ABSTRACT
It is fascinating to see McGuire, after many years, resume his work on belief systems, work that, in the 1960s, helped move social psychology toward its current preoccupation with social cognition. The research reported in chapter 1 differs, however, from much of today’s orientation in social cognition in that it deals with naturalistic rather than artificial thought systems and in that it examines processes at a molar rather than a molecular level. In its handling of inferential belief formation, the proposed theory of thought systems (TTS) is closely linked to McGuire’s earlier research on subjective probability models, but the TTS also incorporates evaluative judgments as well as links between perceived probabilities and values. These aspects of the theory are consistent with recent trends to try to incorporate evaluative or affective reactions into our theories of social cognition (see Fiske & Taylor, 1991).
