Beyond Culture

Hall defines an action chain (AC) as “a sequence of events in which usually two or more individuals participate” with a beginning, intermediate stages, and an end (141). Every AC, from making a meal to writing a book, has varying complexity. ACs are transactions between “the inanimate environment and man’s extensions” (144), between living things, or between parts of the psyche. The last notion he takes from Freud, who identified transactions between the id, ego, and superego.

An AC chain has a continuum, which can progress haphazardly or relentlessly, depending on the internal state of the organism, culture, and situational variables. Hall offers examples like a father and son fighting in private but cooperating in front of others, but he concludes that it is unknown whether personality or culture is “more relentless” in an AC. Cultures differ in their commitments to finishing an action chain; high-context cultures have a high commitment toward completion, while low-context cultures (like American culture) break chains “if they don’t like the way things are going or if something or someone better comes along” (148). Hall recaps the conclusion of René Spitz, a Swiss psychiatrist, that breaking ACs too often blocks normal behavior.