An Introduction to Social Psychology

Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas, Miles Hewstone, Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas

• Publisher: BPS Blackwell
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781118959855
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

For over 25 years An Introduction to Social Psychology has been combining traditional academic rigor with a contemporary level of cohesion, accessibility, pedagogy and instructor support to provide a definitive guide to the engaging and ever-evolving field of social psychology.

This sixth edition, completely revised and updated to reflect current issues and underlying theory in the field, has been specially designed to meet the needs of students at all levels, with contributions written by leading psychologists, each an acknowledged expert in the topics covered in a given chapter. The text benefits hugely from an updated range of innovative pedagogical features intended to catch the imagination, combined with a rigorous editorial approach, which results in a cohesive and uniform style accessible to all. Each chapter addresses both major themes and key studies, showing how the relevant field of research has developed over time and linking classic and contemporary perspectives.

Chapter 1
Introducing Social Psychology

Wolfgang Stroebe, Miles Hewstone and Klaus Jonas

KEY TERMS

• attribution theories
• authoritarian personality
• autokinetic effect
• balance theory
• Bennington study
• consistency theories
• covariation theory
• crisis in social psychology
• demand characteristics
• European Association of Social Psychology
• evolutionary social psychology
• experiment
• experimenter expectancy effects
• field experiment
• field theory
• laboratory experiment
• methodological individualism
• minimal group paradigm
• priming
• realistic conflict theory
• rebound effect
• scapegoat theory
• social cognition
• social facilitation
• social loafing
• social neuroscience

CHAPTER OUTLINE

• INTRODUCTION
  1. Some classic studies
• A DEFINITION OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
  1. The core characteristics of social psychology
• THE UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
  1. The study of the individual and the social 7
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
  1. The beginning
  2. The early years
  3. The years of expansion
  4. The crisis years
  5. Overcoming the crisis
• SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN EUROPE
• SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
• CHAPTER SUMMARY

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ROUTE MAP OF THE CHAPTER

Most textbooks introduce social psychology with examples of everyday experiences of social behaviour or even with a formal definition. We thought that a better way of familiarizing you with our discipline was to present some examples of classic studies. These should give you an impression of the research questions social psychologists address and of the methods they use to tackle these questions. Only then do we give a formal definition of social psychology and discuss the differences between social psychology and related areas. The second part of the chapter is devoted to the history of social psychology, which we trace from its starting years around 1900 until today. As our American colleagues like to point out, much of this history took place in the US. However, as we Europeans like to point out, this development was strongly influenced by European researchers, even before the establishment of social psychology in Europe during the last four decades.

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INTRODUCTION

Some classic studies

How do social psychologists go about addressing research questions?

A proper textbook of social psychology should begin with the discussion of accepted definitions of the discipline. The reason we deviate from this safe course of action is that, when we ourselves began studying social psychology, we found these definitions rather incomprehensible. However, once we had finished the social psychology course and knew something about the subject, we could finally appreciate why social psychologists defined their discipline the way they did. Because presenting the definitions at the end of the book did not make much sense either, we decided on a compromise. We will first give you some examples of classic social psychology research to show you how social psychologists go about their studies. Then, in the next section, we present and discuss some definitions.

In 1954, Muzafer Sherif (see Leader in the Field, Muzafer Sherif, in Chapter 14), who was then Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Oklahoma (US), conducted one of a series of classic studies with 11- to 12-year-old boys, who had been sent to a remote summer camp at Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. None of the boys knew each other before the study. They were divided into two groups, who stayed in cabins far apart from each other and did not know of each other’s existence. For one week, each of the groups enjoyed the typical summer camp life, engaging in fun activities like camping out, transporting canoes over rough terrain to the water and playing various games. They had a great time. It is therefore not surprising that at the end of the week, group members had grown very fond of one another and the groups had developed strong group identities. Each chose a name for itself (the ‘Rattlers’ and the ‘Eagles’), which they proudly displayed on shirts and flags.

