A distinct statistical inference rule, the Laplacian rule of succession (RoS), is used to illustrate a general problem of decision research, namely, empirical tests of human rationality. The RoS relates the probability p of a dominant outcome in a population of binary events to an observed proportion P of the dominant outcome in a sample. The inferred probability pis generally regressive; it deviates more from the sample proportion P when samples are small rather than large. Based on computer simulations of prelated to P under various boundary conditions (measurement error; prior odds; payoff expectation, population inference vs. sample estimation), we examined judges' RoS sensitivity in a series of simple lottery experiments. Although comparative ratings of lotteries experienced in small and large samples seemed to reflect some intuitive understanding under most simplifying task conditions, they violated normative principles when complicating conditions (e.g., loss aversion, uncertainty aversion, ratio biases, Bayesian priors) overshadowed the RoS. The final discussion revolves around the difficulty, or impossibility, to conduct empirical tests of rationality.

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A synopsis of major theories of social psychology is provided with reference to three major domains of social-psychological inquiry: attitudes and attitude change, motivation regulation, and group behavior. Despite the heterogeneity of research topics, there is considerable overlap in the basic theoretical principles across all three domains. Typical theories that constitute the common ground of social psychology rely on rules of good Gestalt consistency, on psychodynamic principles, but also on behaviorist learning models and on semantic-representation and information-transition models borrowed from cognitive science. Prototypical examples that illustrate the structure and the spirit of theories in social psychology are dissonance theory, construal-level, regulatory focus, and social identity theory. A more elaborate taxonomy of pertinent theories is provided in the first table in this article.