Socio-cognitive Theory Research Articles

Opening the Implicit Leadership Theories' Black Box: An Experimental Approach with Conjoint Analysis.

Although research on implicit leadership theories (ILTs) has concentrated on determining which attributes define a leadership prototype, little attention has been paid to testing the relative importance of each of these attributes for individuals’ leadership perceptions. Building on socio-cognitive theories of impression processes, we experimentally explore the formation of leadership perceptions based on the recognition of six key attributes in a series of three experimental studies comprising 566 US-based participants recruited online via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Our results show that while certain attributes play an important role in the leader categorization process, others are less relevant. We also demonstrate that some attributes’ importance is contingent on the presence of other attributes and on the leadership schema type activated in respondents’ minds. Consistent with the Leadership Categorization Theory, our findings support the premise that individuals cognitively hold a superordinate leadership prototype, which imposes constraints on their more basic level prototypes. We discuss the implications of these results for leadership theory and practice.

Andreas Langlotz , Creating social orientation through language: A socio-cognitive theory of situated social meaning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015. Pp. x, 366. Hb. $143.

Andreas Langlotz , Creating social orientation through language: A socio-cognitive theory of situated social meaning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015. Pp. x, 366. Hb. $143.

Prevenção de transtornos alimentares e obesidade: relato de experiência da implementação do programa New Moves

RESUMO O objetivo deste relato foi refletir sobre a adaptação, sobre as dificuldades e sobre as potencialidades de implementação do programa de prevenção conjunta de obesidade e transtornos alimentares New Moves para meninas de escolas públicas de São Paulo (SP). A versão brasileira do programa tem como potencialidades utilizar técnicas comportamentais efetivas, como a teoria sociocognitiva e a entrevista motivacional, e apresentar um conteúdo que aborda fatores comuns à obesidade e aos transtornos alimentares, o qual pode ser aplicado considerando-se as dificuldades quanto à adaptação e implementação apresentadas no estudo.

Studying young people’ views on deployment of renewable energy sources in Iran through the lenses of Social Cognitive Theory

Renewable energy sources (RES) have potentials to address goals of climate change mitigation at the global level. Iran has abundant RES potentials and investment into renewable energy sources can contribute to its socio-economic development and to diversification of its energy mix. Economic and technical capacities but also human factors, such as stakeholders’ views, public and social acceptance, as well as willingness to use RES, willingness to pay for their deployment and to participate in decision-making processes on energy transition, are crucial factors for deployment of RES at scale. These human factors impact development and implementation of energy transition at the national and local governance levels. Deployment of new technology and energy transition can lead to conflicting views, believes and risks perceptions among involved stakeholders but also among people affected by deployment of new technology infrastructure deployment. To be sustainable and acceptable by all social groups, such process should be based on understanding of positions of different stakeholders and development of compromise solutions. It is crucial to understand the views of young people on deployment of RES as young people represent a significant share of population and are future decision makers. Their support and willingness to use RES will be a significant driver for RES deployment in short and medium term. Based on socio cognitive theory this paper examines the patters of behavior of young adults in relation to energy use. The results show positive influence of self-rewarding to encourage young adults to participate in energy transition. Another important driver is expectation of social outcome, which involves existing social norms in the community. Trust to the source of information is another important driver and the level of information about RES has an important influence on the willingness to use them.

Vladanje sobom: nužni uslov razvoja ličnosti, kvalitetne komunikacije i dobrih međuljudskih odnosa

Vladanje sobom: nužni uslov razvoja ličnosti, kvalitetne komunikacije i dobrih međuljudskih odnosa

Satisfacción revolucionaria. Un modelo de intervención psicológica para supervivientes de trata que hacen trabajo sexual después de los 40

The existing measures to encourage the re-establishment of sex trafficking survivors should be improved. Trafficking survivors who perform sex work are in risk of being excluded, a situation aggravated by their aging and their psychological pathologization. Therefore, the present investigation takes as protagonists two groups of women trafficking survivors who perform sex work. One of 30 adults under 26, and another group of 30 over 40 years old. With them, it is explored the adequacy of a psychological intervention model extracted from the Socio-Cognitive Theory of Bandura (1997). The results of the moderation analysis performed with SPSS v23 and the PROCESS macro indicate that increases in self-efficacy levels only seem to predict increases in life satisfaction in the older age group. Therefore, it may be pertinent to carry out differential interventions according to their age.

