Theories in Social Psychology. Группа авторов
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internal–external dimension, however, applies only to people’s explanations of unintentional events, not to their explanations of intentional action.
Decades passed before Heider’s original concern with intentionality, and people’s inferences of motives and reasons became a topic of research again. Committed to these concerns, the second part of the chapter introduces the folk-conceptual theory of behavior explanation (Malle, 1999, 2004). It locates explanations in the network of folk concepts people use to make sense of human behavior and specifies the psychological processes and linguistic manifestations of explanations. For example, people offer very different kinds of explanations for intentional and unintentional behavior. Unintentional behavior is explained by causes, which can be classified in a variety of ways, including an internal–external dimension. Intentional behavior, by contrast, is more complex. People offer either reason explanations (i.e., referring to the beliefs and desires in light of which the agent formed an intention to act) or causal history of reason explanations (i.e., referring to factors that led to those reasons in the first place such as upbringing, personality, unconscious mental states). People’s choice between these two explanation modes reflects both cognitive and motivational processes and is sensitive to the explainer’s role (actors vs. observers), the type of agent (group vs. individuals), and the explainer’s impression management goals.
Thus, the folk-conceptual theory tries to carve out the concepts and processes that matter when people construct and respond to explanations; and these distinctions reveal a rich, sophisticated system of folk-behavior explanations. Malle’s chapter is a dynamic contribution to the evolution of the field of attribution.
Benjamin Wagner and Richard Petty examine the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which is a general theory of persuasion that is also applicable to social judgment (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The ELM holds that people’s attitudes can be modified in both relatively effortful (central route) and non-effortful (peripheral route) ways. Persuasion via the central route depends on the strength and cogency of the arguments contained in the message and is determined by the number, valence, and confidence people have in their thoughts to the advocacy. Persuasion via the peripheral route is determined largely by reliance on simple cues and heuristics that are not necessarily central to the merits of the advocacy (e.g., being in a good mood). The extent of elaboration is the chief determinant of the route to persuasion, and several factors have been shown to influence the extent of thinking. Broadly speaking, these factors relate to motivation (e.g., personal relevance of the topic) and ability (e.g., knowledge about the topic) to think about the advocacy. With greater motivation and ability comes an increased likelihood that a person will extensively elaborate a persuasive message and be less reliant on issue-irrelevant cues. Importantly, attitudes formed under the central route are generally more durable and impactful than are attitudes formed under the peripheral route.
An important component of the ELM is the idea that any variable can serve multiple roles in persuasion. Specifically, persuasion variables such as source expertise or momentary emotions can operate in five roles: (a) as simple cues to persuasion (e.g., “experts are usually right”), (b) as arguments that are relevant to a particular conclusion (e.g., “an expert’s endorsement speaks to the product’s quality”), (c) by biasing the thoughts that a person generates (e.g., expert sources lead to more favorable thoughts concerning the message than non-expert sources), (d) by affecting the amount of thinking a person does (e.g., expert sources enhance thinking about the arguments since they seem more worthy), and (e) by affecting whether people use their thoughts in response to the message in forming their attitudes toward the topic (e.g., “if my thoughts were provoked by an expert, they must be valid”).
The ELM has not only integrated research in persuasion but has also been applied in diverse areas such as consumer attitudes, health promotion, and legal domains. The model continues to generate interesting and important research findings, both at the basic and applied levels.
Victor Grandison and Mary Chadee’s chapter provides an understanding of a relatively new and important contribution to the literature on social psychological theories. Trope and Liberman’s Construal Theory emerged within the last two decades. The theory has gained much attention over this short period and deserves the attention in this volume. Grandison and Chadee’s chapter begins with the genesis of the theory. They noted that Construal Level Theory (CLT) represents the most extensive attempt at understanding the effect of psychological distance on human behavior. However, to fully appreciate the tenets of CLT and its applications, it would be necessary to review its core contributing theories and concepts. Among the major concepts and theories that informed CLT were Lewin’s psychological distance and time discounting as well as Kahneman and Tversky’s planning fallacy. CLT assesses how people navigate thought processes from the “here and now” to distant objects. The core emphasis of the theory is on the relationship between psychological distance and the level of construal involved in the processing of information about objects. The key inference was that objects that are psychologically proximal are represented in detailed, contextual imagery whilst objects that are psychologically distal are represented in decontextualized, schematic imagery. After a detailed description of CLT, the authors discuss the application of the theory within the literature.
Social comparison theory has evolved and been modified since the 1950s. The social comparison process is a process that is present in numerous theories. Relative deprivation assumes the presence of social comparison. Both social comparison and relative deprivation are discussed in Part II.
Jan Crusius, Katja Corcoran, and Thomas Mussweiler provide a comprehensive overview of social comparison theory. Social comparisons, comparisons between the self and others, are a fundamental psychological mechanism influencing people’s judgments, experiences, and behavior. In this chapter, the authors review the social psychological theorizing and research on social comparison. The chapter starts by summarizing the basic tenets of Leon Festinger’s seminal social comparison theory and addressing three questions that are central to Festinger’s ideas and the research that followed his initial work. The first question is: Why do people engage in social comparisons? While social comparison is mostly understood as a process that is engaged to fulfill fundamental needs like self-evaluation, self-enhancement, and self-improvement, the chapter discusses logical reasons for social comparisons and considers the efficiency advantage of comparative information-processing. The second question is: To whom do people compare themselves? The chapter explores how motivational concerns influence the selection of comparison standards and how routine standards can efficiently fulfill the need to self-evaluate. The third question is: How do social comparisons influence the self? The diverse factors that lead to assimilation or contrast of the self as a consequence of social comparison are reviewed. Finally, Crusius, Corcoran, and Mussweilerassess the application of social comparisons in the area of health psychology and the impact of idealized media images on self-evaluation. Their review shows that comparative processes are marked by striking complexity and multifacetedness and that consequences of social comparisons span all core areas of human psychological functioning. They argue that future research could benefit from a perspective that integrates cognitive, motivational, and affective determinants and consequences of social comparisons.
Underlying the theory of relative deprivation is the social comparison process. Relative deprivation (RD) theory helps social scientists predict who will become dissatisfied and under what conditions. The chapter proceeds in three parts. First, the authors describe relative deprivation concept, models, and empirical research with an emphasis on recent research. Next, they examine cognate theories and research, and in the last section the focus is on applications of relative deprivation. RD theory is a theory of perceived social inequity that helps to explain why some people with paltry resources experience contentment while others with abundant access to a wealth of resources are dissatisfied. Beverly G. Conrique and Faye J. Crosby review the history, development, and utility of RD. After detailing the initial literature on the concept of RD, they trace the development of various models and applications of RD articulated from the 1960s to the present day and assess the more contemporary work on RD. This chapter presents core concepts, classic research, current research, and application of RD. Directions for the future application of RD theory to social problems are considered.
Part III assesses two social exchange theories