Repeated interaction between groups amplifies their differences, either by matching escalation or by each party specialising in the opposite of the other.
Bateson introduced the term in Naven in 1936 from fieldwork in New Guinea, and distinguished two forms. In the symmetrical form each side answers boasting with boasting until both are extreme. In the complementary form one side's assertiveness draws out the other's submission until neither can act otherwise. Both are self-amplifying and neither requires anyone to intend it.
In practice
- Two departments answer each other's caution with caution until nothing can be approved without both.
- A couple in which one plans and the other improvises becomes, over ten years, a planner and someone who has stopped trying.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change