A Critique of the Concept of Accuracy in Social Information Processing Models of Children’s Peer Relations

Abstract

According to Kenneth Dodge’s social information processing model, children who behave aggressively do so because they interpret others’ behaviour, and evaluate aggressive acts, inaccurately. The concept of accuracy is inappropriate here because members of different social groups can differ systematically in their interpretations and evaluations of behaviour. Imposing the concept of accuracy exalts one social group’s views as accurate, with others seen as flawed. Social information processing models could remove the concept of accuracy by drawing on the theory of autopoiesis, which states that an organism’s response to a stimulus is specified by the organism rather than by the stimulus itself. Thus the environment is seen not as information to be (in)correctly interpreted, but as a set of triggers in a person’s phenomenological world. This approach is strengthened by attention to the myriad ways in which a person’s interpretations are informed (but not determined) by other people, explaining why we are likely to form interpretations and values similar, but not identical, to others in our social groups.