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Outline
The Mysteries of Social Life 3 What Is Social Psychology? 4 Describing and Explaining Social Behavior 4 Social Psychology Is an Interdisciplinary Bridge 5 Major Theoretical Perspectives of Social Psychology 6 The Sociocultural Perspective 6 The Evolutionary Perspective 7 The Social Learning Perspective 9 The Social Cognitive Perspective 10 Combining Perspectives 12
Basic Principles of Social Behavior 13 Social Behavior Is Goal Oriented 14 The Interaction between the Person and the Situation 16 How Psychologists Study Social Behavior 17 Descriptive Methods 18 Correlation and Causation 22 Experimental Methods 23 Why Social Psychologists Combine Different Methods 25 Ethical Issues in Social Psychological Research 27
Social Psychology’s Bridges with Other Areas of Knowledge 29 Social Psychology and Other Areas of Psychology 29 Social Psychology and Other Disciplines 31 Revisiting the Mysteries of Social Life 32 Chapter Summary 33
Chapter 1
Introduction to
Social Psychology
Video
Chapter 1 • The Mysteries of Social Life 3
The Mysteries of Social Life
A few years after graduating from college, things were not going well for Joyce R. As she describes it:
I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. In the face of all this personal and economic failure, many people might have stopped trying. But Joyce didn’t passively accept her fate. Besides struggling to put bread on the table for her young daughter, she worked long hours into the night, using her knowledge of classic literature, to write a children’s novel. Writing a novel is not a very practical formula for economic success. There are approximately 493,000 books published in English every year, and many more that are written but never find a publisher. In fact, Joyce’s novel seemed to be just another one of her life’s failures: It was rejected by 12 publishers. But an editor at the thirteenth publishing house accepted the book and offered her a £1,500 advance as well as some practical advice: He gently informed her that she was not likely to make any money writing children’s books and suggested that she instead get a day job (Blais, 2005). But Joyce’s book defied the unfavorable odds and did quite well in the bookstores. Joyce, rather than taking a day job, wrote a series of follow-up books, which also sold handsomely. Indeed, in a few short years the for- merly poverty-stricken single mom was listed on Fortune magazine’s list of billionaires. You may know Joyce as J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. It might not have been surprising if Ms. Rowling, having experienced poverty, had hoarded her hard-earned cash. Many people who start making a lot of money are suddenly shocked at how many dollars they pay in taxes and begin to seek tax shelters, or to consider migrating to a place with lower taxes. But not J.K. Rowling. Not only did she proudly pay her taxes, she began giving large portions of the rest of her money
LO 1.1 Define social psychology and explain why it relies on scientific description and theory.
LO 1.2 Explain why social psychology is considered a bridge discipline.
LO 1.3 Summarize the four major theoretical perspectives of social psychology.
LO 1.4 Discuss how the four major perspectives work together to explain human social behavior.
LO 1.5 Describe the five fundamental motives behind goal-oriented social behavior.
LO 1.6 Explain what is meant by the person, the situation, and person–situation interactions.
LO 1.7 List the strengths and weaknesses of each of the different descriptive methods (e.g., naturalistic observation, case study) and experimental methods, and explain why researchers find value in combining them.
LO 1.8 Explain why it is difficult to infer causality from correlation.
LO 1.9 Discuss some of the ethical risks that social psychologists face.
LO 1.10 Discuss the links between social psychology and other disciplines of psychology.
LO 1.11 Explain why an understanding of social psychology is valuable to disciplines outside of psychology.
Learning Objectives
Chapter 1 • What Is Social Psychology? 5
likely to extend help, and others to be more selfish? Without a good theory, we would not know where to start searching for an answer. Maybe an inclination to help others is caused by the arrangement of the planets under which altruists are born or by something in the water they drank as children. Social psychological theories are more likely to suggest searching elsewhere for the causes of social behavior—in a per- son’s interpretation of his or her immediate social environment, in his or her family background, in the broader culture, or in general predispositions humans share with baboons and other social animals. And, as we’ll see, social psychologists have devel- oped some intriguing research methods designed to sort out those different sources of influence. Finally, scientific theories can help us make predictions about future events and control previously unmanageable phenomena. Scientific theories have led to the elec- tric light bulb, the personal computer, the space shuttle, and the control of diseases such as smallpox. As we will see, social psychological theories have provided useful information about the roots of prejudice, kindness, and love; about why people join rioting mobs or religious cults; and about a host of other puzzling phenomena.
