Smoking Behavior Development and Modification: An Empirical Application of Three Social Psychological Theories1

Three major social psychological theories were applied to data obtained in interviews with a random sample of 50 exsmokers and 50 smokers. The objective was to test the utility of these theories with respect to smoking behavior development and change. The results provided strong support for the hypotheses derived from reference group theory and partial support for the cognitive dissonance and psychoanalytic hypotheses.     

阴谋论信念的产生机制——社会认知视角的三种解释

社会心理学将阴谋论视作一种意识形态上的信念,并定义为人们将重大的政治或社会事件归因为有权力的群体或个人暗中预谋以达成其目的的解释倾向。社会认知视角为个体这种阴谋论信念的产生提供了三种解释。错觉模式感知导致人们认知上倾向于在不相关的事件之间建立联系;敏感性动因觉察影响人们过度感知并假定事件背后的动因、目的和意图等;投射是将自己愿意参与阴谋的意图归因于事件中的他人。     

顿悟:是进程监控还是表征转换

当前解释顿悟问题解决机制的理论主要有表征转换理论和进程监控理论。进程监控理论主要解释了顿悟问题为什么困难,但事实上它并没有说明顿悟问题为什么会解决,只回答了在什么情况下被试才会寻求其他的方法,而且它把顿悟问题解决的一般过程看成是同常规问题解决方法相同的过程。而表征转换理论主要解释了顿悟是如何获得的——顿悟的获得是由于问题解决者对问题的表征实现了正确的转变,但它并没有解释表征什么时候、怎么样才能转变?顿悟问题的解决经历了三个认知加工阶段,顿悟问题的解决需要在消除定势情况下激活正确的启发信息(线索),并验证了顿悟问题的原型激活和关键启发信息理论假说。     

When Good Intentions Are Not Enough: Modeling Postdecisional Cognitive Correlates of Condom Use1

Measures of intention usually leave substantial proportions of the variance in behavior unexplained. It has been suggested that improved behavioral prediction could be achieved by identifying postdecisional cognitive processes capable of distinguishing between intenders who do act and those do not act. Condom-related self-report measures of postdecisional cognitive processes were developed and tested in a cross-sectional questionnaire study involving 447 heterosexual students. A discriminant function composed of postdecisional measures was found to significantly distinguish between intenders who reported use and non-use and to correctly classify 80% of intenders. The results indicate that measures of the relative importance of competing intentions, prior planning of specific preparatory actions, and action-specific self-efficacy may enhance the prediction of condom use among intenders.     

Accentuate the Negative: Social Images in the Prediction and Promotion of Condom Use1

Based on the negativity bias in person perception, we argue that behavioral decisions related to condom use are influenced by the social images that an individual has of people who do not use condoms, but that they are not influenced by the social images that an individual has of people who do use condoms. Three studies with college student samples indicated that the negative evaluations of people who do not use condoms predicts willingness to have sex without condoms. In contrast, positive evaluations of people who do use condoms showed no unique predictions. A fourth study demonstrated that a health message emphasizing the negative social consequences of having sex without condoms decreased willingness to have unsafe sex in comparison to a control, whereas a message that emphasized the positive social consequences of using condoms had no such effects on willingness.     

Social Comparison,the Threat of AIDS,and Adolescent Condom Use1

This study tested hypotheses from social comparison theory about adolescent condom use. Questionnaires were administered to 457 twelfth-grade students (284 sexually active). Three different operationalizations of social comparison were used—comparative ratings, affiliative preferences, and derogation; each produced different results. Low condom users who felt threatened by AIDS made more downward comparative ratings regarding condom use than did unthreatened low users. In contrast, low users preferred upward affiliations with high users. Adolescents with higher self-esteem derogated adolescents with AIDS less as threat increased. Adolescents with lower self-esteem who made downward comparative ratings were more satisfied with their own past condom use. Satisfied low condom users were less likely to intend condom use in the future. The results provide evidence that downward comparison may act indirectly to deter behavioral change.     

Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to Adolescents’ Condom Use: A Panel Study1

The authors report a longitudinal study of factors determining use of condoms with new sexual partners in a representative sample of 650 German youth. Measures derived from the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985) were obtained in 2 waves separated by 1 year. Consistent with the theory, intentions to use condoms could be predicted from attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control with respect to this behavior; and actual condom use was strongly related to intentions and perceptions of control assessed in Wave 2. Due to changes in beliefs and attitudes over time, only about 10% of the variance in reported condom use was accounted for by intentions and perceived control assessed 1 year earlier. Reported condom use was found to exert a direct effect on later intentions, unmediated by their hypothesized antecedents. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Cognitive Therapy and Theories of Knowing: A Social Constructionist View

It is argued that current theory and practice of cognitive therapy are encapsulated by a set of epistemic values that assign causative primacy for psychological problems to the cognitive processes of the individual knower. Social contructionism represents an alternative to this state of affairs by underscoring the inextricable connection between the personal and the social, challenging the merit of decontextualized accounts of psychological problems, and identifying empowerment and social change as viable therapeutic options.     

Intentions to Use the Female Condom Among African American Adults1

The present study tested whether the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and self‐efficacy for female condom use predicted intentions to use the female condom among African American adults. Participants were 137 men and women, 18 to 35 years of age, who were recruited from a community‐based organization. Results indicate that: (a) the TRA model has predictive utility for women's but not for men's intentions to use the female condom with both main and casual sex partners, and (b) the TRA model was a better predictor of intentions to use the female condom with main than with casual partners. Implications for female condom‐use promotion are discussed.     

A Cross-Cultural Test of Social Structure and Social Learning: Alcohol Use among South Korean Adolescents

The main purpose of this study is to test the validity and cross-cultural generalizability of Akers’ Social Structure and Social Learning (SSSL) model of crime and deviance. The test is done with data on substance use behavior among adolescents in South Korea utilizing a sample of 1,021 high school students. The data are taken from (1) a self-report survey of 1,021 high school students in Busan, South Korea and (2) district (Gu) level census reports of Busan. We consider this a test of the full SSSL model because we have at least one measure of all of the four main explanatory concepts found in social learning theory (differential association, definition, differential reinforcement, and imitation) and of all four of the social structural components of SSSL (differential social organization, differential location in the social structure, theoretically defined structural causes of crime, and differential social location in groups). The principal hypothesis is that the effects of the measures of social structure on adolescent deviance (substance use) will be substantially mediated by the measures of the social learning variables. To test this hypothesis multi-level data are analyzed in several Hierarchal Linear Models. The social learning variables are found to substantially mediate the effects of social structural components on adolescents’ alcohol use. Therefore, the study provides additional evidence supportive of SSSL and evidence that it applies not only in the United States but also is generalizable to a non-Western society. The contributions, limitations, and implications of the study for future research are presented.     

理论的建构与验证:来自社会认同研究的经验(英文)

科学研究的核心在于理论的建构与验证。基于社会认同和群际关系研究的经验,本文提出了建构与验证心理学理论的四步方法:1)选择现象——观察我们身边及周围世界所发生的事件;2)寻找关键共性——厘定不同事件间的共同成份;3)抽象化(理论化)——提取关键共性中潜存的基本心理过程,并将其与已有的或者最新的理论相联系;4)验证假设——利用实验反复地验证理论。以上四个步骤引导着研究者针对现实生活中的社会事件展开科学研究。文章将以等级身份、身份霸权和桥梁身份等研究为例阐明上述方法,同时也提出在社会和人格心理学领域开展系统性研究的准则。     

Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective

This article presents the basic tenets of social cognitive theory. It is founded on a causal model of triadic reciprocal causation in which personal factors in the form of cognitive, affective and biological events, behavioral patterns, and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants that influence one another bidirectionally. Within this theory, human agency is embedded in a self theory encompassing self-organizing, proactive, self-reflective and self-regulative mechanisms. Human agency can be exercised through direct personal agency; through proxy agency relying on the efforts of intermediaries; and by collective agency operating through shared beliefs of efficacy, pooled understandings, group aspirations and incentive systems, and collective action. Personal agency operates within a broad network of sociostructural influences. In these agentic transactions, people are producers as well as products of social systems. Growing transnational imbeddedness and interdependence of societies are creating new social realities in which global forces increasingly interact with national ones to shape the nature of cultural life.     

