Dramatic action: A theater-based paradigm for analyzing human interactions

March Dramatic action: A theater-based paradigm for analyzing human interactions Yuvalal Liron 0 1 Noa Raindel 0 1 Uri Alon 0 1 0 Theater lab, Weizmann Institute of Science , Rehovot , Israel , 2 Dept. Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science , Rehovot , Israel 1 Editor: Sune Lehmann, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet , DENMARK Existing approaches to describe social interactions consider emotional states or use ad-hoc descriptors for microanalysis of interactions. Such descriptors are different in each context thereby limiting comparisons, and can also mix facets of meaning such as emotional states, short term tactics and long-term goals. To develop a systematic set of concepts for secondby-second social interactions, we suggest a complementary approach based on practices employed in theater. Theater uses the concept of dramatic action, the effort that one makes to change the psychological state of another. Unlike states (e.g. emotions), dramatic actions aim to change states; unlike long-term goals or motivations, dramatic actions can last seconds. We defined a set of 22 basic dramatic action verbs using a lexical approach, such as `to threaten'±the effort to incite fear, and `to encourage'±the effort to inspire hope or confidence. We developed a set of visual cartoon stimuli for these basic dramatic actions, and find that people can reliably and reproducibly assign dramatic action verbs to these stimuli. We show that each dramatic action can be carried out with different emotions, indicating that the two constructs are distinct. We characterized a principal valence axis of dramatic actions. Finally, we re-analyzed three widely-used interaction coding systems in terms of dramatic actions, to suggest that dramatic actions might serve as a common vocabulary across research contexts. This study thus operationalizes and tests dramatic action as a potentially useful concept for research on social interaction, and in particular on influence tactics. Introduction Defining the facets of human social interaction is central to fields ranging from psychology and sociology to artificial intelligence and human-machine interface. Much research is focused, for example, on recognition and classification of human states which play a role in social interactions, such as emotions\. The classic studies of Ekman[1±3] on basic emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, and happiness has led to work in computer science and psychology on the recognition and elicitation of emotion in diverse stimuli[4±14]. In addition to emotion, other well-known facets of human states and behaviors include motivation[ 15,16 ], narratives[17], speech acts[18] and other constructs. Whereas adequate concepts exist to characterize human individual states, there is a lack of concepts to characterize the fundamentally dyadic nature of social interactions, and especially second-by-second influence tactics that people exhibit when they interact with each other. This lack of concepts is evident in calls to consider cognitive processes in the `we-mode'[ 19 ] and in the emergence of fields such as social neuroscience[ 20 ]. Existing concepts for social interaction seem to be context-specific. Detailed studies of dyadic interaction in contexts such as parent-infant[ 21 ], therapist-client[ 22 ], doctor-patient[ 23,24 ] and married couples[ 25,26 ] use ad-hoc descriptors to analyze second-by-second interactions. For example, analysis of married couples can predict divorce rates based on interactions described as contempt, stonewalling, criticism and defensiveness[ 26 ]. Client-therapist relations are improved by positive regard and attending[ 22 ], and placebo effects are increased by appropriate shifts from engaged listening to high-status suggestion[ 27 ]. Other approaches analyze body language [ 28,29 ] or speech prosody[30]. Although useful in their specific contexts, there is a lack of a systematic set of concepts that capture what people do in dyadic social interactions on the timescale of seconds. To approach such a systematic set of concepts, we consider an arena that has developed powerful approaches to re-create social interaction: the practice of theater (including cinema and other modes of performance). Theater often aims to create specific portrayals of human interaction. Accumulated experience shows that instructions for actors based on individual psychological factors such as emotion, motivation and narrative are not enough to generate the desired performance[ 31 ]. Theater directors and actors rely on an additional layer which is thought to be essential for creating believable interaction. This facet of behavior is called dramatic action[ 32 ]. Here we aim to operationalize and test dramatic action as a potentially useful concept for research on social interaction, and in particular on influence tactics. Dramatic action (DA) in theater is an informal concept that indicates what kind of effort the character (...truncated)