Abstract
The social sciences and the humanities—especially sociology and psychology—have adopted a “negativistic” approach since their inception, i.e., a modus operandi that tends to bring out only negative or pathological phenomena without ever highlighting positive and healthy ones. Moreover, they were characteristically oriented towards societal contrasts often ignoring the meaningful interactions between all the elements that constitute and give life to socio-cultural phenomena (personality, society, and culture). Researchers usually refer to conditions that affect the individual, but further analysis shows that in everyday life these conditions are in fact closely related to social and cultural aspects. The latter feature has often been neglected in studies on positive aspects of daily life such as gratitude, altruism, solidarity, cooperation, etc., since these are not considered a problematic (negative) aspect of society but rather a regular aspect of human and social events. From here, starting from Archer’s morphogenetic cycle and reaching out to Luccarelli’s The Asymmetry in Gratitude, we will examine through the perspective of the relational theory of society gratitude as a symbolic-cultural reality and therefore a key to read daily life.
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Mangone, E. Gratitude and the Relational Theory of Society. Hu Arenas 2, 34–44 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-018-0040-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-018-0040-8