Detailed
Contents and Chapter Outlines
The
social mind: Introduction
Joseph P. Forgas, Kipling D. Williams and Ladd Wheeler,
University of New South Wales.
This introductory chapter will set the scene for the book
by providing a brief historical overview of the links
between mental representations and interpersonal behavior
in psychological theorizing. The origins of contemporary
approaches will be traced to groundbreaking work by
classic social psychologists such as Lewin, Asch,
Festinger and Tajfel, whose work is reflected in several
of the chapters here. This chapter will also review
recent developments in social cognition research and
research on the motivational antecedents of social
behavior. Some of the early empirical evidence linking
mental representations and strategic interpersonal
behaviors will also be discussed. The communalities
between the various theoretical formulations represented
in the chapters of this volume will be highlighted, and
the prospects for a comprehensive and integrated approach
for understanding strategic interaction will be
discussed.
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Part I - The social mind:
Fundamental issues and mental representations of
the social world
Cognitive versus affective
aspects of phenomenal thought systems focused on
persons
William J. McGuire & Claire V. McGuire,
Yale University
This chapter describes the authors’
integrative research on the way phenomenal
thought systems develop around foci of meaning
like oneself and others. Experiments are
described that analyse how thinkers carry out
various directed-thinking tasks, such as listing
designated types of characteristics of a target
person. Responses are analyzed to discover the
content and structure of people’s thought
systems and how they are affected by cognitive
and affective variables. Five dimensions that
together provide an inclusive description of
thought systems were identified. Two dimensions
are cognitive: (1) size; and (2)
cognitive-affirmational bias. Two others are
affective: (3) affective desirability bias; and
(4) people-favorability bias. The fifth dimension
is (5) cognitive-affective congruence. It was
found that even the cognitive dimension of
people-focused thought systems are more
influenced by the affective qualities of the
stimulus person (e.g., likability) than by his or
her cognitive qualities (e.g., familiarity). Men
and women thinkers differed on all five
dimensions of thought systems about people.
However, the sex of the stimulus persons made
little difference in the thought system that
develops around them. The findings' theoretical
and practical implications for personal
representations and interpersonal relations are
discussed.
Social-cognitive process of
transference in interpersonal relations:
Motivation and affect deriving from
significant-other representations
Susan M. Andersen, New York University
This chapter discusses the way mental
representations of significant others, stored in
memory, can be activated and applied in new
social encounters, with important consequences
for thoughts, feelings and motivations. This
process of transference can lead social actors to
remember things in ways that is distorted towards
the significant other in accord with the model of
schema-triggered affect. For example, physical
resemblance to a significant other may trigger a
motivation to be close to such a person. The
expectancy of being accepted or rejected by a new
person can also be triggered by such
transference, and facial affect is also cued by
resemblance to a significant other. Changes in
the self and in self-evaluation can also be
subject to transference. In sum, the chapter
argues that significant other representations and
transference are affectively and motivationally
laden. Research supporting this conclusion will
be described, and the importance of mental
representations about significant others in
guiding our affective and behavioral responses to
others will be discussed.
The structure and function of
ideals in close relationships
Garth Fletcher, University of
Canterbury, Jeffrey Simpson, Texas
A&M University
What are ideal standards in a relationship? What
are the basic ideal dimensions individuals use to
evaluate their ideal partners and relationships?
How do such ideal standards develop? And how do
ideals affect and guide relationships? In this
chapter the authors present a comprehensive model
of social ideals in close relationships, and
describe empirical research based on the model.
It is argued that ideals have three main
functions: (1) evaluation (of relationship
quality), (2) regulation (of emotions and
behaviors), and (3) explanation and prediction
(of relationship events). Several studies
explored the content of ideals in romantic
relationships. It was found that partner
warmth/trustworthiness, partner
vitality/attractiveness and partner
status/resources were the dimensions along which
ideal partners are differentiated. Relationship
ideals were differentiated along the relationship
intimacy/loyalty and relationship passion
dimensions. Other studies produced convergent and
discriminant validity for these dimensions, and
showed that relationship evaluations were guided
by these ideal standards. A longitudinal study
also examined how relationship ideals develop and
change, and found a close link between ideals and
changes in perceptions and satisfaction. Ideals
were also closely related to self-perception
processes in other studies. These results are
discussed in terms of social cognitive theories,
and the role of regular and automatic social
comparisons between accessible ideals and actual
perceptions is considered. The implications of
this work of the maintenance and development of
intimate relationships is discussed.
