Consumer psychology as a social psychological sphere of action.

Brings to the attention of social psychologists the fact that contemporary consumer psychology is essentially social psychology utilized in a specific context, and attempts to stimulate a few social psychologists to engage in social-consumer psychological research. Consumer behavior and consumer psychology are defined and distinguished from each other, and 10 bases for justifying greater social psychological involvement in consumer research are elaborated. This involvement is considered to contribute to the development of both social psychology and the social psychologists who become so involved. (70 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social roles as mechanism for psychological need satisfaction within social groups.

The authors explored ways in which needs for autonomy and relatedness can be simultaneously met within the context of group life. Specifically, it was hypothesized that social role performances provide means of both expressing the self and connecting with group members. Consistent with the assumption that autonomy and relatedness are complementary rather than conflictual, these needs were positively correlated in all 5 studies. Consistent with the authors' assumption that these needs are both important, feelings of autonomy and relatedness in social roles independently predicted subjective well-being, as measured by concurrent (Studies 1 and 3), peer-report (Study 2), and longitudinal (Studies 4 and 5) methodologies. Study 5 showed that participants whose characteristics matched an assigned role experienced more autonomy and relatedness and thus more positive mood during a group task. Implications for optimal functioning in group contexts are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender and social influence: A social psychological analysis.

Men and women are believed to differ in how influential and easily influenced they are: Men are thought to be more influential, and women more easily influenced. In natural settings, men and women tend to differ in these ways, but these differences stem largely from formal status inequalities by which men are more likely than women to have high-status roles. Status is important because of the legitimate authority vested in high-status roles. Within appropriate limits, people of higher status are believed to have the right to make demands of those of lower status, and people of lower status are expected to comply with these demands. Yet, small, stereotypic sex differences in leadership and social influence generally have been found in laboratory experiments and other small-group settings where men and women have equal formal status. These small sex differences may occur because experience with hierarchical social structures in which men have higher status creates expectancies about male and female behavior, and these expectancies affect social interaction in ways that foster behavior that confirms the expectancies. Sex differences that occur in the laboratory as well as natural settings may stem from social structural factors—namely, from the existing distributions of women and men into social roles. (77 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social psychological concepts applied to clinical processes: On the need for precision.

Analyzes and critiques an attempted application of cognitive dissonance and reactance concepts to a therapy analog. An experiment by R. M. Gordon (1976) is discussed. It is shown that key prerequisites for dissonance arousal (choice and responsibility) and for reactance induction (initial free choice) were not present. Also, self-selection of volunteers for treatment is shown to be a likely, unreported factor. Original results are reinterpreted to suggest that they were due to the frustration of some Ss' expectations rather than to arousal of reactance. A need is cited for well-informed application of experimental social psychological theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social and psychological resources and adaptation.

Psychology has increasingly turned to the study of psychosocial resources in the examination of well-being. How resources are being studied and resource models that have been proffered are considered, and an attempt is made to examine elements that bridge across models. As resource models span health, community, cognitive, and clinical psychology, the question is raised of whether there is overuse of the resource metaphor or whether there exists some underlying principles that can be gleaned and incorporated to advance research. The contribution of resources for understanding multicultural and pan-historical adaptation in the face of challenge is considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social conflict, social support, and psychological distress: Evidence of cross-domain buffering effects.

A longitudinal study examined the relative and joint effects of perceived social support and social conflict on psychological distress in 228 college students. Women had higher perceived social support from roommates and friends and less conflict with roommates than did men; there were no gender differences in level of conflict with friends or psychological distress. Roommate conflict predicted increases in psychological distress over time; this effect was attenuated by high levels of perceived social support from friends. Friend conflict also predicted increases in psychological distress over time; this effect was attenuated by high levels of perceived social support from roommates. These results show the importance of negative and positive aspects of social experiences to emotional functioning and the importance of compensatory social support for individuals facing social conflicts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural differences and inferences about psychological processes.

Discusses the inadequacy of experimental evidence and logical considerations in current theories of intellectual deficits caused by cultural deprivation. Reports on the presence or absence of competence have been based on noncomparable experimental situations. Deficit interpretations have assumed that absence of performance reflects absence of a particular psychological process. A strategy is proposed which combines usual experimental approaches with ethnographic methods for the study of cognitive processes. (44 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychological and social effects of unemployment.

Discusses some secondary effects of unemployment, including the absence of health benefits at a time when family members are undergoing severe stress, poor nutrition in adults and children that also causes a rise in the infant mortality rate, decrease in parent nurturance of children coupled with an increase in child abuse, increased alcoholism and drug abuse, and erosion of the social service network. These problems are discussed as they pertain to the state of Michigan and its high percentage of unemployed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critical thinking in social and psychological inquiry.

Yanchar, Slife, and their colleagues have described how mainstream psychology's notion of critical thinking has largely been conceived of as “scientific analytic reasoning” or “method-centered critical thinking.” We extend here their analysis and critique, arguing that some version of the one-sided instrumentalism and confusion about tacit values that characterize scientistic approaches to inquiry also color phenomenological, critical theoretical, and social constructionist viewpoints. We suggest that hermeneutic/dialogical conceptions of inquiry, including the idea of social theory as itself a form of ethically motivated human practice, give a fuller account of critical thinking in the social disciplines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic activation in action planning.

