Violence and uncertainty: Interactional sketches for a cognitive analysis of violent actions

Abstract

The present study investigates the interface between sociological and physiological analyses of violence. The aim is to explore the cognitive processes leading to violence in daily interactions. We suggest that violent interactions derive from uncertainty about the course of the interactions: something in the way an individual moves blurs the interactional rules and prevents other individuals predicting his or her intentions. From this perspective, gestures categorized as violent break execution regularities that are normally expected during the interaction and present regularities of their own. We test this hypothesis by an experimental recording of gestures and a quantitative analysis of their trajectories.