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Unit XIV
Social Psychology
PD
Unit Overview
The poet John Donne famously wrote, “No man is an island unto himself.” This unit explores the benefits and consequences of that thought.
People are by nature social animals. We seek out others for engagement, comfort, love, and even the kind of conflict that can lead to war.
Many times in social situations, people are self-seeking. Our own expectations, stereotypes, and interests distract us. Other times, people are
more considerate of others around them. We help, we love, we share.
This unit discusses some of the most famous psychological studies
investigating social situations. These studies teach us not only about
how we behave—and misbehave—in response to social context, but
also why ethics are important in research. The research explored here is
clear—we are both heroes within and victims of our social context. And
our awareness can determine which role we play at any given moment.
After reading this unit, students will be able to:
• Identify the topics included in the field of social psychology.
• Understand how we explain others’ behavior and our own.
• Determine how actions and attitudes interact.
• Describe automatic mimicry.
• Analyze how conformity reveals the power of social influence.
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Appreciate the importance of Milgram’s obedience experiments.
Analyze how behavior is affected by the presence of others.
Understand how group polarization and groupthink work.
Evaluate the power of the individual.
Explain the influence of cultural norms on behavior.
Understand prejudice and its social, cognitive, and emotional roots.
Differentiate between the psychological concept of aggression
and the popular understanding of it.
Identify biological factors that contribute to aggressive behavior.
Delineate the psychological and social-cultural triggers of aggression.
Appreciate the factors that lead to friendship or love relationships
with some people and not others.
Trace the evolution of romantic love over time.
Understand the factors that lead people to help others.
Explain social exchange theory and social norms in the context of
helping behavior.
Explain social traps and mirror-image perceptions.
Evaluate how feelings of prejudice, aggression, and conflict can be
transformed into peaceful attitudes.
Alignment to AP® Course Description
Topic 14: Social Psychology (8–10% of AP® Examination)
Module
Topic
Essential Questions
Module 74
The Fundamental Attribution Error
• How do we explain people’s behavior?
• How do we explain our own behavior?
Attitudes and Actions
• How do attitudes and actions work together?
Conformity: Complying With Social
Pressures
• Why do we conform?
• What is the effect of conformity on our behavior?
Obedience: Following Orders
• Why do we obey?
• What is the effect of obedience on our behavior?
Social Facilitation
• Do others help our performance?
Social Loafing
• Do others hurt our performance?
Deindividuation
• Are we individually responsible for our behavior regardless of context?
Group Polarization
• Why do we become polarized in a group?
Groupthink
• How can we avoid groupthink?
The Power of Individuals
• Can one person make a difference?
Cultural Influences
• How much influence does our culture have on our behavior?
Module 75
Module 76
Social Psychology
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Module
Topic
Essential Questions
Module 77
Prejudice
• What impact does prejudice have on people?
Module 78
The Biology of Aggression
• What is aggression?
Psychological and Social-Cultural
Factors in Aggression
• Why do people become aggressive?
The Psychology of Attraction
• What makes one person attractive to another?
Romantic Love
• What does it mean to be “in love”?
Altruism
• What does it mean to act selflessly?
Conflict and Peacemaking
• How can we get along with others?
Module 79
Module 80
Unit Resources
Module 77
Module 74
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
TEACHER DEMONSTRATION
• Social Influence
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
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Fact or Falsehood?
Social Psychology on the Web
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Students’ Perceptions of You
Introducing Cognitive Dissonance Theory
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Fact or Falsehood?
Measuring Stereotypes
Implicit Association Test
Positions of Privilege and Institutional Racism
Institutional Discrimination
Belief in a Just World
FLIP IT VIDEO
• Ingroup and Outgroup Bias
Module 78
FLIP IT VIDEO
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
• Fact or Falsehood?
• Defining Aggression
• Road Rage
Module 75
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
• Fact or Falsehood?
• Violating a Social Norm
• Would You Obey?
Module 79
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
• Normative Social Influence
• Fact or Falsehood?
• Love Styles
Module 76
Module 80
FLIP IT VIDEO
TEACHER DEMONSTRATION
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
• Social Traps
• Fact or Falsehood?
• Group Polarization
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
FLIP IT VIDEO
• Social Facilitation and Social Loafing
MyersAP_SE_2e
• Fact or Falsehood?
• Why Do People Volunteer?
• Pleasurable Versus Philanthropic Activities—Which Brings More
Happiness?
• A Matter of Context
• Intercultural Learning Activities
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Unit XIV
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Unit XIV
Social Psychology
Modules
74
Attribution, Attitudes, and Actions
75
Conformity and Obedience
76
Group Behavior
77
Prejudice and Discrimination
78
Aggression
79
Attraction
80
Altruism, Conflict, and Peacemaking
D
irk Willems faced a moment of decision in 1569. Threatened with torture and
death as a member of a persecuted religious minority, he escaped from his Asperen, Holland, prison and fled across an ice-covered pond. His stronger and
heavier jailer pursued him but fell through the ice and, unable to climb out, pled for help.
