Catastrophe theory in social psychology: Some applications to attitudes and social behavior

Much past mathematical modeling of psychological processes has assumed (a) smooth and continuous change in behavior or cognitions or, if not, (b) simple step functions or thresholds. Many psychological phenomena which are not smooth and continuous, or do not meet the assumptions of simple step functions, seem to demonstrate the properties of the cusp or butterfly catastrophes. Catastrophe models have already been proposed for many psychological phenomena. In this paper catastrophe models are proposed for social behavior, attitude change, and some other related processes. These models synthesize many diverse and sometimes seemingly contradictory findings and suggest some unique hypotheses. The difficulties of testing catastrophe models are discussed and some means for improving empirical tests are suggested. It is concluded that catastrophe models hold promise for theoretical development in social psychology wherever high quality measurement and scaling techniques are available or can be developed.