Four experiments investigated activation of semantic information in action preparation. Participants either prepared to grasp and use an object (e.g., to drink from a cup) or to lift a finger in association with the object's position following a go/no-go lexical-decision task. Word stimuli were consistent to the action goals of the object use (Experiment 1) or to the finger lifting (Experiment 2). Movement onset times yielded a double dissociation of consistency effects between action preparation and word processing. This effect was also present for semantic categorizations (Experiment 3), but disappeared when introducing a letter identification task (Experiment 4). In sum, our findings indicate that action semantics are activated selectively in accordance with the specific action intention of an actor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypothesis-testing processes in social interaction.

In 4 separate investigations, female undergraduates were provided with hypotheses about the personal attributes of other individuals (targets). Ss then prepared to test these hypotheses (i.e., that their targets were extraverts or that their targets were introverts) by choosing a series of questions to ask their targets in a forthcoming interview. In each investigation, Ss planned to test these hypotheses by preferentially searching for behavioral evidence that would confirm the hypotheses. Moveover, these search procedures channeled social interaction between Ss and targets in ways that caused the targets to provide actual behavioral confirmation for Ss' hypotheses. A theoretical analysis of the psychological processes believed to underlie and generate both the preferential search for hypothesis-confirming behavioral evidence and the interpersonal consequences of hypothesis-testing activities is presented. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Model of social inference processes.

Presents a new model of inference processes in the social perceiver, along with the basis of the model in prior experimental results and in the ACT* cognitive theory developed by J. R. Anderson (1976, 1983). The 2 stages of the model involve different types of processing: interpretive and procedural. In the 1st stage, an inference is performed by general, domain-independent processes guided by a learned inference rule that is selected from long-term memory. In the 2nd stage, procedural stage, after much experience with a particular inferential domain, an inference process is selected without explicit search, based on a pattern match to the current goal and knowledge state. The inference becomes automatic. Existing experimental evidence supports predictions of the model in both the attribution and attitude domains. Insights and findings of current approaches to inference, including information integration and judgmental heuristics, can be encompassed within the new model in a natural way. (93 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social and psychological variables in learning Hebrew.

Attitudes towards the social group employing the language, reason for studying the language, and intelligence were posited as parameters affecting the learning of a 2nd language. The investigation focused on Jewish 8th- and 9th-grade students learning Hebrew. The results indicated that ability and attitude facilitated learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What neuroimaging and brain localization can do, cannot do and should not do for social psychology.

Interest in bridging social psychology and neuroscience has seen a significant upsurge. Much of this interest has centered on brain localization--the attempt to relate psychological events to locations of brain events. Although many articles have sought to localize brain activity that supports social behavior, scant attention has been paid to the specific methods to be used in integrating brain localization data into psychological theory. The authors describe 4 strategies psychologists can use to integrate brain localization data and psychological theory, and they consider whether social psychology presents special considerations in the use of these strategies. They conclude that brain localization offers a useful tool for some but not all problems in social psychology, and they discuss the types of problems for which it may and may not prove useful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional and social comparison processes in depression.

In this study we examined the consequences for depressed and nondepressed individuals of receiving comparison feedback regarding their causal understanding of an event. Specifically, the effects of similar, dissimilar, or no-comparison feedback on depressed and nondepressed subjects' evaluations of the comparison other and on their feelings about themselves were investigated. Because the reduction of uncertainty about one's conception of social reality is a major motive underlying social-comparison processes, we expected that depressed individuals, who are assumed to have experienced heightened uncertainty associated with frequent exposure to uncontrollable life events, would be more motivated to engage in social comparison and would be more sensitive to social-comparison feedback. Results generally were consistant with this reasoning. The implications of the results in terms of the development and maintenance of depression were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The organization of social action.

This review provides a comprehensive and integrated framework for the processes of social action and empowerment at the level of the individual, the group, and the community. Concepts from personality, social, community and organizational psychology are used as the basis for understanding the complex processes involved in empowerment and social action. The author found that group and organizations will interact more effectively if shared goals and values are clearly articulated and understood at all social levels. Empowerment and social action are organized and integrated in meaningful and useful ways that open up new ways of looking at social action and social organization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple personality: A social psychological perspective.

48 undergraduates were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 interview treatments that varied in the extent to which they provided cues for manifesting multiple personality and were instructed to play the role of an accused murderer throughout the interview. The most explicit treatment (Bianchi treatment) included a role-played hypnotic interview that was used in diagnosing a suspect in the "Hillside strangler" rape–murder cases as suffering from multiple personality. A less explicit hypnotic treatment and a nonhypnotic treatment were administered to the remaining role players. Most Ss in the Bianchi treatment displayed the major signs of multiple personality (e.g., adoption of a different name, spontaneous "posthypnotic" amnesia). In a later session, Ss who role played as multiple personalities performed differently on psychological tests administered separately to each role-played identity. Those who failed to enact the multiple personality role performed similarly when tested twice. Findings are discussed in terms of a social psychological formulation that emphasizes the roles of active cognizing, contextual cuing, and social legitimation in the genesis of multiple personality. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication.

Describes some of the issues raised by electronic communication, including time and information-processing pressures, absence of regulating feedback, dramaturgical weakness, paucity of status and position cues, social anonymity, and computing norms and immature etiquette. An empirical approach for investigating the social psychological effects of electronic communication is illustrated, and how social psychological research might contribute to a deeper understanding of computers and technological change in society and computer-mediated communication (CMC) is discussed. A series of studies that explored how people participate in CMC and how computerization affects group efforts to reach consensus is described; results indicate differences in participation, decisions, and interaction among groups meeting face to face and in simultaneous computer-linked discourse and communication by electronic mail. Findings are attributed to difficulties of coordination from lack of informational feedback, absence of social influence cues for controlling discussion, and depersonalization from lack of nonverbal involvement and absence of norms. (103 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)