Jean-Léon Beauvois

Introduction The traditional approach to value judgments involves determining the position of an individual on a scale designed to evaluate the underlying mechanisms and dimensions of judgments. Objective The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a scale among a general population and to apply it to individuals particularly affected by,...

Objective This study investigates how obedience in a Milgram-like experiment is predicted by inter-individual differences.Methods Participants were 35 males and 31 females aged 26–54 from the general population who were contacted by phone eight months after their participation in a study transposing Milgram's obedience paradigm to the context of a...

We propound a formal improvement of the psycho-mathematical theory of structural balance [2,4,5]. Two vertices of a two-valued graph G (+/-) make a duo if they have the same relation with every common neighbour. Two vertices of a graph G make a disjunct if they have opposed relations with every common neighbour. We weaken these notions to define a...

We propound a formal improvement of the psycho-mathematical theory of structural balance [2,4,5]. Two vertices of a two-valued graph G (+/-) make a duo if they have the same relation with every common neighbour. Two vertices of a graph G make a disjunct if they have opposed relations with every common neighbour. We weaken these notions to define a...

Comme tous les travailleurs, les chercheurs ne peuvent échapper à l’évaluation. Celle-ci ne peut être conduite par eux-mêmes. De nombreuses questions se posent : qui doit les évaluer ? À quel rythme ? Et surtout, sur quelles bases ? Sur leur réputation, leurs interventions, leur implication dans la discipline, leur présence dans la littérature scie...

Psychosociology and applied social psychology: two positions of the community-based « psychologist » The author reflects on what he has learnt from his twofold experience as a teacher of experimental social psychology at University and as a psychosociological consultant, notably within the framework of the ARIP. This reflection leads him to make qu...

Introduction. - Today's fascination with television makes us wonder whether it might not represent an authority capable of leading people in a television studio to inflict cruel acts on others, even though they condemn those acts. Objective. - The experiment reported here allows us to answer this question in the affirmative. Therefore, we transpose...

Applying Milgram’s Obedience Paradigm to Television : Issues, Results and Perspectives. This article reviews the text of a conference which reported on the transposition of Milgram’s well-known experiment into the context of television. This new experiment was the subject of a documentary seen on channel France 2 on March 17, 2010. The original asp...

Two theories are compared with respect to their ability to explain the emergence of two dimensions in psychological descriptions of human beings. For psychological realism, the two dimensions are assumed to be two realities existing in a descriptive (quasiscientific) psychology. Psychological descriptions are considered to be real descriptions of p...

Highly accessible and easy to use, the analysis of bibliographic information is increasingly called upon in the academic community to measure the impact of scientific journals and/or quantify the development of the research output of universities, research units, groups of researchers and individual researchers themselves . The aim of this chapter...

Toward a Non-Subservient Bibliometric Evaluation We review some of the reasons why, in the various psychological disciplines, bibliometrics on the subject of influence, using the Impact Factor (or other similar indices), cannot yield measures of the influence of a source S (journal, researcher...) on international research. It rather indicates the...

Personality traits are basic constructs of lay psychology. Unlike the traditional view in which traits are considered as descriptive tools, we argue that the most frequent traits are evaluative criteria, that is, they do not point out what people are, but what people are socially worth. First, we intend to report on various studies showing that tra...

In a paper published in the International Review of Social Psychology, Delmas (2009) challenges the interpretation of the results obtained with internality questionnaires. He criticizes a confusion of variables and an erroneous attribution to the internal/external construct of results supposedly due to the mere "value" of the explanations. We answe...

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, whe...

Since the 1970s, it has been agreed that ‘internal’ people, who explain what happens to them by internal explanations (their behaviors, their aptitudes, their efforts, their personality, etc.) were more likely to succeed than ‘external’ people, who explain the same outcomes by external explanations such as chance, situational difficulties, the powe...

In the present article, we recall the principle of articles consummation as defined by the ISI creator (Institute for Scientific Information). That principle justifies the impact factor (IF) used as a measure of a journal scientific value, of a researcher or of a researcher group… We expose some assumptions that support the IF validity. Further we...

We offer some arguments in support of the idea that the only goal the teaching and research system of the United States can serve is that of the global system to which it belongs, namely, domination. We show how, within the last few decades, French research in psychology – its issues, its institutions, its practices, its ethics – has undergone a pr...

