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A theoretical framework is presented to understand the fundamental process
of adapting to experiential discontinuities that are of personal significance to
one's self-concept. The central dynamic of this approach is the motivation
triggered by perception of a discontinuity, which is defined as a violation of
expectation in any domain of functioning highly valued by the self. Such
discontinuities may arise from the experience of failures, deficits, or
transformations in intellectual, social, sexual, sensory, physical, or career
domains. The motivation to understand the cause of a discontinuity, and to
appear rational to one's self and others, generates a cognitive search process,
while the motivation to appear normal, to be like others, generates a social
search process. A behaviorally oriented search may be generated to take actions
to suppress the arousal and deflect or ignore the distress associated with
discontinuities. Although these three search processes are variants of what
makes humans smart, connected, and functional, they may become biased in
their operation in ways that distort their typically adaptive use. When that
happens, various forms of social pathology and psychopathology may emerge in
people without evident premorbid dispositions. These pathologies are referred to
as aspects of "madness." This broad term is used to cover a continuum from
ordinary irrationality, fears, anxieties, obsessions, compulsions, addictive
behaviors, prejudice, and mass hysteria, to more extreme forms of mental
disorders such as phobia, paranoia, and depression. Direct links are posited
between the kinds of search process biases activated in some people and the
specific forms of pathology that appear as people try to make sense of, or cope
with, their discontinuity.
Copyright © 1999 by Academic Press. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
0065-2601/99 $30.00
DISCONTINUITY THEORY:
COGNITIVE AND SOCIAL
SEARCHES FOR RATIONALITY
AND NORMALITY-MAY LEADTO MADNESS
I. Overview
345
Philip G. Zimbardo
ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTALSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 31
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