With his freedom in front of him, Willems acted with ultimate selflessness. He
turned back and rescued his pursuer, who, under orders, took him back to captivity.
A few weeks later Willems was condemned to be “executed with fire, until death
ensues.” For his martyrdom, present-day Asperen has named a street in honor of
its folk hero (Toews, 2004).
What drives people to feel contempt for religious minorities such as Dirk Willems, and to act so spitefully? And what motivated the selflessness of Willems’ response, and of so many who have died trying to save others? Indeed, what motivates any of us when we volunteer kindness and generosity toward others?
As such examples demonstrate, we are social animals. We may assume the best or
the worst in others. We may approach them with closed fists or open arms. But as the
novelist Herman Melville remarked, “We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are
connected by a thousand invisible threads.” Social psychologists explore these connections by scientifically studying how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
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Pacing Guide
Module
Topic
Module 74
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Attitudes and Actions
Module 75
Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures
Obedience: Following Orders
Module 76
Social Facilitation
Social Loafing
Deindividuation
Group Polarization
Groupthink
The Power of Individuals
Cultural Influences
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Module 77
Prejudice
Module 78
The Biology of Aggression
Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression
Module 79
The Psychology of Attraction
Romantic Love
Module 80
Altruism
Conflict and Peacemaking
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Standard Schedule
Days
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Block Schedule Days
1
1
1
1
1
1
Social Psychology
Unit XIV
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Module 74
TEACH
Discussion Starter
Use the Module 74 Fact or Falsehood?
activity from the TRM to introduce the
concepts from this module.
TR M
TRM
Common Pitfalls
Social psychology is different from
sociology. Social psychology considers how individuals interact with each
other and society at large. Sociologists
explore the behavior of groups and
cultures as they interact internally and
externally.
Use Student Activity: Social Psychology on the Web from the TRM to
help students explore this interesting
field of psychology.
74-1
Identify what social psychologists study, and discuss how we
tend to explain others’ behavior and our own.
74-2
Explain whether what we think affects what we do, and whether
what we do affects what we think.
74-1
social psychology the scientific
study of how we think about,
influence, and relate to one another.
attribution theory the theory that
we explain someone’s behavior by
crediting either the situation or the
person’s disposition.
TEACH
Concept Connections
fundamental attribution error
the tendency for observers, when
analyzing others’ behavior, to
underestimate the impact of the
situation and to overestimate the
impact of personal disposition.
Optimists are more likely
to attribute good events to
dispositions and bad events to
situations.
Pessimists, who are more likely
to suffer depression, will make
dispositional attributions for bad
events and situational attributions
for good events.
SelectStock/Getty Images
Link the discussion of attribution to
explanatory style in positive psychology (Unit XII). We make certain
attributions (or explanations) about
our own behavior that are either situational or dispositional.
erts/A
Module Learning Objectives
s Rob
TEACH
lamy
Attribution, Attitudes, and Actions
France
TR M
TRM
Unit XIV Social Psychology
What do social psychologists study? How do we tend to explain
others’ behavior and our own?
Personality psychologists (Unit X) focus on the person. They study the personal traits and
dynamics that explain why different people may act differently in a given situation, such as
the one Willems faced. (Would you have helped the jailer out of the icy water?) Social
psychologists focus on the situation. They study the social influences that explain why the
same person will act differently in different situations. Might the jailer have acted differently—
opting not to march Willems back to jail—under differing circumstances?
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Our social behavior arises from our social cognition. Especially when the unexpected occurs,
we want to understand and explain why people act as they do. After studying how people
explain others’ behavior, Fritz Heider (1958) proposed an attribution theory: We can attribute the behavior to the person’s stable, enduring traits (a dispositional attribution). Or we
can attribute it to the situation (a situational attribution).
For example, in class, we notice that Juliette seldom talks. At the game, Jack talks nonstop.
That must be the sort of people they are, we decide. Juliette must be shy and Jack outgoing.
Such attributions—to their dispositions—can be valid, because people do have enduring personality traits. But sometimes we fall prey to the fundamental attribution error
(Ross, 1977): We overestimate the influence of personality and underestimate the
influence of situations. In class, Jack may be as quiet as Juliette. Catch Juliette as the
lead in the high school musical and you may hardly recognize your quiet classmate.
David Napolitan and George Goethals (1979) demonstrated the fundamental
attribution error in an experiment with Williams College students. They had students talk, one at a time, with a young woman who acted either cold and critical or
warm and friendly. Before the talks, the researchers told half the students that the
woman’s behavior would be spontaneous. They told the other half the truth—that
they had instructed her to act friendly (or unfriendly).
Did hearing the truth affect students’ impressions of the woman? Not at all!
If the woman acted friendly, both groups decided she really was a warm person. If
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ENGAGE
Critical Questions
To get students thinking about situational
versus dispositional attribution, have them
consider the following questions:
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Unit XIV
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If a very good friend gets angry with you,
how would you explain his or her behavior?
