Journal ArticleDOI
Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives
Daniel Kahneman,Dale T. Miller +1 more
TLDR
In this article, a theory of norms and normality is presented and applied to some phenomena of emotional responses, social judgment, and conversations about causes, such as emotional response to events that have abnormal causes, the generation of predictions and inferences from observations of behavior and the role of norms in causal questions and answers.Abstract:
A theory of norms and normality is presented and applied to some phenomena of emotional responses, social judgment, and conversations about causes. Norms are assumed to be constructed ad hoc by recruiting specific representations. Category norms are derived by recruiting exemplars. Specific objects or events generate their own norms by retrieval of similar experiences stored in memory or by construction of counterfactual alternatives. The normality of a stimulus is evaluated by comparing it to the norms that it evokes after the fact, rather than to precomputed expectations. Norm theory is applied in analyses of the enhanced emotional response to events that have abnormal causes, of the generation of predictions and inferences from observations of behavior, and of the role of norms in causal questions and answers. This article is concerned with category norms that represent knowledge of concepts and with stimulus norms that govern comparative judgments and designate experiences as surprising. In the tradition of adaptation level theory (Appley, 1971; Helson, 1964), the concept of norm is applied to events that range in complexity from single visual displays to social interactions. We first propose a model of an activation process that produces norms, then explore the role of norms in social cognition. The central idea of the present treatment is that norms are computed after the event rather than in advance. We sketch a supplement to the generally accepted idea that events in the stream of experience are interpreted and evaluated by consulting precomputed schemas and frames of reference. The view developed here is that each stimulus selectively recruits its own alternatives (Garner, 1962, 1970) and is interpreted in a rich context of remembered and constructed representations of what it could have been, might have been, or should have been. Thus, each event brings its own frame of reference into being. We also explore the idea that knowledge of categories (e.g., "encounters with Jim") can be derived on-line by selectively evoking stored representations of discrete episodes and exemplars. The present model assumes that a number of representations can be recruited in parallel, by either a stimulus event or anread more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Exemplar and Prototype Use in Social Categorization
Eliot R. Smith,Michael A. Zárate +1 more
TL;DR: The authors demonstrate that prototype-and exemplar-based social categorization can be empirically distinguished and that socially realistic manipulations can lead perceivers to weight one or the other process more heavily.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reasoning from inconsistency to consistency.
TL;DR: A theory of how individuals reason from inconsistency to consistency is presented, based on 3 main principles: individuals try to construct a single mental model of a possibility that satisfies a current set of propositions, and if the task is impossible, they infer that the set is inconsistent.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social cognition: learning about what matters in the social world
TL;DR: In this paper, the benefits and costs of both sides of social cognition are discussed, i.e., the cognition of social psychology principles of organization, explanation, knowledge activation and use; and the social psychology of cognition principles of shared reality role enactment, social positions and identities and internal audiences.
Journal ArticleDOI
Outcome Controllability and Counterfactual Thinking
Neal J. Roese,James M. Olson +1 more
TL;DR: The impact of outcome controllability on the direction of counterfactual thoughts (reconstructions of past outcomes based on "might have been" alternatives) was examined in two laboratory experiments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Scandals and the Public's Trust in Politicians: Assimilation and Contrast Effects
Norbert Schwarz,Herbert Bles +1 more
TL;DR: The authors found that answering the scandal question decreased judgments of trustworthiness of politicians in general but increased perceived trustworthiness in specific exemplars, which is consistent with the inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects.
References
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An inventory for measuring depression
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Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk
Daniel Kahneman,Amos Tversky +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develop an alternative model, called prospect theory, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights.