Social Psychology

Fourth Edition

Eliot R. Smith, Diane M. Mackie, Heather M. Claypool

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136845116
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría en psicología

Using an engaging narrative, this textbook demonstrates how social processes are inherently interconnected by uniquely applying underlying and unifying principles throughout the text. With its comprehensive coverage of classic and contemporary research—illustrated with real-world examples from many disciplines, including medicine, law, and education— Social Psychology 4th Edition connects theory and application, providing undergraduate students with a deeper and more holistic understanding of the factors that influence social behaviors.

New to the 4th Edition:

• Each chapter now features 1-2 "culture" boxes, focusing on cross-cultural research on social psychological phenomena.
• Each chapter now features 1-2 "hot topic" boxes, where we highlight cutting edge and emerging findings.
• Many references updated throughout, with over 700 new references.
• A more comprehensive and user-friendly set of online supplementary resources will accompany the new edition.
• New co-author Heather Claypool of Miami University of Ohio.

1

WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

■ A Definition of Social Psychology

The Scientific Study …

… of the Effects of Social and Cognitive Processes …

… on the Way Individuals Perceive, Influence, and Relate to Others

■ Historical Trends and Current Themes in Social Psychology

Social Psychology Becomes an Empirical Science

Social Psychology Splits from General Psychology Over What Causes Behavior

The Rise of Nazism Shapes the Development of Social Psychology

Growth and Integration

■ How the Approach of This Book Reflects an Integrative Perspective

Two Fundamental Axioms of Social Psychology

Three Motivational Principles

Three Processing Principles

Common Processes, Diverse Behaviors

■ Plan of the Book

In the fall of 1951, Princeton University’s undefeated football team played Dartmouth College in a particularly hard-fought game. The teams were long-term rivals, and the game started rough and went downhill from there. Penalties punctuated the game, and fights left players on both sides with serious injuries before Princeton finally won. One month later, two social psychologists asked Princeton and Dartmouth undergraduates to view a film of the game (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954). The responses were astonishing. Princeton fans and Dartmouth supporters reported seeing events so differently that they might have been watching different games. Princeton students saw a constant barrage of Dartmouth violence and poor sportsmanship, with Princeton players occasionally retaliating in self-defense. Dartmouth students rated the teams as equally aggressive but saw their battered team’s infractions as understandable responses to brutal Princeton attacks. One Dartmouth alumnus who watched the film saw so few Dartmouth violations that he concluded he must have been sent an edited copy of the film.

Perhaps these findings are not really so astonishing if you consider that fans of opposing teams hardly ever agree on the impartiality of the umpiring. Similarly, partisan observers of political debates almost always proclaim their own candidate “the winner,” and proud parents at the school music contest often disagree with the judges’ decision. Yet consider the profound questions that these findings raise. If the world is objectively “out there” for all to see, how can observers reach such different conclusions about what seems to be the same event? Why do we so often end up seeing exactly what we expected to see, and how then can we decide what “really” happened? Can the same innocent feelings of belonging that make us see our team, our candidate, or our child in such positive terms also produce biased judgments, unfair decisions, and unequal treatment of others?

Thirty years after Hastorf and Cantril’s study, researchers at Vanderbilt University asked two groups of students to consider the difficult issue of whether convicted criminals should be given probation as an alternative to imprisonment (Axsom, Yates, & Chaiken, 1987). One group of students had a special reason to be concerned with the issue: They had been led to believe that the probation policy might soon be introduced in their area. For the other group, the issue was merely academic—the policy was not being considered for their community. The researchers told the students that, to help them make up their minds, they would hear a tape of a local candidate speaking in favor of the issue at a political rally. What the students did not know was that the researchers had actually prepared four quite different tapes. On one tape, the candidate put forward compelling evidence in support of probation while an enthusiastic audience warmly applauded his words. On a second, the same effective presentation elicited scattered hisses, boos, and heckling from the audience. A third tape had the candidate giving rambling, specious, and disjointed arguments, which were met with enthusiastic applause from the audience. And on the fourth tape, the weak arguments were greeted by boos and hissing.

When the researchers polled the students whose interest in the probation issue was merely academic, the impact of the audience’s taped response was clear. Students in this group who heard the audience greet the candidate’s position with enthusiasm adopted the position themselves, and those who heard the audience voice disdain rejected the candidate’s position. A completely different pattern of responses emerged among students who expected the issue to affect their community. These students focused on the content of the speech. They were swayed if they heard the candidate give cogent arguments but remained unpersuaded if the arguments were weak—regardless of the applause or hisses of the taped audience. Why were the reactions of other people so compelling to some students and so unimportant to others? Why did some participants “go with the flow” while others considered the issues carefully? Did some students care less than others about being right, or were all of the students trying to take different paths to the “truth?”