If that same friend does something nice for
you, how would you explain such behavior?
If someone you have recently gotten to
know walks by you in the hall but doesn’t
say hello (even as you try to greet him),
what would you think about that person?
Why?
Are your thoughts about your good friend’s
behavior different than your thoughts
about someone you’re only acquainted
with? Why or why not?
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she acted unfriendly, both decided she really was a cold person. They attributed her behavA P ® E x a m Ti p
ior to her personal disposition even when told that her behavior was situational—that she was
Many students have not heard
merely acting that way for the purposes of the experiment.
of the fundamental attribution
error before taking a course in
The fundamental attribution error appears more often in some cultures than in others.
psychology. This concept often
Individualist Westerners more often attribute behavior to people’s personal traits. People
shows up on the AP® exam, so be
in East Asian cultures are somewhat more sensitive to the power of the situation (Heine &
sure you understand this well.
Ruby, 2010; Kitayama et al., 2009). This difference has appeared in experiments that asked
people to view scenes, such as a big fish swimming. Americans focused more on the individual fish, and Japanese people more on the whole scene (Chua et al., 2005; Nisbett, 2003).
We all commit the fundamental attribution error. Consider: Is your AP® psychology
teacher shy or outgoing? If you answer “outgoing,” remember that you know your teacher
from one situation—the classroom, which demands outgoing behavior. Your teacher (who
observes his or her own behavior not only in the classroom, but also with family, in meetings, when traveling) might say, “Me, outgoing? It all depends on the situation. In class or
with good friends, yes, I’m outgoing. But at professional meetings, I’m really rather shy.”
Outside their assigned roles, teachers seem less teacherly, presidents less presidential, lawyers less legalistic.
When we explain our own behavior, we are sensitive to how our behavior changes with
the situation (Idson & Mischel, 2001). After behaving badly, for example, we recognize how
the situation affected our actions (recall the self-serving bias discussed in Module 59). What
about our own intentional and admirable actions? Those we attribute not to situations but
to our own good reasons (Malle, 2006; Malle et al., 2007). We also are sensitive to the power
of the situation when we explain the behavior of people we know well and have seen in
different contexts. We are most likely to commit the fundamental attribution error when a
stranger acts badly. Having only seen that red-faced fan screaming at the referee in the heat
of competition, we may assume he is a bad person. But outside the stadium, he may be a
good neighbor and a great parent.
Researchers have reversed the perspectives of actor and observer. They filmed two
people interacting, with a camera behind each person. Then they showed each person a
replay—filmed from the other person’s perspective. This reversed their attributions of the
behaviors (Lassiter & Irvine, 1986; Storms, 1973). Seeing things from the actor’s perspective, the observers better appreciated the situation. (As we act, our eyes look outward; we
see others’ faces, not our own.) Taking the observer’s point of view, the actors became more
FYI
aware of their own personal style.
Some 7 in 10 college women
Reflecting on our past selves of 5 or 10 years ago also switches our perspective. Our
report having experienced a man
present self adopts the observer’s perspective and attributes our past behavior mostly to
misattributing her friendliness
our traits (Pronin & Ross, 2006). In another 5 or 10 years, your today’s self may seem like
as a sexual come-on (JacquesTiura et al., 2007).
another person.
The way we explain others’ actions, attributing them to the person or the situation, can
have important real-life effects (Fincham & Bradbury, 1993; Fletcher et al., 1990). A person
must decide whether to interpret another’s friendliness as genuine, or motivated by selfinterest (she just needs a ride). A jury must decide whether a shooting was malicious or in
self-defense. A voter must decide whether a candidate’s promises will be kept or forgotten. A partner must decide whether a loved one’s tart-tongued remark reflects a bad day
or a mean disposition.
Finally, consider the social and economic effects of attribution. How do we explain poverty or unemployment? In Britain, India, Australia, and the United States
political conservatives tend to place the blame on the personal dispositions of the
poor and unemployed: “People generally get what they deserve. Those who don’t
work are freeloaders. Those who take initiative can still get ahead”(Furnham, 1982;
Pandey et al., 1982; Wagstaff, 1982; Zucker & Weiner, 1993). Political liberals (and
social scientists) are more likely to blame past and present situations: “If you or I “Otis, shout at that man to pull himself together.”
TEACH
TR M
TRM
Teaching Tip
A person will make attributions
depending on his or her level of
involvement in a situation. Have
students determine what types of
attributions the actors and observers
in the following situation made: In
1979 fans were waiting to get into a
concert by The Who. When the doors
to the former Riverfront Coliseum in
Cincinnati, Ohio, opened, 11 fans were
trampled to death. Time magazine
later received a letter from an outside
observer and one from an actor
participant. How do their attributions
differ?
The observer:
The violently destructive message
that The Who and other rock groups
deliver leaves me little surprised that
they attract a mob that will trample
human beings to death to gain
better seats. Of greater concern is a
respected news magazine’s adulation
of this sick phenomenon.
