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Introducing Social

Psychology

There once was a man whose second wife was a vain and self­ish woman. This woman's two daughters were similarly vain and selfish. The man's own daughter, however, was meek and unselfish. This

sweet, kind daughter, whom we all know as Cinderella, learned early on

that she should do as she was told, accept ill treatment and insults, and

avoid doing anything to upstage her stepsisters and their mother.

But then, thanks to her fairy godmother, Cinderella was able to

escape her situation for an evening and attend a grand ball, where she

attracted the attention of a handsome prince. When the love-struck

prince later encountered Cinderella back in her degrading home, he

failed to recognize her.

Implausible? The folktale demands that we accept the power of

the situation. In the presence of her oppressive stepmother, Cinder­

ella was humble and unattractive. At the ball, Cinderella felt more

beautiful—and walked and talked and smiled as if she were. In one

situation, she cowered. In the other, she charmed.

The French philosopher-novelist Jean-Paul Sartre (1946) would

have had no problem accepting the Cinderella premise. We humans

are "first of all beings in a situation," he wrote. "We cannot be distin­

guished from our situations, for they form us and decide our possibili­

ties" (pp. 59-60, paraphrased).

What is social psychology?

What are social psychology's big ideas?

How do human values influence social psychology?

I knew it all along: Is social psychology simply common sense?

Research methods: How do we do social psychology?

Postscript: Why I wrote this book

4 Chapter 1

social psychology The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Throughout this book, sources for information are cited parenthetically. The complete source is provided in the reference section that begins on page R-1.

FIGURE :: 1.1 Social Psychology Is .. .

WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY? I Define social psychology and explain what it does.

Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situations, with spe­ cial attention to how we view and affect one another. More precisely, it is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another (Figure 1.1).

Social psychology lies at psychology's boundary with sociology. Compared with sociology (the study of people in groups and societies), social psychology focuses more on individuals and does more experimentation. Compared with personality psychology, social psychology focuses less on individuals' differences and more on hovf individuals, in general, view and affect one another.

Social psychology is still a young science. The first social psychology experi­ ments were reported barely more than a century ago, and the first social psychol­ ogy texts did not appear until approximately 1900 (Smith, 2005). Not until the 1930s did social psychology assume its current form. Not until World War II did it begin to emerge as the vibrant field it is today. And not until the 1970s and beyond did social psychology enjoy accelerating growth in Asia—first in India, then in Hong Kong and Japan, and, recently, in China and Taiwan (Haslam & Kashima, 2010).

Social psychology studies our thinking, influences, and relationships by asking questions that have intrigued us all. Here are some examples:

• Does our social behavior depend more on the objective situations we face or how we construe them? Social beliefs can be self-fulfilling. For example, happily married people will attribute their spouse's acid remark ("Can't you ever put that where it belongs?") to something external ("He must have had a frustrating day"). Unhappily married people will attribute the same remark to a mean disposition ("Is he ever hostile!") and may respond with a coun­ terattack. Moreover, expecting hostility from their spouse, they may behave resentfully, thereby eliciting the hostility they expect.

• Would people be cruel if ordered? How did Nazi Germany conceive and implement the unconscionable slaughter of 6 million Jews? Those evil acts occurred partly because thousands of people followed orders. They put the prisoners on trains, herded them into crowded "showers," and poisoned

Introducing Social Psychology

Social psychology is the scientific study of ...

Social thinking

• How we perceive ourselves and others

• What we believe • Judgments we make • Our attitudes

Social influence

• Culture • Pressures to conform • Persuasion • Groups of people I

Social relations Prejudice

Aggression Attraction and intimacy Helping

Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 5

them with gas. How could people engage in such horrific actions? Were those individuals normal human beings? Stanley Milgram (1974) wondered. So he set up a situation in which people were ordered to administer increasing lev­ els of electric shock to someone who was having difficulty learning a series of words. As discussed in Chapter 6, nearly two-thirds of the participants fully complied.

• To help? Or to help oneself? As bags of cash tumbled from an armored truck one fall day, $2 million was scattered along a Columbus, Ohio, street. Some motorists stopped to help, returning $100,000. Judging from the $1,900,000 that dis­ appeared, many more stopped to help themselves. (What would you have done?) When similar incidents occurred several months later in San Francisco and Toronto, the results were the same: Passersby grabbed most of the money (Bowen, 1988). What situations trigger people to be helpful or greedy? Do some cultural contexts—perhaps villages and small towns—^breed greater helpfulness?

These questions all deal with how people view and affect one another. And that is what social psychology is all about. Social psy­ chologists study attitudes and beliefs, conformity and independence, love and hate.

WHAT ARE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY'S BIG IDEAS?

e-'f

Tired of looking at the stars. Professor Mueller takes up social psychology. Reprinted with permission of Jason Love at www.jasonlove.com

Identify and describe the central concepts behind social psychology.

In many academic fields, the results of tens of thousands of studies, the conclu­ sions of thousands of investigators, and the insights of hundreds of theorists can be boiled down to a few central ideas. Biology offers us natural selection and adapta­ tion. Sociology builds on concepts such as social structure and organization. Music harnesses our ideas of rhythm, melody, and harmony.

Similarly, social psychology builds on a short list of fundamental principles that will be worth remembering long after you have forgotten most of the details. My short list of "great ideas we ought never to forget" includes these (Figure 1.2), each of which we will explore further in chapters to come.

We Construct Our Social Reality We humans have an irresistible urge to explain behavior, to attribute it to some cause, and therefore to make it seem orderly, predictable, and controllable. You and I may react differently to a situation because we think differently. How we react to a friend's insult depends on whether we attribute it to hostility or to a bad day.

A 1951 Princeton-Dartmouth football game provided a classic demonstration of how we construct reality (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954; see also Toy & Andrews, 1981). The game lived up to its billing as a grudge match; it was rough and dirty. A Prince­ ton All-American was gang-tackled, piled on, and finally forced out of the game with a broken nose. Fistfights erupted, and there were further injuries on both sides. The whole performance hardly fit the Ivy League image of gentility.

