Abstract
In this paper I focus on possible boosting factors for the sense of we-agency in joint actions. My aim is to shed light on a factor that, until now, has received little or no consideration at all, and that I call vitality attunement. I argue that vitality attunement stands between two other boosting factors for the sense of we-agency—i.e., rhythmic alignment and emotional attunement. Investigating two examples of joint action, i.e., dancing and joint musical performances, I show that vitality attunement is not reducible to either of the other two boosting factors and that it deserves to be studied on its own as a distinctive boosting factor for the sense of we-agency. In order to argue for my thesis, I first introduce some of the most crucial aspects of the sense of we-agency in joint actions, then I analyze how rhythmic alignment and emotional attunement have been argued to foster such an experience, and finally I introduce vitality attunement, describing how it too can be a boosting factor for the sense of we and of we-agency.
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Notes
To be sure, Pacherie (2014) starts developing an account of proper we-agency as differing from self-agency for a joint outcome (37–42). However, I will not refer to it here because I find it suffers from a potential issue, i.e., the idea of the purest we-agency as completely blurring the boundary between self- and other-agency, and between self and other. Since, as I will show in what follows, I believe that the sense of plurality and differentiation between self and other are necessary aspects of proper we-experiences and of proper we-agency, I will not refer to Pacherie’s account of we-agency here. For possible criticisms of Pacherie’s account on this point, see Salmela and Nagatsu (2017).
Giving these examples I am not excluding the possibility that co-agents can be vitality-attuned under different respects, e.g. one’s aggressive voice being attuned with another’s aggressive posture. Indeed, as mentioned when dealing with Stern’s notion of “forms of vitality”, the same form of vitality can pertain to different phenomena, so that forms of vitality are cross-modal. This is why vitality attunement may involve different aspects of behavior in different co-agents. I thank the editors of this volume for giving me the opportunity to clarify this point.
I consider vitality attunement to be a general phenomenon, which can happen in different forms—being similar to emotional attunement under this respect. Therefore, for instance, I would admit cases in which two or more people may just happen to be vitality-attuned in their behavior, since different causes or reasons lead them to the same form of vitality. Similarly, two or more people can be vitality-attuned even though they are not mutually aware of such an attunement. However, there can also be cases in which those who are vitality-attuned are so because of the same reasons or causes and are mutually aware of being vitality-attuned. I believe it is likely that these latter cases of vitality attunement can be better boosting factors for the sense of we-agency than the former I mentioned. However, I would not exclude that even the former can boost the sense of we-agency, even without being themselves proper we-experiences—similarly to the cases of involuntary rhythmic alignment and emotional contagion considered before. I thank the editors of this volume for giving me the opportunity to clarify this point.
To be sure, there can be some cases in which vitality attunement is in place without proper rhythmic alignment being there, too. This is the case, for instance, when you make a simple movement, such as pressing a button, with a high degree of force and I respond with a movement of a similar amount of force, leading to a minimal form of vitality—say, hastiness—attunement between your movement and my own (I would like to thank an anonymous referee for this example and for making me reflect on it). Examples such as these would also have the merit of showing that, even though vitality attunement is often founded on rhythmic alignment, the former can hardly be reduced to the latter, as I will also show in Sect. 4.2. However, since here we are focusing on joint actions developing in time, it seems highly plausible to me to still defend the idea that, at least in these cases, vitality traits of actions are indeed founded on their rhythmic development in time and, therefore, that vitality attunement is founded on rhythmic alignment. As I have shown, this also depends on the Sternian account I endorse about forms of vitality and their dependance on specific physical aspects of the phenomena under consideration.
This inertia generally helps the follower assuming the same vitality feature as the leader. However, one might object that "relaxed inertia" is itself a vitality feature, which is different and perhaps even opposed to the more active character of the leader, so that the leader and the follower cannot be said to be vitality-attuned. However, not being vitality-attuned under one respect does not mean that two or more people cannot be vitality-attuned under another respect. In this sense, the different inertia between the follower and the leader does not prevent them to obtain vitality attunement in other aspects. I thank the editors for letting me clarify this point.
This does not exclude that for a good performance to be in place—and, in this case, for passionate love to be adequately expressed in tango—dancers may sometimes need to share some other emotion or affect, such as trust or feelings of togetherness (I thank an anonymous reviewer for making me think of this possibility). However, this does not seem to invalidate my main point, i.e. that two people can be attuned in the vitality aspects of their movements without being attuned emotionally in a corresponding way. Moreover, I do not see as totally implausible the hypothesis according to which a vitality form of passionate love can be expressed by two dancers in a tango even when no proper emotional attunement is in place: in these cases, however, it is likely that the joint action—with its resulting form of vitality—should be supported by other (less emotional) factors, such as some form of joint commitment, shared intentions, etc. (Gilbert, 2013; Michael & Pacherie, 2015).
Here I admit the possibility that, at least sometimes, emotions may not be expressed in behavior—as in cases of concealing or repressing overt expressions. Still, I do recognize that bodily expressions are a default way of manifesting emotions, and I would also maintain that expressions can be sometimes so structurally and functionally significant for an emotion that such an emotion would be significantly altered if those expressions were not in place. Cf. Stein (1917), Scheler (1923), Krueger and Overgaard (2012), Krueger (2018) and Forlè (2020a).
Even though co-agents may not always be aware of being vitality-attuned, they can sometimes be so. I maintain that, at least in these cases, vitality attunement can foster co-agents’ mutual predictability and a stronger sense of agency for a joint outcome.
As I mentioned before, in the model I endorse here, self-alienation is understood in terms of decreasing one’s distance from the other by experiencing others’ perspectives on oneself so that one can see oneself through the eyes of the other (see Zahavi 2015, p. 94).
I thank an anonymous referee for letting me focus on this possible issue.
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Forlè, F. The sense of we-agency and vitality attunement: between rhythmic alignment and emotional attunement. Phenom Cogn Sci (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-021-09779-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-021-09779-2