The actor:
While standing in the crowd at Riverfront Coliseum, I distinctly remember
feeling that I was being punished for
being a rock fan. My sister and I joked
about this, unaware of the horror
happening around us. Later, those
jokes came back to us grimly as we
watched the news. How many lives
will be lost before the punitive and
inhuman policy of festival seating at
rock concerts is outlawed?
© The New Yorker Collection, 1980, J.B. Handelsman from
cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Attribution, Attitudes, and Actions
Use Student Activity: The Fundamental Attribution Error from the TRM
to help students understand this
concept.
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TEACH
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TRM
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Concept Connections
Link the discussion of attributions to stereotypes and prejudice. If people hold strong
stereotypes or prejudices toward a particular
group, they are likely to make a dispositional
attribution for that group’s behaviors. These
people would explain similar behavior by individuals in their own groups using situational
attributions instead.
Use Student Activity: Students’ Perceptions
of You from the TRM to demonstrate the effects
of attributions.
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
An attribution question Whether
ENGAGE
we attribute poverty and homelessness
to social circumstances or to personal
dispositions affects and reflects our
political views.
Enrichment
When we are aware of our attitudes,
we are more likely to allow them to
guide our actions. Researchers have
made participants more aware by
installing mirrors in the laboratory.
This is referred to as the looking glass
effect.
had to live with the same poor education, lack of opportunity, and discrimination, would we
be any better off?” To understand and prevent terrorism, they say, consider the situations that
breed terrorists. Better to drain the swamps than swat the mosquitoes.
The point to remember: Our attributions—to a person’s disposition or to the situation—
have real consequences.
Edward Diener and Mark Wallbom
noted that nearly all college
students say cheating is morally
wrong. They asked students to
work on an anagram-solving task
that the students presumed was an
IQ test. Diener and Wallbom told
them to stop when a bell sounded.
Left alone, 71 percent cheated by
working past the bell. For students
working in front of a mirror, only 7
percent cheated.
Brad Bushman found that people
who can see their own reflections
eat less unhealthy food than
those who can’t see themselves.
Bushman and his colleagues asked
college students to try regular,
low-fat, and fat-free cream cheese.
Participants in a room with a mirror
ate less of the regular spread than
did those in a room with no mirror.
Diener, E., & Wallbom, M. (1976). Effects of
self-awareness on antinormative behavior. Journal of Research in Personality, 10,
107–111.
Haugen, P. (1999, May/June). The looking
glass effect. Psychology Today, p. 24.
Lee Snider/The Image Works
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Attitudes and Actions
74-2
Does what we think affect what we do, or does what we do affect
what we think?
Attitudes are feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose our reactions to objects, people, and events. If we believe someone is threatening us, we may feel fear and anger
toward the person and act defensively. The traffic between our attitudes and our actions is
two-way. Our attitudes affect our actions. And our actions affect our attitudes.
Attitudes Affect Actions
Consider the climate-change debate. On one side are climate-change activists: “Almost
all climate scientists are of one mind about the threat of global warming,” reports Science
magazine (Kerr, 2009). “It’s real, it’s dangerous, and the world needs to take action immediately.” On the other side are climate-change deniers: The number of Americans who told
Gallup pollsters that global warming is “generally exaggerated” increased from 30 percent
in 2006 to 48 percent in 2010, and then dropped to 42 percent in 2012 (Saad, 2013).
Knowing that public attitudes affect public policies, activists on both sides are aiming to
persuade. Persuasion efforts generally take two forms:
attitude feelings, often
influenced by our beliefs, that
predispose us to respond in a
particular way to objects, people,
and events.
peripheral route persuasion
occurs when people are influenced
by incidental cues, such as a
speaker’s attractiveness.
central route persuasion occurs
when interested people focus on
the arguments and respond with
favorable thoughts.
•
Peripheral route persuasion doesn’t engage systematic thinking, but does produce
fast results as people respond to incidental cues (such as endorsements by respected
people) and make snap judgments. A perfume ad may lure us with images of beautiful
or famous people in love.
•
Central route persuasion offers evidence and arguments that aim to trigger
favorable thoughts. It occurs mostly when people are naturally analytical or involved
in the issue. Environmental advocates may show us evidence of rising temperatures,
melting glaciers, rising seas, and northward shifts in vegetation and animal life.
Because it is more thoughtful and less superficial, it is more durable and more likely to
influence behavior.
Those who attempt to persuade us are trying to influence our behavior by changing our
attitudes. But other factors, including the situation, also influence behavior. Strong social
pressures, for example, can weaken the attitude-behavior connection (Wallace et al., 2005).
TEACH
Common Pitfalls
Help students remember the different
routes to persuasion:
The central route is more direct,
focusing on the heart of the issue
being discussed. The issues are the
heart (or center) of the matter.
The peripheral route is more
indirect, focusing on things that
really may not have any direct
connection to the issue at hand.
Remind students that they learned
in Unit IV what peripheral vision
is—our vision of things on the
outer edge of the visual field.