Social Psychology Is an Interdisciplinary Bridge
Psychologists aren’t the only ones pondering the mysteries of human social behavior. Anthropologists puzzle over why people in some societies have social customs that would seem radically inappropriate in others (in Chapter 8, we will talk about societ- ies in which one woman marries multiple men, for example). Evolutionary biologists search for common patterns linking human social behavior with the behaviors of chim- panzees, hyenas, and indigo buntings (in Chapter 10, we will see that the hormone testosterone is similarly linked to aggression, and to sex roles, across a wide range of species). Political scientists and historians search for the determinants of warfare and intergroup conflicts, of the sort we will explore in Chapters 11 and 13. And economists search for the roots of people’s decisions about whether to contribute to their group’s welfare, or hoard their resources to themselves, topics we will investigate in Chapters 9 and 13. How do the perspectives of all these disciplines fit together into a bigger picture? How does what you are learning in your biology class link up with what you’re learn- ing in your anthropology class? How do the factoids of history connect with recent discoveries in neuroscience? What are the links between geography, economics, and marriage patterns? It turns out all these things are profoundly connected, and in ways that affect not only the course of your personal life but also the course of world affairs and major social problems. Evolutionary biology, neurochemistry, history, culture, and geography, all have important implications for how people socially interact with one another; those social interactions, in turn, affect which moral and religious sentiments are enforced as laws, how children are educated, and even how medical doctors treat their patients. Because all of these influences converge to influence social behavior, social psy- chologists consider social behavior at many different levels of analysis. For example, a recent series of studies of societies around the world found that cultural differences in friendliness and sociability are linked to geographic variations in disease prevalence— where there is more disease, people have traits that lead them to avoid contact with others (Murray et al., 2011; Schaller & Park, 2011). Other studies we’ll discuss have examined how our relationships with other people can be affected by historical factors, hormone levels, phase of the menstrual cycle, and brain activity, and how all these influences can, in turn, affect our physical and mental health, as well as our economic behavior and political beliefs (e.g., Apicella et al., 2008; Cantú et al., 2014; Gelfand et al., 2011; Little et al., 2008; Uskul, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2008; Varnum et al., 2014). Thus, social psychology is in many ways the ultimate bridge discipline. Throughout this text, we will encounter many such interdisciplinary bridges, often considering findings that reflect culture, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and that connect with applied disci- plines from business to law to medicine.
6 Chapter 1 • Introduction to Social Psychology
Quick Quiz
1 Social psychology is the scientific study of: a. How people’s reactions to others develop over the life cycle. b. How people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people. c. How societal forces contribute to the development of mental illness. d. How the brain influences the development of social reactions. 2 Which of the following best describes scientific theories? a. Theories are based on hypothetical conjecture as opposed to established evidence. b. Theories explain the cause of specific behaviors. c. Theories are a collection of facts. d. Theories are scientific explanations that connect and organize existing observations. 3 To say that social psychology is the ultimate bridge discipline means that the field: a. Connects laboratory findings with clinical applications. b. Bridges careful description with theoretical explanation. c. Links sociology and psychology. d. Connects multiple perspectives on social behavior, from biology, anthropology, economics, and other disciplines.
Major Theoretical Perspectives
of Social Psychology
LO 1.3 Summarize the four major theoretical perspectives of social psychology. LO 1.4 Discuss how the four major perspectives work together to explain human social behavior.
Social psychological theories have been influenced by intellectual developments rang- ing from the discovery of DNA to the emergence of artificial intelligence. Four major perspectives (or families of theories) have dominated the field: sociocultural, evolu- tionary, social learning, and social cognitive.
The Sociocultural Perspective
The year 1908 saw the publication of the first two major textbooks titled Social Psychology. One of these was written by sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross. Ross ar- gued that the wellsprings of social behavior reside not in the individual but in the so- cial group. He argued that people were carried along on “social currents,” such as “the spread of a lynching spirit through a crowd... [or] an epidemic of religious emotion” (Ross, 1908, 1–2). Ross analyzed incidents such as the Dutch tulip bulb craze of 1634, in which people sold their houses and lands to buy flower roots that cost more than their weight in gold, but that instantly became worthless when the craze stopped. To explain these crazes, Ross looked at the group as a whole rather than at the psyche of the indi- vidual group member. He viewed crazes and fads as products of “mob mind... that irrational unanimity of interest, feeling, opinion, or deed in a body of communicating individuals, which results from suggestion and imitation” (Ross, 1908, 65). Like Ross, other sociologically based theorists emphasized larger social group- ings, from neighborhood gangs to ethnic groups and political parties (e.g., Sumner, 1906). That emphasis continues in the modern sociocultural perspective —the view that a person’s prejudices, preferences, and political persuasions are affected by fac- tors that work at the level of the group, factors such as nationality, social class, and current historical trends (Gelfand et al., 2014; Heine, 2010). For example, compared to her working-class Irish grandmother, a modern-day Manhattan executive probably has different attitudes about premarital sex and women’s roles in business (Roberts & Helson, 1997). Sociocultural theorists focus on the central importance of social norms , or rules about appropriate behavior, such as Don’t eat with your hands, Don’t wear shorts
Sociocultural perspective The theoretical viewpoint that searches for the causes of social behavior in influences from larger social groups.
Social norm A rule or expectation for appropriate social behavior.
