Social class is shaped by an individual's material resources as well as perceptions of rank vis-a-vis others in society, and in this article, we examine how class influences behavior. Diminished resources and lower rank create contexts that constrain social outcomes for lower-class individuals and enhance contextualist tendencies--that is, a focus…

This article advances an attributional theory of motivation and emotion, with achievement strivings as the theoretical focus. Causes of success and failure share three common properties: locus, stability, and controllability. Stability of causes influences changes in expectancy of success. Expectancy and affect guide motivated behavior.…

Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to imbue the real or imagined behavior of nonhuman agents with humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions, or emotions. Although surprisingly common, anthropomorphism is not invariant. This article describes a theory to explain when people are likely to anthropomorphize and when they are not, focused…

It is suggested that perceptions of the self, of others, and of the relationship between self and others are very powerful and that this influence is clearly reflected in culture. The independent view of the self, represented in Western culture, is contrasted with the interdependent view in many other cultures. (SLD)

In response to commentary by S. Taylor, D. McKay, and J. S. Abramowitz, the authors discuss the distinctive features of their theory of obsessive-compulsive disorder outlined in their original article, which explains the disorder as a dysfunction of a security-motivation system. The authors address issues of the interrelation of emotion,…

The authors hypothesize that the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), despite their apparent nonrationality, have what might be termed an epistemic origin-that is, they stem from an inability to generate the normal "feeling of knowing" that would otherwise signal task completion and terminate the expression of a security motivational…

A model is presented that describes four types of emotion-activating systems, three of which involve noncognitive information processing. The four systems are neural, sensorimotor, motivational, and cognitive. They may be seen as a loosely organized hierarchical arrangement, operating under a number of constraints. (SLD)