Blackwell Reference Online

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Affect control theory (ACT) is an empirically grounded, mathematical theory of social interaction. David R. Heise developed the theory in the early 1970s based on symbolic interactionist insights about the primary importance of language and of the symbolic labeling of situations. Inspired by the pragmatist philosophy of early symbolic interactionists, the theory begins with the premise that people reduce existential uncertainty by developing “working understandings” of their social worlds. The theory presumes that actors label elements of social situations using cultural symbols available to them. After creating this working definition, the theory further argues that actors are motivated to maintain it. ACT assumes that our labeling of social situations evokes affective meanings. These are the meanings that we try to maintain during interaction. ACT makes use of three specific dimensions to measure the affective meanings associated with specific labels, a set of equations to describe how events change those meanings, and a mathematical function to show what actions will best maintain or restore original meanings. The theory is fundamentally contained in this three-part formalization: the measurement structure, the event reaction equations, and the mathematical statement of the control process. The theory is embodied in its mathematical expressions (i.e., the mathematical model predicts ... log in or subscribe to read full text