8 Chapter 1 • Introduction to Social Psychology
reproduce. New characteristics that are well suited to particular environments—called adaptations —will come to replace characteristics that are less well suited to the de- mands and opportunities those environments present. Dolphins are mammals closely related to cows, but their legs evolved into fins because that shape is better suited to life under water. Darwin assumed that just as an animal’s body is shaped by natural selection, so is an animal’s brain. Psychologists once assumed that evolution could only produce inflexible “in- stincts” that were “wired in” at birth and not much influenced by the environment. Most experts on evolution and behavior now understand that biological influences on humans and other animals are usually flexible and responsive to the environment (e.g., Gangestad et al., 2006; Kenrick & Gomez-Jacinto, 2014; O’Gorman et al., 2008; Robinson et al., 2008). Consider fear, for example. There is good evidence that fear is an evolved psychological reaction that helped our ancestors respond rapidly to threats such as poisonous insects, snakes, and other people who might pose a danger to them (Ohman, Lundqvist, & Esteves, 2001). Because it would exhaust our bodies to be on continuous high alert, the so-called fight-or-flight response (which makes us want to run or defend ourselves in frightening situations) is exquisitely sensitive to cues in a situation that suggest when we are and are not likely to be in danger (Cannon, 1929). One team of researchers examined how this evolutionary perspective on fear might help us understand potentially volatile prejudices between different groups of people (Schaller, Park, & Mueller, 2003). The researchers asked white and Asian Canadian college students to rate their reactions to photographs of black men. Some of the students did the ratings in a brightly lit room; others were in a completely dark room. Students who viewed the world as a dangerous place were particularly prone to see the black men as threatening if they rated the photos in a dark room. Furthermore, these effects were stronger when the raters were men than when they were women. The researchers interpreted these data in terms of an evolutionary perspective on inter- group relationships (Kurzban & Leary, 2001; Navarrete et al., 2009; Sidanius & Pratto, 1998). From this viewpoint it might have been useful to our ancestors to be especially fearful of strangers under certain circumstances. The possibility of dangerous conflict between two different groups of men who encountered one another after dark would have led to wariness on the part of men who found themselves in this type of situation. The researchers note that in modern multicultural societies the tendency to respond with these primitive self-protective reactions can lead to adverse consequences, includ- ing bullying, gang warfare, and intergroup conflict. On the one hand, as we noted earlier, sociocultural theorists have been intrigued by differences in behavior from one culture to another. On the other hand, evolutionary
Expressions of happiness across human cultures. In the first book on evolutionary psychol- ogy, Charles Darwin argued that some emotional expressions might be universal patterns of communication inherited from our ancestors.
Adaptation A characteristic that is well designed to help an animal survive and reproduce in a particular environment.
Chapter 1 • Major Theoretical Perspectives of Social Psychology 9
theorists have searched for common patterns in human social behaviors around the world because they are interested in general characteristics of our species (e.g., Dunn et al., 2010; Kenrick & Keefe, 1992; Matsumoto & Willingham, 2006; Schmitt, 2006). Men and women in every human society, for example, establish long-term marriage bonds in which the man helps the woman raise a family (Geary, 2000; Hrdy, 1999). This might seem unsurprising until one looks at most of our furry relatives. Mothers in 95 to 97% of other mammalian species go it alone without any help from the male. Why are family values so rare among mammalian males? That may be because after fertilization fathers just aren’t all that necessary. Paternal care becomes useful, though, in species like coyotes and human beings, whose young are born helpless (Geary, 2005). Besides the broad commonalities of human nature, evolutionary psychol- ogists are also interested in differences between individuals (e.g., Boothroyd et al., 2008; Duncan et al., 2007; Feinberg et al., 2008; Griskevicius, Delton et al., 2011; Jackson & Kirkpatrick, 2008). Within any species there are often multiple strategies for survival and reproduction. For example, some male sunfish grow large, defend territories, and build nests, which attract females. Other males are smaller and impersonate females, darting in to fertilize the eggs just as the female mates with a large territorial male (Gould & Gould, 1989). Although people in all societies form some type of long-term parental bond, they also vary considerably in their mating strategies: Some men and women are monog- amous, whereas others join in marriages that involve more than one husband, as in Tibet, or more than one wife, as in Afghanistan (Schmitt, 2005). As we shall see in later chapters, social psychologists are just beginning to explore how bi- ological predispositions and culture interact to shape complex social behaviors, from violence and prejudice to altruism, love, and religiosity (e.g., Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002; Weeden, Cohen, & Kenrick, 2008).
The Social Learning Perspective
During the decades following 1908, Ross’s group-centered perspective and McDougall’s evolutionary approach declined in popularity. Instead, many psycholo- gists adopted a social learning perspective , which viewed social behavior as driven by each individual’s past learning experiences with reward and punishment (e.g., All- port, 1924; Hull, 1934). On this view, whether we love or hate another person or group of people, whether we are gregarious or reserved, and whether we desire to be a leader or a follower, are all determined by the rewards and punishments we receive from our parents, our teachers, and our peers. We don’t need to learn everything from our own trials and errors though; we can observe what happens to the other people around us and the people we read about in books and magazines, or hear about on television. In a clas- sic series of experiments, Albert Bandura and his colleagues showed how children learn to imitate aggressive behavior after seeing another child or adult rewarded for beating an inflatable Bobo doll (e.g., Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961). Bandura expressed concern because his own research had suggested that movies and television often teach young people that violent behavior can be heroic and rewarding. These con- cerns have been validated by numerous examples of life imitating art. For example, on April 8, 2000, the Arizona Republic reported the story of a group of boys in a local high school who started a “fight club” modeled after one started by Brad Pitt’s char- acter in a 1999 movie of the same name. As modeled by the characters in the movie, the teenage boys would gather together to trade gloveless punches with one another (Davis, 2000). In a related vein, as we will discuss in Chapter 10, there is evidence that violent video games, which often give players additional points every time they kill or maim a lifelike opponent, may desensitize young boys to violence and teach them to associate hurting others with rewards (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Bartholow et al., 2006; Englehardt et al., 2011).
Paternal investment. Unlike males in 95 percent of other mammalian species, human fathers invest a great deal of time, energy, and resources in their offspring.
Social learning perspective A theoretical viewpoint that focuses on past learning experiences as determinants of a person’s social behaviors.
