Description du projet
Une nouvelle théorie aborde des questions fondamentales de la psychologie sociale
L’agentivité (influence, débrouillardise, autorité) et la communion (bienveillance, prosocialité, honnêteté) sont les deux dimensions les plus fondamentales de la cognition, du concept de soi et de la personnalité: on les surnomme les «Big Two». L’agentivité concerne la réalisation d’objectifs et la prospérité, tandis que la communion fait intervenir l’établissement de liens et la bonne entente avec les autres. Financé par le Conseil européen de la recherche, le projet ACT entend proposer et tester la théorie agentivité-communion (ACT pour «Agency-Communion Theory») en vue de comprendre pourquoi ces «Big Two» revêtent une si grande importance pour l’être humain. Pour ce faire, il mènera des expériences en laboratoire et utilisera des modèles d’évolution formels, des mégadonnées, ainsi que des études par panel. Selon la théorie ACT, les «Big Two» sont des composantes vitales des efforts culturels des humains et de leurs remarquables progrès évolutifs.
Objectif
The Big Two of agency (influence, resourcefulness, authority) and communion (benevolence, prosociality, honesty) are fundamental to human social cognition, the self-concept, and personality. The Big Two must have a tremendously important function for humans, otherwise they were not that fundamental to human psychology. Yet, what is this function? State-of-the-art answers explain the function of the Big Two either in social cognition or in the self-concept or in personality and those answers contradict each other in critical ways. Here, I propose the first all-encompassing answer to the functional question of the Big Two in social cognition and the self-concept and personality. My answer comes in the form of a novel theory: Agency-Communion Theory (ACT) of Social Learning and Cultural Activity. According to ACT, the Big Two are the chief enablers of high-fidelity social learning. Never before have the Big Two been considered relevant for high-fidelity social learning, but the latter is widely seen as the reason for humans’ capacity to build culture and thrive by cultural activity—humans’ most powerful evolutionary strategy. Thus, ACT considers the Big Two the essential building blocks of human cultural activity and, ultimately, of humans’ extraordinary evolutionary success. ACT’s novel portrayal of the Big Two entails a wide variety of previously unforeseen behavioural consequences, including a novel account of social influence. The state-of-the-art account presupposes the existence of an innate tendency to conform to majority norms. ACT questions the existence of such an innate tendency and offers an alternative with far-reaching implications for many theories across social sciences and urgent societal challenges in the sphere of social influence. My interdisciplinary team will empirically test ACT and its novel account of social influence. We will use new, tailor-made methodology in laboratory experiments, formal evolutionary models, Big Data, and panel studies.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régime de financement
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedInstitution d’accueil
68161 Mannheim
Allemagne