Not long afterward, two psychologists, one from each school, showed films of the game to students on each campus. The students played the role of scientist- observer, noting each infraction as they watched and who was responsible for it.

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6 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

Sott'® Big Ideas in Social Psychol^

yy .>*S5 ■

1. We construct our social ' reality

2. Our social intuitions are powerful, sometimes perilous

3. Attitudes shape, and are shaped by, behavior

FIGURE:: 1.2 Some Big Ideas in Soda! Psychology

But they could not set aside their loyalties. The Princeton students, for example, saw twice as many Dartmouth violations as the Dartmouth students saw. The con­ clusion: There is an objective reality out there, but we always view it through the lens of our beliefs and values.

We are all intuitive scientists. We explain people's behavior, usually with enough speed and accuracy to suit our daily needs. When someone's behavior is consistent and distinctive, we attribute that behavior to his or her personality. For example, if you observe someone who makes repeated snide comments, you may infer that this person has a nasty disposition, and then you might try to avoid the person.

Our beliefs about ourselves also matter. Do we have an optimistic outlook? Do we see ourselves as in control of things? Do we view ourselves as relatively supe­ rior or inferior? Our answers influence our emotions and actions. How we construe the world, and ourselves, matters.

Our Social Intuitions Are Often Powerful but Sometimes Perilous Our instant intuitions shape our fears (Is flying dangerous?), impressions (Can I trust him?), and relationships (Does she like me?). Intuitions influence presidents in times of crisis, gamblers at the table, jurors assessing guilt, and personnel directors screening applicants. Such intuitions are commonplace.

Indeed, psychological science reveals a fascinating unconscious mind—an intuitive backstage mind—that Freud never told us about. More than psychologists realized until recently, thinking occurs offstage, out of sight. Our intuitive capacities are revealed by studies of what later chapters will explain: "automatic processing," "implicit memory," "heuristics," "spontaneous trait inference," instant emotions, and nonver­ bal communication. Thinl^g, memory, and attitudes all operate on two levels—one

Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 7

conscious and deliberate, the other unconscious and automatic. Today's researchers call it "dual processing." We know more than we know we know. We think on two levels—"intuitive" and "deliberate" (Kruglanski & Gigerenzer, 2011). A book title by Nobel laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman (2011) captures the idea: We do Think­ ing, Fast and Slow.

Intuition is huge, but intuition is also perilous. For example, as we cruise through life, mostly on automatic pilot, we intuitively judge the like­ lihood of things by how easily various instances come to mind. We carry readily available mental images of plane crashes. Thus, most people fear flying more than driving, and many will drive great distances to avoid risking the skies. Actu­ ally, we are many times safer (per mile traveled) in a commercial plane than in a motor vehicle (in the United States, air travel was 170 times safer between 2005 and 2007, reports the National Safety Council [2010]).

Even our intuitions about ourselves often err. We intuitively trust our memories more than we should. We misread our own minds; in experiments, we deny being affected by things that do influence us. We mispredict our own feelings—how bad we'll feel a year from now if we lose our job or our romance breaks up, and how good we'll feel a year from now, or even a week from now, if we win our state's lottery. And we often mispredict our own future. When selecting clothes, people approaching middle age will still buy snug ("1 anticipate shedding a few pounds"); rarely does anyone say, more realistically, "I'd better buy a relatively loose fit; people my age tend to put on pounds."

Our social intuitions, then, are noteworthy for both their powers and their per­ ils. By reminding us of intuition's gifts and alerting us to its pitfalls, social psy­ chologists aim to fortify our thinking. In most situations, "fast and frugal" snap judgments serve us well. But in others, in which accuracy matters—such as when needing to fear the right things and spend our resources accordingly—we had best restrain our impulsive intuitions with critical thinking. Our intuitions and uncon­ scious information processing are routinely powerful and sometimes perilous.

Social Influences Shape Our Behavior We are, as Aristotle long ago observed, social animals. We speak and think in words we learned from others. We long to connect, to belong, and to be well thought of. Matthias Mehl and James Pennebaker (2003) quantified their University of Texas students' social behavior by inviting them to wear microcassette record­ ers and microphones. Once every 12 minutes during their waking hours, the computer-operated recorder would imperceptibly record for 30 seconds. Although the observation period covered only weekdays (including class time), almost 30 percent of the students' time was spent in conversation. Relationships are a big part of being human.

As social creatures, we respond to our immediate contexts. Sometimes the power of a social situation leads us to act contrary to our expressed attitudes. Indeed, pow­ erfully evil situations sometimes overwhelm good intentions, inducing people to agree with falsehoods or comply with cruelty. Under Nazi influence, many decent people became instruments of the Holocaust. Other situations may elicit great gen­ erosity and compassion. After a major earthquake and tsunami in 2011, Japan was overwhelmed with offers of assistance.

“He didn’t actually threaten me, but Iperceived him as a threat. *

Social cognition matters. Our behavior is influenced not just by the objec­ tive situation but also by how we construe it. © Lee Lorenz/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbank.com

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8 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

The power of the situation is also dramatically evident in varying attitudes regarding same-sex relationships. Tell me whether you live in Africa or the Middle East (where most oppose such relationships) or in western Europe, Canada, or Australia/New Zealand, and I will make a reasonable guess as to what your atti­ tude is about these relationships. I will become even more confident in my guess if I know your educational level, the age of your peer group, and the media you watch. Our situations matter.

Our cultures help define our situations. For example, our standards regarding promptness, frankness, and clothing vary with our culture.

• Whether you prefer a slim or a voluptuous body depends on when and where in the world you live.

• Whether you define social justice as equality (all receive the same) or as equity (those who earn more receive more) depends on whether your ideol­ ogy has been shaped more by socialism or by capitalism.