Chapter 1 • Major Theoretical Perspectives of Social Psychology 11
revolution”—a rebirth of interest in the workings of the mind. During the 1970s and 1980s an increasing number of social psychologists adopted a social cognitive perspective , which focuses on the processes involved in people’s choice of which social events to pay attention to, which interpreta- tions to make of these events, and how to store these expe- riences in memory (e.g., Andersen & Chen, 2002; Carlston, 2013; Plant et al., 2004; Roese & Summerville, 2005). Researchers have conducted a host of fascinating exper- iments to explore how your reactions to any social situation can be influenced by cognitive factors such as attention and memory (e.g., Donders et al., 2008; Sharif & Norenzayan, 2007; Trawalter et al., 2008). In one such experiment, high school students were asked how important they thought it was to make a lot of money in their future jobs (Roney, 2003). Some of the students answered the question in a room with members of the opposite sex; some were around only mem- bers of their own sex. As you can see in Figure 1.1, the pres- ence of boys made no difference in the way that high school girls answered the question. But being around girls led high school boys to inflate the value they placed on wealth. The researcher also found that seeing ads with young, attractive models (as opposed to ads depicting older people) stimulated college men at the Uni- versity of Chicago to rate themselves as more ambitious and to place more value on being financially successful. The researcher explained the results in terms of a sim- ple cognitive mechanism—seeing attractive young women activates thoughts about dating in young men. This, in turn, triggers associated thoughts about “what women want,” including the tendency for women to place more emphasis on financial success in a mate (e.g., Li, Bailey, et al., 2002; Li, Yong, et al., 2013). One problem we face in processing social information is that there is so much of it. It’s virtually impossible to remember everyone you passed as you walked across campus this morning, much less all the social interactions you had over the last week or the last year. Because we can’t focus on everything we see and hear, social informa- tion processing is selective. As we’ll see in later chapters, sometimes we put our minds on automatic, focusing on a superficial detail or two that will help us come to a quick decision about what to do next (such as when you’re in a rush and have to decide whether to give 50 cents to a homeless woman with her hand out). At other times, we pay careful attention to particular details and search, like scientists, for particular types of social information that will allow us to make accurate decisions (when you’re thinking of dating someone, for example) (Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Strack et al., 2006). Social psychologists have found that people have a very hard time keeping a com- pletely fair and open mind to new social information, even when we’re trying to do so (e.g., Lord et al., 1979). Rather than operating like scientists seeking the truth, we often process social information more like lawyers defending a client (Haidt, 2001). Consider this question: What are you like now, and how are you different now from what you were like when you were 16 years old? When one team of researchers asked Canadian college students this question, the students had lots of positive things to say about their present selves and more negative things to say about their former selves. Of course, it might be that people simply become better human beings as they age. When the researchers, however, asked another group of students to rate acquaintances of the same age, the students did not perceive their acquaintances as growing into better and better people (Wilson & Ross, 2001). The tendency to view ourselves (but not others) as having changed “from chumps to champs” fits with a number of other findings suggesting that people tend to process social information in a way that tends to flatter themselves (Greenwald et al., 2002; Kurzban, 2012; Vohs et al., 2005). As we will describe in several later chapters, most of us tend to find it un- pleasant when our behaviors are not consistent with our beliefs (Gawronski, 2012).
When high school students were asked to rate “How important is having lots of money to your life?” boys’ answers were different if they answered the question around high school girls.
Figure 1.1 Social context and decision making
Social cognitive perspective A theoretical viewpoint that focuses on the mental processes involved in paying attention to, interpreting, and remembering social experiences.
12 Chapter 1 • Introduction to Social Psychology
As a consequence, we will sometimes go to great lengths to avoid inconsistency (Festinger, 1957). When asked whether she resented paying high taxes, J.K. Rowling has pointed out that she herself benefited from welfare when she was a poor single mother. To avoid paying taxes when she herself became wealthy would be rather hypocritical. Furthermore, Rowling had worked for Amnesty International and had publicly declared her identification with Jessica Mitford, the woman who had scorned her family’s upper-crust wealthy society and emigrated to America to work as a social activist. If Rowling had started hoarding her wealth, it would have been inconsistent with her publicly declared self-image as a left-wing social activist. However, spend- ing her money to help out various social causes is completely consistent with that self-image. Because of the central importance of the social cognitive perspective in modern social psychology, it will provide an essential component throughout this text as we discuss the many mysteries of social behavior.
INVESTIGATION
Think of the different people you’ve passed on the street or on campus or had interactions with anywhere else today. In what ways might the cognitive processes we have discussed in this sec- tion affect which people come to mind more easily?
Combining Perspectives
Table 1.1 summarizes the four major theoretical perspectives in social psychology. Although these perspectives are sometimes viewed as competing, each actually focuses on different parts of the mysteries of social life. Because a single traditional perspective focuses on only part of the picture, we need to combine and integrate the different approaches to see the full picture. The processes of attention and memory studied by cognitive researchers are shaped by people’s learning histories and cultures, which are, in turn, the products of an evo- lutionary past in which humans have created, and have been created by, their social groups (Kenrick, Nieuweboer, & Buunk, 2010; Klein et al., 2002). Consider the topic of prejudice—to some extent, prejudices against members of other groups are related to evolved aversions to strangers, who were often sources of physical danger and new diseases for our ancestors (e.g., Schaller et al., 2003). However, aversions to outsid- ers always involved tradeoffs because members of different groups engaged in trade and exchanged mates with one another (Faulkner et al., 2004; Navarette et al., 2007). Hence, human beings have always had to learn who were their friends and who were their enemies, and which members of different outgroups to fear and which to trust
Table 1.1 Major Theoretical Perspectives in Social Psychology Perspective What Drives Social Behavior? Example
Sociocultural Forces in larger social groups Employees working at IBM in the 1960s wore blue dress shirts (as opposed to white); employees working for Apple in 2015 are more likely to wear colorful T-shirts and jeans to work. Evolutionary Inherited tendencies to respond to the social environment in ways that would have helped our ancestors survive and reproduce
Human infants the world over are born with a set of behavioral mechanisms (sucking, crying, cooing) that induce hormonal changes in their mothers, increasing the likelihood they will be nursed and cared for. Social learning Rewards and punishments; observing how other people are rewarded and punished for their social behaviors
A teenage boy decides to become a musician after watching an audience scream in admiration of the lead singer at a concert. Social cognitive What we pay attention to in a social situation, how we interpret it, and how we connect the current situation to related experiences in memory
If you pass a homeless person on the street, you may be more likely to help if you interpret his plight as something beyond his control and if he reminds you of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
14 Chapter 1 • Introduction to Social Psychology
- Social behavior is goal oriented. People interact with one another to achieve some goal or satisfy some inner motivation.
