Controlling Self and Others: A Theory of Anxiety, Mental Control, and Social Control

This address integrates social and personality variables by studying the impact of social structure on basic human motivations and anxiety. When situations threaten the ability to meet basic human needs, people become anxious and attempt to restore control Social structures of power threaten people's sole control over meeting basic needs for competence, self-esteem, and a benevolent world. Depending on the need under threat, people may cope with their anxiety in different ways. For example, anxiety over different threatened needs may cause powerless people either to be hyper vigilant toward those in power or to discount negative information about them and align with them. Just as people who are anxious because of social powerlessness may attempt to restore control by social cognitive processes, trait-anxious people may attempt to restore control by their impression formation strategies.

[1]  Susan T. Fiske,et al.  Negative Interdependence and Prejudice: Whence the Affect? , 1993 .

[2]  J. Rodin.  Aging and health: effects of the sense of control. , 1986, Science.

[3]  K. Deaux.  Reconstructing Social Identity , 1993 .

[4]  N. Cantor.  Life Task Problem Solving: Situational Affordances and Personal Needs , 1994 .

[5]  A. Pepitone.  Motivational Effects in Social Perception , 1950 .

[6]  F. Heider.  Attitudes and cognitive organization. , 1946, The Journal of psychology.

[7]  A. Bandura.  Human agency in social cognitive theory. , 1989, The American psychologist.

[8]  C. Steele.  The Psychology of Self-Affirmation: Sustaining the Integrity of the Self , 1988 .

[9]  T. Pruzinsky,et al.  Preliminary exploration of worry: some characteristics and processes. , 1983, Behaviour research and therapy.

[10]  Shinobu Kitayama,et al.  The cultural construction of self and emotion: Implications for social behavior. , 1994 .

[11]  E. Sober,et al.  Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences , 1994 .

[12]  E. Deci,et al.  The support of autonomy and the control of behavior. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  Susan T. Fiske,et al.  Social Cognition and Power: Some Cognitive Consequences of Social Structure as a Source of Control Deprivation , 1993 .

[14]  S. Fiske,et al.  Outcome Dependency and Attention to Inconsistent Information , 1984 .

[15]  Steven L. Neuberg,et al.  The goal of forming accurate impressions during social interactions: attenuating the impact of negative expectancies. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  Mark Snyder,et al.  Basic Research and Practical Problems: The Promise of a "Functional" Personality and Social Psychology , 1993 .

[17]  Thane S. Pittman,et al.  Deprivation of Control and the Attribution Process , 1980 .

[18]  Linnda R. Caporael,et al.  Reviving Evolutionary Psychology: Biology Meets Society , 1991 .

[19]  Steven L. Neuberg,et al.  Motivational Influences on Impression Formation: Outcome Dependency, Accuracy-Driven Attention, and Individuating Processes , 1987 .

[20]  Mark R. Leary,et al.  Responses to Social Exclusion: Social Anxiety, Jealousy, Loneliness, Depression, and Low Self-Esteem , 1990 .

[21]  T. Pittman,et al.  Motivation and cognition: Control deprivation and the nature of subsequent information processing☆ , 1989 .

[22]  J. Rotter.  Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. , 1966, Psychological monographs.