• Whether you tend to be expressive or reserved, casual or formal, hinges partly on your culture and your ethnicity.

• Whether you focus primarily on yourself—your personal needs, desires, and morality—or on your family, clan, and communal groups depends on how much you are a product of modern Western individualism.

Social psychologist Hazel Markus (2005) sums it up: "People are, above all, mal­ leable." Said differently, we adapt to our social context. Our attitudes and behavior are shaped by external social forces.

Personal Attitudes and Dispositions Also Shape Behavior Internal forces also matter. We are not passive tumbleweeds, merely blown this way and that by the social winds. Our inner attitudes affect our behavior. Our political attitudes influence our voting behavior. Our smoking attitudes influence our sus­ ceptibility to peer pressure to smoke. Our attitudes toward the poor influence our willingness to help them. (As we will see, our attitudes also follow our behavior, which leads us to believe strongly in those things we have committed ourselves to or suffered for.)

Personality dispositions also affect behavior. Facing the same situation, differ­ ent people may react differently. Emerging from years of political imprisonment, one person exudes bitterness and seeks revenge. Another, such as South Africa s Nelson Mandela, seeks reconciliation and unity with his former enemies. Attitudes and personality influence behavior.

Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted Twenty-first-century social psychology is providing us with ever-growing insights into our behavior's biological foundations. Many of our social behaviors reflect a deep biological wisdom.

Everyone who has taken introductory psychology has learned that nature and nurture together form who we are. As the area of a rectangle is determined by both its length and its width, so do biology and experience together create us. As evolu- tionary psychologists remind us (see Chapter 5), our inherited human nature predis­ poses us to behave in ways that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. We carry the genes of those whose traits enabled them and their children to survive and reproduce. Our behavior, too, aims to send our DNA into the future. Thus, evo­ lutionary psychologists ask how natural selection might predispose our actions and reactions when dating and mating, hating and hurting, caring and sharing. Nature also endows us with an enormous capacity to learn and to adapt to varied environ­ ments. We are sensitive and responsive to our social context.

9Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1

If every psychological event (every thought, every emotion, every behavior) is simultaneously a biological event, then we can also examine the neurobiology that underlies social behavior. What brain areas enable our experiences of love and contempt, helping and aggression, perception and belief? Do extraverts, as some research suggests, require more stimulation to keep their brain aroused? When shown a friendly face, do socially secure people, more than shy people, respond in a brain area concerned with reward? How do brain, mind, and behavior function together as one coordinated system? What does the timing of brain events reveal about how we process information? Such questions are asked by those in social neuroscience (Cacioppo & others, 2010; Klein & others, 2010).

Social neuroscientists do not reduce complex social behaviors, such as help­ ing and hurting, to simple neural or molecular mechanisms. Their point is this: To understand social behavior, we must consider both under-the-skin (biological) and between-skins (social) influences. Mind and body are one grand system. Stress hormones affect how we feel and act: A testosterone dose decreases trust, oxytocin increases it (Bos & others, 2010). Social ostracism elevates blood pressure. Social support strengthens the disease-fighting immune system. Wc are bio-psycho-social organisms. We reflect the interplay of our biological, psychological, and social influ­ ences. And that is why today's psychologists study behavior from these different levels of analysis.

Social Psychology's Principles Are Applicable in Everyday Life Social psychology has the potential to illuminate your life, to make visible the sub­ tle influences that guide your thinking and acting. And, as we will see, it offers many ideas about how to know ourselves better, how to win friends and influence people, how to transform closed fists into open arms.

^holars are also applying social psychological insights. Principles of social think­ ing, social influence, and social relations have implications for human health and well-being, for judicial procedures and juror decisions in courtrooms, and for influ­ encing behaviors that will enable an environmentally sustainable human future.

As but one perspective on human existence, psychological science does not answer life's ultimate questions: What is the meaning of human life? What should be our purpose? What is our ultimate destiny? But social psychology does give us a method for asking and answering some exceedingly interesting and important questions. Social psychology is all about life—your life: your beliefs, your attitudes, your relationships.

The rest of this chapter takes us inside social psychology. Let's first consider how social psychologists' own values influence their work in obvious and subtle ways. And then let's focus on this chapter's biggest task: glimpsing how we do social psy­ chology. How do social psychologists search for explanations of social thinking, social influence, and social relations? And how might you and I use these analytical tools to think smarter?

social neuroscience An interdisciplinary field that explores the neural bases of social and emotional processes and behaviors, and how these processes and behaviors affect our brain and biology.

Throughout this book, a brief summary will conclude each major section. I hope these summaries will help you assess how well you have learned the material in each section.

SUMMING UP: What Are Social Psychology's Big Ideas? Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. Its central themes include the following:

• How we construe our social worlds • How our social intuitions guide and sometimes

deceive us

• How our social behavior is shaped by other peo­ ple, by our attitudes and personalities, and by our biology

• How social psychology's principles apply to our everyday lives and to various other fields of study

10 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

HOW DO HUMAN VALUES INFLUENCE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?_______________

Identify the ways that values penetrate the work of social psychologists.

Social psychology is less a collection of findings than a set of strategies for answer­ ing questions. In science, as in courts of law, personal opinions are inadmissible. When ideas are put on trial, evidence determines the verdict.

But are social psychologists really that objective? Because they are human beings, don't their values—their personal convictions about what is desirable and how people ought to behave—seep into their work? If so, can social psychology really be scientific?

There are two general ways that values enter psychology: the obvious and the subtle.

