The Love of the Unknown Child. The Socio-Cognitive Construction of Parental Affection
The research discussed in this paper presents an analysis of socio-cognitive mechanisms of the genesis of parental affection in the case of international and domestic adoption in France. Our goal is to demonstrate that parental affection results from the interaction between adoptive parents, who construct and interiorise their adoption project, and institutional actors who impose adoption norms and constraints throughout administrative procedures. The cognitive dimension of affection is explored through the concept of mental files borrowed from analytical philosophy. The results of the research present an analysis of the ways adoptive parents construct and interiorise the mental files of adoptees along with the ways they include the latter in the family lineage.