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In 1942 many of us were interested in "national character" and the contrast between England and America fortunately brought into focus the fact that "spectatorship" is in England a filial characteristic, linked with dependency and submission, while in America spectatorship is a parental characteristic linked with dominance and succoring.

This hypothesis, which I called "end-linkage," marked a turning point in my thinking. From that time on, I have consciously focused upon the qualitative structure of contexts rather than upon intensity of interaction. Above all, the phenomena of endlinkage showed that contextual structures could themselves be messages—an important point which is not made in the 1942 article. An Englishman when he is applauding another is indicating or signaling potential submission and/or dependency; when he shows off or demands spectatorship, he is signaling dominance or superiority; and so on. Every Englishman who writes a book must be guilty of this. For the American, the converse must hold. His boasting is but a bid for quasiparental approval.