IRRITATION

Irritation is a pervasive feature of the human experience, and of human sociality in particular, yet it has been very little studied by social and natural scientists. Research on irritation as it bears on interpersonal relationships, rather than as a physical reaction to a sensory experience, is particularly thin. This project investigates irritation as a feature of human sociality in diverse cultural contexts, with a particular focus on issues related to cooperation and morality. It brings together methods and approaches from anthropology and psychology, combining in-depth ethnographic research in four culturally distinct environments with methods of systematic experimental comparison. The primary aim of this project is to develop a comprehensive account of irritation that brings together the social, cultural, and psychological dimensions of it, and of emotional life more generally. The secondary aim is to bring the analysis of irritation into dialogue with the analysis of two fundamental features of human sociality: cooperation and morality. On the one hand, it might be felt that irritation is a threat to our close relationships; that if taken too far it will compromise the very patterns of cooperation and care on which these relationships depend. And yet the pervasiveness of irritation, not least among very close kin, suggests something else: that in some sense we may need irritation – even that it is a constitutive feature of human sociality. Investigating the role irritation plays in the maintenance and disintegration of cooperative relationships, and in moral judgements, will enlarge our understanding of the emotional side of human sociality. This pioneering work will develop a sophisticated, culturally grounded theory of irritation, capable of entering into critical dialogue with mainstream psychological and evolutionary theories of human sociality, and make broader methodological contributions to studies of intimate experience and emotional life.

2022

2027