Persons and positions: a social psychology of intentional action

Abstract

The overall aim of this dissertation is to develop an understanding of the intentional actions of persons, whereby the person is assumed to be the principle unit for analysis. Unlike the predominant cognitivism and the emergent social constructionism of psychology and social psychology, the 'person' is treated in the naturalistic sense, as the person encountered in everyday life. This treatment contrasts with both cognitivism's emphasis on sub-personal explanations and the tendency for discursive explanations of persons in social constructionist psychology.

The naturalistic conceptualisation of persons and the overall aim are similar to ethogenics (Harre & Secord, 1972). Persons are taken to be users of language who have their reasons for acting and can be assumed to act in their own interests. Support for this general view is derived from ethogenics and selected works in social constructionist psychology. From this perspective, discourse comes to be seen as providing evidence for the person as agent. Using this enabling 'common-sense' argument, a model of the actions of persons and a submodel based on the analogy of the 'taking of a position' are developed. These models are given significance by means of the critical reinterpretation of selected theories and studies of prominence in cognitivist social psychology. The theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981) are critically assessed and a new interpretation of these works is provided. In addition, to develop the new interpretation further, the attitudinal consistency study by LaPiere (1934), the Asch (1951) conformity experiment and the Milgram (1963) obedience experiment are reviewed and subjected to critical reinterpretation. The new models are presented as amenable for hypothesis testing and, more crucially, are shown to avoid problems inherent in cognitivism regarding the positing of an unseen realm of states, dispositions and drives. The new models provide for a descriptive understanding of intentional action and hold that regularities in the actions of persons arise from the use of learned skills and abilities. Social action is understood within a climate of debate, with negotiation being a primary means of intervention and empathy being the means of understanding the relative positions taken by persons. The work thus offers a useful means of describing and explaining action, while recognising the active role that persons play in the administration of their lives.