Jean-Léon Beauvois

Social Judgment Norms and Social Utility: When It Is More Valuable to Be Useful Than Desirable

The idea of social norm is often associated with the idea of value. However, such a simple association has often been criticized. The criticism seems to lie in the polysemy and the vagueness associated with the idea of value. The present study was based on the distinction drawn between two dimensions of value that people or objects can have, and its experimental operationalization in personality traits: (1) social desirability (SD), which refers to affective valence or motivation and covers traits such as sympathetic and nice, and (2) social utility (SU), which corresponds to how well a person meets the requirements of a given society, and covers traits like dynamic and competent. The desirability-utility distinction was used here to investigate what kind of value a norm can activate. Our hypothesis was that SU would be more elicited by normativity than SD. This hypothesis was tested in three studies in which participants were asked to describe target people (with traits pertaining either to SD or to SU) whose answers on a questionnaire varied in degree of normativeness (judge paradigm). The results support the hypothesis; the more normative targets are, the more they are described in SU terms.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: A Radical View

A radical view of dissonance theory is presented. The view is radical in the sense that it rejects all reformulations of dissonance theory as unnecessary and misleading. The chapter argues for a return to the original version of dissonance theory as presented in 1957, but supplemented by an axiom stating the necessity of commitment, or more specifically the free choice of compliance. The chapter reviews the results of an extensive research program aimed at testing predictions from reformulated versions of dissonance theory against the radical version. Although individual studies may sometimes allow for interpretations alternative to the one offered, the total body of evidence presented is supportive of the radical view presented by the authors.

Personality Predicts Obedience in a Milgram Paradigm

This study investigates how obedience in a Milgram-like experiment is predicted by interindividual differences. Participants were 35 males and 31 females aged 26-54 from the general population who were contacted by phone 8 months after their participation in a study transposing Milgrams obedience paradigm to the context of a fake television game show. Interviews were presented as opinion polls with no stated ties to the earlier experiment. Personality was assessed by the Big Five Mini-Markers questionnaire (Saucier, 1994). Political orientation and social activism were also measured. Results confirmed hypotheses that Conscientiousness and Agreeableness would be associated with willingness to administer higher-intensity electric shocks to a victim. Political orientation and social activism were also related to obedience. Our results provide empirical evidence suggesting that individual differences in personality and political variables matter in the explanation of obedience to authority.

Normativity and self‐presentation

Notes that people use self‐presentation strategies to enhance their self‐image, and in doing so, they rely on norms. Raises the question of the desirability and feasibility of giving training to individuals in normative self‐presentation, where the idea is to teach the trainees to refer to judgment norms when responding in formal evaluation situations (like job interviews). Three judgment norms are used as illustration: internality, self‐sufficiency, and individual anchoring. The materials for training in these three norms are tested using the methods and techniques of the socionormative approach, and briefly presented. The ethical implications of this type of training are discussed.

Internality, Academic Status, and Intergroup Attributions.

Some pupils categorized as good vs. bad pupils were given a questionnaire of attributions, thus allowing the calculation of internality scores. They were also requested to answer as would a good (vs. a bad) pupil do. Finally, they also had to predict in which way a good (vs. a bad) pupil would answer on their behalf. The results were explained within the frame of two different theoretical fields: the theory of the norm of internality and the biases in terms of intergroup attributions. These results show that 1) the attribution of internal explanations relates to an attribution of value that takes place within the intergroup evaluation, 2) whereas the ultimate attribution error can clearly be observed among the good pupils, the bad pupils exhibit an attributive pattern that is favorable to the good pupils.RésuméDes élèves caractérisés sur la base de leur dossier comme “bons” ou “mauvais” passaient un questionnaire d’attributions permettant le calcul de scores d’internalité. Ils devaient également répondre comme le ferait un bon (ou un mauvais) élève. Ils devaient enfin prédire la façon dont un bon (ou un mauvais) élève répondrait à leur place. Les résultats ont été interprétés dans le cadre de deux champs théoriques différents: celui de la théorie de la norme d’internalité et celui des biais dans les attributions intergroupes. Les résultats montrent, 1) que l’attribution d’explications internes correspond à une attribution de valeur intervenant dans les évaluations intergroupes (norme d’internalité), 2) que si l’erreur ultime d’attribution est observée chez les bons élèves, les mauvais élèves exhibent un pattern attributif favorable aux bons élèves.

