Replacing Catharsis and Uncertainty Reduction Theories with Descriptions of Historical and Social Context

Abstract

Many explanations in psychology rely on notions of catharsis, drive reduction, or uncertainty reduction. This article criticizes such notions and suggests 3 ways that such theories can be replaced to make the phenomena events of social life rather than “inner” events: They have hidden social events as their conditions for occurrence; they are the result of conflicting social demands; and they function as good conversational rhetoric. Seven examples are given in detail, including the reduction in anxiety about life through religion, the cognitive psychology assumption of uncertainty reduction through categorization, and the reduction in anxiety resulting from making rumors. Relying on descriptions of historical and social context rather than on theories of catharsis provides a better basis for applied interventions and integration into the social sciences but requires that psychologists pay much more attention to measuring such details.