You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In a wide-ranging argument, Alan Fiske (1991) proposes that almost all social action is explicable in terms of one or another of four models of social logic, which describe endogenous, discrete motivational bases for participation in social affairs. He calls the models “Communal Sharing”, “Authority Ranking,” “Equality Matching,” and “Market Pricing.” Fiske argues his case persuasively, and his formulation may be an important contribution to social science. But he says little of significance about psychoanalysis. This article introduces Fiske's scheme and analyzes parts of it from psychoanalytic and phenomenological perspectives. Both analyses reveal certain points of convergence between his scheme and the psychoanalytic view of psychosocial phenomena. If Fiske is on to something, the points of convergence lend support to the pertinent aspects of psychoanalytic theory (the phenomenological support should not be overlooked in this regard). By the same
Dr. Forsyth is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern Colorado, Pueblo, Colorado.
This is a revised and expanded version of a paper that appeared in The Norwegian Journal of Anthropology, and part of it was delivered at a seminar sponsored by the Institute and Museum of Anthropology at the University of Oslo. I am grateful for comments made at that seminar, and for comments on an early draft of the paper from Katherine Ewing, David Spain, Melford Spiro, and Howard Stein.
token, because Fiske eschews or rejects psychoanalysis in building his argument, the convergence shows psychoanalysis corroborating relevant parts of his formulation. Outside the convergence, however, psychoanalysis can suggest certain refinements of the models. Some of the proposed changes are defended theoretically and empirically, and other areas in which psychoanalysis could elaborate and refine the scheme are indicated.