The social influence of automatic
responding: Controlling the uncontrollable
Pascal Huguet, Université Blaise
Pascal, France
In this chapter, Hugeut presents research showing
that automatic cognitive processes that typically
produces Stroop interference (like word reading)
are in fact open to influence in certain social
situations. These situations include when
participants work on the Stroop task in the
presence of an attentive audience or when they
are involved in forced upward social comparisons.
These findings demonstrate the power of social
situations over what has been thought to be
invariant automatic processing. As such, they are
inconsistent with the view reiterated in more
than 500 papers on Stroop interference over the
past 60 years. The chapter focuses on how social
situations can sometimes dominate processes that
are viewed as uncontrollable, and supports the
position that cognition should be treated as a
fundamental social activity.
Uncertainty orientation and the
interpersonal context
Richard M. Sorrentino, University of
Western Ontario
The way people deal with uncertainty in their
social environment is an important individual
difference variable that has major implications
for many areas of social psychology. This chapter
challenges the current prototype of "humans
as rational beings," assuming that humans
have the need to know and understand their
environment and will engage in cognitive activity
or overt behavior in order to resolve the
uncertainty. It is argued that this is in fact
the prototype of the uncertainty-oriented person.
Certainty-oriented persons are more likely to
maintain clarity about their environment, rather
than engage in or attend to situations that
contain uncertainty. Given the tremendous
importance of uncertainty in the interpersonal
domain our research program now also includes the
study of interpersonal relations and group
dynamics. So far we have demonstrated that
uncertainty orientation is an important moderator
of trust in close relationships, of behavior and
attitudes in cooperative learning paradigms and
of group decision-making. Current research is
described analyzing the role of uncertainty
orientation in social identity and
self-categorization, minority vs. majority
influence, social comparison and shared reality,
stereotyping, prejudice, and intergroup conflict.
The role uncertainty orientation as a key concept
in how people deal with the social world is
discussed.
The social self: The quest for
self-definition and the motivational primacy of
the individual self
Constantine Sedikides, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Persons seek to achieve self-definition and
self-interpretation (i.e., identity) in at least
three fundamental ways: (1) in terms of their
personal traits or those aspects of the
self-concept that make the person unique in a
given social environment (the individual self);
(2) in terms of group membership or those aspects
of the self-concept that differentiate the group
member from members of relevant outgroups (the
collective self); and (3) in terms of contextual
characteristics, or those aspects of the
situation that make one self more accessible than
the other. Do these three bases of
self-definition carry equal weight? Is one more
primary than the others? To address these
questions, we formulated and tested three
hypotheses. According to the individual-self
primacy hypothesis, the individual self is the
most fundamental basis of self-definition.
According to the collective-self primacy
hypothesis, the collective self provides the most
fundamental basis for self-definition. Finally,
according to the contextual-primacy hypothesis,
neither the individual nor the collective self is
primary; instead, self-definition depends upon
contextual factors. We conducted four
experiments. All four supported the
individual-self primary hypothesis.
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Part II - Strategic Interpersonal
Behavior
Cognitive and motivational
processes in self-presentation
Dianne M. Tice, Case Western
University
Self-presentation is the paramount interpersonal
aspect of the self. Ultimately, shaping a
particular and desirable image of self to present
to others is one of the crucial tasks of
interpersonal life, and the presented self is a
powerful tool for relating to other people. This
chapter will present an up-to-date review and
discussion of self-presentation research based on
the author’s empirical work. Several key
points will be emphasized. (1) Favorability of
self-presentation changes depending on whether
one is presenting oneself to friends or
strangers. Modesty prevails among friends but
self-enhancement is the norm between strangers.
Cognitive load and memory impairment data
indicate that these styles of self-presentation
are automatic processes, whereas modest
presentation to strangers requires controlled
processes. (2) Automatic vs. controlled
self-presentations: When people depart from their
familiar style of self-presentation, this may
impair the capacity to process new information
about the interaction partner. Hence engaging in
controlled self-presentation results in less
accurate memory for the other person. (3)
Enhancement vs. protection: People must often
choose whether to take risks to enhance their
public images of self, or avoid risk so as to
protect the image of self. Trait self-esteem and
self-handicapping contingencies were found to
predict how people respond to such an
interpersonal risk situation. (4) Interpersonal
basis for self-concept change: Evidence indicates
that self-concept change follows from
internalizing self-presentations to others - but
similar information processing in private fails
to produce parallel changes. Consistent with the
theme of the book, the chapter will conclude by
highlighting the critical role of cognitive,
motivational and affective processes in managing
strategic interpersonal behaviors.
