For example, select Law. Doing so eliminates many settings, leaving just those that might befit interactions among individuals enacting legal roles. Identities also are reduced to just those befitting legal institutions.