[Petit Fours #446] On conversation, social exchange, and foraging
Hi, all! Launching into Q4/2025, here’s what I’ve got for you:
#1 Our chapter on Social Exchange in the new Handbook of Social Psychology is now online. It was a joy to write for a social science audience for a change, and even more so to collaborate with Coye Cheshire and Karen S. Cook. Here’s the abstract: “Social exchanges are an essential part of our everyday lives, including face-to-face interpersonal relations, digitally mediated interpersonal communications, engagements with groups or associations offline or online, and interactions with the institutions in which our lives are embedded. In the first half of this chapter, we consider social behavior as exchange, including the links between social exchange and social structure, power dynamics, and how different types of exchange are associated with commitment, social cohesion, fairness, and collective action. In the second half, we discuss the social exchange approach at the micro (i.e., interpersonal), meso (e.g., groups and organizations), and macro (institutional) levels of analysis. We address both non-economic and economic aspects of exchange at each level, across a variety of substantive applications. We conclude with comments on new developments and future directions for social exchange research, including in key areas such as healthcare and technology-mediated exchange platforms.”
#2 Speaking of colleagues in California, the School of Information at UC Berkeley – my academic home away from home – is hiring an Assistant Professor in Information: “Information is the core discipline upon which the School of Information is based. At its simplest, information can be thought of as data with context, and information can be leveraged to create metadata, new data, new information, and/or new knowledge. -- We seek applicants who can address key questions like how should metadata and categories be designed, and what are the social consequences of those technical choices? What is the relationship between information, misinformation, and disinformation, and what are the social psychological underpinnings of their spread? How should data and information systems be designed, and how can these systems be audited and governed? How is information collectively created, and how does this differ between, for instance, scholarly publishing and social media content? What are the unintended consequences that emerge from the ways information is designed and used? What are the implications for various information systems in real-world contexts such as science, health, policy, business, law, or other areas?” Please spread the word if you know someone whose plans and profile this’d fit!
#3 Jonas Ivarsson has published a lovely, thoughtful short piece in AI & Society. Here’s an excerpt from When machines speak to give you a taste: “This is how the social holds together: Through quiet affirmations in the background, mutual recognitions, subtle adjustments—the continuous calibration of our place within a horizon of meaning we do not inhabit alone. This work is not hidden. It happens in the open. Visible, but rendered invisible through repetition. So ordinary, so constant, that its depth often escapes us.“
#4 Autumn has arrived, and with it, the mushroom foraging season. Blek taggsvamp by Bengt af Klintberg is a delightful collection of poems that capture some of what’s mundane and magical about this season.
-A