[From Rick Marken (960607.0830)]
Bill Powers (960606.1015 MDT) --
Or I could answer as a control theorist, and say that the fans remain
loyal because they are controlling for something other than a winning
record by their team -- for example, a sense of solidarity, or a
reputation for loyalty, or a chance to spend an afternoon out of the
office.
Bruce Gregory (960606.1325 EDT)--
If the control theory dilettante answer given above is the best PCT can do,
PCT doesn't have anything very interesting to say about Red Socks Fans.
What would you consider an "interesting" thing to say about Red Socks fans?
What if the _correct_ explanation of the behavior of a Red Socks Fan were
uninteresting? Would you prefer the interesting explanation?
I think many people are more interested in psychological "just so" stories
than in scientific understanding of human nature. Indeed, some people
believe that the more interesting the story, the better the explanation.
Such people (and I've met a few) are turned off by the "uninteresting",
"trivial" or "common sense" PCT explanations of behavior. Why abandon the
baroque fascination of Jung, Freud or even Skinner for the simplicity of PCT?
Isn't it more fun to explain "masochism" as pennance for Oedipal anger at a
father than as an irrelevant side effect (an appearance from the observer's
perspective) of controlling for a perception of solidarity with the home
team?
Is there anything we can do about this problem? Perhaps we could change the
PCT terminology so that it has more sexual innuendo: perception = excitation;
reference = desire; action = thrust?
Apparently applying PCT to understanding the appeal of spectator sports is
not nearly so fruitful.
What's unfruitful about the PCT approach to understanding spectator sports
fans? What approach seems more fruitful? What constitutes a "fruitful"
approach to understanding this phenomenon?
Ken Hacker (960606) --
Would it be possible for Bill to help someone study why a voter selects
on presidential candidate over another?
No. Sorry. PCT doesn't apply to voting behavior;-)
Seriously, though, why don't you try to come up with a PCT based research
project on voting behavior on your own first; then we can help you develop
it. Just start out by looking at voting behavior as a control process and ask
what variables a person might be controlling. One thing I control when I vote
is who I vote for; if I voted for X and noticed that my mark actually
indicated Y, I would not be perceiving what I want and I would try to fix it.
Your question implies that the reference for who one votes for is selected in
order to control a higher order perception. That seems right to me; I don't
know if I can articulate the higher order perceptions I am controlling when I
vote for a particular candidate, but I imagine one might be the perception
of "living in a prospeous and humane society"; I know that I virtually NEVER
vote for my personal financial gain; if I did, I'd be a rock ribbed
Republican. But some people might vote for personal financial gain rather
than social betterment; this could be tested using verbal versions of The
Test.
I believe that you could do a study using artificial candidates and
artificial issues; once you know which higher level perceptions a person is
controlling for, you should be able to predict which candidate the person
will vote for given the issues associated with each candidate. But it will
take some work to and (probably) lots of tuning of the procedure in order to
get to the point where you are getting clean, clear data. Of course, the whole
study would be done "one voter at a time".
Best
Rick