Fritz Heider’s Legacy

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertram F. Malle
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Social Perception ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Causal Attribution ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Folk Theory ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social

This article reviews some of the central ideas in Heider’s (1958 ) book, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations: common-sense psychology, personal causality, causal attribution, and the social perception of mental states. Relying on Heider’s own words to introduce these topics, the review shows that post-Heiderian attribution research overlooked and misunderstood several of Heider’s contributions. For example, he has been falsely portrayed as postulating a person-situation dichotomy as the core of people’s understanding of behavior; and his analysis of dispositions as primarily mental states has been mistaken for one of dispositions as stable traits. Heider’s original ideas are, however, firmly connected to cognitive science research on the folk theory of mind and provide a foundation for recent social-psychological work on inferences of other people’s mental states.

scholarly journals Social representations and ideology: Theories of common sense about COVID-19 among middle-class Brazilians and their ideological implications

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Luiz Gustavo Silva Souza ◽  
Emma O’Dwyer ◽  
Sabrine Mantuan dos Santos Coutinho ◽  
Sharmistha Chaudhuri ◽  
Laila Lilargem Rocha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Psychological Analysis ◽  
Related Risk ◽  
The Social

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the lives of billions of people worldwide. Individuals and groups were compelled to construct theories of common sense about the disease to communicate and guide practices. The theory of social representations provides powerful concepts to analyse the psychosocial construction of COVID-19. This study aimed to understand the social representations of COVID-19 constructed by middle-class Brazilian adults and their ideological implications, providing a social-psychological analysis of these phenomena while the pandemic is still ongoing. We adopted a qualitative approach based on semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted online in April-May 2020. Participants were 13 middle-class Brazilians living in urban areas. We analysed the interviews with thematic analysis and a phenomenological approach. The social representations were organised around three themes: 1) a virus originated in human actions and with anthropocentric meanings (e.g., a punishment for the human-led destruction of the environment); 2) a dramatic disease that attacks the lungs and kills people perceived to have “low immunity”; and 3) a disturbing pandemic that was also conceived as a correction event with positive consequences. The social representations included beliefs about the individualistic determination of immunity, the attribution of divine causes to the pandemic, and the need for the moral reformation of humankind. The discussion highlights the ideological implications of these theories of common sense. Socially underprivileged groups are at greater COVID-19-related risk, which the investigated social representations may contribute to conceal and naturalise.

scholarly journals The Style of Interpersonal Relationships as a Determining Factor in the Social-Psychological Adaptation of Adolescents with a Slight Degree of Mental Retardation and with Normotypical Development in the Context of Co-Education in Secondary School

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
T. Boldyreva
Keyword(s):  
Mental Retardation ◽  
Inclusive Education ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Psychological Adaptation ◽  
Interpersonal Interaction ◽  
Mild Mental Retardation ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Slight Degree ◽  
The Social

The article presents and describes the style models of interpersonal interaction revealed through regression analysis, providing socio-psychological adaptation of adolescents with mild mental retardation and with normotypical development, studying in secondary schools. 75 adolescents from rural schools were examined, who had a sufficient level of social and psychological adaptation, identified through the methods of diagnosing the social-psychological adaptation of R. Rogers and R. Diamond. Characteristics of interpersonal interaction studied using a modified version of T. Leary's interpersonal diagnosis in the adaptation of L.N. Sobchik. The differences in the structure of interpersonal relations, contributing to the adaptation of adolescents with normotypical development and with a slight degree of mental retardation revealed. The analysis of the correspondence of the presented results to modern studies of interpersonal relations among adolescents made possible to discover originality in the determination of socio-psychological adaptation not only among adolescents with mild mental retardation, but also with their normally developing peers in inclusive education.

The Discovery of Common-Sense Psychology

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Reisenzein ◽  
Udo Rudolph
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Causal Attribution ◽  
Hindsight Bias ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Organizational Contexts ◽  
Current State ◽  
Common Sense Psychology

This special issue of Social Psychology commemorates the 50th anniversary of Fritz Heider’s 1958 book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. The contributions to the special issue address the history and current state of attribution research, or illustrate contemporary research in the field. The historical articles document that Heider’s analysis of causal attribution and of common-sense psychology was significantly influenced by his academic teachers Alexius Meinong and Ernst Cassirer. We distinguish between the mainstream reception of Heider’s book, which has given rise to an extensive empirical research program, and a minority reception by authors who emphasized aspects of Heider’s thinking not well represented in mainstream psychology. Currently, there are indications of a “back to Heider” movement in social psychology. This new phase of attribution research is inspired by a fresh reading of Heider’s book, and is marked by an interdisciplinary orientation. The articles illustrating current attribution research address both classic and novel topics: the causality implicit in language, the role of causal attribution in hindsight bias, the justification of actions, and the attribution of mistakes in organizational contexts.

Individual experiencing of states

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALISHER FAIZULLAEV
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Causal Attribution ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
International Context ◽  
Shared Meanings ◽  
The Individual

ABSTRACTThe author argues that the international context provides an apparent environment for the individual experiencing of the state as a distinctive unitary and cohesive actor with its own intentionality and personhood, social relations and coercive resources, manifested not only by actions and force, but also through symbols, figure of speeches and other allusive forms capable of affecting human identity. As a direct personal observation, individual experiencing of states contains an inner, phenomenological plan, though it is not a solipsistic process and depends on people’s shared meanings. Conventional perception of states as anthropomorphic actors regards relations between states as social or interpersonal relations, thus causal attribution and social expectations affect individual experience of states. Being primarily a common-sense phenomenon, individual experiencing of states has a wide-ranging effect on both ‘conventional’ and ‘conceptual’ understanding of international relations. In perception and explanation of international politics, real political developments are often overshadowed by observable, experiential, common-sense causations.

