Alan Page Fiske
Distinguished Professor
My research aims to understand what enables humans to coordinate in often cooperative, complex, culturally and historically varying systems of social relations. I study social and moral cognition, motives and emotion; relationship-constitutive actions, experiences, and communications; motivations for violence; interpretations of misfortune and death; and links between psychopathology and social relationships. My current reserach focuses on the emotion often called being moved or touched; see our Kama muta lab. My methods integrate participant observation ethnography, broad ethnological and historical comparison, systematic sampling of behavior, and experimentation. But I am fundamentally a theorist, inducatively exploring the ontology and epistemology of social phenomena through systematic ethnological and historical comparision.
The framework for my work is relational models theory (RMT), an integrated and comprehensive theory of human sociality that I initially formulated. RMT connects the evolved neurobiology and psychology of human social relationships to their developmentally discovered cultural implementations. At this point, RMT has been extensively tested, applied, or developed in articles, theses and books by over 275 social, cognitive, developmental, and clinical psychologists; anthropologists and archeologists; sociologists; neuroscientists; philosophers; religious study researchers and management scientists. (RMT has also been cited in about 6000 other works.) My research network continually connects scholars across the US, Canada, Norway, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, and Australia. Currently I am writing a book and collaborating on experimental and field studies of the emotion we call kama muta -- approximately, being moved, touched, stirred, having a rapturous experience, or tender feelings toward cuteness.
Skype: alanfiske
Degrees
Ph.D., University of Chicago (1985)
Selected Publications
A. P. Fiske 1991. Structures of Social Life: The Four Elementary Forms of Human Relations. New York: Free Press (Macmillan).
A.P. Fiske & N. Haslam 1996. Social Cognition Is Thinking About Relationships. Current
Directions in Psychological Science. 5:143-148.
A.P. Fiske & N. Haslam 1997. Is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder of Pathology of the Human Disposition to Perform Socially Meaningful Rituals? Evidence of Similar Content. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 185:211-222.
A.P. Fiske, S. Kitayama, H. Markus, & D. Nisbett 1997. The Cultural Matrix of Social Psychology. In Handbook of Social Psychology, 4th Ed. Gilber, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey, Eds. Pp. 915-981. New York: McGraw Hill.
A. P. Fiske 2000. Complementarity Theory: Why Human Social Capacities Evolved to Require Cultural Complements. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4:76-94.
M. Iacoboni, M. D. Lieberman, B. J. Knowlton, I. Molnar-Szakacs, M. Moritz, J. Throop, & A. P. Fiske 2004. Watching Social Interactions Produces Dorsomedial Prefrontal and Medial Parietal BOLD fMRI Signal Increases Compared to a Resting Baseline. NeuroImage 21:1167–1173.
A. P. Fiske 2004. Four Modes of Constituting Relationships: Consubstantial Assimilation; Space, Magnitude, Time and Force; Concrete Procedures; Abstract Symbolism In N. Haslam, Ed., Relational Models Theory: A Contemporary Overview. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tage Rai & A. P. Fiske 2011. Moral Psychology as Regulating Relationships: Moral Motives for Unity, Hierarchy, Equality, and Proportionality in Social-Relational Cognition. Psychological Review 118:57–75. DOI: 10.1037/a0021867
Daniel Nettle, Karthik Panchanathan, Tage Rai, & A. P. Fiske 2011. The Evolution of Giving, Sharing, and Lotteries. Current Anthropology 52:747–756.
A. P. Fiske 2011. Metarelational Models: Configurations of Social Relationships.
European Journal of Social Psychology 42:2–18. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.847.
A. P. Fiske & Tage Rai 2015. Virtuous Violence: Hurting and Killing to Create, Sustain, End, and Honor Social Relationships. Cambridge University Press.