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Unit XIV
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Celebrity endorsements, a peripheral route
to persuasion, are not central to supporting
an issue.
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TEACH
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Common Pitfalls
Help students understand that it is easier
to change attitudes than to change actions.
Attitudes are internal and might not be seen or
known by others. Actions, on the other hand,
are out in the open, observed by all. People
assume that we act according to our attitudes,
not the other way around. So if an action conflicts with an attitude, we will change the attitude to fit the action instead of the other way
around. Have students try to recall a time when
they acted differently than their attitudes.
Social Psychology
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Attribution, Attitudes, and Actions
Module 74
757
In roll-call votes, politicians will sometimes vote what their supporters demand, despite privately disagreeing with those demands (Nagourney, 2002). In such cases, external pressure
overrides the attitude-behavior link.
Attitudes are especially likely to affect behavior when external influences are minimal,
and when the attitude is stable, specific to the behavior, and easily recalled (Glasman & Albarracín, 2006). One experiment used vivid, easily recalled information to persuade people
that sustained tanning put them at risk for future skin cancer. One month later, 72 percent
of the participants, and only 16 percent of those in a waitlist control group, had lighter skin
(McClendon & Prentice-Dunn, 2001). Persuasion changed attitudes, which changed behavior.
TEACH
Teaching Tip
Students can brainstorm about the
ways they have used foot-in-the-door
to gain an advantage for themselves.
Have they ever asked their
parents to buy them something
inexpensive before asking for
something expensive? (If there is
a big difference in price, asking for
the more expensive item first—and
getting compliance—would likely
mean they end up with both items.)
Have they ever told their parents
about a slightly bad slip-up before
revealing something their mothers
and fathers would definitely view
as a serious mistake? (Sometimes
owning up to the slightly bad thing
first makes the other mistake seem
less problematic.)
Actions Affect Attitudes
Now consider a more surprising principle: Not only will people stand up for what they
believe, they also will believe more strongly in what they have stood up for. Many streams
of evidence confirm that attitudes follow behavior (FIGURE 74.1).
Actions
Figure 74.1
Attitudes follow behavior
VASILY FEDOSENKO/Reuters/Landov
Cooperative actions, such as those performed
by people on sports teams, feed mutual liking.
Such attitudes, in turn, promote positive
behavior.
Attitudes
TEACH
THE FOOT-IN-THE-DOOR PHENOMENON
How would you react if someone induced you to act against your beliefs? In many cases,
people adjust their attitudes. During the Korean war, many U.S. prisoners of war were held
in war camps run by Chinese communists. Without using brutality, the captors secured the
prisoners’ collaboration in various activities. Some merely ran errands or accepted favors.
Others made radio appeals and false confessions. Still others informed on other prisoners
and divulged military information. When the war ended, 21 prisoners chose to stay with
the communists. More returned home “brainwashed”—convinced that communism was a
good thing for Asia.
How did the Chinese captors achieve these amazing results? A key ingredient was their
effective use of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon: They knew that people who agreed
to a small request would find it easier to comply later with a larger one. The Chinese began
with harmless requests, such as copying a trivial statement, but gradually escalated their demands (Schein, 1956). The next statement to be copied might list flaws of capitalism. Then,
to gain privileges, the prisoners participated in group discussions, wrote self-criticisms, or
uttered public confessions. After doing so, they often adjusted their beliefs to be more consistent with their public acts. The point is simple: To get people to agree to something big,
start small and build (Cialdini, 1993). A trivial act makes the next act easier. Succumb to a
temptation, and you will find the next temptation harder to resist.
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Active Learning
Have your students conduct a
research study using surveys to test
the foot-in-the-door phenomenon.
Other techniques influence actions and
attitudes:
Brainwashing. During the Korean War,
American POWs were forced by their captors
to write a series of essays, each subsequent
essay representing a more serious attack on
The surveys are actually
unimportant. Since most people
will reject taking the 100-question
survey first, in that group you need
only gain the compliance of the
subjects to take the 100-question
survey; they don’t actually need to
complete the long survey.
foot-in-the-door phenomenon
the tendency for people who have
first agreed to a small request to
comply later with a larger request.
Enrichment
Low-ball technique. Students were asked
to participate in a laboratory experiment at
7:00 A.M. Only 24 percent showed up. When
students agreed to participate without
knowing the time and then were informed
of the early hour, 53 percent showed up!
Subjects can be asked to complete
either a 100-question survey
followed by a 10-question survey,
or a 10-question survey first
followed by a 100-question survey.
1/23/14 2:08 PM
ENGAGE
the U.S. government. Slowly, each writer’s
attitude tended to change, becoming more
consistent with his words.
Write-it-down technique. Once a
customer fills out a sales agreement, he or
she commits to the purchase.
“Fifty-words-or-less” testimonials.
Manufacturers of toothpaste, breakfast
cereal, and chewing gum typically get
consumers to compose a short personal
statement that begins, “Why I like. . . .”
Saying is believing!
