Situational Theory of Problem Solving

Situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) was developed to explain people's motivated communicative actions when they encounter problematic life situations. Jeong-Nam Kim theorized STOPS as a continuation of its parent theory, situational theory of publics (STP), James E. Grunig's theory about the role of information during human decisions. STP builds on the concept of publics, defined by John Dewey as being issue groups that form around problems that affect people and motivate their involvement, information reception, and processing. These are measures for identifying and segmenting publics.

The original version of situational theory criticized the assumption postulated in economic decision-making theory that decision makers have perfect knowledge, and information is available freely and sufficient for them. In reality, people make decisions with imperfect knowledge or lack relevant information as they face the risks of their choices and decisional consequences. People become motivated to seek more information about their decisions as the risks or the opportunity costs associated with those decisions increase. It is, therefore, fallacious to assume information behaviors in decision situations to be constant or to conceptualize people are inactive as they recognize the need for knowledge and information in decision situations.

J. E. Grunig explained human communication as a purposeful action related to the problems that one identifies. This conceptual transition is an important theoretical landmark for the development of both STP and STOPS. Specifically, the situational theories posit that (a) communication behaviors increase and decrease across people's decision situations; (b) communication could better be understood as a variable (vs. a constant) and better be a dependent variable; (c) (de)motivators of communicative behaviors could vary across situations, as one's personal perceptions about problem significance, connection, and obstacles in doing something about the problematic situation vary. As such, situational theory upset the common assumptions (i.e., the perfect knowledge assumption and the sender-based view of communication) to the notion of communication being an activity through which people cope with their problematic life situations within the constraints of one's internal and external conditions. It reversed the causal order of information behaviors as being dependent variables that increase (or decrease) as people face (solve) genuine (vs. habitual) decision situations. Situational theory stood out as one of the few theoretical outliers distinct from most communication theories during the 1960s (cf. uses and gratification theory) that assumed communication to be an activity that a message sender engages in with message recipients for the purpose of persuasion, education, or social influence.

STOPS builds upon, incorporates, and advances STP. First, STOPS has shifted the theory's focus from decisional situations to problematic situations. The original theory came out of a critique of the problems in economic decision-making theory and is grounded on the relationship between information and decision making. In contrast, STOPS directs focus explicitly on problem solving and communicative actions. This means that STOPS sets the unit of theoretical analysis of the theory as the problem solver or the social actor with the purpose of coping with and the closure and resolution of problematic states rather than the decision maker or the economic man with the purpose of satisficing decisions for maximizing utilities or satisfaction (e.g., a problem solver often needs to produce and give information to others, while a decision maker rarely does so).

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