Responsibility of corporations: organisational values, formal norms and managerial competencies

A generic cultural socio-cognitive theory of a plural agency is developed, which includes 'responsibility'. Interaction between social viable systems, i.e., normative personalities, is modelled. The general definitions of the terms 'responsible' and 'responsibility' imply that there is an action-outcome-consequence relation. Consequently, for modelling cybernetic systems there is need to address issues related to: reasons for action, actual actions taken, outcomes, observation of outcomes, assessment of outcomes, reconsideration and perhaps modification of earlier action. All action has outcomes: a direct effect (performance), side effects, and effects on other agencies. Thus, there is need to integrate into social viable systems models: 1) mutual interdependencies; 2) issues related to dependence on resources; 3) competition for resources; 4) impact on other's resources. The theory will provide guidance for analysis of interaction effects between agencies within their resource environments.

Gubernatorial debate sessions in Nigeria: A socio-cognitive analysis

This article adopts Benoit’s functional theory of campaign discourse and Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive theory (context models) in discussing two gubernatorial debate sessions in Nigeria. The selected debate sessions (Ondo Governorship Debate and Lagos Governorship Debate) are recovered from YouTube files and transcribed. However, only utterances from candidates in the two major political parties in Nigeria, namely, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) (now renamed All Progressives Congress (APC)) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), are subjected to content analysis. Context models in the aspects of discourse meaning and argumentation are also considered. Findings reveal that first, candidates’ utterances range from acclaims to attacks and defenses. Second, topics help to derive candidates’ ideologies which are further exemplified within the ambience of shared background knowledge (presupposition). Finally, candidates adopt legal/illegal jargons, explanations, statements of evidence, examples and illustrations to explicitly exemplify their mental dispositions and beliefs. We conclude by stating that candidates’ utterances were found to be relevant within the context of the debates and, by extension, the prevalent socio-political problems in Nigeria.

The role of ToM in creating a reminiscence bump for MEAMs from adolescence

To date, studies have yet to consider the role of theory of mind as an important factor in developing music-related autobiographical memories. Further, it remains unclear if one remembers primarily factual knowledge about a song (semantic memory) or if one retrieves the perceptual and emotional aspects of the life situation connected to a song (episodic memory). To close these research gaps, 61 participants with an average age of 20 years listened to 33 songs topping the charts during their early childhood, childhood or youth. Next to a range of control variables (e.g. family size) participants’ state emotions before and after the experiment, as well as their socio-affective and socio-cognitive theory of mind were assessed. The music mainly invoked episodic versus semantic memories. The strongest positive predictor of specific episodic music-related autobiographical memories from later youth was participants’ socio-cognitive theory of mind. Results also revealed that songs released during early and middle childhood were listened to beyond this time period and triggered mainly memories from early youth. The results are discussed in regard to the possible role of socio-cognitive factors in creating a reminiscence bump for music from later youth.

