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The peculiarities of two Landau-type theories of ferroelastic phase transitions have been analyzed. The predictions of both theories have been compared with well-known experimental data obtained for the shape memory alloys (SMAs) undergoing the first-order martensitic transformations (MTs). It has been shown that the predictions of the Landau–Devonshire theory, which disregards the third-order term in power expansion of Gibbs free energy, contradict the experimental data, while the results of the symmetry conforming Landau theory, which takes into account this term, are in agreement with experimental data. The impossibility of occurrence of the second-order MT is demonstrated starting from the thermodynamic definition of the second-order phase transition. It is argued that the stress–strain loops, obtained for SMAs, can imitate the stress-induced phase transition in the absence of such transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]