Research
Psychological anthropology, social theory, social relationships, social/moral emotions, methodology; Africa
Collaborators
Thomas Schubert, University of Oslo
Beate Seibt, University of Oslo
Current Courses by Term
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Individual Studies for USIE Facilitators
Directed Research in Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Teaching Apprentice Practicum
Study of Social Systems
Individual Studies for USIE Facilitators
Variable Topics Research Seminars: Anthropology
Teaching Apprentice Practicum
Previous Courses by Term
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Variable Topics Research Seminars: Anthropology
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Variable Topics Research Seminars: Anthropology
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Variable Topics Research Seminars: Anthropology
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Selected Topics in Social Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Field Methods
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Fundamental Forms of Social Relationships from Theory to Research Design
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Relational Models Theory and Research Design
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Directed Research in Anthropology
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Relational Models Theory and Research Design
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Selected Topics in Anthropology
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Psychological Anthropology
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Psychological Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Advanced Honors Seminars
Psychological Anthropology
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Psychological Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
Psychological Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Comparative Religion
Field Methods
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Psychological Anthropology
Selected Topics in Social Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Selected Topics in Social Anthropology
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
Previous Courses by Course
Variable Topics Research Seminars: Anthropology
Fiat Lux Freshman Seminars
2019 Winter Quarter
2018 Fall Quarter
2017 Fall Quarter
2017 Spring Quarter
2017 Winter Quarter
2014 Winter Quarter
2013 Winter Quarter
2003 Fall Quarter
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
2019 Winter Quarter
Psychological Anthropology
2018 Fall Quarter
2017 Fall Quarter
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
2018 Fall Quarter
2017 Fall Quarter
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
2018 Winter Quarter
Laboratory for Naturalistic Observations: Developing Skills and Techniques
2017 Spring Quarter
2014 Winter Quarter
2013 Winter Quarter
2012 Spring Quarter
2011 Spring Quarter
2010 Spring Quarter
2009 Spring Quarter
2007 Fall Quarter
2005 Fall Quarter
2004 Fall Quarter
2003 Fall Quarter
Introduction to Psychological Anthropology: Current Topics and Research
2017 Spring Quarter
2014 Fall Quarter
2014 Winter Quarter
2013 Winter Quarter
2012 Spring Quarter
2011 Winter Quarter
2010 Spring Quarter
2008 Fall Quarter
2007 Fall Quarter
2006 Winter Quarter
2005 Winter Quarter
2004 Winter Quarter
2002 Fall Quarter
2002 Winter Quarter
2000 Winter Quarter
1998 Fall Quarter
Psychological Anthropology
2017 Winter Quarter
2015 Winter Quarter
2009 Fall Quarter
2008 Fall Quarter
2008 Winter Quarter
2005 Fall Quarter
2005 Winter Quarter
2004 Fall Quarter
2003 Winter Quarter
2002 Winter Quarter
Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology
2017 Winter Quarter
2015 Winter Quarter
2013 Spring Quarter
2012 Winter Quarter
2010 Winter Quarter
Selected Topics in Social Anthropology
2015 Winter Quarter
Field Methods
2014 Spring Quarter
Fundamental Forms of Social Relationships from Theory to Research Design
2014 Spring Quarter
Selected Topics in Anthropology
2014 Spring Quarter
2014 Winter Quarter
2013 Fall Quarter
2013 Spring Quarter
2013 Winter Quarter
2012 Fall Quarter
2012 Spring Quarter
2012 Winter Quarter
2011 Spring Quarter
2011 Winter Quarter
2009 Spring Quarter
Relational Models Theory and Research Design
2013 Spring Quarter
2011 Winter Quarter
Directed Research in Anthropology
2012 Spring Quarter
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
2012 Winter Quarter
2011 Spring Quarter
2009 Winter Quarter
2008 Winter Quarter
2006 Winter Quarter
2005 Winter Quarter
Advanced Honors Seminars
2005 Winter Quarter
Comparative Religion
2002 Spring Quarter
Field Methods
2002 Spring Quarter
Selected Topics in Social Anthropology