Different sciences offer different perspectives. ScjenceCartoorisPlus.com

Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology Values enter the picture when social psychologists choose research topics. These choices typically reflect social history (Kagan, 2009). It was no accident that the study of prejudice flourished during the 1940s as fascism raged in Europe; that the 1950s, a time of look-alike fashions and intolerance of differing views, gave us stud­ ies of conformity; that the 1960s saw interest in aggression increase with riots and rising crime rates; that the feminist movement of the 1970s helped stimulate a wave of research on gender and sexism; that the 1980s offered a resurgence of attention to psychological aspects of the arms race; and that the 1990s and the early twenty-first century were marked by heightened interest in how people respond to diversity in culture, race, and sexual orientation. Susan Fiske {2011a) suggests that we can expect future research to reflect today's and tomorrow's issues, including immigra­

tion, income inequality, and aging. Values differ not only across time but also across cul­

tures. In Europe, people take pride in their nationalities. The Scots are more self-consciously distinct from the En­ glish, and the Austrians from the Germans, than are simi­ larly adjacent Michiganders from Ohioans. Consequently, Europe has given us a major theory of "social identity," whereas American social psychologists have focused more on individuals—how one person thinks about others, is influenced by them, and relates to them (Fiske, 2004; Tajfel, 1981; Turner, 1984). Australian social psychologists have drawn theories and methods from both Europe and North America (Feather, 2005).

Values also influence the types of people who are attracted to various disciplines (Campbell, 1975a; Moynihan, 1979). At your school, do the students majoring in the humanities, the arts, the natural sciences, and the social sciences differ noticeably from one another? Do social psychology and sociology attract people who are—for example—relatively eager to challenge tradition, people more inclined to shape the future than preserve the past? And does social science study enhance such inclinations (Dambrun & others, 2009)? Such factors explain why, when psychologist Jonathan Haidt (2011) asked approximately 1000 social psycholo­

gists at a national convention about their politics, 80 to 90 percent raised their hands to indicate they were "liberal." When he asked for those who were "conservative,"

Introducing Social Psychology

three hands raised. (Be assured that most topics covered in this text—from "How do our attitudes influence our behavior?" to "Does TV violence influence aggres­ sive behavior?"—are not partisan.)

Finally, values obviously enter the picture as the object of social psychological analysis. Social psychologists investigate how values form, why they change, and how they influence attitudes and actions. None of that, however, tells us which values are "right."

Not-So-Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology We less often recognize the subtle ways in which value commitments masquerade as objective truth. What are three not-so-obvious ways values enter psychology?

THE SUBJECTIVE ASPECTS OF SCIENCE Scientists and philosophers agree: Science is not purely objective. Scientists do not simply read the book of nature. Rather, they interpret nature, using their own mental categories. In our daily lives, too, we view the world through the lens of our precon­ ceptions. Whether we see a moving light in the sky as a flying saucer or see a face in a pie crust depends on our perceptual set. While reading these words, you have been unaware that you are also looking at your nose. Your mind blocks from awareness something that is there, if only you were predisposed to perceive it. This tendency to prejudge reality based on our expectations is a basic fact about the human mind.

Because scholars at work in any given area often share a common viewpoint or come from the same culture, their assumptions may go unchallenged. What we take for granted—the shared beliefs that some European social psychologists call our social representations (Augoustinos & Innes, 1990; Moscovici, 1988,2001)—are often our most important yet most unexamined convictions. Sometimes, however, some­ one from outside the camp will call attention to those assumptions. During the 1980s, feminists and Marxists exposed some of social psychology's unexamined assump­ tions. Feminist critics called attention to subtle biases—for example, the political conservatism of some scientists who favored a biological interpretation of gender dif­ ferences in social behavior (Unger, 1985). Marxist critics called attention to competi­ tive, individualist biases—for example, the assumption that conformity is bad and that individual rewards are good. Marxists and feminists, of course, make their own assumptions, as critics of academic "political correctness" are fond of noting. Social psychologist Lee Jussim (2005), for example, argues that progressive social psycholo­ gists sometimes feel compelled to deny group differences and to assume that stereo­ types of group difference are never rooted in reality but always in racism.

In Chapter 3, we will discuss more ways in which our preconceptions guide our interpretations. As those Princeton and Dartmouth football fans remind us, what guides our behavior is less the situation-as-it-is than the situation-as-we-construe-it.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS CONTAIN HIDDEN VALUES Implicit in our understanding that psychology is not objective is the realization that psychologists' own values may play an important part in the theories and judg­ ments they support. Psychologists may refer to people as mature or immature, as well adjusted or poorly adjusted, as mentally healthy or mentally ill. They may talk as if they were stating facts, when they are really making value judgments. The fol­ lowing are examples: DEFINING THE GOOD LIFE Values influence our idea of how best to live. The personality psychologist Abraham Maslow, for example, was known for his sensitive descriptions of "self-actualized" people—people who, with their needs for survival, safety, belonging, and self-esteem satisfied, go on to fulfill their human potential. He described, among other individuals, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Few readers noticed that Maslow, guided by his own values, selected his sample of self-actualized people himself. The resulting description of self-actualized

Chapter 1 11

"SCIENCE DOES NOT SIM­

PLY DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN

NATURE; IT IS PART OF

THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN NATURE AND OURSELVES;

IT DESCRIBES NATURE AS

EXPOSED TO OUR METHOD

OF QUESTIONING."

—WERNER HEISENBERG, PHYS­

ICS AND PHILOSOPHY, 1958

culture The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

social representations A society's widely held ideas and values, including assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.

12 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

Hidden (and not-so-hidden) values seep into psycho­ logical advice. They permeate popular psychology books that offer guidance on living and loving.

personalities—as spontaneous, autonomous, mystical, and so forth—reflected Maslow's personal values. Had he begun with some­ one else's heroes—say, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and John D. Rockefeller—his resulting description of self-actualization would have differed (Smith, 1978).

PROFESSIONAL ADVICE Psychological advice also reflects the advice giver's personal values. When mental health profession­ als advise us how to get along with our spouse or our co-workers, when child-rearing experts tell us how to handle our children, and when some psychologists advocate living free of concern for others' expectations, they are expressing their personal values. (In Western cultures, those values usually will be individualistic—encouraging what feels best for "me." Non-Western cultures more often encour­ age what is best for "we.") Unaware of those hidden values, many people defer to the "professional." But professional psychologists cannot answer questions of ultimate moral obligation, of purpose and direction, and of life's meaning.