What about social value

We focus on three aspects of the articles of Reyna, of Perry, Stupnisky, Daniels and Haynes, and of Murdock, Beauchamp and Hinton. The first aspect is the logic of causal chain, a logic that we differentiate from a more deterministic approach. The second one is the mode of corrective action (attribution retraining) that is planned for students, whether cheaters or lower achievers. We differentiate this mode of action from the one that is based on the idea of normative awareness (or “clear-sightedness”): normative awareness does not imply that the speaker believes in what he says. Finally, we discuss the concept of social value (of a person) which seems to underlie the empirical results but which does not appear in the authors’ formulations. But this concept stems from a “sociologizing” meta-theory that these authors probably do not share and which makes the norm of enternality theory difficult to integrate within Weiner’s attribution theory.RésuméOn s’ intéresse à trois aspects des articles de Reyna, de Perry, Stupnisky, Daniels, et Haynes et de Murdock, Beauchamp, et Hinton. Le premier est la logique d’enchaînement causal des raisonnements, logique qu’on différencie d’une démarche plus déterministe. Le second est les modes envisagés d’actions correctives auprès des étudiants, qu’ils soient ou tricheurs ou de bas niveau. On différencie ces modes d’actions de celui qui repose sur l’idée de clairvoyance normative qui n’implique pas qu’on croit en ce qu’on énonce. On discute enfin le concept de valeur sociale (des personnes) qui semble parcourir les résultats empiriques et qui semble absent des formulations des auteurs. Mais ce concept reléve d’une métathéorie “sociologisante” qui n’est sans doute pas celle de ces auteurs et qui peut rendre difficile lintégration de la théorie de la norme d’internalité dans la théorie de l’attribution de Weiner.

Dissonance Versus Self-Perception Theories: A Radical Conception of Festinger'S Theory

Summary The aim was to show that a radical conception of dissonance theory makes it possible to make predictions that are confirmed by the facts and that cannot be reinterpreted in terms of self-perception theory. The Ss were led to perform a tedious task and, having completed it, received negative feedback (experiment I) or positive feedback (experiment II) concerning the quality of their performance. Consistent with the radical conception of dissonance theory, the Ss found the task more interesting after negative feedback and less interesting after positive feedback. These results are contrary to those obtained on the basis of the self-perception hypothesis. An interpersonal simulation (experiment III) shows, moreover, that observers cannot anticipate these results.

Rationalization and internalization: The role of internal explanations in attitude change and the generalization of an obligation

After having been told they were free to accept or refuse, pupils aged 6–7 and 10–11 (tested individually) were led to agree to taste a soup that looked disgusting (phase 1: initial counter-motivational obligation). Before tasting the soup, they had to state what they thought about it. A week later, they were asked whether they wanted to try out some new needles that had supposedly been invented to make vaccinations less painful. Agreement or refusal to try was noted, along with the size of the needle chosen in case of agreement (phase 2: act generalization). The main findings included (1) a strong dissonance reduction effect in phase 1, especially for the younger children (rationalization), (2) a generalization effect in phase 2 (foot-in-the-door effect), and (3) a facilitatory effect on generalization of internal causal explanations about the initial agreement. The results are discussed in relation to the distinction between rationalization and internalization.

Men's and women's attributions of male and female traits to the ingroup and outgroup

In two experiments using the minimal group paradigm, subjects had to describe an ingroup member and an outgroup member on the BSRI. Although the targets were not categorized by sex, the results showed that the typical ingroup member was described by men as having more male traits and by women as having more female traits. They also showed that the lesser worth of outgroup members was associated for men with fewer male and female traits, whereas for women it was mainly associated with fewer female traits. Copyright

Psychosociologie et psychologie sociale appliquée : deux positions de « psychologue » dans la cité

L’auteur reflechit sur les enseignements de sa double pratique, celle d’un enseignant de psychologie sociale experimentale a l’universite et celle d’un intervenant psychosociologue, notamment dans le cadre de l’ARIP. Cette reflexion le conduit a distinguer de facon assez radicale une discipline scientifique comme la psychologie sociale (a laquelle est associee ici la psychologie sociale appliquee) et une pratique sociale comme la psychosociologie. Elles ont peu de rapports en depit de contingences historiques qui inciterent a les associer. Si elles produisent du savoir, elles different quant aux valeurs qu’elles mobilisent et a la place de ces valeurs tant dans le savoir que dans les interventions. Valeurs epistemiques et valeurs liees aux objectifs d’action dans le premier cas, valeurs sociales dans le second. Ces distinctions permettent de comprendre certains aspects de l’evolution d’une pratique sociale comme la psychosociologie depuis son arrivee en France dans les annees 1950.