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Situational Theory of Problem Solving

A communication model links how people perceive a problem and their ability to address it with active or passive ways of acquiring, selecting and transmitting information.

Version
v1 · 2026-10-31 · History
Domain-specific #
14579
Domain group
Social Sciences
Origin domain
Communication & Media Studies
Subdomains
Communication Research, Public Relations → Communication & Media Studies
Aliases
STOPS

Core Idea

Kim and Grunig's situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) links problem, involvement and constraint recognition to situational motivation, while a person's referent criterion also informs communication about an issue.[1] It distinguishes acquisition (seeking/attending), selection (forefending/permitting), and transmission (forwarding/sharing), rather than treating all communication as information seeking.[2]

How would you explain it like I'm…

Why Some People Speak Up

Some people talk a lot about a problem and some people hardly talk about it at all. This idea tries to explain why. It asks: do you notice the problem, do you feel it's about you, and do you think you can do anything? Those answers change how much you look for news about it, pick what to listen to, and tell others.

Why Some People Get Active

The Situational Theory of Problem Solving is a model about when people get busy communicating about a problem and when they stay quiet. It looks at three things: whether a person notices the problem, whether they feel connected to it, and whether they think something blocks them from acting. What a person already knows or believes also matters. And 'communicating' isn't just one thing: it includes looking for information, choosing what information to pay attention to, and passing information along. Someone can notice a problem but not feel it's theirs, so noticing alone doesn't make people act.

Situational Communication Activeness Model

The Situational Theory of Problem Solving (STOPS), introduced by Jeong-Nam Kim and James E. Grunig in 2011, explains when people become more or less active in communicating about a problem. It expands an older theory that focused mainly on seeking or passively receiving information. Three perceptions drive motivation: problem recognition (seeing a problem), involvement recognition (seeing a personal connection) and constraint recognition (seeing obstacles), and a 'referent criterion', such as prior knowledge or a way of judging, also shapes behavior. The outcome isn't just 'talks more'; it splits into acquiring information (seeking vs. attending), selecting it (forefending vs. permitting) and transmitting it (forwarding vs. sharing), each with an active and less active version. These are proposed relationships, not guarantees: a study of US landscape irrigators found high recognition of water problems but low personal involvement.

 

The Situational Theory of Problem Solving (STOPS), proposed by Jeong-Nam Kim and James E. Grunig in 2011, models variation in communicative activeness about a perceived problem. It generalizes the situational theory of publics beyond information seeking and processing. Antecedents are problem recognition, involvement recognition and constraint recognition, which feed situational motivation, together with a referent criterion consisting of prior knowledge or a judgmental frame. The outcome, communicative action in problem solving, is multidimensional: information acquisition (seeking versus attending), selection (forefending versus permitting) and transmission (forwarding versus sharing), each with an active and a less active variant. The theory posits and measures these relationships rather than asserting that concern produces effective action. Antecedents can diverge: a person may recognize a public issue with little personal stake, or care while perceiving constraints. The US landscape-irrigator study found high problem recognition alongside low involvement, illustrating why antecedents should not be merged into a single awareness score.

Scope of Application

The theory studies issue-related publics, not successful problem resolution. A 2012 survey of 300 South Korean respondents tested it around a controversy over resumed US beef imports.[2] A 2018 US study applied it to residents controlling landscape irrigation and communication about water conservation.[3] These are observational applications, not deterministic individual predictions or intervention proofs.

Clarity

Recognizing a problem is different from feeling personally involved or able to act. In the irrigator study, respondents had high recognition of water issues but low perceived involvement.[3] Referent criterion is prior knowledge or a judgmental frame, not necessarily an objectively correct answer or a uniformly positive driver. Active/passive labels classify communication modes rather than moral worth.

Manages Complexity

STOPS separates several reasons for low communication: a problem may not be recognized, a person may feel detached, or constraints may seem high. It also separates reading, filtering and passing information to others. The Korean hot-issue study measured the antecedents and active information behaviors; the water study shows why recognition alone cannot stand in for the whole model.[2][3]

Abstract Reasoning

The model proposes an antecedent–motivation–behavior structure. Its six communication outcomes are not interchangeable: a finding about seeking cannot automatically be generalized to forwarding, and an observed association is not a causal guarantee. Nor is recognition-versus-involvement an intrinsic design tradeoff; they are separately measured perceptions that can diverge.

Knowledge Transfer

STOPS is useful for asking which perceptions and information behaviors matter in a new public issue, provided those constructs are measured. It is not a generic prime of “people solve problems”: communication may occur without any validated solution. Problem solving is related, but communication does not necessarily bring about a solution.

Neighborhood in Abstraction Space

Situational Theory of Problem Solving sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (84th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.

Family — Self, Identity & Social Cognition Biases (28 abstractions)

Nearest neighbors

Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-31

References

[1] Jeong-Nam Kim and James E. Grunig, “Problem Solving and Communicative Action: A Situational Theory of Problem Solving”, Journal of Communication 61 (2011), 120–149; original text indexed in the Pennsylvania State University repository. registry ↩

[2] Jeong-Nam Kim, Lan Ni, Sei-Hill Kim and Jangyul Robert Kim, “What Makes People Hot? Applying the Situational Theory of Problem Solving to Hot-Issue Publics”, Journal of Public Relations Research 24 (2012), 144–164; study abstract. registry ↩a ↩b ↩c

[3] Alexa J. Lamm, Laura A. Warner, Lisa K. Lundy, J. S. Bommidi and P. Beattie, “Informing water-saving communication in the United States using the situational theory of problem solving”, Landscape and Urban Planning 180 (2018), 217–222; accessible publisher excerpts. registry ↩a ↩b ↩c