FORMING CONCEPTS Hidden values even seep into psychol­ ogy's research-based concepts. Pretend you have taken a personality test and the psychologist, after scoring your answers, announces: "You scored high in self-esteem. You are low in anxiety. And you have exceptional ego-strength." "Ah," you think, "1 suspected as much, but it feels good to know that." Now another psychologist gives you

a similar test, which asks some of the same questions. Afterward, the psychologist informs you that you seem defensive, for you scored high in "repressiveness." "How could this be?" you wonder. "The other psychologist said such nice things about me." It could be because all these labels describe the same set of responses (a tendency to say nice things about oneself and not to acknowledge problems). ShaU we call it high self-esteem or defensiveness? The label reflects the judgment.

LABELING Value judgments, then, are often hidden within our social psycho­ logical language—but that is also true of everyday language:

• Whether we label a quiet child as "bashful" on "cautious," as "holding back or as "an observer," conveys a judgment.

• Whether we label someone engaged in guerrilla warfare a "terrorist" or a "freedom fighter" depends on our view of the cause.

• Whether we view wartime civilian deaths as "the loss of innocent lives" or as "collateral damage" affects our acceptance of such.

• Whether we call public assistance "welfare" or "aid to the needy" reflects our political views.

• When "they" exalt their country and people, it is nationalism; when "we" do it, it is patriotism.

• Whether someone involved in an extramarital affair is practicing "open mar­ riage" or "adultery" depends on one's personal values.

• "Brainwashing" is social influence we do not approve of. • "Perversions" are sex acts we do not practice.

As these examples indicate, values lie hidden within our cultural definitions of mental health, our psychological advice for living, our concepts, and our psycho­ logical labels. Throughout this book, 1 will call your attention to additional exam­ ples of hidden values. The point is never that the implicit values are necessarily bad. The point is that scientific interpretation, even at the level of labeling phenom­ ena, is a human activity. It is therefore inevitable that prior beliefs and values will influence what social psychologists think and write.

Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 13

Should we dismiss science because it has its subjective side? Quite the contrary: The realization that human thinking always involves interpretation is precisely why we need researchers with varying biases to undertake scientific analysis. By constantly checking our beliefs against the facts, we restrain our biases. System­ atic observation and experimentation help us clean the lens through which we see reality.

SUMMING UP: How Do Human Values Influence Social Psychology?

• Social psychologists' values penetrate their work in obvious ways, such as their choice of research topics and the types of people who are attracted to various fields of study.

• They also do this in subtler ways, such as their hid­ den assumptions when forming concepts, choosing labels, and giving advice.

• This penetration of values into science is not a rea­ son to fault social psychology or any other science. That human thinking is seldom dispassionate is precisely why we need systematic observation and experimentation if we are to check our cherished ideas against reality.

I KNEW IT ALL ALONG: IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SIMPLY COMMON SENSE?

Explore how social psychology's theories provide new insight into the human condition.

Many of the conclusions presented in this book may already have occurred to you, for social psychological phenomena are all around you. We constantly observe people thinking about, influencing, and relating to one another. It pays to discern what a facial expression predicts, how to get someone to do something, or whether to regard another as friend or foe. For centuries, philosophers, novelists, and poets have observed and commented on social behavior.

Does this mean that social psychology is just common sense in fancy words? Social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms: first, that it is trivial because it documents the obvious; second, that it is dangerous because its findings could be used to manipulate people.

Chapter 7 explores the second criticism. Here, let's examine the first objection. Do social psychology and the other social sciences simply formalize what any

amateur already knows intuitively? Writer Cullen Murphy (1990) took that view: "Day after day social scientists go out into the world. Day after day they discover that people's behavior is pretty much what you'd expect." Nearly a half-century earlier, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1949), reacted with similar scorn to social scientists' studies of American World War II soldiers. Sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld (1949) reviewed those studies and offered a sample with interpretive comments, a few of which I paraphrase:

1. Better-educated soldiers suffered more adjustment problems than did less- educated soldiers. (Intellectuals were less prepared for battle stresses than were street-smart people.)

2. Southern soldiers coped better with the hot South Sea Island climate than did Northern soldiers. (Southerners are more accustomed to hot weather.)

14 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

hindsight bias The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one's ability to have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the l-knew-it- all-along phenomenon.

3. White privates were more eager for promotion than were Black privates. (Years of oppression take a toll on achievement motivation.)

4. Southern Blacks preferred Southern to Northern White officers. (Southern officers were more experienced and skilled in interacting with Blacks.)

As you read those findings, did you agree that they were basically common sense? If so, you may be surprised to learn that Lazarsfeld went on to say, "Every one of these statements is the direct opposite of what was actually found." In reality, the studies found that less-educated soldiers adapted more poorly. Southerners were not more likely than northerners to adjust to a tropical climate. Blacks were more eager than Whites for promotion, and so forth. "If we had mentioned the actual results of the investigation first [as Schlesinger experienced], the reader would have labeled these 'obvious' also.

One problem with common sense is that we invoke it after we know the facts. Events are far more "obvious" and predictable in hindsight than beforehand. Exper­ iments reveal that when people learn the outcome of an experiment, that outcome sudderUy seems unsurprising—much less surprising than it is to people who are simply told about the experimental procedure and the possible outcomes (Slovic & Fischhoff, 1977).

Likewise, in everyday life we often do not expect something to happen until it does. Then we suddenly see clearly the forces that brought the event about and feel unsurprised. Moreover, we may also misremember our earlier view (Blank & others, 2008; Nestler & others, 2010). Errors in judging the future's foreseeability and in remembering our past combine to create hindsight bias (also called the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon).