Be sure to obtain Institutional Review
Board approval and informed consent
before engaging in any research
endeavor.
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
In dozens of experiments, researchers have coaxed people into acting against their attitudes or violating their moral standards, with the same result: Doing becomes believing.
After giving in to a request to harm an innocent victim—by making nasty comments or
delivering electric shocks—people begin to disparage their victim. After speaking or writing
on behalf of a position they have qualms about, they begin to believe their own words.
Fortunately, the attitudes-follow-behavior principle works with good deeds as well.
The foot-in-the-door tactic has helped boost charitable contributions, blood donations, and
product sales. In one classic experiment, researchers posing as safe-driving volunteers asked
Californians to permit the installation of a large, poorly lettered “Drive Carefully” sign in
their front yards. Only 17 percent consented. They approached other home owners with
a small request first: Would they display a 3-inch-high “Be a Safe Driver” sign? Nearly all
readily agreed. When reapproached two weeks later to allow the large, ugly sign in their
front yards, 76 percent consented (Freedman & Fraser, 1966). To secure a big commitment,
it often pays to put your foot in the door: Start small and build.
Racial attitudes likewise follow behavior. In the years immediately following the introduction of school desegregation in the United States and the passage of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, White Americans expressed diminishing racial prejudice. And as Americans
in different regions came to act more alike—thanks to more uniform national standards
against discrimination—they began to think more alike. Experiments confirm the observation: Moral action strengthens moral convictions.
ENGAGE
Philip Zimbardo created a simulated
prison and randomly assigned college students to play either the role
of guard or prisoner. A web-based
slide show at www.prisonexp.org
provides a detailed account of this
fascinating study that demonstrates
how role playing can powerfully
shape attitudes and even self-identity.
Narrated slides show how the guards
developed degrading routines and,
in only 6 days, the prisoners broke
down, rebelled, or became passively
resigned. Ask each of your students to
provide an oral or written report on
his or her visit to this website. Helpful
discussion questions accompany the
slide program and can be printed for
classroom use.
Use Teacher Demonstration: Social
Influence from the TRM to help demonstrate the power of the situation.
“Fake it until you make it.”
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS SAYING
role a set of expectations (norms)
about a social position, defining
how those in the position ought to
behave.
When you adopt a new role—when you leave middle school and start high school, become a college student, or begin a new job—you strive to follow the social prescriptions.
At first, your behaviors may feel phony, because you are acting a role. Soldiers may at first
feel they are playing war games. Newlyweds may feel they are “playing house.” Before
long, however, what began as playacting in the theater of life becomes you. Researchers
have confirmed this effect by assessing people’s attitudes before and after they adopt a
new role, sometimes in laboratory situations, sometimes in everyday situations, such as
before and after taking a job.
Role playing morphed into real life in one famous study in which male college students
volunteered to spend time in a simulated prison. Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo
(1972) randomly assigned some volunteers to be guards. He gave them uniforms, clubs,
and whistles and instructed them to enforce certain rules. Others became prisoners, locked
in barren cells and forced to wear humiliating outfits. For a day or two, the volunteers selfconsciously “played” their roles. Then the simulation became real—too real. Most guards
developed disparaging attitudes, and some devised cruel and degrading routines. One by
one, the prisoners broke down, rebelled, or became passively resigned. After only six days,
Zimbardo called off the study.
The power of the situation In his
1972 Stanford Prison simulation, Philip
Zimbardo created a toxic situation
(left). Those assigned to the guard
role soon degraded the prisoners. In
real life in 2004, some U.S. military
guards tormented Iraqi prisoners at the
U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison (right). To
Zimbardo (2004, 2007), it was a bad
barrel rather than a few bad apples that
led to the Abu Ghraib atrocities: “When
ordinary people are put in a novel, evil
place, such as most prisons, Situations
Win, People Lose.”
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ENGAGE
AP Photo
Online Activities
Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc.
TR M
TRM
ROLE PLAYING AFFECTS ATTITUDES
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Online Activities
Zimbardo spent most of his career investigating the negative effects of social experiences.
In recent years, he’s devoted his time to
exploring how social factors can lead to positive behavior. His Heroic Imagination Project
(http://heroicimagination.org) is an outgrowth
of those efforts. Zimbardo and his team are
interested in the factors that lead to
heroism—not just heroic behavior on large
scales but heroic actions and choices in everyday life. Have students check out this site and
explore some of the group’s research.
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Role playing can train torturers (Staub, 1989). In the early 1970s, the Greek military government eased men into their roles. First, a trainee stood guard outside an interrogation cell.
After this “foot in the door” step, he stood guard inside. Only then was he ready to become
actively involved in the questioning and torture. What we do, we gradually become.
Yet people differ. In Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison simulation and in other atrocityproducing situations, some people have succumbed to the situation and others have
not (Carnahan & McFarland, 2007; Haslam & Reicher, 2007; Mastroianni & Reed, 2006;
Zimbardo, 2007). Person and situation interact. Much as water dissolves salt but not sand, so
toxic situations corrupt some people but not others (Johnson, 2007).