Application of an Integrated Behavioral Model to Predict Condom Use: A Prospective Study Among High HIV Risk Groups1

An integrated theoretical model using constructs from multiple behavioral models was applied to understand and predict condom use among a sample of injecting drug users, commercial sex workers, men who have sex with men, and multipartnered heterosexuals. Elicitation interviews were conducted to develop a questionnaire to measure model constructs that may be predictive of condom use for sex with vaginal, anal, and oral regular and casual partners. A prospective survey design was used, with 993 participants interviewed at Time 1, and 686 returning for Time 2 interviews 3 months later. Regression analyses were conducted using Time 1 measures to predict intention and Time 2 behavior. Strong support was found for a model that includes attitude, social norm, and facilitators/constraints as predictors of behavior, with multiple correlations in the 0.20 to 0.40 range. Findings also indicate perceived control and facilitators/constraints are distinct constructs and both, along with attitude and social norm, contribute to explaining behavioral intention. Implications for intervention development are discussed.     

A Supervenient Trinity: An Alternative to Latin and Social Trinitarian Theories

The Latin Trinity (LT) and the Social Trinity (ST) represent the two dominant approaches for interpreting the doctrine of the Trinity in contemporary philosophical theology. Both approaches have consequences for Christian theology, however, and I believe that neither sufficiently overcomes the charges of modalism or tritheism, respectively. Moreover, the charge of the overall logical incoherency of the doctrine of the Trinity remains a viable criticism. In order to defend the doctrine of the Trinity against charges of incoherency, while avoiding the modalistic and tritheistic leanings of the LT and ST models, I argue that the unitary nature of God‐as‐three‐hypostases is best understood in terms of a relationship of supervenience between the revelation of (1) Deut. 6:4 and (2) the Gospel of John. The Hypostases of the Trinity supervene on the unitary identity of God insofar as to be ‘God’ is to entail the perichoretic relationship of unbegottenness, begottenness, and spiratation (procession). The Supervenient Trinity (SvT), as an analogical model, provides a way to understand God as (1) and (2) that better avoids the modalist and tritheistic difficulties raised by the LT and the ST approaches.     

Ambivalence and Unprotected Sex: Failure to Predict Sexual Activity and Decreased Condom Use1

Using a prospective design, we assessed whether ambivalence toward sexual activity is associated with decreased condom use. Undergraduates predicted whether they would have intercourse and use condoms in the next week. A week later, they reported their sexual and contraceptive behavior. Among 65 individuals who had intercourse and planned to use condoms, ambivalence toward sexual activity was negatively associated with condom use. Moreover, whether intercourse was planned mediated the relationship between ambivalence and condom use, such that ambivalence was negatively associated with accuracy in planning sex, and unplanned sex was less likely to be protected. Individuals who are ambivalent about sex may intend to use condoms, but fail to do so because they cannot predict when they will have intercourse.     

Social Facilitation: A Test of Competing Theories1

Evaluation–apprehension and distraction–conflict have typically been treated as alternative explanations for social facilitation. The present study tested both theories under a single design. The study examined (a) whether each explanation predicted social‐facilitation performance outcomes and (b) whether combining evaluation and distraction manipulations produced even greater performance outcomes. The present study also explored whether physical presence is necessary to produce social‐facilitation effects when evaluation and distraction manipulations are already present. The study found significant facilitation effects on the simple task only in the evaluation–apprehension condition. Significant performance impairment was found for both evaluation and distraction. Combining evaluation with distraction led to greater effects only on the complex task. Furthermore, physical presence does not appear necessary to produce social‐facilitation effects.     

Complexity: An Integration of Theories1

The development of a science-wide complexity theory by associates of the Santa Fe Institute provides the opportunity to explore the convergence of behavioral (cognitive/conceptual) complexity theory with science-wide complexity theory. A number of equivalent or similar views of two theories with relevance to human cognition and behavior are discussed.     

The Division of Household Labor in Spanish Dual Earner Couples: Testing Three Theories

Although the participation of men in household activities has increased, this has not prompted an equitable division of household activities among men and women, since Spanish women continue to perform a greater share of these activities than Spanish men. This article explores the explanatory potential of three theoretical approaches (traditional gender division, role-strain and the resource-bargaining approach) to account for the emergence of different patterns in the division of unpaid work among Spanish dual earner couples. Using a representative sample of 2,877 Spanish workers and through logit ordered models, our study reveals that the three models contribute to the explanation of the different patterns of household labor and, therefore, may be regarded as complementary.