Thus, after elections or stock market shifts, most commentators find the turn of events unsurprising: "The market was due for a correction." After the 2010 Gulf oil disaster, it seemed obvious—in hindsight—that BP employees had taken some shortcuts and ignored warnings, and that government oversight was lax. As the Danish philosopher-theologian Soren Kierkegaard put it, "Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards."

If hindsight bias is pervasive, you may now be feeling that you already knew about this phenomenon. Indeed, almost any conceivable result of a psychological experiment can seem like common sense—after you know the result.

You can demonstrate the phenomenon yourself. Take a group of people and tell half of them one psychological finding and the other half the opposite result. For example, tell half as follows:

Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in love, we are most attracted to people whose traits are different from our own. There seems to be wisdom in the old saying "Opposites attract."

In hindsight, events seem obvious and predictable. ScienceCartoonsPlus.com

Tell the other half: Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in love, we are most attracted to people whose traits are similar to our own. There seems to be wisdom in the old saying "Birds of a feather flock together."

Ask the people first to explain the result. Then ask them to say whether it is "surprising" or "not surprising." Virtually all will find a good explanation for whichever result they were given and will say it is "not surprising."

Indeed, we can draw on our stockpile of proverbs to make almost any result seem to make sense. If a social psycholo­ gist reports that separation intensifies romantic attraction, John Q. Public responds, "You get paid for this? Everybody knows that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder.'" Should

it turn out that separation weakens attraction, John will say, "My grandmother could have told you, 'Out of sight, out of mind.'"

Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 15

focus ON I Knew It All Along

Cullen Murphy (1990), managing editor of the At/ant/c, faulted "sociology, psychology, and other social sciences for too often merely discerning the obvious or confirming the commonplace." His own casual survey of social science findings "turned up no ideas or conclusions that can't be found in Bart/ett's or any other encyclopedia of quo­ tations." Nevertheless, to sift through competing sayings, we need research. Consider some dueling proverbs:

1$ It more true that... We should keep our eye on the

prize. Too many cooks spoil the broth. The pen is mightier than the sword. You can't teach an old dog new

tricks. Blood is thicker than water. He who hesitates is lost. Forewarned is forearmed.

Karl Teigen (1986) must have had a few chuckles when he asked University of Leicester (England) students to evaluate actual proverbs and their opposites. When given the proverb "Fear is stronger than love," most rated it as true. But so did students who were given its reversed form, "Love is stronger than fear." Like­ wise, the genuine proverb "He that is fallen cannot help him who is down" was rated highly; but so too was "He that is fallen can help him who is down." My favorites, however, were two highly rated proverbs: "Wise men make proverbs and fools repeat them" (authentic) and its made-up counterpart, "Fools make .. proverbs and wise men repeat them." For more dueling proverbs, see "Focus On: I Knew It All Along."

The hindsight bias creates a problem for many psychology students. Some­ times results are genuinely surprising (for example, that Olympic bronze med­ alists take more joy in their achievement than do silver medalists). More often, when you read the results of experiments in your textbooks, the material seems easy, even obvious. When you later take a multiple-choice test on which you must choose among several plausible conclusions, the task may become surprisingly difficult. "I don't know what happened," the befuddled student later moans. "I thought I knew the material."

The 1-knew-it-all-along phenomenon can have unfortunate consequences. It is conducive to arrogance—an overestimation of our own intellectual powers. More­ over, because outcomes seem as if they should have been foreseeable, we are more likely to blame decision makers for what are in retrospect "obvious" bad choices than to praise them for good choices, which also seem "obvious."

Starting after the morning of 9/11 and working backward, signals pointing to the impending disaster seemed obvious. A U.S. Senate investigative report listed the missed or misinterpreted clues (Gladwell, 2003): The CIA knew that al Qaeda operatives had entered the country. An FBI agent sent a memo to head­ quarters that began by warning "the Bureau and New York of the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civilian aviation universities and colleges." The FBI ignored that accu­ rate warning and failed to relate it to other reports that terrorists were planning to use planes as weapons. The president received a daily briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States" and stayed on holiday. "The dumb fools!" it seemed to hindsight critics. "Why couldn't they connect the dots?"

But what seems clear in hindsight is seldom clear on the front side of his­ tory. The intelligence community is overwhelmed with "noise"—piles of useless information surrounding the rare shreds of useful information. Analysts must therefore be selective in deciding which to pursue, and only when a lead is pur­ sued does it stand a chance of being connected to another lead. In the 6 years

Or that... We should keep our nose to the

grindstone. Two heads are better than one, Actions speak louder than words. You're never too old to learn.

Many kinfolk, few friends. Look before you leap. Don't cross the bridge until you

come to it.

16 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

"IT IS EASY TO BE WISE AFTER THE EVENT."

-SHERLOCK HOLMES, IN

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S

STORY "THE PROBLEM OF

THOR BRIDGE"

"EVERYTHING IMPORTANT

HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE,"

—PHILOSOPHER ALFRED

NORTH WHITEHEAD

(1861-1947)

before 9/11, the FBI's counterterrorism unit could never have pursued all 68,000 uninvestigated leads. In hindsight, the few useful ones are now obvious.

In the aftermath of the 2008 world financial crisis, it seemed obvious that govern­ ment regulators should have placed safeguards against the ill-fated bank lending practices. But what was obvious in hindsight was unforeseen by the chief American regulator, Alan Greenspan, who found himself "in a state of shocked disbelief" at the economic collapse.

We sometimes blame ourselves for "stupid mistakes"—perhaps for not having handled a person or a situation better. Looking back, we see how we should have handled it. "I should have known how busy I would be at the semester's end and started that paper earlier." But sometimes we are too hard on ourselves. We forget that what is obvious to us now was not nearly so obvious at the time.

