In the Home: A Relational Analysis of Interactions between Family Members
The debate regarding the value of action theory and relational models for understanding human interaction still gives rise to heated debates. Although much rigorous scientific work has already been accomplished to debunk the idea that humans are interest driven individuals whose behaviours are the result of their intention, skepticism remains as to how well a relational model could effectively understand human behaviour in a real world setting. In order to answer this question, interactions between family members were recorded in their home over the course of a week. This presentation shared some of the findings and showed that, even in a real world setting, intention is not a determining factor when understanding interactions. Only in 13.1 % of cases were we able to find an intention as part of the interaction. In 9.3 % of the cases, intention emerges as a part of the dynamic that is taking place between family members and only 3.8% appear to be as a result of an intention that existed prior to the interaction. In 2.3 % of the cases, it appears that the intention does not integrate into the current interaction and only 0.4% of the cases demonstrate that the intention persists when new information is provided. These results clearly demonstrate that intention is not the dominant factor during interactions between family members in a real world setting and appears very consistent with prior research on the topic.