In the outline of works on structural balance, a new graph (the "families graph") is proposed to complete the analysis of the classic graph (the "graph of relations"). Two new constructs have been introduced in the formal theory: the constructs of interval and disjoint. These constructs fulfil two functions. At the formal level, they symbolize fami...

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 it...

On the dangers of a dominant culture in the psychological and social sciences and the Impact Factor The scientific project in the western world is based publications being evaluated by competent peers and in so far as the said peers represent the international scientific community. But a perversion of this evaluation may arise when that community i...

Five experiments were conducted with a twofold aim: firstly, examine the normativeness of some important features of Western individualism, and secondly, determine what aspect of social value serves as the anchor for their potential normativeness. Five key constituents of individualism were studied. A questionnaire composed of five sub-questionnair...

Examined the effect of internal or external causal explanations of a commitment or counter-motivational obligation on rationalization and internalization processes and subsequent effects on acceptance of a new even more counter-motivational obligation by children. After having been told they were free to accept or refuse, pupils aged 6-7 (Exp 1) an...

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 situati...

Reviews recent research on social evaluation components, including desirability, which is associated with affective motivation, and perspicacity, which is associated with social prescriptions, utility, and functioning. Psychological and economic models of the relationship of desirability and social utility, difficulties in differentiating between d...

Discusses a comprehensive conception of what personality traits are and what they mean within a lay personology context. The concept distinguishes evaluative knowledge, produced by the generalization of affordances, from descriptive knowledge, deemed to be of limited importance in trait usage. It posits that an essential component of the meaning of...

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...

The authors suggest that dissonance theory is a theory concerned with rationalization of behavior and that as such, it is not a theory of cognitive consistency, the management of personal responsibility, or the management of one's moral worth. They review experiments supporting their viewpoint and describe 2 new paradigms for dissonance research—do...

In two studies, subjects ®lled out a questionnaire requiring them to choose between internal and external explanations of desirable or undesirable events. They were also asked to ®ll out the same questionnaire from another person's point of view, either a member of the ingroup or a member of the outgroup. The ®rst study used students as subjects an...

La connaissance, en tout cas la connaissance qui se déploie dans l'univers social et qui constitue la base de notre appréhension du monde, n'est pas le produit de rencontres entre un homme neuronal et des objets qui ne demandent qu'à être connus pour ce qu'ils sont. Il suffit de penser à la connaissance qu'ont les hommes des femmes, à celle que les...

A partial replication of a study by Nisbett and Bellows (1977) to which a memorization condition was added showed that subjects did not have introspective access to the determinants of their judgments, but did so only in the impression-formation condition. In the memorization condition, the subjects' self-reports matched the observed experimental e...

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 specifi...

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 with...

Three person memory experiments consisted of presenting subjects with behaviors associated with a target person. Half of them were target's behaviors (TB behaviors) and half were possible or necessary behaviors of others relative to such a target person (OB behaviors). According to the authors, TB behaviors provide descriptive knowledge and OB beha...

La psychologie sociale a une centaine d'années. Son histoire reflète les grands mouvements d'idées qui ont infléchi l'évolution des sciences sociales et humaines au XXe siècle. Elle reflète ainsi la conflictualité que porte une analyse de l'Homme dans sa réalité essentielle d'Etre social, analyse des conduites humaines dans leur réalité essentielle...

It is argued that the standard manipulation of free choice in a forced compliance situation has fostered confusion between the two different types of choices offered to subjects, namely commitment or non-commitment to compliance with the experimenter and choice of counter-attitudinal activity per se. From a theoretical viewpoint, the two choices ha...

La psychologie sociale a une centaine d'années. Son histoire reflète les grands mouvements d'idées qui ont infléchi l'évolution des sciences sociales et humaines au XXe siècle. Elle reflète ainsi la conflictualité que porte une analyse de l'Homme dans sa réalité essentielle d'Etre social, analyse des conduites humaines dans leur réalité essentielle...

The main objective of this article is to test the utility of a new concept: act rationalization (commission of a new act that justifies a previous costly act) that can substitute cognitive rationalization (e.g., dissonance reduction). Two experiments were done with a compliance paradigm. They rely on the hypothesis concerning the alternative nature...

In a free choice forced compliance situation, subjects had to perform a tedious task. Then, just before having to evaluate the task's interest, certain subjects were provided an arbitrary positive feedback regarding their performance, others a negative feedback and others no information at all concerning their performance. Afterwards, all subjects...