- Social behavior represents a continual interaction between the person and the situation. In the following sections, we take a closer look at these two principles.
Social Behavior Is Goal Oriented
Goals affect our social behaviors on several levels. At the surface level, we can enu- merate a long list of day-to-day goals: to find out the latest office gossip, to make a good impression on a teacher, or to get a date for next Saturday night. At a some- what broader level, we can talk about longer-term goals: to gain a reputation as being competent, to be seen as likable, to feel good about oneself, or to develop a romantic relationship. Those broader goals often tie together several other day-to-day goals: De- veloping a romantic relationship incorporates shorter-term goals such as getting a date for Saturday night and being comforted by your partner after an exam. At the broadest level, we can ask about fundamental motives—the ultimate func- tions of our social behavior (Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, & Schaller, 2010). So, for example, succeeding in one’s career and making connections with people in high places could both be incorporated into a fundamental motive of “gaining and main- taining status.” To better understand these fundamental motives, let’s consider several that have been investigated by social psychologists.
To ESTABliSh SoCiAl TiES In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, Harry triumphs over the forces of evil. But he could not have done so without the help of his close friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, and the protection of Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It works the same way out here in the real world for us non-magical Muggles. In the case of almost every goal you ever reach, you get there more easily when there are others helping you along. Some goals, like building a school or even moving a couch up a flight of stairs, would not happen at all if not for teamwork. When psychologists enumerate the most basic motives underlying human be- havior, the desire to establish ties with other people is usually high on the list (e.g., Bugental, 2000; McAdams, 1990). People are exquisitely sensitive to rejection and go to great lengths to reconnect with others if they feel excluded (Anthony et al., 2007; Maner et al., 2007; Williams & Nida, 2011). One team of researchers observed brain- wave patterns in people as they played a virtual ball-tossing game with two other players. When the two other players threw the ball to one another and excluded the participant, the person who was ostracized showed a pattern of activity in two dif- ferent areas of the cortex usually associated with physical injury (Eisenberger et al., 2003). Other research suggests that the agony of social separation can be reduced by opiates, drugs normally used to quell the agony of a bleeding wound (Panksepp, 2005). Why does social isolation tap into the same neural mechanisms as physical pain? Perhaps because, without their friends, our ancestors would not have survived (Hill & Hurtado, 1996; MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Hence social rejection may trigger a primitive physiological emergency reaction.
To UNDErSTAND oUrSElvES AND oThErS People gossip, they read profiles of criminal personalities in the newspaper, and they seek feedback from their friends about their chances of getting a date with a charming new classmate. The importance of such information is obvious—by understanding ourselves and our relationships with others we are able to manage our lives more effectively. Someone who is “out of touch” with these realities will have a harder time surviving in a social group (Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Sedikides & Skowronski, 2000). Because social knowledge is so fundamental to all human relationships, social psychologists have devoted a great
Chapter 1 • Basic Principles of Social Behavior 15
deal of attention to the topic of social cognition (which, as noted earlier, refers to the mental processes involved in attending to, interpreting, and remembering other peo- ple). In Chapter 3, we explore this topic in depth, and we return to it throughout the chapters that follow.
To GAiN AND MAiNTAiN STATUS Part of what made Harry Potter so popular is that he rises from being an absolute loser (an orphan living in a closet with relatives who mistreat him) to the heights of heroism. Winning and losing are matters of profound importance, to gradeschoolers competing for places on Little League all-star teams, college students fighting for grades, middle managers striving for executive positions, and senators and governors campaigning to win the presidency. And humans aren’t alone in struggling for status. Baboons are social primates who, like us, pay close atten- tion to where they stand in the social hierarchy. An intensive study of baboons’ phys- iological responses to social events revealed that a loss of status led to a particularly disruptive set of hormonal alarm responses (Sapolsky, 2001). The advantages of attaining status include not only immediate material payoffs such as access to food but also the less tangible social benefits that follow from other people’s (or other baboons’) respect and admiration (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001; Maner & Mead, 2010). So it makes sense that most of us go to great lengths not only to pres- ent ourselves in a positive light to others, but also to convince ourselves that we have reason to hold our heads up high (e.g., Sedikides et al., 2003; Tesser, 2000). Throughout this book, we will see that the motivation to gain and maintain status underlies a wide range of social behaviors.
