9 - Knowledge Structures and Interpretive Processes

Summary

Life would be easier if events came with labels that explained their meaning. Did that person's glance in your direction mean he is interested in meeting you? Did the handshake at the end of an interview mean that you're going to get the job? Did a professor's detailed critique of your paper mean that you are an academic failure – or that your work is so good that she was willing to devote extra time to you? Simple signals that reduce the ambiguity of events would eliminate much of the stress of social life. The absence of such signals forces people to interpret an ambiguous social world.

The meanings people assign to events pervasively influence psychological experience. Emotional reactions depend on whether events are interpreted as relevant to one's goals and as potentially controllable (Lazarus, 1991). Decisions are affected by whether prospects are interpreted in terms of gains or losses (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984; Mellers, Schwartz, & Cooke, 1998). Motivational states depend on whether activities are interpreted as personal challenges or externally imposed burdens (Deci & Ryan, 1991). Personality functioning is primarily an adaptation not to events themselves but to the meaning one assigns to them. Many theorists contend that processes of knowledge and interpretation are at the heart of personality and psychological experience (e.g., Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Heider, 1958; Higgins, 1999; Kelly, 1955; Kreitler & Kreitler, 1992; Ross & Nisbett, 1991).