Collusion and its experimental basis.

Abstract

In this article I intend to show the relation between a proposed theoretical model, the construct of collusion, and the experimental procedure that I developed in the years leading up to this proposal; the development of such research enabled the conceptual foundation to be laid for the proposed model.
I am referring to the model of collusion, proposed by Carli and Paniccia (1981) at the beginning of the 1980s and later refined and improved so as to create the basis for analysis of the demand and more generally to put forward a psychoanalytic theory of the social bond and living together.
The unit of analysis in this model is the relationship, not the single individual. The model is based on collusive affective symbolization, i.e. on the affective symbolization concerning the same context, which creates the bond between those sharing the context. We have repeatedly underlined that the context is “cultural” and not structural; the co-occurrence of affective symbolizations does not require, therefore, the co-presence of those who are part of the collusive phenomenon within a definite time and space. Collusion is a phenomenon that is found in groups, organizations, cultural dimensions; it is a phenomenon underpinning social relations.
What I would like to examine in more depth is the experimental experience in the domain of social and clinical psychology, which made it possible to lay the basis for the formulation of this construct.