Relational Social Psychological Framework on Agency and Values: The Case of Rural Small Business Owners

• In Event: 447 - Section on Social Psychology Roundtable Session (co-sponsored with Section on Sociology of Emotions)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Emotions and Theory Construction

Abstract

Social scientists have discussed the distinction between two broad meta-theoretical frameworks: the substantial and the relational. Substantialism presumes that the social world consists primarily in substances; static “things, beings, essences”, which may or may not interact with each other. Relationalism takes processes as the unit of all enquiries. Instead of interaction between fixed entities, relational research focuses on the processes and relations in which entities are constructed and given meanings. Agency and values are among the key concepts of social psychology. Although these concepts have mainly been used within the substantial framework, they can also be interpreted within the relational framework. In this paper we illustrate the substantial and the relational readings of agency and values with empirical study of rural small business owners’ values. We interpret the results of a value survey gathered in Finland in 2012 first from the substantial perspective and then from the relational perspective. The two perspectives lead to fairly different views on rural small business owners’ agency. The article contributes to the relational social psychological understanding of agency and values as embedded in social interaction.

Authors

• Miira Niska, University of Helsinki

• Hannu T. Vesala, Finnish Association on Intellectual and Development Disabilities

• Kari Mikko Vesala, University of Helsinki