Blackwell Reference Online

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Originally proposed by Bem ( see Bern, 1972, for a review), self-perception theory offers a view of the way people come to know their internal states. In Bern's terms, people come to know their internal states “partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs” (Bern, 1972, p. 5). In this view, people often do not know their attitudes by direct introspection, but rather examine their own behavior. A person who is crying may infer that he or she is sad. A person who attends a rally for a particular political candidate may infer that he or she has a positive attitude toward that candidate. Environmental circumstances also play a role. If the person who is crying knows that he was peeling an onion, he may deduce that his behavior is not relevant to a conclusion about his emotions. Similarly, a person who attends a political rally but knows that the professor in her Government class instructed all of the students to attend, may not conclude that her participation in the rally is evidence about her political attitudes. Bern, using the language promoted by be-haviorists in their analysis of human speech, differentiated between manded and tacted behavior. Manded behaviors are those that are under the control of environmental stimuli. They are thus are not useful in inferring a person's internal state. Being ... log in or subscribe to read full text