At the end of the week, each of the groups was told that there was another group in the vicinity. As though acceding to the boys’ requests, the staff arranged tournaments of games (e.g., touch football, baseball, tug of war) between the groups. The winning team would receive a cup, and members of the winning team would each be given a new penknife. The tournament started in the spirit of good sportsmanship, but as it progressed, hostilities between the groups began to develop. ‘Soon members of each group began to call their rivals “stinkers”, “sneaks” and “cheats” . . . Near the end of this stage, the members of each group found the other group and its members so distasteful that they expressed strong preferences to have no further contact with them at all’ (Sherif, 1967, p. 82).

What was the point of all of this? What can tales about boys in a summer camp tell us about real life? The answer is, a great deal. These Robbers Cave studies actually mark a turning point in the study of prejudice (i.e., dislike for members of an outgroup), because they challenged the then dominant view of prejudice as either an outflow of a prejudiced personality disposition (authoritarian personality; see Chapter 14) or as the result of displaced frustration (scapegoat theory). There was no indication that these boys had prejudiced personalities or needed scapegoats to displace their aggression. And yet, they developed strong dislikes for the members of the other group (the ‘stinkers’ and ‘sneaks’), because they were competing with them for some valued good which only one of the two groups could attain. Sherif interpreted these findings as support for his realistic conflict theory, which assumed that intergroup hostility and intergroup prejudice are usually the result of a conflict of interest between groups over valued commodities or opportunities. Goals were the central concept in Sherif’s theory: he argued that when two groups were competing for the same goal, which only one could achieve, there would be intergroup hostility.

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authoritarian personality personality syndrome characterized by a simplistic cognitive style, a rigid regard for social conventions and submission to authority figures (associated with prejudice towards minority groups and susceptibility to Fascism).

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scapegoat theory a theory that holds that prejudice is due to aggression that is displaced towards members of an outgroup (scapegoats), because the group or set of circumstances that was the source of frustration is not within reach.

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realistic conflict theory a theory developed by Sherif that holds that conflict and competition between groups over valued resources can create intergroup hostility and prejudice.

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Not surprising, you might say. After all, this is the reason why football supporters beat each other up every so often before and after games between their clubs. And yet, this is not the full story. Nearly two decades later, Henri Tajfel (see Leader in the Field, Henri Tajfel, in Chapter 14), then Professor of Social Psychology at Bristol University (UK), and colleagues conducted a series of studies that called into question the assumption that competitive goals are a necessary condition for the development of intergroup hostility (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971). Participants in these studies were 14- to 15-year-old schoolboys, who all knew each other well and came to the psychology laboratory in groups of eight to participate in an experiment (see Chapter 2) on visual perception. Their task was to estimate the number of dots that were flashed onto a screen. After completion of this task, they were told that they would also participate in a second experiment and, for the ease of coding, would be divided on the basis of the dot estimates they had just made. Half the boys were then (randomly) assigned to the ‘under-estimators’ group, the other half to the ‘over-estimators’ group. (In later studies, boys were often divided on the basis of their alleged preference for paintings by Klee or Kandinsky, an equally irrelevant criterion for boys of that age.) The boys then had to assign rewards to other individuals in real money. They did not know the identity of the other individuals, but only their code numbers and their group membership.

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experiment a method in which the researcher deliberately introduces some change into a setting to examine the consequences of that change.

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This experimental procedure became known as the minimal group paradigm. These groups were minimal, because they were created using arbitrary criteria, involved no interaction between members of the two groups, and group members had no knowledge of who belonged to the group. And yet Tajfel could show that members of these groups displayed intergroup discrimination. When asked to divide money between a member of their own group and a member of the other group, most boys gave consistently more money to members of their own group than to members of the other group (see Chapter 14). These studies were again quite innovative, because they showed that intergroup conflict was not an essential cause of intergroup discrimination (or at least ingroup favouritism). Apparently, the mere fact of division into groups was sufficient to trigger discriminatory behaviour.

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minimal group paradigm a set of experimental procedures designed to create groups based on essentially arbitrary criteria (with no interaction within or between them, and with no knowledge of who else belongs to each group) whose members show intergroup discrimination.

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You might now believe that you have some idea of what social psychology is all about and how social psychologists conduct their research. You might also think that the approach of Sherif was more in line with what you had expected, but that the studies by Tajfel, despite their artificiality, led to some interesting results. However, you will be somewhat premature in your confidence. A clearer and more appropriate picture of the field of social psyc...