Expressive Order

Individual attitude change and societal dynamics: Computational experiments with psychological theories.

“…Gollob (1968) and Heise (1969) built on Osgood’s work to develop formal models of how attitudes toward actors, behaviors, and object persons combine into coherent social impressions. This approach was developed by mathematically minded sociologists into affect control theory, whose main idea is that a motive to maintain and verify mutually compatible affective attitudes about social situations is the driver of social-interaction dynamics (Heise, 1979, 2007; MacKinnon, 1994; Schröder et al, 2016). The mathematical model of affect control theory thus links individual-level attitudes with societal dynamics, but its influence on psychology has remained limited.…”

Artificial Intelligence and Social Simulation: Studying Group Dynamics on a Massive Scale

“…ACT links social perception with identity, behavior, and emotion in social interactions (for a comprehensive review, see Heise, 2007). The theory draws on symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; MacKinnon, 1994; Mead, 1934) as well as theories of psychological consistency (Heider, 1946; Simon & Holyoak, 2002) and cybernetic control (Powers, 1973; Robinson, 2007), proposing that people rely on linguistic representations with culturally shared meanings to efficiently orient themselves within social interactions and anticipate the behavioral and emotional responses of others (Heise, 1979, 2007; MacKinnon, 1994; Smith-Lovin & Heise, 1988). Their motivation to maintain the cultural meanings associated with their own identities and the identities of others directly governs their interpersonal behaviors and emotions.…”