To DEfEND oUrSElvES AND ThoSE WE vAlUE At the local level, people build fences around their houses, put up Keep Out signs on their streets, join gangs, and buy at- tack dogs to protect themselves. At the national level, countries build armies to protect themselves against the armies of other countries. People are extremely motivated to defend themselves when their reputations, their resources, or their families are threat- ened. People can recognize an angry expression in just a fraction of a second and do so significantly faster if the angry expression is on a man’s face (Becker et al., 2007). Why? Men generally pose more of a physical threat than do women, particularly if those men are strangers or members of outgroups (Ackerman, Shapiro, et al., 2007; Neel et al., 2012). The motivation to defend ourselves can have obvious benefits, promoting our sur- vival and that of our family members, but it can also lead to escalating violence and racism (Duntley, 2005; Schaller et al., 2003). We will discuss the sometimes frightening power of self-protective motivation in the chapters that deal with aggression, preju- dice, and intergroup conflict.
To ATTrACT AND rETAiN MATES Rajinder Singh, sixth maharajah of the state of Patiala in India, took 350 spouses; most North Americans will take at least one. People often go to great lengths to find and keep these partners, writing lengthy love letters, having long phone calls at 2 a.m., or joining computer dating services. An initial flirtation with a pleasant acquaintance in your psychology class could lead to feelings of attraction, romantic love, and even a lifelong family bond. From an evolutionary perspective, these are all connected (Kenrick, Maner, & Li, 2014). Indeed, evolutionary theorists believe that the goal of reproduction underlies all the other social goals. From this perspective, we affiliate, we seek social information, we strive for status, and we act in aggressive and self-protective ways all toward the ultimate end of reproducing our genes (Buss, 2004; Hill et al., 2012; Neuberg et al., 2010).
INVESTIGATION
Recall one pleasant and one unpleasant interaction you’ve had with another person or group. How do those interactions link up with the different goals we just discussed?
The motive to gain and maintain status. Sarah Jessica Parker was one of eight siblings born to relatively poor parents in a small Ohio town. She personifies the rags-to-riches fantasy, having progressed from a struggling rural girl to an awkward adolescent to an internationally famous winner of several Golden Globes. Though not everyone has such high aspirations, most of us are motivated to gain regard in the eyes of others.
Chapter 1 • How Psychologists Study Social Behavior 17
sessions and honors classes). Thus situation and person shape and choose one another in a continuing cycle. When we want to focus specifically on a person–situation interaction, we will sig- nify this by using the green Interaction icon.
Quick Quiz
1 According to the text, what is the connection between everyday goals (such as making an impression on the boss or getting a date) and fundamental motives (such as gaining status or establishing social ties)? a. Everyday goals often conflict with fundamental motives. b. Everyday goals are more important in determining our behavior than are fundamental motives. c. Fundamental motives are more important influences on our behavior than are everyday goals. d. Fundamental goals link our everyday goals to their ultimate functions. 2 Which example demonstrates a person–situation interaction? a. A woman in a sad mood donates to a charity to make herself feel better. b. A man is more likely to honk his horn on a hot humid day than on a comfortable day. c. Men are more likely to help in emergencies that require heroic action, whereas women are more likely to help when emotional support is needed. d. None of the above
How Psychologists Study
Social Behavior
LO 1.7 List the strengths and weaknesses of each of the different descriptive methods (e.g., naturalistic observation, case study) and experimental methods, and explain why researchers find value in combining them.
LO 1.8 Explain why it is difficult to infer causality from correlation.
LO 1.9 Discuss some of the ethical risks that social psychologists face.
Scientific research is a bit like detective work. A detective begins with a mystery and a set of procedures for solving that mystery: interview witnesses, look for a motive, try to rule out various suspects, examine the material evidence, and so on. There are pitfalls at every step: Witnesses may lie or base their testimony on unfounded assump- tions, some motives may be hidden, and the evidence may have been tampered with. Like detectives, social psychologists begin with mysteries. We opened this chapter with several, including: What might cause a woman to give away large portions of her money? What causes some marriages to end in early divorces, and others to flourish for a lifetime? Why do some people make better leaders? Social psychologists have a set of procedures for solving such mysteries and, like detectives, they must also be aware of potential pitfalls involved in using these procedures. Psychologists begin their detective work with hypotheses —educated guesses about how the evidence is likely to turn out. If you wanted to search for evidence about some interesting social behavior, how would you come up with a viable hypothesis to lead your search? You might start with one of the theoretical perspectives we discussed ear- lier. For example, adopting a social learning perspective on J.K. Rowling’s philanthropy and social activism, you might note that her aunt gave her a biography of a famous Brit- ish woman who had left her wealthy family to become a social activist and Civil Rights worker in the United States. One hypothesis, which we will consider in Chapter 9, is that prosocial behavior in adulthood is linked to having altruistic role models during one’s developing years. An alternative hypothesis (which we will also consider in Chapter 9) is that people inherit genetic tendencies toward altruism from their parents. But not all social psychological hypotheses are logically derived from a scientific theory. You might draw an interesting hypothesis from an odd event that seems to con- tradict common sense, such as when a person becomes more committed to a religious
hypothesis A researcher’s prediction about what he or she will find.