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: RELIEF FROM TENSION
So far we have seen that actions can affect attitudes, sometimes turning prisoners into
collaborators, doubters into believers, and compliant guards into abusers. But why? One
explanation is that when we become aware that our attitudes and actions don’t coincide,
we experience tension, or cognitive dissonance. To relieve such tension, according to Leon
Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory, we often bring our attitudes into line
with our actions.
Dozens of experiments have explored this cognitive dissonance phenomenon. Many
have made people feel responsible for behavior that clashed with their attitudes and had
foreseeable consequences. In one of these experiments, you might agree for a measly $2 to
help a researcher by writing an essay that supports something you don’t believe in (perhaps
a school vending machine tax). Feeling responsible for the statements (which are inconsistent with your attitudes), you would probably feel dissonance, especially if you thought an
administrator would be reading your essay. To reduce the uncomfortable tension you might
start believing your phony words. At such times, it’s as if we rationalize, “If I chose to do it
(or say it), I must believe in it.” The less coerced and more responsible we feel for a troubling
act, the more dissonance we feel. The more dissonance we feel, the more motivated we are
to find consistency, such as changing our attitudes to help justify the act.
The pressure to reduce dissonance helps explain the evolution of American attitudes toward the U.S. invasion of Iraq. When the war began, the stated reason for the invasion was the
presumed threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Would the war
be justified if Iraq did not have WMD? Only 38 percent of Americans surveyed said it would be
(Gallup, 2003). Nearly 80 percent believed such weapons would be found (Duffy, 2003; Newport et al., 2003). When no WMD were found, many Americans felt dissonance, which was
heightened by their awareness of the war’s financial and human costs, by scenes of chaos in
Iraq, and by inflamed anti-American and pro-terrorist sentiments in some parts of the world.
To reduce dissonance, some people revised their memories of the war’s rationale. The
invasion then became a movement to liberate an oppressed people and promote democracy
in the Middle East. Before long, 58 percent of Americans—a majority—said they supported
the war even if no WMD were found (Gallup, 2003).
The attitudes-follow-behavior principle has a heartening implication: We cannot directly control all our feelings, but we can influence them by altering our behavior. (Recall
from Module 42 the emotional effects of facial expressions and of body postures.) If we are
down in the dumps, we can do as cognitive-behavioral therapists advise and talk in more
positive, self-accepting ways with fewer self-put-downs. If we are unloving, we can become
more loving by behaving as if we were so—by doing thoughtful things, expressing affection,
giving affirmation. That helps explain why teens’ doing volunteer work promotes a compassionate identity. “Assume a virtue, if you have it not,” says Hamlet to his mother. “For
use can almost change the stamp of nature.” Pretense can become reality. Conduct sculpts
character. What we do we become.
The point to remember: Cruel acts shape the self. But so do acts of good will. Act as
though you like someone, and you soon may. Changing our behavior can change how we
think about others and how we feel about ourselves.
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ENGAGE
Module 74
759
TEACH
Flip It
Regarding U.S. President Lyndon
Johnson’s commitment to the
Vietnam war: “A president who
justifies his actions only to the
public might be induced to
change them. A president who
has justified his actions to himself,
believing that he has the truth,
becomes impervious to selfcorrection.” -CAROL TAVRIS AND
ELLIOT ARONSON, MISTAKES WERE
MADE (BUT NOT BY ME), 2007
Students can get additional help
understanding cognitive dissonance
by watching the Flip It Video: Cognitive Dissonance Theory.
TEACH
TR M
TRM
Teaching Tip
Engage students in a discussion of
college hazing techniques, often
perpetuated by cognitive dissonance. During fraternity pledging,
first-year students must complete
activities designed to test their limits.
One pledge was told to dig his “own
grave.” After he complied with orders
to lie flat in the finished hole, the sides
collapsed, suffocating him before his
fraternity brothers could dig him out.
Another pledge choked to death after
repeatedly trying to swallow a large
slab of raw liver soaked in oil. Why do
hazing activities persist? As a result
of their experiences, new fraternity
members may find the group more
appealing and worthwhile.
Use Student Activity: Introducing
Cognitive Dissonance Theory from the
TRM to help students understand this
concept.
cognitive dissonance theory
the theory that we act to reduce
the discomfort (dissonance) we
feel when two of our thoughts
(cognitions) are inconsistent. For
example, when we become aware
that our attitudes and our actions
clash, we can reduce the resulting
dissonance by changing our
attitudes.
“Sit all day in a moping posture,
sigh, and reply to everything
with a dismal voice, and your
melancholy lingers. . . . If we wish
to conquer undesirable emotional
tendencies in ourselves, we
must . . . go through the outward
movements of those contrary
dispositions which we prefer
to cultivate.” -WILLIAM JAMES,
PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, 1890
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Enrichment
The old adage “fake it ‘til you make it” rings
true if you consider the research on cognitive
dissonance. If we behave in a certain way, we
are likely to develop attitudes that mirror those
behaviors. If we feel sad, acting in happier ways
can turn the tide, making us feel happy. If we
harbor negative attitudes toward a particular
group, acting kindly toward its members can
lead to more positive attitudes.
