Affective Social Learning is a concept I designed with Professor Fabrice Clément (Neuchâtel, Switzerland) during my doctoral studies under his supervision. It sets out to illustrate how our reading and understanding of others’ affective relationships with the objects in the environment can lead to an internalisation of those relationships ourselves. In other words, how we can learn from others. These relationships, between person and object, when shared within a tightly-knit group, can be described in certain circumstances as the values of that group. Thus, affective social learning can explain how values can become socialized and thus how culture can be transmitted.

How easily that learning takes place – how smoothly the information passes from one (the model) to the other (the learner) – also depends on the relationship between those two people. And this is the case whether the lesson is being taught explicitly (with the model’s awareness), or inexplicitly.

Our most recent work on this featured in the Oxford handbook of emotion development which I co-edited with Andrea Samson (UniDistance Suisse) and Eric Walle (UC Merced). In the chapter, written with Fabrice Clément, we proposed how sociology and psychology could overlap to take a closer look at socialization processes, particularly of the affective variety.

Further reading:

Books

Dukes, D. & Clément, F. (Eds.). (2019). Foundations of Affective Social Learning: conceptualizing the social transmission of value. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108661362

Chapters

Clément, F. & Dukes, D. (2022). Affective Social Learning: a lens for developing a fuller picture of socialization processes. In D. Dukes, A. Samson & E. Walle. (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of emotional development.  (pp. 387-397). Oxford University Press. https://tinyurl.com/34kbryba

Clément, F*. & Dukes, D.* (2019). A difficult introduction to Affective Social Learning. In D. Dukes and F. Clément (Eds.) (2019). Foundations of Affective Social Learning: conceptualizing the social transmission of value. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108661362

Clément, F.* & Dukes, D.* (2019). Conclusion: Laying the Foundations of Affective Social Learning. In D. Dukes and F. Clément (Eds.) (2019). Foundations of Affective Social Learning: conceptualizing the social transmission of value. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108661362

Articles

Gruber, T*., Bazhydai, M., Sievers, C., Clément., F., & Dukes, D.* (2021). The ABC of social learning: Affect, Behaviour and Cognition. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000311

Clément, F., & Dukes, D. (2020). Affective Social Learning serves as a quick and flexible complement to TTOM. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X19002784

Dukes, D. (2018). Apprentissage social affectif et appréciation de l’émotion : structuration des interactions socio-émotionnelles [Affective social learning and emotional appreciation: Structuring socio-emotional interactions]. Travaux Neuchâtelois de Linguistique (TRaNeL), 68, 79-86. https://doc.rero.ch/record/322617     

Clément, F., & Dukes, D. (2017). Social appraisal and social referencing: Two components of affective social learning. Emotion Review, 9(3), 253-261. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073916661634

Dukes, D., & Clément, F. (2017). Author reply: Clarifying the importance of ostensive communication in life-long, affective social learning. Emotion Review, 9(3), 267-269. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073916679006