Social Interaction in Encounter and Greeting: From the Common Basis of Human and Animal

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K12445
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cognitive science
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Kimura Daiji 京都大学, アフリカ地域研究資料センター, 教授 (40242573)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 藪田 慎司 帝京科学大学, 生命環境学部, 教授 (50350814)
• Research Collaborator: TAKANASHI Katsuya ; NAKAMURA Michio ; HANAMURA Shunkichi
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 出会い / 挨拶 / 別れ / 共在 / 焦点の定まった相互作用 / 焦点の定まらない相互作用 / 匿名性

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research, we tried to discuss humans and animals on the same ground, with the theme of "encounter" and the "greeting". As a result, the vision was obtained that "encounter" must be captured in social contexts where meeting and partings are repeated. Through the research, we could have accurate analyses on various cases at encountering and parting. In addition, in parting, it became clear that humans exchange greetings, but other animals do not show such behavior; this finding will provide clues to clarify the unique nature of human interaction.

Free Research Field

人類学，コミュニケーション論

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

「出会い系」などという言葉がネット界に溢れるように，現代は人々が出会いに渇望し，出会うことが難しい時代である。なぜ出会いとはそのような難しさを孕んでいるのか。この研究は，この問いに答える方向性を示し得たと考える。また，相互行為論の領域においても，出会いはある種特異な存在であり，この研究はその特異さの原因をかなりの程度示すことができた。