Affective influences on strategic
interpersonal behaviors
Joseph P. Forgas, University of New
South Wales
Although recent research in social cognition told
us much about the role of rational information
processing strategies in guiding interpersonal
behaviors, the influence of affective states on
strategic interaction has been far more
neglected. This chapter argues that even mild and
temporary mood states are likely to have a
significant and predictable influence on the way
people perceive, plan and execute interpersonal
behaviors. Further, extrapolating from the
author’s Affect Infusion Model (AIM; Forgas,
1995), the chapter will develop a theoretical
framework that predicts that affect infusion into
social interaction should be most likely to occur
in social situations that require more elaborate,
substantive processing for a behavioral response
to be produced. Numerous recent experiments from
the author’s laboratory will be discussed
indicating that positive and negative affective
states significantly influence the interpretation
of social behaviors, responses to approaches from
others, the planning and execution of negotiation
encounters, and the production and interpretation
of strategic interpersonal messages such as
requests. The chapter will conclude by
emphasizing the critical role of affect in how
people represent and respond to the social world,
and the implications of these findings for
applied areas such as organizational, clinical
and health psychology will be considered.
Toward an integrated model of
dissonance motivation
Joel Cooper, Princeton University
Cognitive dissonance theory has been an important
concept in social psychology for more than forty
years, yet the precise motivational basis for the
effect has remained elusive. This chapter
presents a new model of dissonance motivation.
Since Festinger’s original assumption that
inconsistency leads to dissonance arousal,
influential alternative views have been advanced.
Aronson suggested that the self is necessarily
involved in dissonance. In contrast, Cooper and
Fazio proposed that feeling responsible for
aversive or unwanted consequences aroused
dissonance. Steele echoed Aronson’s emphasis
on the self, and emphasized the need to affirm
the self. The controversy has provided some
fascinating data and opened up new areas of
research such as investigations into hypocritical
behavior. Nonetheless, there remains little
consensus about the primary motivational basis of
cognitive dissonance. The new model proposed here
takes seriously the mutual influence of cognition
and motivation implied in Festinger’s
original model. The chapter will show that the
degree to which the self is involved in
dissonance, versus the degree to which dissonance
supersedes the self, is a function of the
cognitive accessibility of particular standards.
I will present data to show that when
people’s personal standards for behavior are
chronically or situationally accessible,
dissonance follows a path predicted by
self-consistency theorists. When normative
standards are accessible, then people’s
experience of dissonance follows the "New
Look" model of Cooper and Fazio. The new
model integrates the competing views of the
underlying motivational properties of dissonance.
The motivational and cognitive
dynamics of day-to-day social life
John Nezlek, College of William &
Mary
Nezlek will present a model describing the
relationships between the cognitive and
motivational dynamics of day-to-day social life
and their relationships to psychological well
being. The model will focus primarily on
integrating research and theory in two areas: (1)
day-to-day social interaction, and (2) daily
plans and their fulfillment. The emphasis on the
day as a unit of analysis reflects the fact that
people tend to organize their lives in terms of
days. The primary assumption of the model is that
people’s daily lives reflect an integration
of two basic needs: the need for belongingness
and the need for control. The present model
assumes that people need to feel close to others
(motivational), whereas they need to think they
have control (cognitive). The model assumes that
what people do socially each day is best
understood as a cognitive phenomenon subject to
cognitive processes and constructs; how people
feel about what they do each day is best
understood from a motivational perspective. Interpersonal
self-construction and the self: Lessons from the
study of narcissism
Frederick
Rhodewalt, University of Utah
Recent social
psychological research on the self has moved from
a focus on the content and structure of
one’s self-conceptions to a broader focus on
how these self-conceptions are related to affect,
motivation, and interpersonal behavior. The
present social/cognitive model of narcissism is
illustrative of this approach. In this chapter,
Rhodewalt and his colleagues attempt to translate
clinical theory and observation into the
social/cognitive and interpersonal processes that
underlie narcissistic behavior. The model assumes
that narcissists are highly invested in
maintaining and enhancing positive views of the
self. However, the repository for this
self-knowledge lies in self-affirming, on-line
feedback from others rather than on knowledge of
past accomplishments and achievements. Thus, a
significant proportion of the narcissist’s
interpersonal behavior is aimed at eliciting
positive feedback from others. This individual
difference approach to the study of social
self-construction provides a frame in which to
study motivated interpersonal behavior as well as
being informative about the social cognitive
dynamics of narcissism.
