Human Relationships: A Thumbnail Sketch

The starting point for understanding relationships is care. This is true both in the everyday sense – caring about football, shoes or current events – and in a deeper more technical sense: all cognition is founded on concern, whether we are talking about mice or men.

In common with all creatures we share certain, fundamental cares – avoiding pain and seeking pleasure for example. In common with many creatures we care about our status in the social order. In common with many people, we care about Brexit. In common with a few professional colleagues, I care about learning design.

In this way we can begin to understand the structure of individual personality – which branches from relatively innate cares which we share with all creatures, through culturally definitive cares, culminating in those distinctive cares which make us the person that we are. 

These patterns allow us to seek out the company of people who share our concerns and form a group, in which we experience ‘belonging’ (a sense of being part of a group who share our core concerns). Being an individual does not mean ‘having a care that no-one else does’ but rather ‘sharing cares with others in a way which is distinctive’. Your pattern of cares are your ‘psychological thumbprint’ if you like.

What makes us the person that we are? If, by this, we mean ‘how do we come to be the person we are, with our distinctive pattern of concerns?’ then we can say that it is our experiences – but more importantly: the effect they have on shaping what we care about.

This is why it is both true and not true to say that each of us is a product of our experiences – since people may react differently to the same experience. It would be more accurate to say that we are a product of our reactions to experiences.

Our shared biology makes us the same as other creatures, makes us experience some things in the same way (such as hunger or pain). But then it is our shared culture that shapes us – makes us part of a group. For example, in British culture an interest in football is common, and connects a great many people into a common group by virtue of this shared concern. What happens is this: we share an experience (say, going to a football match as a child), we share a set of reactions (we share in the excitement), by virtue of this process the word ‘football’ comes to elicit a shared reaction.

As you can see – just as our cares serve to connect us to others, they serve to separate us. The same words may cause a different reaction in different people. In addition, as we develop more specific cares – for example a love of country & western music – we will find ourselves members of smaller groups.

And so it is this distinctive pattern of cares that makes us an individual – that both connects us an separates us from others. In everyday conversation, we engage in some form of orientation with respect to these cares – to establish just where the overlaps lie. We begin by remarking on the weather, for example – working our way up the order of  precedence – all creatures hate cold, wet weather after all. It’s a safe conversational space. Then we look for areas of culturally common ground – did you see the match last night? Finally we explore the more detailed cares – ‘I like archery’. Notice how this process works: we are systematically defining the degree to which our cares correspond. Eventually we will discover some dissonance, and this will define the boundaries of our individuality and the nature of our relationship.

Some of our cares lie closer to our self-definition than others – not all cares are equal. I may have an interest in Arsenal football club, but not a deep attachment.

Those cares to which we have a deep attachment – which are sometimes called ‘core values’ – these are the values around which we construct a personal narrative. Each of us constructs a kind of story, in which we stand in a positive relationship to these cares. We may be ‘seekers of truth’ for example or ‘champions of justice’.

In our relationships with others - in conversation, in collaboration, in partnerships – tensions arise. These arise because we discover our differences, and these differences in turn challenge our identity. How do differences arise at all? How do we discover our differences? Imagine, for example, two people from different cultures – both of whom use the word ‘love’.

The word ‘love’ is a sound which reflects something that they both care about – at a biological level the desire for companionship is a primitive care. But their respective cultures have shaped these cares differently – for one culture ‘love’ is associated with the giving of gifts, for another ‘love’ is associated with regular, open, communication. Notice how it is experience that shapes these cares – people do not learn about love through instruction in a classroom – but by observing and feeling, by experiencing and reacting.

You might wonder how differences surface and are resolved: both people make the same sound ‘love’ with their voices – but both have a very different pattern of concerns that underpin the sound. What will often happen is that differences in the way people behave will precipitate an argument: ‘you say you love me, but we never talk!’ followed by: ‘you know I love you – I bought you new shoes at the weekend!’

The role of language is therefore often to hide difference. How does one resolve difference? One way is through shared experience. Shared experiences provide a reference point for shared cares, since people experience something similar. You will notice immediately that people may not experience something similar – which is why shared experiences that build on bore basic concerns (such as eating together, dancing together, making music together) are powerful. More importantly, people must find a way to talk about the meaning of words – rather than assuming that the meaning is shared. In order to build relationships we must be able to have the conversation in which we say ‘this is what this word means to me, and this is how it is shown.’

We don’t often do this. Instead, we assume that a common language implies a common set of cares – when quite often it obscures our differences.

So in our relationships there is always some tension due to difference. You will always care differently, and we will differ in our flexibility – in the extent to which our cares are changeable or not. Usually people will have some non-negotiable ‘core cares’ and a host or negotiable ones. The ratio will vary. For example, you may persuade me to like Opera (I am quite open to different musical experiences) but not to like Descartes (he has poisoned Western culture with his conceit). Our strength of feeling will determine our individual nature, and our openness to change.

This way of thinking about personality and individual difference will of course feel strange to someone used to ‘The Big 5’ for example. I am not denying the value of such systems, but merely highlighting the risk that they distract us from the real substance of individual differences: they are a bit like judging a book by the different colours of cover, or weight, or typeface. A characteristic such as introversion/extraversion may be determined by biological factors – but who that person becomes will vary according to what they care about, in a more profound sense.

Day-to-day it can be hard to spot differences. In large part this is because of an innate concern regarding 'fitting in'/conformity. For fear of social consequences, people behave very much as their current group are behaving - in a way which effectively suppresses the expression of individual difference.

What the approach outlined here explains is the importance to relationships of communication in which people explain what they care about (especially as it relates to core cares), how they intend different words, and of shared experience. Without such communication, narratives will diverge. People may be saying the same words, but what they mean – and how they behave -  will be very different.