Like the Vanderbilt students, we are all bombarded daily by attempts to persuade us: advertising campaigns, paid political messages, even the cajoling of friends and family. Consider the last time you were persuaded by one of these attempts. What approach was used by the person who persuaded you? Did that person present you with the hard facts, or did he or she play on your emotions? If you were told that “everyone else” had already joined the parade, would you be more likely to go along or more likely to rebel? Or would it depend on the issue?

Questions like those raised by these studies lure social psychologists into their labs every day in search of reliable answers. Social psychology offers a special perspective on human behavior, because the social aspects of human behavior—the ways that people’s thoughts and actions are affected by other people—can be both powerful and puzzling. Our goal in this book is to give you some insight into how people act, and why they act the way they do, by introducing you to some of the many questions social psychologists ask about social behavior, the ways they go about answering those questions, and the answers they have found. We know that you will find these questions intriguing and hope that the often surprising conclusions will make you want to delve more deeply into these compelling issues.

Our first step will be to provide a definition of social psychology: to chart out the territory we will be covering and to give you a glimpse of what makes the terrain so fascinating. We next describe how social psychology developed its special perspective on human behavior. Like other fields of human inquiry, contemporary social psychology is a product of its own history and of the history of the societies in which it developed. With a quick survey of the past behind us, we then map out the territory ahead. The final part of the chapter provides a sneak preview of the material we cover in the rest of this book. To help you find your way with confidence, we point out some signposts and landmarks to look for along the route.

A DEFINITION OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social psychology is the scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence, and relate to others. Notice that social psychology is defined as a science, that social psychologists are as keenly interested in underlying social and cognitive processes as they are in overt behavior, and that the central concern of social psychology is how people understand and interact with others. Let us consider each of these components in turn.

social psychology

the scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence, and relate to others

The Scientific Study …

Social psychologists, like other scientists, gather knowledge systematically by means of scientific methods. These methods help to produce knowledge that is less subject to the biases and distortions that often characterize common-sense knowledge.

This blue text is a brief preview of the section that follows. For advice on how you can use it to improve your efficiency in studying the text, turn back to the “To the Student” section in the Preface, pages xxx–xxxi.

Of course, you have been studying social behavior all your life. Everyone uses common sense and “street smarts” to make sense of the social world they inhabit because we all want to make good friends, reach mutually satisfying decisions, raise children properly, hire the best personnel, and live in peace and security rather than in conflict and fear. How does the social psychologist’s approach differ from our everyday approaches? The answer is found in methods, not goals. Although scientific researchers and common-sense observers share many goals—both wish to understand, predict, and influence people’s thoughts and behavior—their methods for achieving those goals differ greatly.

As common-sense observers, people often reach conclusions about social behavior based on limited samples from their own or others’ experiences. Therefore common-sense knowledge is sometimes inconsistent, even contradictory. You may have heard, for example, that “opposites attract,” and also the reverse, that “birds of a feather flock together.” As scientists, on the other hand, social psychologists study social behavior systematically, seeking to avoid the misconceptions and distortions that so often afflict our common-sense knowledge. Of course, even scientific knowledge is not infallible. The history of science shows that some findings from individual studies cannot be confirmed by further observation, and many conclusions proposed as scientific truths are eventually overturned by new insights. But as you will see in Chapter 2, scientific conclusions are sounder and more resistant to challenge than common-sense knowledge because they are based on systematic methods of gathering information and are constructed with an awareness of the possibility of error.

… of the Effects of Social and Cognitive Processes …

The presence of other people, the knowledge and opinions they pass on to us, and our feelings about the groups to which we belong all deeply influence us through social processes, whether we are with other people or alone. Our perceptions, mem¬o¬ries, emotions, and motives also exert a pervasive influence on us through cognitive processes. Effects of social and cognitive processes are not separate but inextricably intertwined.

A first date, a classroom presentation, a job interview, a problem-solving session with co-workers: What do these situations have in common? Each is a situation in which others observe us or interact with us, influencing our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. We try to make a good impression, to live up to the standards of the people we care about, to cooperate or compete with others as appropriate. These examples show the operation of social processes. Social processes are the ways in which our thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the people around us, the groups to which we belong, our personal relationships, the teachings of our parents and culture, and the pressures we experience from others.

social processes

the ways in which input from the people and groups around us affect our thoughts, feelings, and actions

Cognitive processes, on the other hand, are the ways in which our memories, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and motives guide our understanding of the world and our actions. Note that emotion and motivation are intrinsic parts of every cognitive process, just as are memory and thought. Modern social psychology rejects the misleading opposition—dating back to ancient Greek philosophers—between pure, “rational” thought and irrational emotions. Cognitive processes affect every aspect of our lives, because the content of our thoughts, the goals toward which we strive, and the feelings we have about people and activities—all the ways we act and react in the social world—are based on what we believe the world is like.

cognitive processes

the ways in which our memories, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and motives influence our understanding of the world and guide our actions

Though we have defined them separately, in reality, social and cognitive processes are inextricably intertwined. To illustrate their intimate connections, consider these two points.

First, social processes affect us even when others are not physicall...