Putting the "Social" Back in Social Psychology

Abstract

According to Fiske and Taylor, the difference between thinking of humans is denoted as Activated Actors versus as Motivated Tacticians. Activated Actors are pushovers, even despite their best intentions. Motivated Tacticians, by contrast, are continually and strategically evaluating their social environment. However, the difference between Activated Actors and Motivated Tacticians doesn't line up neatly with many distinctions that philosophers care about. Both emphasize the importance of unconscious processing. The Activated Actor model is currently over-represented when philosophers talk about social psychology. Both the Motivated Tactician and Activated Actor models are cognitive accounts. They are methodologically individualist, focusing on internal processes. They differ in the sort of cognitive processes they appeal to, because they differ in the parameters that show up in their explanations. Motivated Tactician models of stereotyping incorporate a wide variety of social facts in their explanations while remaining fully cognitive.