Sociality: Theorizing, Collecting Data, Modeling, and Theorizing Again

Bill Griffin - Arizona State University  

Abstract: The purpose of this talk will be to describe the work currently being done in our lab to investigate the process of sociality among human groups.  We are interested in three aspects of sociality as it applies to young children (3 – 5 yrs) forming playgroups in a preschool setting: ontology, morphology, and diachrony.  This work uniquely integrates theory, data collection, and computer modeling.  Uniqueness, in this case, comes from our efforts to use theory to inform data collection, and to use simulations to ask questions of the theory.  Simulation construction, of course, depends on theory – but the result of the modeled processes forces new theoretical suppositions.  This amalgam of method and theory – and its focus on the process of being social will be discussed and illustrated.  Although the present study focuses on children, we assume that the processes identified in this work are – or may be – isomorphic to all social groups.

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