Victims and perpetrators provide
discrepant accounts: Motivated cognitive
distortions about interpersonal transgressions
Roy Baumeister, Case Western Reserve
University
Interpersonal transgressions typically include
both a victim and a perpetrator, but their
accounts of the transgression often do not match.
In a series of studies, Baumeister and his
colleagues have explored these systematic
differences. Relative to perpetrators, victims
tell stories in which (1) the victims were wholly
innocent, (2) the perpetrators had no valid
reason or justification for their actions, (3)
severe and lasting negative consequences were
caused, (4) mitigating or extenuating
circumstances surrounding the perpetrator's
actions are missing, (5) multiple offenses were
involved, (6) the victim's reaction was either
appropriate or highly restrained, and (7) the
transgression is still seen as highly relevant to
the present time. Despite traditional biases that
assume perpetrators lie to protect themselves
while victims tell the unvarnished truth, two
studies that matched role-based accounts with
original information found that victims and
perpetrators distort information to an equal
degree (not counting perjury to avoid
punishment), and both distorted significantly
more than a control group with no motivating role
to play. Thus, both the victim and perpetrator
roles contain biases that can distort
interpretations and memories. An additional study
examined linguistic biases in perpetrator
accounts and found that perpetrators alter their
speech patterns, such as by using shorter
sentences, avoiding grammatical constructions
that imply responsibility (e.g., "I
decided..." vs. "before I knew
it..."), featuring their own emotions rather
than those of the victim, and presenting much
more antecedent (background) material relative to
consequence (aftermath) material. Because victims
and perpetrators think about, understand, and
remember similar events in very different ways,
it will be difficult to resolve certain conflicts
after the fact. These findings illuminate
continuing problems in dealing with war crimes,
racial oppression, and gender differences in
perceptions of rape.
Testing the visibility dimension
of ostracism using an event-contingent
self-recording method
Kipling Williams & Ladd Wheeler,
University of New South Wales
Ostracism occurs when individuals (called
sources) ignore, exclude, and reject other
individuals (called targets). Research in this
domain has focused primarily on the effects of
social ostracism on the target. Specifically, how
do targets feel, think, and behave as a
consequence of being ignored and excluded by
those who are physically present. In these
studies, a model is presented that argues
ostracism deprives the target of four fundamental
needs: belongingness, self-esteem, control, and
meaningful existence. The present research
extends the focus in two ways: (1) comparing the
effects of social ostracism to physical (physical
isolation) and cyber ostracism (via the Internet,
phone, or mail); and (2) comparing the effects on
the target with the effects on the sources. In
general, the model suggests that the very needs
that ostracism threatens in targets are fortified
in the sources. The authors employ an
event-contingent self-recording method in two
micro-longitudinal studies to test predictions
that social ostracism will be more threatening
and aversive to targets, and more effortful, yet
self-sustaining for sources.
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Part III - Group Representations
and Interactions
Self-categorization and
subjective uncertainty resolution: Cognitive and
motivational facets of social identity and group
membership
Michael Hogg, University of Queensland
Building on Bartlett’s (1932) notion of a
human search after meaning, contemporary social
psychology has developed an array of constructs
that describe a basic human need to reduce
subjective uncertainty and render experience
meaningful. Although much of this work focuses on
individual differences in need for certainty or
closure, there is no doubt that subjective
uncertainty can be influenced by immediate or
more enduring social contexts. The aim of this
chapter is to suggest that social identification
as a group member is a very effective method of
resolving subjective uncertainty and that the
cognitive process of self-categorization
underlying group identification is well-suited to
uncertainty reduction. Indeed, uncertainty
reduction may be a very basic motive for the
formation of social groups. A series of six
minimal group experiments robustly shows that
identification and intergroup discrimination are
stronger among participants who are explicitly
categorized under conditions of subjective
uncertainty that has non-trivial implications for
self in that context. A series of field studies
will complement the results of the laboratory
studies.
