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Interactions, Relationships and Social Structure Author(s): R. A. Hinde Source: Man, New Series, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Mar., 1976), pp. 1-17 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2800384 Accessed: 02/08/2009 08:53
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INTERACTIONS, RELATIONSHIPS AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE
R. A.
RINDE

MRC Unit on the Development & Integration University of Cambridge

of Behaviour,

The conceptual framework presented involves three IeveIs-interactions, relationships (described by the content, quality and patteming of interactions) and structure(described by the content, quality and patteming ofrelationships). At each level it is necessary to abstract generalisations valid over a range ofinstances, and to seek for organisationaI principIes which account for the patteming at that level. 'Institutions' appear both as abstractions from the surface structure and as organisationaI principIes.

1 Introduction
The recent accumulation of factsabout social relationships in non-human primates has revealed hitherto unsuspected complexities in their social behaviour. As yet, however, primatologists lack a theory of social behaviour adequate to order the facts, and only a few have started to integrate their data on social interactions in a way that could lead to an understanding of social structure (e.g. Sade 1972a ; 1972b; Sitripson 1973a;Kummer 1968; 1971). As a result the facts tend to accumulate in part along welI-wom paths, such as the study of social dominance, from whose strait-jacket primatologists have only recently begun to escape (see Gartlan 1968); and in part at random, with no direction or cohesiveness. In the absence of a theory, perhaps we should search for a conceptual framework which may help us one day to buildour facts into a theory. This article represents an attempt in that direction. This attempt deliberately uses concepts derived from the hunlan social sciences, in the belief that studies of non-human primates (and of other animals) will be the more valuable if they clarify both differences from and similarities with mane Furthermore, there may be some traffic the other way. So complex are thephenomena with which social psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists must grappIe that it may be helpful to them to see some ofthe concepts they use put through their paces in relatively simple situations. Sometimes it is fruitful to build up from the relatively simple as well as to analyse the complex; and study of the differences between relatively simple and more complex phenomena can help...