Willem Doise (1986)
(1) The intra-personal level
(2) The inter-personal level (situational level)
(3) The positional level
(4) The ideological level
(1) refers to how the individual organises his perception, his evaluation of the social millieu and his behaviour within this environment. The research into cognitive development by the Piagetan school is at this level.
Examples of work are Anderson (1965, 1971) and Fishbein & Hunter (1964) whose work involved looking at the value subjects attach to particular personality traits presented in isolation.
Additionally the following all establish a need for the individual to establish an equilibrium between the different cognitive elements in a given situation:
Balance Theory (Heider, 1946), Cognitive Congruence, (Osgood &Tannenbaum, 1955), Cognitive Dissonance, Festinger (1957).
Also:
Categorisation process, Tajfel and Wilkes (1963)
Social Stereotypes, Tajfel et al (1963)
(2) refers to the interpersonal processes in a given situation. Social positions outside that situation are not considered.
Communication network, Bavelos (1950)
Attribution Theory, Kelly (1967)
Importance of Observer, Jones & Davis (1965)
(3) comes into many investigations of attribution. It is made explicit in explanations which bring in differences in social position which exist prior to the interaction [unlike (2)].
Thibaut & Riecken (1955) looked at differences in social position on interaction -> persuasion and pre-existing social status/differences (persuading people of different class to give blood).
Taylor & Jaggi (1974) studied the nature of causality attributions made by Hindus about members of their