Two-way immersion students’ home languages, proficiency levels, and responses to form-focused instruction

ABSTRACTTwo-way immersion (TWI) programs in the U.S. integrate learners with different home languages and varied proficiencies in Spanish and English. Although both English home language (EHL) and Spanish home language (SHL) TWI students succeed academically in English, they often experience incomplete acquisition (Montrul 2011. “Morphological Errors in Spanish Second Language Learners and Heritage Speakers.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33: 163–192. doi:10.1017/S0272263110000720) or attrition of their Spanish proficiency (Potowski 2007. Language and Identity in a Dual Immersion School. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters). Underdeveloped Spanish proficiency may partly be due to teachers’ tendency to prioritize content instruction while neglecting language development. Studies in one-way immersion programs have revealed positive effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) on language development (e.g. Harley 1998. “The Role of Form-Focused tasks in Promoting Child L2 Acquisition.” In Focus on Form in Classroom Second Language Acquisition, edited by Catherine Doughty and Jessica Williams, 156–174. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lyster 1994. “The Effect of Functional-Analytic Teaching on Aspects of French Immersion Students’ Sociolinguistic Competence.” Applied Linguistics 15: 263–287; 2004. “Differential Aspects of Prompts and Recasts in Form-Focused Instruction.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26: 399–432. doi:10.1017/S0272263104263021). However, the diversity among TWI students regarding their proficiency in Spanish may render FFI challenging when some students produce accurate forms intuitively while others struggle with grammatical accuracy.Guided by sociocognitive theory (Batstone 2010. “Issues and Options in Sociocognition.” In Sociocognitive Perspectives on Language Use and Language Learning, edited by Rob Batstone, 3–23. Oxford: Oxford University Press), this qualitative study investigated how SHL and EHL Grade 5 TWI students responded to FFI on past tense/aspects. Discourse analysis of transcripts from classroom observations was conducted to examine student responses in relation to teacher input and FFI activities. Findings suggest an important relationship between the diversity among TWI students in terms of their Spanish proficiency and responses to FFI, and offer pedagogical implications for classrooms that integrate content and language.

Logics of Action and Incomplete Contracts: A Dyadic Socio-Cognitive Theory of Contract Design

We provide a novel, dyadic socio-cognitive perspective to contract theory. We begin by stipulating that contracting parties face a trade-off: either they incur substantial ex-ante negotiation costs...

Heuristics for practitioners of policy design: Rules-of-thumb for structuring unstructured problems.

This article is an attempt to bridge the divide between academics and practitioners. Informed by both design theory and the reality of policy work, its focus is on ‘problems’. From a practitioners’ perspective, policy design is both an intellectual and political process, an inevitable oscillation between ‘puzzling’ and ‘powering’, in which ‘messy’ or unstructured problems are re-structured from problems as webs of ‘undesirable situations’ to problems as specific, time-and-space bound ‘opportunities for improvement’. This requires a questioning habitus in practitioners of policy design. Using a socio-cognitive theory of problem processing, this paper shows how policy design is an iterative process of problem sensing, problem categorization, problem decomposition and problem definition. For each of these stages, appropriate rules-of-thumb for questioning and answering can be suggested that induce thought habits and styles for responsive and solid policy designs.

Echo questions as a means of building coherence in conversational discourse

Abstract The study focuses on the cognitive-communicative characteristics of echo questions in English conversational discourse. Drawing on van Dijk's sociocognitive (mental model) theory and cognitive discourse analysis, the paper suggests viewing echo questions as a means of building/updating a mental context model of a communicative situation. As discourse comprehension presupposes building its coherent mental model, echo questions resolving misunderstanding are regarded as an instrument for increasing coherence in conversational discourse. Based on the mental model theory, the study offers a typology of misunderstandings corrected by echo questions.

Temptation's itch: Mindlessness, acceptance, and mindfulness in a debt management program

This study examines the experience of temptation through the accounts of consumers who have entered a debt management plan (DMP). During 12weeks, participants reported weekly temptations. The results are consistent with socio-cognitive theory; participants with higher self-efficacy are better able to manage their emotions, resist justifications connected with entitlement, and perceive their difficult circumstances as providing them the opportunity to develop new financial skills and an improved financial identity. The results show that DMP consumers engage in three patterns of responses to temptation that vary in degree of self-efficacy: mindlessness, acceptance, and mindfulness. The highest level of self-efficacy and success in the DMP is associated with mindfulness, as these participants feel pride when they “work the program” and resist temptation.

