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Showing papers in "Advances in Experimental Social Psychology in 1992"


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the universals in the content and structure of values, concentrating on the theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries, and its four basic issues: substantive contents of human values; identification of comprehensive set of values; extent to which the meaning of particular values was equivalent for different groups of people; and how the relations among different values was structured.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter addresses the universals in the content and structure of values, concentrating on the theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries, and its four basic issues: substantive contents of human values; identification of comprehensive set of values; extent to which the meaning of particular values was equivalent for different groups of people; and how the relations among different values was structured. Substantial progress has been made toward resolving each of these issues. Ten motivationally distinct value types that were likely to be recognized within and across cultures and used to form value priorities were identified. Set of value types that was relatively comprehensive, encompassing virtually all the types of values to which individuals attribute at least moderate importance as criteria of evaluation was demonstrated. The evidence from 20 countries was assembled, showing that the meaning of the value types and most of the single values that constitute them was reasonably equivalent across most groups. Two basic dimensions that organize value systems into an integrated motivational structure with consistent value conflicts and compatibilities were discovered. By identifying universal aspects of value content and structure, the chapter has laid the foundations for investigating culture-specific aspects in the future.

12,151 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on one particular aspect of authoritativeness: voluntary compliance with the decisions of authorities, and distinguish both of these types of power from legitimate power, in which obedience flows from judgments about the legitimacy of the authority.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on one particular aspect of authoritativeness: voluntary compliance with the decisions of authorities. Social psychologists have long distinguished between obedience that is the result of coercion, and obedience that is the result of internal attitudes. Opinions describe “reward power” and “coercive power”, in which obedience is contingent on positive and negative outcomes, and distinguish both of these types of power from legitimate power, in which obedience flows from judgments about the legitimacy of the authority. Legitimate power depends on people taking the obligation on themselves to obey and voluntarily follow the decisions made by authorities. The chapter also focuses on legitimacy because it is important to recognize, that legitimacy is not the only attitudinal factor influencing effectiveness. It is also influenced by other cognitions about the authority, most notably judgments of his or her expertise with respect to the problem at hand. The willingness of group members to accept a leader's directives is only helpful when the leader knows what directives to issue.

2,645 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: A testable middle-range theory predicated on the politician metaphor, the social contingency model of judgment and choice, has been proposed in this article, which does not map neatly in any of the traditional levels of analysis: the individual, the small group, the organization and political system.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter advances to a testable middle-range theory predicated on the politician metaphor: the social contingency model of judgment and choice. This model does not map neatly in any of the traditional levels of analysis: the individual, the small group, the organization, and political system. The unit of study is the individual in relation to these social milieux. The model borrows, qualifies, and elaborates on the cognitive miser image of the thinker that has been so influential in experimental work on social cognition. The model adopts the approval and status-seeker image of human nature that has been so influential in role theory, symbolic interactionism, and impression management theory. The model draws on sociological and anthropological theory concerning the necessary conditions for social order in positing accountability to be a universal feature of natural decision environments. The social contingency model is not tightly linked to any particular methodology. The theoretical eclecticism of the model demands a corresponding commitment to methodological eclecticism. The social contingency model poses problems that cross disciplinary boundaries, and that require a plurality of methodologies. The chapter ends with considering the potential problem of proliferating metaphors in social psychological theory.

874 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a comprehensive model of social judgmental processes is proposed, based on a review of the historical and theoretical background of the field, as well as the results of empirical research program.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter proposes a new, comprehensive model of social judgmental processes, based on a review of the historical and theoretical background of the field, as well as the results of empirical research program. Specifically, the model attempts to deal with: (1) processing strategies available to people when performing a social judgment; (2) conditions most likely to be used; (3) role of affect in people's processing preferences; (4) and how affects influence the outcome of social judgments under each of the processing alternatives. The model distinguishes between four alternative processing strategies available to judges: (1) direct access of crystallized judgments; (2) motivated processing in the service of a preexisting goal; (3) heuristic or simplified processing; (4) and the substantive or elaborate processing. The theory also specifies how eight specific features of the target, the judge, and the situation are likely to influence processing choices. The studies illustrated in this chapter emphasize on the complex and the constructive character of social judgments and the interactive role of affect and other variables in determining the processing choices. The chapter ends with a conclusion that there is enough information related to the processing consequences of affect, however less is known about the interaction of affect and stimulus characteristics.

