Conditions of Interpersonal Transcendence

Abstract

The concept of “transcendence” is proposed as a state of maximal receptivity and absorption in an interaction that is characterized by a sense of mutuality, connection, insight, and discovery. With this concept as the point of departure, a model of mutually driven ideation is developed. This model specifies a number of mechanisms of interpersonal influence and, by extension, various conditions under which the experience of transcendence is more or less likely to occur. Listening scholars have long relied on the concepts of cognitive science in understanding perception and sense-making. The model developed here, also a cognitive model, affords an alternative vocabulary and perspective that may prove to have implications beyond the “listening-in-the-extreme” case of transcendence.

Notes

¹Indeed, we would hold that this line of argument is predicated on fallacious understandings and reasoning and that there is nothing inherent to the project of cognitive science that obscures or precludes addressing the socially embedded nature of thought and action (see Greene, 1984, 1994).

²To illustrate the point, consider examples as disparate as Sanders's (1987, 1997) sophisticated discourse-based approach and Waldron's (1997) model of conversational planning.

³Our characterization of transcendence as being typified by a sense of exploration and discovery and by the absence of self-consciousness is influenced by Csikzentmihalyi's (e.g., 1990, 1996) conception of “flow”—coalition formation and an optimal state of consciousness that arises from total immersion in an activity that presents challenges that approximate the limits of one's ability. At the same time, there are certain essential distinctions between the two phenomena. For example, although he clearly recognizes and addresses the interpersonal implications of his theorizing, Csikzentmihalyi holds that flow can emerge from solitary activities (e.g., woodworking), whereas, as is made apparent in our exposition to follow, transcendence is fundamentally a social phenomenon. Moreover, in Csikzentmihalyi's treatment, the conditions that give rise to flow include situations with unambiguous goals and immediate performance feedback. Transcendence, on the other hand, may well emerge in interpersonal situations without clear social or task objectives. As a third example, although again Csikzentmihalyi emphasizes the implications of flow for a happy and fulfilling life, he also contends that the individual in a state of flow does not typically feel happy (1990, p. 123). In contrast, as our treatment makes clear, we think of transcendence as a state typically characterized by positive affect.

⁴It is also important to note in the context of this discussion of the nature of “rapport,” “flow,” and “transcendence” that Tickle-Degnen and her associates (e.g., Puccinelli & Tickle-Degnen, 2004; Tickle-Degnen, 2006) have proposed and undertaken studies of links between Csikzentmihalyi's (e.g., 1990) formulation and their own.

⁵That interpersonal transcendence is fundamentally a conjoint activity does not necessarily entail that it is a shared phenomenon. That is, one person might experience engagement, connection, discovery, etc., in an interaction that for his or her partner is predictable, even scripted.

⁶We invoke sequential and hierarchical combination here simply for expository purposes. In fact, we believe that action features, in the same representational format, or level of abstraction, may meld simultaneously (rather than sequentially).

⁷Executive processes are themselves nothing more than procedural routines, subject to the same processes of activation and decay that govern other action features or coalitions.

⁸By extension (and equally unremarkably), when people's goals, perceptions, and interpretations more closely coincide, they are more likely to behave similarly.

⁹We have in mind here something more contentious than playful jousting and repartee.