Demonstrated that if traits are labels that define cognitive categories, they must be represented not only by the behaviors of the person to whom they are applied, but also by the behavior of others with respect to that person. A list of 33 traits (with negative or positive connotations) was read to 120 university students. For each trait, 60 Ss wr...

Tested the importance of the norm of internality in evaluations of professional aptitude in industrial organizations; and assessed the influence of the sex of the evaluator and "evaluatee," of a company's managerial style, and of the rank of the evaluator or the "evaluatee." Human subjects: 80 normal male and female adults (aged 18–60 yrs) (employe...

The aim of this paper was to test the hypothesis that the norm of internality plays a role in evaluation practices at the work place. Human subjects: 80 normal male and female adults (aged 18–60 yrs) (employees of a French company) (Exp I). 66 normal male and female adults (aged 18–60 yrs) (employees of 3 French companies) (Exp II). 128 normal male...

La théorie de l'engagement prédit des effets d'influence sur le comportement d'autrui obtenus non par un recours à la persuasion, mais par l'obtention de comportements préalables. On présente ici les linéaments de cette théorie ainsi que certaines procédures d'influence comportementale dont l'efficacité est avérée (pied-dans-la-porte, amorçage…). O...

The norm of internality is defined as a social valorization of explanations of behaviours (attribution) and outcomes (locus of control) which emphazise the causal ro̊le of the actor. It is shown in this paper: (1) that internal explanations are linked to self-presentation strategies; (2) that internal explanations are more often selected by middle-...

Subjects are required to estimate sociability as expressed in questionnaires supposedly completed by different individuals and make a prediction of conduct for each of these individuals. The results are compared to four models: three versions of the individual differences model (IDM) and a dialectical model. Two rudimentary versions of the IDM give...

Describes 4 studies of internality and (1) socioeconomic position, (2) social prognosis, (3) social work, and (4) evaluation of others that validate an hypothesis. The hypothesis states that the overestimation of the actor's role as an explanation of behavior (attribution) and outcomes (locus of control) represents 2 versions of the norm of interna...

Notes that the current cognitive approach in social psychology views the individual as an intuitive scientist or intuitive statistician and assumes that his/her knowledge is a preliminary to free behavior. Two difficulties of this approach concern the facts that the status of biases and errors is unclear, since they appear as rules rather than exce...

In two studies, subjects filled out a questionnaire requiring them to choose between internal and external explanations of desirable or undesirable events. They were also asked to fill out the same questionnaire from another person's point of view, either a member of the ingroup or a member of the outgroup. The first study used students as subjects...

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 I...

Implicit theories of personality, evaluation and ideological reproduction. The social psychological study of implicit personality theories shows : 1) that the psychological description of self and others is amainly evaluative activity, and 2) that the descriptive accuracy of such descriptions can be seriously challanged. The concept of personality...

Le projet de cet article est triple : — mettre en evidence le fait que la sociolinguistique actuelle considere que le langage est le reflet « d'autre chose ». En effet, tantot le langage apparait comme le reflet de l'appartenance sociale du locuteur, tantot comme le reflet de ses caracteristiques physiques et psychologiques, tantot comme le reflet...

A systematic, and specially devised, method of corpus analysis (which must be difïerenciated from content analysis) is applied to the interviews of a sample of employees at three hierachical levels in the same firm : operators, foremen and managers. Each hierarchical level appears to be difïerenciated by, on the one hand, a set of specific proposit...

Mille lycéens, des deux sexes, de 14 à 18 ans, ont passé un questionnaire destiné à mettre en évidence les stéréotypes qui sont associés à L'image qu'ils ont d'eux-mêmes, de leur groupe et du sexe opposé. On compare chez les adolescents français les réponses selon le sexe d'une part, selon L'origine socio-géographique (Paris-Province) d'autre part....

Bibliometrics deals with the analysis of bibliographic information and is said to come close to an "objective" measure of research activity. Highly accessible and easy to use, it is increasingly called upon in the academic community to measure the impact of scientific journals and/or quantify the development of the research output of universities,...

323 p., tabl., ref. bib. : 27 p.3/4 Les débats qui ont animé la psychologie durant de longues années ont été profondément modifiés par l'apparition d'une nouvelle problématique qui privilégie le traitement de l'information. Centrale pour la psychologie cognitive, cette démarche marque une évolution qui se traduit par: La substitution de la recherch...