Social loafing and social
striving: Motivational processes in task
performing groups
Norbert L. Kerr, Michigan State
University
This chapter will focus on one of social
psychology’s first (but still largely
unresolved) questions: how does working in a
group affect the task motivation of group
members? Steiner’s (1972) seminal
theoretical work reframed that question as
"under what conditions do group members
exert less task effort in a group context than
when working individually?"— i.e., when
do group motivation losses emerge? The chapter
will emphasize a new focus in this area,
suggesting the alternative possibility of group
motivation gains. Three motivation gain
mechanisms will be distinguished and illustrated:
(1) Social compensation; (2) The Köhler effect;
and (3) Hyper-evaluation apprehension. Kerr will
conclude the chapter by discussing the adequacy
of current theoretical models designed to
integrate knowledge on social loafing [e.g.,
Karau &Williams’s (1993) CEM model and
Shepperd’s (1993) similar,
instrumentality-value model] for explaining these
three types of group motivation gain
Considerations of social
identity, interpersonal accord, and message
elaboration in strategic persuasion processes
William D. Crano, Claremont Graduate
University
One of the key issues in social life is the role
of majority and minority influence processes in
bringing about persuasion and attitude change.
The goals of this chapter are to identify some of
the cognitive processes underlying majority and
minority influence, to delineate the factors that
affect the persistence of change brought about by
these distinct sources of pressure. The chapter
will also seek to provide a plausible theoretical
account not only of direct majority influence,
but also of delayed focal and immediate indirect
minority-induced change. The leniency model, the
focus of this presentation, adopts an elaboration
likelihood model (ELM) orientation to help
isolate factors that affect the persuasive power
of majority and minority groups and the
persistence of the changes they induce. The
leniency model builds on earlier ELM-disposed
studies by integrating considerations of message
strength, outcome relevance, and social identity.
The chapter will argue that it is only through
the integrated analysis of cognitive, affective
and motivational variables that dynamic
interpersonal processes such as minority and
majority influence can be properly understood.
Cognitive and Motivational
Aspects of Interpersonal Behavior
Martin F. Kaplan, Northern Illinois
University, Henk Wilke,
Leiden University
Decision making by groups involves demands on
cognitive performance as well as on intragroup
relationships. This chapter explores the
conditions that produce task and relationship
motives, and the consequences of such motives for
group decision outcomes. All group tasks may be
described on a dimension running from
intellective tasks, which have a demonstrably
correct solution, to judgmental tasks, for which
solutions are mainly based on social consensus.
While behaviors guided by task (cognitive) and
relationship (social) motives often collide in
enhancing or inhibiting productivity, it will
also be shown that they often interact. Social
motives can affect the approach to a task in
terms of the sorts of social decision schemes
adopted, and the depth of cognitive processing.
An integrative model of task and social
motivational processes in groups will be
described. This model synthesizes the
dual-process theory of social influence
(normative and informational influence), the
dual-process theory of cognitive response
(heuristic and systematic reasoning), as well as
theories of social decision schemes (SDS), and
the social identity theory of intragroup
disagreement.
Self-related motives and modes of
processing in the social influence of groups
Wendy Wood, Texas A&M University
What is the process by which people shift
attitudes in response to positively and
negatively valued reference groups? It was
Solomon Asch who first suggested that
‘positions imputed to congenial groups
produce changes in the meaning of objects of
judgment’ (1940, p. 462). Along the same
lines, self-categorization theory suggests a
simpler, heuristic-like process in which group
endorsement serves as a simple rule for the
validity of a judgment. This chapter will
describe a theory, and report a series of
experiments carried out by the author and her
colleagues demonstrating that people are
motivated to adopt interpretations of issues that
allow them to align with valued groups and to
differentiate from derogated ones. For example,
informing individuals that a valued group they
belong to (such as Texas residents) endorses
attitudes they disagree with will produce
significant shifts in their own attitudes. Such
interpretation shifts reduce self-definitional
threat people experience when positively valued
groups advocate positions divergent from their
own. The research also demonstrated that extreme
minority groups that advocate positions based on
important values can shift interpretations and
attitudes. This may be one of the main avenues
through which minority groups can generate social
change. The chapter concludes with a discussion
of the importance of mental representations about
groups in the organization and change of personal
attitudes, and the implications of this work for
everyday issues of attitude change and group
relations is considered.
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