ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the assumptions underlying formal algebraic models of social inference, with particular emphasis upon the weighted averaging formulation proposed by R. C. Anderson. It focuses on implications of this model for the psychological processes and attempts to identify conditions in which algebraic inference processes are most likely to occur, and in which algebraic descriptions of these processes are therefore most likely to apply. The chapter reviews the implications of representative research bearing upon the role of algebraic processes in making different types of social inferences. It outlines essentially algebraic formulation, H. F. Gollob Subject–Verb–Object approach to social cognition, which avoids many of the deficiencies of more traditional models. In general, algebraic integration processes would seem most likely to be used when both the judgment to be made and the implications of the information presented can be represented numerically along a magnitude scale.
