Responsibility and Other Social Regulators

Over the past month or so, I have written several posts on social regulation, mostly discussing guilt and shame, including transitions from shame to guilt cultures, but also bringing up the fact that, from a Gravesean perspective, there are many more social regulators, including things like the idea of responsibility and adhering to principles.

This suggests that I ought to spend some time discussing these other forms of social regulation which have emerged over time, both psychologically and socially. Fortunately, Yasuhiko Genku Kimura has already done the work for me on responsibility. I couldn't have stated it better or more clearly.

That leaves me with discussing familial disappointment and rituals as social regulators (tribal), collective guilt (egalitarian), naturalistic principles (integrative), and the kind of globalized contextual regulation we find in holistic psychologies, since I have already discussed shame and guilt, and Kimura has done an excellent job with responsibility.

So stay tuned. And do keep in mind that as new social regulators are added, the old ones don't exactly go away -- any more than do other aspects of one's emergent, increasingly complex psychologies. But that integration is itself another posting entirely.