Two faces of social-psychological realism

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Hoover Wilson ◽  
Julie Y. Huang
Keyword(s):  
Social Perception ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social World ◽  
Scientific Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Psychological Realism ◽  
Scientific Paradigms ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis commentary places Jussim (2012) in dialogue with sociological perspectives on social reality and the political-academic nature of scientific paradigms. Specifically, we highlight how institutions, observers, and what is being observed intersect, and discuss the implications of this intersection on measurement within the social world. We then identify similarities between Jussim's specific narrative regarding social perception research, with noted patterns of scientific change.

The social neuroscience of biases in in-and-out-group face processing

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Terbeck
Keyword(s):  
Social Perception ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Person Perception ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Reliable Predictor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Psychological Research

AbstractThe validity and reliability of stereotypes in social perception confirms traditional early social psychological research. Already in 1954 Gordon Allport stated that stereotypes might have a “kernel of truth.” Recent research in social neuroscience, however, contradicts Lee Jussims’ (2012) claim that the application of stereotypes increases accuracy in person perception. Person perception is inaccurate as it is insufficient when it involves only one factor (even if that factor was a reliable predictor).

The globalization of social sciences? Evidence from a quantitative analysis of 30 years of production, collaboration and citations in the social sciences (1980–2009)

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 626-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sébastien Mosbah-Natanson ◽  
Yves Gingras
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Collaborations ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
Peripheral Regions

This article addresses the issue of internationalization of social sciences by studying the evolution of production (of academic articles), collaboration and citations patterns among main world regions over the period 1980–2009 using the SSCI. The results confirm the centre–periphery model and indicate that the centrality of the two major regions that are North America and Europe is largely unchallenged, Europe having become more important and despite the growing development of Asian social sciences. The authors’ quantitative approach shows that the growing production in the social sciences but also the rise of international collaborations between regions have not led to a more homogeneous circulation of the knowledge produced by different regions, or to a substantial increase in the visibility of the contributions produced by peripheral regions. Social scientists from peripheral regions, while producing more papers in the core journals compiled by the SSCI, have a stronger tendency to cite journals from the two central regions, thus losing at least partially their more locally embedded references, and to collaborate more with western social scientists. In other words, the dynamic of internationalization of social science research may also lead to a phagocytosis of the periphery into the two major centers, which brings with it the danger of losing interest in the local objects specific to those peripheral regions.

scholarly journals Alienation and Emotion: Hegel Versus Sentimentalism and Romanticism

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Warren D. TenHouten
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Domination

The structuralist and social-psychological perspectives on alienation are described, with attention to Seeman’s contention that the experience of alienation is based more on sentiment than on reason. The passions in early modernity are described, and the eighteenth-century moral sentimentalists Hume, Smith, and Kant are discussed. Romanticism is described as the first self-critique of modernity, as it opposed Enlightenment science, rationalism, and uniformitarianism; it is linked to interiorized emotionality and to diversitarianism. Romantic concepts of alienation include inhibition of natural sexuality, oppressive condition of work, and the loss of an imagined Golden Age before human alienation. Hegel’s Phenomenology outlines a four-stage mode of the undoing of social domination which has a narrative structure consistent with romantic story-telling, but was grounded not in romanticism but in Gnosticism and Lutheran dialectics. Hegel’s critique of sentimentalism and romantism is explored, with Hegel emerging as a dedicated anti-romantic who condemned the sophistry of Schlegel and Novalis’s ‘beautiful soul’, arguing that the self, to be viable, cannot remain encapsulated in inner subjectivity but must rather engage in emotion-laden confrontation with self-willed others in the social world; this requires a positive kind of alienation of the self from itself. Romantic effort to keep the self in itself as protection from the corrupted and corrupting social world was misguided. Hegel was right in asserting that the self is necessarily both subjective and objective, both inner and outer, but wrong in his contention that the self can progress by resolving inner contradictions, for the self, as the core of our personality, rather progresses through incorporating and elaborating contradictions, ambiguities, and polysemantic meanings.

scholarly journals Physical Laws and Human Behavior: A Three-Tier Framework

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shabnam Mousavi ◽  
Shyam Sunder
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Initial Step ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Core ◽  
Psychological Attributes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modeling Behavior ◽  
Physical Laws

Social sciences start by looking at the social-psychological attributes of humans to model and explain their observed behavior. However, we suggest starting the study of observed human behavior with the universal laws of physics, e.g., the principle of minimum action. In our proposed three-tier framework, behavior is a manifestation of action driven by physical, biological, and social-psychological principles at the core, intermediate, and top tier, respectively. More broadly, this reordering is an initial step towards building a platform for reorganizing the research methods used for theorizing and modeling behavior. This perspective outlines and illustrates how a physical law can account for observed human behavior and sketches the elements of a broader agenda.

Introducing Students to the Generic Terminology of Social Research

Politics ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 175-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Grix
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Logical Relationship ◽  
The Core ◽  
Constructive Dialogue ◽  
The Social ◽  
Core Concepts

The aim of this article is twofold: first, to present an accessible way of introducing students to the key generic terms of social science research. There is an obvious need for clarifying the generic tools and terminology of the social sciences across the disciplines, as academics argue past each other, using identical terms but attaching different meanings to them. Secondly, this article presents the interrelationship between the core concepts of social science (ontology, epistemology, methodology, methods and sources). This ‘directional’ and logical relationship needs to be understood, if students – and academics – are to engage in constructive dialogue and criticism of each others' work.

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