Personality Traits: A View From the Animal Kingdom.

Given their backgrounds in classical ethology and in comparative psychology, researchers who study animal personality in biology and psychology, respectively, differ in how they measure personality, what questions they see as important, and how they address these questions. Despite these differences, both comparative psychologists and biologists embrace personality traits. By doing so, they have solved empirical and conceptual problems in animal behavior. Studies of animal personality have provided answers to questions about the evolution of human personality and have presented conceptual and empirical anomalies for sociocognitive theories. Animal personality research does not break from trait theories of personality. Instead, it enriches trait theories by conceiving of traits as not belonging to a species, but as expressed, with some modifications, across species. Broadening trait theory in this way has the potential to further enhance its ability to answer questions related to animal and human personality.

The Social Before Sociocognitive Theory: Explaining Hypnotic Suggestion in German-Speaking Europe, 1900–1960

The article intends to retrace and review German discourse on hypnotic suggestion from 1900 onward, demonstrating the variety of arguments advanced to account for the social relationship in the hypnotic setting well before the emergence of sociocognitive theory. Using Spanos’s distinction between “happenings” and “doings,” it shows how, in the case of the “social” in early 20th century German texts on (hypnotic) suggestion, the passive observer, recipient, or victim of hypnosis, a trope familiar to the discipline for many decades, was called into question. This image, however, was not called into question by scientists experimenting in laboratories. On the contrary, the neurologists, psychologists, and philosophers who proffered a new way of seeing suggestion, one that privileged the hypnotic as well as the reciprocity between hypnotist and hypnotic, were part of a wider movement within the social sciences (grounded in hermeneutics, phenomenology, and Gestalt theory) that distanced itself from “positivistic” methodologies and “scientistic” verities. The article, then, seeks to remind readers that the sociocognitive perspective does not define the sociopsychological study of hypnosis.

Cross-cultural Analysis of Al- Sadat's and Bush's First Inaugural Speeches

The present cross-cultural investigation analyzes critically two culturally different inaugural speeches. The researchers have chosen the inaugural speech of the president Bush the son and the inaugural speech of the Syrian president Alasad. It explores the discursive practices of a presumably powerful leaders in two nations/cultures. Drawing upon the theoretical stance of CDA and intercultural pragmatics Theory, the study attempts to examine the contextually-controlled production of the inaugural discourses in the two cultures and the discursive decisions guided by the experts’ context models, being the cognitive interface between discourse and society. The study combines analytic tools from socio-cognitive theory and CDA, in examining (i) the selection of topics and the discursive construction of contextual features, namely setting, participant’s identities, ideology, purposes and (ii) the strategic maneuverings performed revealing of the arguers attempt to maintain balance between the dialectical and the rhetorical goals. The findings from the socio-cognitive study show that the patterns in the discursive practices of each speech indicate ideologically and culturally biased strategies, though they have common points.

Reflections of social relations in the language of Andric's prose for children and young adults

The paper examines the language of Andrić's prose on the example of his short stories 'Deca' (Children), 'Kula' (Tower), and 'Prozor' (Window) written for children and young adults, interpreting social relations which represent their thematic, sociological, cultural, and historical context. We studied causes of social prejudices which represent the main cause of interpersonal and internal conflicts of the main protagonists in the context of learning sociological theories (sociocognitive theory, theory of social identity, and theory of social learning) and from the standpoint of the psycholinguistic approach. We also observed language as a medium in discovering the internal and external characterization of protagonists achieved by means of verbalization of internal and external conflicts. We interpreted social relations and conflicts reflected in the language as an aesthetic, cultural, and social phenomenon as the conceptual framework of Andrić's prose. Literary language thus becomes a medium that achieves a cognitive role, in addition to its aesthetic role, discovering and illuminating social relations and conflicts which represent a reflexive core woven into the conceptual framework of the three short stories for children and young adults: 'Deca' (Children), 'Kula' (Tower), and 'Prozor' (Window).

