ABSTRACT
Research in the lay epistemic framework has taken place within three separate paradigms, centered respectively on the need for cognitive closure, the unimodel of social judgment, and the concept of epistemic authority. This chapter offers an integrative, up-to-date synopsis of this work, affording a bird's eye perspective on knowledge formation processes and their ramifications for a broad variety of social psychological phenomena. The theory of lay epistemics concerns the process of knowledge formation. It is generally agreed among philosophers of knowledge that the sequence of hypothesis generation and testing has no unique or objective point of termination. A major assumption of the lay epistemic theory is that knowledge is derived from evidence. At the interpersonal level they enter into communication and persuasion, empathy, and negotiation behavior, and at the group level into the formation of consensus and the forging of stable social realities for the members.