Physicians who are told both a patient's symptoms and the cause of death {as determined by autopsy) sometimes wonder how an incorrect diagnosis could have been made. Other physicians, given only the symptoms, do not find the diagnosis nearly so obvious (Dawson & others, 1988). Would juries be slower to assume mal­ practice if they were forced to take a foresight rather than a hindsight perspective?

What do we conclude—that common sense is usually wrong? Sometimes it is. At other times, conventional wisdom is right—or it falls on both sides of an issue. Does happiness come from knowing the truth, or from preserving illusions? From being with others, or from living in peaceful solitude? Opinions are a dime a dozen. No matter what we find, there will be someone who foresaw it. (Mark Twain jested that Adam was the only person who, when saying a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before.) But which of the many competing ideas best fit reality? Research can specify the circumstances under which a commonsense truism is valid.

The point is not that common sense is predictably wrong. Rather, common sense usually is right—after the fact. We therefore easily deceive ourselves into think­ ing that we know and knew more than we do and did. And that is precisely why we need science to help us sift reality from illusion and genuine predictions from easy hindsight.

SUMMING UP: l Knew It All Along: Is Social Psychology Simply Common Sense?

• Social psychology is criticized for being trivial • This hindsight bias (the l-knew-it-all-along phenom- because it documents things that seem obvious. enon) often makes people overconfident about the

. Experiments, however, reveal that outcomes are validity of their judgments and predictions, more "obvious" after the facts are known.

RESEARCH METHODS: HOW DO WE DO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?________

I Examine the methods that make social psychology a science. We have considered some of the intriguing questions social psychology seeks to answer. We have also seen how subjective, often unconscious, processes influence social psychologists' work. Now let's consider how social psychologists go about doing research.

Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 17

In their quest for insight, social psychologists propose theories that organize their observations and imply testable hypotheses and practical predictions. To test a hypothesis, social psychologists may do research that predicts behavior using cor­ relational studies, often conducted in natural settings. Or they may seek to explain behavior by conducting experiments that manipulate one or more factors under con­ trolled conditions. Then they may explore ways to apply their findings to improve people's everyday lives.

We are all amateur social psychologists. People-watching is a universal hobby. As we observe people, we form ideas about how human beings think about, influ­ ence, and relate to one another. Professional social psychologists do the same, only more systematically (by forming theories) and painstakingly (often with experi­ ments that create miniature social dramas that pin down cause and effect).

Forming and Testing Hypotheses We social psychologists have a difficult time thinking of anything more fascinating than human existence. As we wrestle with human nature to pin down its secrets, we organize our ideas and findings into theories. A theory is an integrated set of prin­ ciples that explain and predict observed events. Theories are a scientific shorthand.

In everyday conversation, "theory" often means "less than fact"—a middle rung on a confidence ladder from guess to theory to fact. Thus, people may dismiss Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as "just a theory." Indeed, notes Alan Leshner (2005), chief officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, "Evolution is only a theory, but so is gravity." People often respond that gravity is a fact—^but the fact is that your keys fall to the ground when dropped. Gravity is the theoretical explanation that accounts for such observed facts.

To a scientist, facts and theories are apples and oranges. Facts are agreed-upon statements about what we observe. Theories are ideas that summarize and explain facts. "Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones," wrote the French scientist Jules Henri Poincare, "but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."

Theories not only summarize but also imply testable predictions, called hypotheses. Hypotheses serve several purposes. First, they allow us to test a theory by suggesting how we might try to falsify it. Second, predictions give direction to research and sometimes send investigators looking for things they might never have thought of. Third, the predictive feature of good theories can also make them practical. A complete theory of aggression, for example, would predict when to expect aggres­ sion and how to control it. As the pio­ neering social psychologist Kurt Lewin declared, "There is nothing so practical as a good theory."

Consider how this works. Say we observe that people who loot, taunt, or attack often do so in groups or crowds. We might therefore theorize that being part of a crowd, or group, makes individuals feel anonymous and lowers their inhibitions. How could we test this theory? Perhaps (I'm playing with this theory) we could devise a laboratory experiment that simulates aspects of execution by electric chair. What if we asked individuals in groups to administer punishing shocks to a hapless victim

"NOTHING HAS SUCH

POWER TO BROADEN THE

MIND AS THE ABILITY TO

INVESTIGATE SYSTEM­

ATICALLY AND TRULY ALL THAT COMES UNDER THY

OBSERVATION IN LIFE."

-MARCUS AURELIUS,

MEDITATIONS

theory An integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events.

hypothesis A testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between events.

For humans, the most fascinating subject is people. ® V/arren Mil[ef/The New Yorker Collection/www.cartoonbankxom

http://www.cartoonbankxom
18 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

field research Research done in natural, real-life settings outside the laboratory.

correlational research The study of the naturally occurring relationships arr^ong variables.

experimental research Studies that seek clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating one or more factors (independent variables) while controlling others (holding them constant).

without knowing which member of the group was actually shocking the victim? Would these individuals administer stronger shocks than individuals acting alone, as our theory predicts?

We might also manipulate anonymity: Would people deliver stronger shocks if they were wearing masks? If the results confirm our hypothesis, they might suggest some practical applications. Perhaps police brutality could be reduced by having officers wear large name tags and drive cars identified with large numbers, or by videotaping their arrests—all of which have, in fact, become common practice in many cities.

But how do we conclude that one theory is better than another? A good theory

• effectively summarizes many observations, and • makes clear predictions that we can use to

• confirm or modify the theory, • generate new exploration, and • suggest practical applications.

When we discard theories, usually it is not because they have been proved false. Rather, like old cars, they are replaced by newer, better models.

Correlational Research: Detecting Natural Associations Let's now go backstage and see how social psychology is done. This glimpse behind the scenes should be just enough for you to appreciate findings discussed later. Understanding the logic of research can also help us think critically about everyday social events.