Ojciec w procesie opieki nad dzieckiem w rodzinach wiejskich: opieka zdrowotna

The article constitutes a part of research project entitled «Paternal attitudes in the rural environment». The research presented in this article, based on qualitative methodology, was conducted in nineteen randomly chosen villages of Plock district. 37 respondents participated in it. The purpose was to determine paternal attitudes in a rural environment. The research does not meet the characteristics of representativeness. The collected research material deepens the scientific knowledge of the essence of a given phenomenon rather than its social scope. The data obtained during the analysis were compiled for a number of concepts that scientifically explain the correctness of the behavior and functioning of a man as a father and his attitudes. The social-scientific personality theory of J. Rotter, U. Bronfenbrenner's human ecology theory, the socio-cognitive theory of A. Bandury and the most important theoretical reference to the problem – «Cognitive concept of attitudes» by D. Crech, R.S. Crutchfield, E.L. Ballachey were taken into consideration. The study covered many issues. According to methodological assumptions, the selection of the sample was deliberately - random. This article is devoted to a small fragment about the father in the childcare process. In accordance with the accepted assumptions, childcare is one of the components of the father’s role in the process of parenting. The actions that are linked to organizing the everyday life conditions may be classified as criteria that allow to determine the participation of fathers in childcare processes. The qualitative analysis of collected research material, which is preceded by a theoretical introduction, demonstrates current knowledge on performing first childcare actions, the father’s contribution to the child’s healthcare, preparing meals, and other.

What influences general practitioners' use of exercise for patients with chronic knee pain? Results from a national survey.

BackgroundExercise is a recommended ‘core’ treatment for chronic knee pain (CKP), however it appears to be underused by general practitioners (GPs). While behavioural theories suggest that attitudes and beliefs influence behaviours, no single theory reliably predicts GPs’ behaviours. A theoretical analysis framework, developed from sociocognitive theories, was used to underpin investigation of the key influences associated with GPs’ use of exercise for patients with CKP, to inform future interventions to optimise GPs’ use of exercise.MethodsA cross-sectional postal questionnaire survey investigated UK GPs’ reported use of exercise based on a patient case vignette. Factors influencing GPs’ exercise use (behaviour) were examined using attitude statements, free-text questions and multiple response option questions related to factors within the analysis framework. Unadjusted logistic regression analyses explored the associations between GPs’ attitudes/beliefs and behaviour.ResultsFrom a total sample of 5000 GPs, 835 (17%) returned a questionnaire. Most respondents (n = 729, 87%) reported that they would use exercise. Factors significantly associated with exercise use (OR (95% CI)) included GPs’ beliefs about their role (belief that GPs should give information on type, duration and frequency of exercise (30.71 (5.02,188.01)), beliefs about consequences (agreement that knee problems are improved by local (3.23 (1.94,5.39)) and general exercise (2.63 (1.38,5.02))), moral norm (agreement that GPs should prescribe all patients local (3.08 (1.96,4.83)) and general exercise (2.63 (1.45,4.76))), and GP-related beliefs about capabilities (prior experience of insufficient expertise to give detailed exercise information (0.50 (0.33,0.76)). Whilst perceived time limitations were not associated with exercise use (1.00 (0.33,3.01)), GPs who disagreed that they experienced time limitations were more likely to suggest general (2.17 (1.04,4.55)), or demonstrate local (2.16 (1.06,4.42)), exercises.ConclusionGPs’ attitudes and beliefs are associated with their use of exercise for patients with CKP, particularly beliefs about role, responsibilities and skills in initiating exercise, and about the efficacy of exercise. Although the low response risks response bias, these results can inform future interventions to optimise GPs’ behaviour. The role of GP uncertainty and influences on clinical decision-making need further exploration, thus an amended analysis framework is suggested, which should be tested in future research.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12875-016-0570-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.