ONLY CONNECT - A SKEPTICAL VIEW OF THE BENEFITS OF ADOPTING A CONNECTIONIST APPROACH TO STUDYING HUMAN SOCIAL-BEHAVIOR

This paper is a response to Eiser's (1996) call for a unifying theoret ical perspective that would bridge the gap between 'individualistic an d 'social' approaches to studying human social behaviour in general, a nd health behaviour in particular. While agreeing with Eiser's premise that it makes no sense to study cognition, affect, and behaviour inde pendently of social context, the present paper takes issue with certai n features of his argument that a connectionist approach provides the needed unifying theoretical framework. It is suggested that if connect ionism can describe the psychological processes underlying social beha vior better than non-connectionist theories, this would provide more c ompelling evidence of its value than claims that it affords new theore tical insights.