Social psychological research varies by location. It can take place as laboratory research {a controlled situation) or as field research (everyday situations). And it varies by method—whether correlaUonal (asking whether two or more factors are naturally associated) or experimental (manipulating some factor to see its effect on another). If you want to be a critical reader of psychological research reported in the media, it will pay you to understand the difference between correlational and experimental research.

Let's first consider the advantages of correlational research (often involving important variables in natural settings) and its major disadvantage (ambiguous interpretation of cause and effect). As we will discuss in Chapter 14, today's psy­ chologists relate personal and social factors to human health. In search of possible links between socioeconomic status and health, Douglas Carroll, George Davey Smith, and Paul Bennett (1994) ventured into Glasgow, Scotland's old graveyards. As a measure of health, they noted from grave markers the life spans of 843 indi­ viduals. As an indication of status, they measured the height of the grave pillars, reasoning that height reflected cost and therefore affluence. As Figure 1.3 shows, taller grave markers were related to longer lives, for both men and women.

Carroll and colleagues report that other researchers, using contemporary data, have confirmed the status-longevity correlation. Scottish postal-code regions hav­ ing the least overcrowding and unemployment also have the greatest longevity. In the United States, income correlates with longevity (poor and lower-status peo­ ple are more at risk for premature death). In today's Britain, occupational status correlates with longevity. One study followed 17,350 British civil service workers over 10 years. Compared with top-grade administrators, those at the professional- executive grade were 1.6 times more likely to have died. Clerical workers were 2.2 times and laborers 2.7 times more likely to have died (Adler & others, 1993,1994). Across times and places, the status-health correlation seems reliable.

CORRELATION AND CAUSATION The status-longevity question illustrates the most irresistible thinking error made by both amateur and professional social psychologists: When two factors such as

Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 19

Low Medium High Height of grave pillars

FIGURE :: 1.3 Correlating Status and Longevity Tall grave pillars commemorated people who also tended to live longer.

status and health go together, it is tempting to conclude that one is causing the other. Status, we might presume, somehow protects a person from health risks. But might it be the other way around? Could it be that health promotes vigor and suc­ cess? Perhaps people who live longer simply have more time to accumulate wealth (enabling them to have more expensive grave markers). Or might a third variable, such as diet, be involved (did wealthy and working-class people tend to eat differ­ ently)? Correlations indicate a relationship, but that relationship is not necessarily one of cause and effect. Correlational research allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable (such as social status) will cause changes in another (such as health).

The correlation-causation confusion is behind much muddled thinking in popu­ lar psychology. Consider another very real correlation—between self-esteem and academic achievement. Children with high self-esteem tend also to have high aca­ demic achievement. (As with any correlation, we can also state this the other way around: High achievers tend to have high self-esteem.) Why do you suppose that is true (Figure 1.4)?

Some people believe a "healthy self- concept" contributes to achievement. Thus, boosting a child's self-image may also boost school achievement. Believing so, 30 U.S. states have enacted more than 170 self-esteem-promoting statutes.

But other people, including psycholo­ gists William Damon (1995), Robyn Dawes (1994), Mark Leary (1999), Martin Seligman (1994, 2002), and Roy Baumeister with John Tierney (2011), doubt that self-esteem is really "the armor that protects kids" from under­ achievement (or drug abuse and delin­ quency). Perhaps it is the other way around: Perhaps problems and failures cause low self-esteem. Perhaps self­ esteem often reflects the reality of how

Commemorative markers in Glasgow Cathedral graveyard.

20 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

FIGURE:: 1.4 Correlation and Causations When two variables correlate, any combination of three expla­ nations is possible. Either one may cause the other, or both may be affected by an underlying "third factor."

X Correlation

Y

Social status Health

things are going for us. Perhaps self-esteem grows from hard-won achievements. Do well and you will feel good about yourself; goof off and fail and you will feel like a dolt. A study of 635 Norwegian schoolchildren showed that a (legitimately earned) string of gold stars by one's name on the spelling chart and accompany­ ing praise from the admiring teacher can boost a child's self-esteem (Skaalvik & Hagtvet, 1990). Or perhaps, as in a study of nearly 6,000 German seventh-graders, the traffic between self-esteem and academic achievements runs both ways (Traut- wein & Liidtke, 2006).

It is also possible that self-esteem and achievement correlate because both are linked to underlying intelligence and family social status. That possibility was raised in two studies—one a nationwide sample of 1,600 young American men and the other of 715 Minnesota youngsters (Bachman & O'Malley, 1977; Maruyama & others, 1981). When the researchers mathematically removed the predictive power of intelligence and family status, the relationship between self-esteem and achieve­ ment evaporated.

Correlations quantify, with a coefficient known as r, the degree of relationship between two factors—from -1.0 (as one factor score goes up, the other goes down) through 0 to -t-1.0 (the two factors' scores rise and fall together). Scores on self­ esteem and depression tests correlate negatively (about -.6). Identical twins' intel­ ligence scores correlate positively (above +.8). The great strength of correlational research is that it tends to occur in real-world settings where we can examine fac­ tors such as race, gender, and social status (factors that we cannot manipulate in the laboratory). Its great disadvantage lies in the ambiguity of the results. This point is so important that even if it fails to impress people the first 25 times they hear it, it is worth repeating a twenty-sixth time: Knowing that two variables change together (correlate) enables us to predict one when we know the other, but correlation does not specify cause and effect.

Advanced correlational techniques can, however, suggest cause-effect rela­ tionships. Time-lagged correlations reveal the sequence of events (for example, by indicating whether changed achievement more often precedes or follows changed self-esteem). Researchers can also use statistical techniques that extract the influ­ ence of "confounded" variables, as when the correlation between self-esteem and achievement evaporated after extracting intelligence and family status. Recall our earlier mention of a third variable, such as diet. Thus, the Scottish research team wondered whether the status-longevity relationship would survive their remov­ ing the effect of cigarette smoking, which is now much less common among those of higher status. It did, which suggested that some other factors, such as