18 Chapter 1 • Introduction to Social Psychology
cult after the leader’s predictions about the end of the world do not come true (Fest- inger, Reicken, & Schachter, 1956). Or you might search for exceptions to some estab- lished psychological principle, such as when a reward causes a child to stop working on a task (e.g., Lepper, Green, & Nisbett, 1973). Social psychologist William McGuire (1997) enumerated 49 different ways to go about generating a research hypothesis. Many people stop looking once they come up with a plausible-sounding expla- nation for why another person appeared generous, zealous, aggressive, or loving. But concocting a plausible-seeming hypothesis is only the beginning of a scientific search. Sometimes even the most plausible hypotheses prove to be dead wrong. For example, raising students’ self-esteem has been touted by educators and politicians as a cure for everything from premarital sex to assault, rape, and murder (see Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996). On the surface it seems quite reasonable that people who feel bad about themselves might be more likely to act out in a sexual or violent way, perhaps to boost their fragile self-esteem. But when psychologists look at the actual research evidence, it appears that the hypotheses about the dangers of low self-esteem, however logical they sound, are often wrong. After reviewing the research evidence on self-esteem, social psychologists Roy Baumeister, Brad Bushman, and Keith Campbell (2000) con- cluded that we have little to fear from people with low self-esteem and more to fear from those who have an inflated view of themselves. These contrary findings make sense if we think of low self-esteem as humility and high self-esteem as conceit and arrogance. The detective tools psychologists use to gather data about their hypotheses can be roughly divided into two categories: descriptive and experimental. Descriptive meth- ods are used to measure or record behaviors, thoughts, or feelings in their natural state. When psychologists use descriptive methods, they hope to record behaviors without changing them in any way. Experimental methods , in contrast, are used to uncover the causes of behavior by systematically varying some aspect of the situation.
Descriptive Methods
Before we can understand the causes of any phenomenon, it helps to have a careful description of what it is we’re talking about. How does one go about carefully describ- ing social behavior? Social psychologists use five major types of descriptive methods: naturalistic observation, case studies, archives, surveys, and psychological tests.
NATUrAliSTiC oBSErvATioN Perhaps the most straightforward descriptive method is naturalistic observation. It involves, quite simply, observing behavior as it unfolds in its natural setting. As one example, psychologist Monica Moore (1985) went to a setting where she expected women to naturally show a lot of nonverbal flirtation behaviors—a singles bar. Sitting out of view, she counted various gestures displayed by women toward men and compared these to behaviors displayed in a library or women’s center meeting. Women flirting with men in the singles bar gestured in cer- tain ways that were very uncommon in the other settings. For instance, a woman in the bar would frequently glance at a man for a few seconds, smile, flip her hair, and tilt her head at a 45-degree angle so her neck was exposed. Naturalistic observation has a number of advantages as a research method. For one, behavior in a natural setting is spontaneous rather than artificial and contrived. In contrast, imagine the difficulties of asking students to demonstrate flirtation gestures in a laboratory. For one thing, people might not be consciously aware of the bodily movements and gestures they make when they are actually flirting. For another, peo- ple might feel too uncomfortable to flirt when they know researchers with notepads are watching them. Despite its strengths, naturalistic observation also has its pitfalls. Researchers need to ensure that their subjects do not know they are being observed. Otherwise, they might not act normally. As we discuss in the chapter on Social Influence, social psychologists have discovered some clever ways to observe behavior without mak- ing people self-conscious. Another problem with naturalistic observation is that some
Descriptive method Procedure for measuring or recording behaviors, thoughts, and feelings in their natural state (including naturalistic observations, case studies, archival studies, surveys, and psychological tests).
Experimental method Procedure for uncovering causal processes by systematically manipulating some aspect of a situation.
Naturalistic observation Recording everyday behaviors as they unfold in their natural settings.
Studying flirtation gestures. Monica Moore wanted to study the gestures women use to flirt. To do so, she conducted a naturalistic observation, recording women’s spontaneous behaviors in a singles’ bar, a library, or a women’s center meeting. She found that women in a singles bar were more likely to exhibit nonverbal gestures such as a direct glance accompanied with a hair flip, a smile, and a slight tilt of the neck.
20 Chapter 1 • Introduction to Social Psychology
their pockets. The victim then said “I don’t want to die and I know you don’t want to die. Let’s forget about it.” But the offender produced a small automatic, shot the victim dead, and left the bar. (Wilson & Daly, 1985, p. 64) Although the details of this particular case may be unique, Margo Wilson and Martin Daly found a number of similar details across the hundreds of homicide cases they examined. First, offenders and their victims tended to be males, particularly males in their early twenties. Second, the homicides were often instigated by a conflict over social dominance. Wilson and Daly’s study of homicides is an example of the archival method , in which researchers test hypotheses using data that was originally collected for other purposes (police reports, marriage licenses, newspaper articles, and so on). Another archival study found that during G. W. Bush’s first term as U.S. president (during which he initiated wars with Afghanistan and Iraq) people became more supportive of him after government-issued terror warnings (Willer, 2004). Still other studies have looked at the relationship between daily temperatures in a given city and the number of violent crimes reported on the same day (e.g., Bell, 2005; Bushman et al., 2005; Cohn & Rotton, 2005). The advantage of archives is that they provide easy access to an abun- dance of real-world data. The disadvantage is that many interesting social phenomena do not get recorded. Both the beginning and end of a two-month-long marriage make it to the public records. However, a five-year-long live-in relationship that breaks up over an argument about whom to invite to the wedding never registers in the archives. SUrvEyS Some very interesting behaviors are unlikely to be recorded in public re- cords or to be demonstrated in natural settings. For instance, back in the 1940s bi- ologist Alfred Kinsey became curious about the prevalence of sexual behaviors such as masturbation and premarital intercourse. Because these behaviors are rarely done in public, naturalistic observation would not do. Likewise, individual case studies of convicted sex offenders or prostitutes, for example, would be uninformative about normal sexual