Asocial relation is the fundamental unit of analysis within thesocial sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntaryinterpersonal relationship between two or moreconspecifics within and/or between groups.[1] The group can be a language or kinship group, a social institution or organization, an economic class, a nation, or gender. Social relations are derived fromhuman behavioral ecology,[2][3] and, as an aggregate, form a coherentsocial structure whose constituent parts are best understood relative to each other and to thesocial ecosystem as awhole.[4]
Early inquiries into the nature of social relations featured in the work ofsociologists such asMax Weber in his theory ofsocial action, where social relationships composed of both positive (affiliative) and negative (agonistic) interactions represented opposing effects.[5]Categorizing social interactions enables observational and other social research, such asGemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (lit. 'community and society'), collective consciousness, etc.
Ancient works which include manuals of good practice in social relations include the text ofPseudo-Phocylides, 175–227,Josephus' polemical workAgainst Apion, 198–210, and the deutero-canonical JewishBook of Sirach orEcclesiasticus,7:18–36.[6]
More recent research on social behaviour has demonstrated that newborn infants tend to instinctually gravitate towards prosocial behaviour.[7] As obligate social apes, humans are born highlyaltricial, and require an extended period of post-natal development for cultural transmission of social organization, language, and moral frameworks. In linguistic and anthropological frameworks, this is reflected in a culture'skinship terminology, with the default mother-child relation emerging as part of theembryological process.
According toPiotr Sztompka, forms of relation and interaction insociology andanthropology may be described as follows: first and most basic are animal-likebehaviors, i.e. various physical movements of the body. Then there areactions—movements with a meaning and purpose. Then there aresocial behaviors, or social actions, which address (directly or indirectly) other people, which solicit a response from another agent.
Next aresocial contacts, a pair of social actions, which form the beginning of social interactions which metadata is a big contribution.Symbols define social relationships. Without symbols, our social life would be no more sophisticated than that of animals. For example, without symbols, people would have no aunts or uncles, employers or teachers—or even brothers and sisters. In sum, symbolic interactionists analyze how social life depends on the ways people define themselves and others. They studyface-to-face interaction, examining how people make sense of life and how they determine their relationships.
| Physical movement | Meaning | Directed towards others | Await response | Unique/rare interaction | Interactions | Accidental, not planned, but repeated interaction | Regular | Interactions described by law, custom, or tradition | A scheme of social interactions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Behavior | Yes | |||||||||
| Action | Yes | Maybe | ||||||||
| Social behavior | Yes | No | Yes | |||||||
| Social action | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ||||||
| Social contact | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Social interaction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Repeated interaction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| Regular interaction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Regulated interaction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Social relation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| International | |
|---|---|
| Other | |