345 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the motivational foundations of behavioral confirmation and discuss the commonalities of these approaches that may provide the most compelling testimony to the power of motivational approaches to understand individual and social function.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the motivational foundations of behavioral confirmation. Functional analyses have the potential to advance theory and research on social perception and interpersonal behavior. They constitute an explicit recognition of the motivational and purposive agendas that guide and direct human thoughts, feelings, and actions, and they speak directly to the mediational mechanisms and guiding processes involved in the enactment of these motivational agendas. Functionalist perspective possesses considerable explanatory power in diverse domains of human functioning. The chapter emphasizes that functional analysis shares much in common with related treatments of the roles of needs, motives, plans, and goals in understanding cognitive and behavioral processes in the social realm. The diverse approaches to human motivation have their points of individuation. It is the commonalities of these approaches that may provide the most compelling testimony to the power of motivational approaches to understand individual and social function. An analysis of psychological functions in future may help to understand the motivational foundations of the chain of events in behavioral confirmation scenarios; it may also be possible for a functional analysis to provide a motivational perspective on the dynamic interplay of cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal processes in social interaction and interpersonal relationships.

213 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a general account of thought suppression is offered that considers the pressures that instigate suppression, the process of suppression, and post-suppression processes and consequences, and suggests how thought suppression may be involved in the larger enterprise of the self-control of emotion, action, and communication in social life.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter deals with psychological deadlock-between the urge to suppress, and the daunting task of suppression. A general account of thought suppression is offered that considers the pressures that instigate suppression, the process of suppression, and post-suppression processes and consequences. This account treats thought suppression as one of a class of phenomena of mental control-conscious attempts to control psychological contents and processes and suggests how thought suppression may be involved in the larger enterprise of the self-control of emotion, action, and communication in social life. Sigmund Freud is responsible both for thought suppression, and for initiating the study of repression. Suppression is provoked when the person's situation prompts the inhibition of some external expression of a thought. Normally, the external expressions people attempt to forestall in this way take the form of actions, communications, or emotional expressions. In each case, thought suppression is attempted as a preemptive strategy aimed at inhibition of the overt psychological consequences of the thought. The experimental study of thought suppression echoes the same implications that Freud drew from his psychoanalytic study of repression.

202 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: The authors discusses the love-hate relationship that American psychology shares with Stanley Milgram, who was equally at home publishing in magazines as in journals, which made him an effective disseminator of psychological information to the public.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the love-hate relationship that American psychology shares with Stanley Milgram. Social psychologists will invariably invoke the results of obedience experiments whenever needed to affirm the field that reveals something about social behavior that is not predictable from common sense. Milgram was equally at home publishing in magazines as in journals, which made him an effective disseminator of psychological information to the public. Despite the lack of attention to Milgram in most writings on the history of social psychology, he can readily be placed in a historical context. His phenomenon-centered approach represents a continuation, through Asch, of the Gestalt tradition. At the same time, his boundless confidence in the possibility of studying a wide range of social phenomena scientifically makes him supremely Lewinian. Milgram sensitized to the hidden workings of the social world. He showed the difficulty people often have of bridging the gap between intentions and actions. Even moral principles are not invariably translated into behavior but can have their potential power overridden by momentary situational pressures. Despite the pessimism occasioned by the obedience findings, it is remarkable that Milgram was able to maintain a positive, hopeful view of human potential.

32 citations