behavior. Kinsey, therefore, chose the survey method , in which the re- searcher simply asks respondents a series of questions about their behaviors, beliefs, or opinions. The survey has one very important advantage: It allows a researcher to collect a great deal of data about phenomena that may rarely be demonstrated in public. Like other methods, surveys have drawbacks. First, the respondent may not give accurate information, because of either dishonesty or memory biases. For instance, it is puz- zling that men answering surveys often report more heterosexual experiences than do women. Men in Britain, France, and the United States report 10 to 12 sexual partners in their lives, whereas women in all these countries report just over 3 (Einon, 1994). The discrepancy could be due to social desirability bias , or the tendency for people to say what they believe is appropriate or acceptable (whether it is true or not). Sex- ual activity is more socially approved for men (Hyde, 1996). Hence men may thus be more inclined to talk about their sexual escapades or more likely to remember them, or women may be inclined to downplay theirs (Alexander & Fisher, 2003). Another potential problem with the survey method is obtaining a representative sample. A sample is representative when the participants, as a group, have character- istics that match those of the larger population the researcher wants to describe. A rep- resentative sample of North American executives would include percentages of men, women, blacks, Hispanics, Canadians, Midwesterners, and Southerners that reflect the total population of executives on the continent. A small group of male bank execu- tives from Toronto or of Hispanic female executives in the New York fashion industry would not represent North American executives as a whole. The sample for Kinsey’s sex survey was composed largely of volunteers from community organizations, which means that many segments of U.S. society were not well represented. Kinsey’s survey may have also faced a problem in which some people selected themselves into, or out of, his sample. Many potential respondents are simply unwill- ing to volunteer to discuss topics such as their sex lives. Others might relish the op- portunity to regale the survey researchers with their wild erotic experiences. If those
Archival method Examination of systematic data originally collected for other purposes (such as marriage licenses or arrest records).
Survey method A technique in which the researcher asks people to report on their beliefs, feelings, or behaviors.
Social desirability bias The tendency for people to say what they believe is appropriate or acceptable.
representative sample A group of respondents having characteristics that match those of the larger population the researcher wants to describe.
Chapter 1 • How Psychologists Study Social Behavior 21
who do or do not participate are different from the norm in their sexual activities, the researcher might draw erroneous conclusions about the whole population. Carefully constructed surveys can reduce some of these problems. But not all surveys are to be trusted, particularly when they allow subjects to select themselves for participation.
PSyCholoGiCAl TESTS Are some people more socially skillful than others? Are some people inclined to think critically before allowing themselves to be persuaded by an argument? Psychological tests are instruments for assessing differences between people in abilities, cognitions, or chronic motivations. They differ from surveys in that surveys typically aim to get at specific attitudes or behaviors, whereas tests aim to uncover broader underlying traits. Most of us have taken a variety of psychological tests. College aptitude tests (such as the SATs) are designed to distinguish people ac- cording to their ability to do well in college. Vocational interest tests (such as the Strong Vocational Interest Blank) are designed to distinguish people in terms of their likely enjoyment of various professions. Psychological tests are not always perfect indications of the things they are de- signed to measure. A test of “your ability to get along with your lover” published in a popular magazine, for example, may be a poor predictor of your actual skills at relationships. There are two criteria a psychological test must meet before it is useful— reliability and validity. Reliability is the consistency of the test’s results. If a test of social skills indicates that you are highly charismatic the first time you take it but socially inept when you take it a week later, your score is unreliable. To measure anything, it is essential that the measurement instrument be consistent. Some psychological tests, such as the famous Rorschach inkblots, do not provide very reliable measurements; others, such as IQ tests, yield much more consistent scores. Even if a test is reliable, however, it may not be valid. Validity is the extent to which the test measures what it is designed to measure. To use a rather unlikely example, we could theoretically use eye color as a measure of desirability to the opposite sex. Our test would be very reliable—trained observers would agree well about who had blue, hazel, and brown eyes; and subjects’ eye color would certainly not change very much if we measured it again a month or two later. Yet eye color would probably not be a valid index of attractiveness—it would probably not relate to the number of dates a person had in the last year, for instance. However, if judges rated the attractiveness of the whole face, or a videotape of the person engaged in conversation, the scores might be a little less reliable but more valid as predictors of dating desirability. Reliability and validity can be issues for all methods. For instance, archival records of men’s and women’s age differences at marriage are reasonably consistent across different cultures and time periods (Campos et al., 2002; Kenrick & Keefe, 1992). Hence they give a reliable estimate (several times as many women as men get married in their teens, for example). Yet the marriage records from one month in one small town would probably be unreliable (perhaps two teenage boys and only one teenage girl got married that particular month). With regard to validity, three different environ- mental surveys might agree that people are doing more recycling and driving less. Yet those survey responses, though reliable, might not be valid: People might consistently misrepresent their recycling or driving habits. It is thus important to ask about any research study: Are the results reliable? That is, would we get the same results if the measurement was done in a different way or by a different observer? And are the re- sults valid? That is, is the researcher really studying what he or she intends to study?
INVESTIGATION
Imagine that you work for a magazine and you have been assigned to write a series of articles on how a particular interesting group of people (Utah polygynists, New York gang members, or Hollywood superstars, for example) differs from the prototypical American suburbanite. Which of the different descriptive methods could you use to address this question, and what problems would you run into in drawing confident conclusions?
Psychological test Instrument for assessing a person’s abilities, cognitions, or motivations. reliability The consistency of the score yielded by a psychological test. validity The extent to which a test measures what it is designed to measure.
