TALE: A Possible Theme called “Taking Supportances”
Using A Concept as a possible practice
I have been working on developing the Ecological Practice approach for several years. One core concept of the approach is Supportance which is inspired by Ecological psychologist James J. Gibson’s writings about an example of the theoretical concept of Affordance.
The concept of Supportance refers to potential supportive action possibilities offered by a social environment. It is inspired by Ecological psychologist James J. Gibson’s concept of Affordance which refers to potential action possibilities offered by environments. Both two concepts are potential action possibilities. However, the concept of Affordance can be applied to both animals and humans and Gibson uses it for talking about visual perception. In order to discuss potential supportive action possibilities between a person and other people and social environments in general, I coined the term Supportance and developed it as a theoretical concept for the Ecological Practice approach.
If a person can accomplish something by himself/herself, then the person doesn’t need support from other people. For this situation, I consider the action is only about the relationship between people and natural (physical/technological) environments. Let’s call this type of action individual action.
If a person needs at least one other person to support him in accomplishing something, we can refer to this type of action as intersubjective action.
Moreover, some actions need indirect support from other people within the settings of an organization or other social entities. We can define the third type of action as institutionalized action.
I consider the latter two are about the relationship between ‘people — social environments.
The above chart represents the complexity of these ideas. Why do I emphasize the distinction between the natural environment and the social environment? There are at least four important aspects that we can’t ignore:
- Rational agency
- Language engagement
- Ownership
- Remote presence
In 2021, I developed a framework for discussing the concept of Supportance and Social Support in general.
The above diagram shows three types of social support:
- Type 1: Individual-to-Individual social support
- Type 2: Institution-to-Individual social support
- Type 3: Institution-to-Institution social support
Type 1 social support is the existing social support within the field of ‘social support — mental health.’
Type 2 and type 3 go beyond the individual psychological analysis. I use ‘Institution(Individual)’ to represent Institution because any institution is formed by individuals and any decision of any institution is made by individuals.
This reconceptualization of social support echoes Derek Layder’s criticism of reductionist explanations from social psychology (1981). Layder says, “There are various forms of reductionist explanation of social phenomena, and social psychologists have flirted with several of them. However, the common feature which unites them is their inappropriate (literal) reduction of the explanation of social phenomena to the level of subjective states of mind or intersubjective relationships rather than seeking explanations in terms of impersonal social forces. ”(p.28)
If we adopt the concept of Supportance for understanding these three types of social support, then we move our focus to the transformation of ‘potential — actual.’ The notion brings a new layer to social support and gives individuals more opportunities to get support from their social environments. Moreover, from the perspective of Supportance, ‘support’ means not only intended support but also unintended support.
- Intended support: Person A intends to give some support to person B.
- Unintended support: Person A doesn’t intend to give some support to person B, but person B actualizes some supportances which are offered by Person A.
Both intended support and unintended support require Perception and Capability from Person B, however, unintended support doesn’t require Intentionality from Person A. The same logic can be applied to the level of institutionalized actions.
Based on the above ideas, I developed the following framework: Actualization of Supportances.
You can find more details in The Concept of Supportance (Oliver Ding, 2021).
A Possible Practice: Taking Supportances
This post is not for developing the Ecological Practice approach which is the primary project of CALL (Creative Action Learning Lab), but for developing a possible theme for TALE (Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement).
I use “Taking Supportances” to name a possible theme of taking the action of Actualizing Supportances.
As mentioned above, there are two types of social support:
- Intended support: Person A intends to give some support to person B.
- Unintended support: Person A doesn’t intend to give some support to person B, but person B actualizes some supportances which are offered by Person A.
Since Intended Support is a common sense, I will pay attention to Unintended Support.
An Example of Unintended Support
In general, Social Sharing via social media platforms can be perceived as Unintended Support.
This morning I found a post about “Visual Wiki” from Bülent Duagi and discovered several Suppotances.
Bülent Duagi shares his private visual wiki board about product marketing on Miro.
I’m offering free access to my private visual wiki with hundreds of visuals, generously shared with the world by Anthony Pierri 🎸 and Robert Kaminski 🎯, organized around topics and subtopics.
Access the board here: https://bit.ly/prodmk_map_anthony_rob
Is it an Intended support?
No.
Bülent Duagi doesn’t intendedly support a particular person via sharing this Miro board.
Is is an Unintended Support?
It depends on the perceivers.
For me, it is an Unintended Support.
Why?
Bülent Duagi’s Miro board collects posts about product marketing created by Anthony Pierri 🎸 and Robert Kaminski 🎯 and offeres a simple hierarchical structure.
This is a wonderful resource for the Product Langue project. You can find more details in TALE: A Possible Theme called “Product Langue”.
On Jan 25, 2023, I shared a possible theme called “Product Langue” with the above picture. Initially, I used it to refer to an idea about Knowledge Engagement about Product.
Langue and Parole is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure. Langue refers to the abstract system of language while Parole means concrete speech.
If we use the diagram below, we can find four types of knowledge engagement about the theme of “Product”.
- Unobservable: Users’ subjective experience
- Observable: Product Managers and Researchers
- Parole: Experts who produce knowledge about “Product”
- Langue: Knowledge curators who aim to turn pieces of Parole (speech) into Langue (language)
The primary theme of the Product Lange project is Knowledge about Product in general.
Bülent Duagi’s the Visual Wiki of Product can be seem as a sub-project of the Product Langue project.
Why?
The goal of the Project Langue project aims to create a “semiotic system diagram” of “Product Engagement”.
A Semiotic System Diagram of Product Engagement
What’s a semiotic system diagram?
The diagram below is the semiotic system diagram of Creative Life Strategy.
The above diagram has three parts. One part is expanded into the diagram below.
You can find more details in A Semiotic System Diagram for Creative Life Curation.
The above two diagrams are made for a particular knowledge framework. For a particular field, a Semiotic System Diagram can use a set of connected general terms (or universal concepts) to represent the general conceptual structure of the field.
At the “Langue/Language” level, a particular field only needs one Semiotic System Diagram.
At the “Parole/Speech” level, a particular field could have various Semiotic System Diagrams because each knowledge creator could develop his/her own knowledge frameworks with their own defined terms or operational concepts.
Since Bülent Duagi’s Miro Board curates many pieces of Anthony Pierri 🎸 and Robert Kaminski 🎯’s knowledge framework about product marketing, we could take one more step and develop a Semiotic System Diagram for the framework.
In this way, we can make the first Semiotic System Diagram for Product Engagement at the “Parole/Speech” level.
Social Sharing as Social Support
From the perspective of Supportance Theory, Social Sharing can be understood as Social Support.