Attribution, Attitudes, and Actions
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
CLOSE & ASSESS
Before You Move On
Exit Assessment
䉴 ASK YOURSELF
Do you have an attitude or tendency you would like to change? Using the attitudes-followbehavior principle, how might you go about changing that attitude?
Ask your students to imagine that a
student is eating by him- or herself in
the cafeteria, and ask them to write a
situational and dispositional attribution for that person’s behavior. This
will help you determine if students
really understand these often confused concepts.
䉴 TEST YOURSELF
Driving to school one snowy day, Marco narrowly misses a car that slides through a red light.
“Slow down! What a terrible driver,” he thinks to himself. Moments later, Marco himself slips
through an intersection and yelps, “Wow! These roads are awful. The city plows need to get
out here.” What social psychology principle has Marco just demonstrated? Explain.
Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.
Module 74 Review
74-1
•
•
What do social psychologists study? How
do we tend to explain others’ behavior and
our own?
Social psychologists focus on how we think about,
influence, and relate to one another. They study the social
influences that explain why the same person will act
differently in different situations.
When explaining others’ behavior, we may commit
the fundamental attribution error (underestimating the
influence of the situation and overestimating the effects of
personality). When explaining our own behavior, we more
readily attribute it to the influence of the situation.
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74-2
Does what we think affect what we do, or
does what we do affect what we think?
•
Attitudes are feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that
predispose us to respond in certain ways.
•
Peripheral route persuasion uses incidental cues (such as
celebrity endorsement) to try to produce fast but relatively
thoughtless changes in attitudes.
•
Central route persuasion offers evidence and arguments to
trigger thoughtful responses.
•
When other influences are minimal, attitudes that are
stable, specific, and easily recalled can affect our actions.
•
Actions can modify attitudes, as in the foot-in-the-door
phenomenon (complying with a large request after having
agreed to a small request) and role playing (acting a social
part by following guidelines for expected behavior).
•
When our attitudes don’t fit with our actions, cognitive
dissonance theory suggests that we will reduce tension by
changing our attitudes to match our actions.
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Attribution, Attitudes, and Actions
Module 74
761
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. What do we call the tendency for observers to
3. Which of the following best explains why we act to
underestimate the impact of the situation and
overestimate the impact of personal disposition?
reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts
are inconsistent?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Peripheral route persuasion
Social psychology
Attribution theory
Fundamental attribution error
Central route persuasion
Cognitive dissonance theory
Power of the situation
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
Role theory
Fundamental attribution error
Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
1. d
2. e
3. a
2. Which of the following best describes a feeling, often
influenced by a belief, that predisposes one to respond in
a particular way to people and events?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Central route persuasion
Anger
Emotion
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
Attitude
Practice FRQs
1. Explain the fundamental attribution error.
Answer
1 point: The fundamental attribution error occurs when we
are analyzing someone’s behavior.
Answer to Practice FRQ 2
2. Explain the difference between peripheral route
2 points: Student should explain any 2
of the following regarding peripheral
route persuasion:
persuasion and central route persuasion.
(4 points)
2 points: In order for the fundamental attribution error to
occur, the person analyzing must underestimate the role of
the situation and overestimate the disposition of the person
whose behavior is being analyzed.
Occurs when people are influenced
by incidental cues such as a
speaker’s attractiveness
Doesn’t engage in systematic
thinking
Involves making snap judgments
based on incidental cues
2 points: Student should explain any
2 of the following about central route
persuasion:
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Occurs when interested people
focus on the arguments and
respond with favorable thoughts
Occurs mostly when people are
naturally analytical or involved in
the issue
Offers evidence that aims to trigger
favorable thoughts
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Module 75
TEACH
Discussion Starter
Use the Module 75 Fact or Falsehood?
activity from the TRM to introduce the
concepts from this module.
Conformity and Obedience
Cusp/
Super
Stock
TR M
TRM
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Module Learning Objectives
75-1
Describe automatic mimicry, and explain how conformity
experiments reveal the power of social influence.
75-2
Describe what we learned about the power of social influence
from Milgram’s obedience experiments.
ENGAGE
“Have you ever noticed how one
example—good or bad—can
prompt others to follow? How
one illegally parked car can
give permission for others to do
likewise? How one racial joke can
fuel another?” -MARIAN WRIGHT
EDELMAN, THE MEASURE OF OUR
SUCCESS, 1992
Critical Questions
Students often underestimate the
influence of others on their behaviors.
As teens search for their own individual identity, they may deny that peer
pressure, conformity, and obedience
dictate many of their choices and
behaviors. Have students ponder the
following questions:
Why do you obey some rules and
disobey others at your school?
Have friends ever convinced you
to do something you knew was
wrong? To do something you knew
was right?
Do you consider yourself a
conformist? Nonconformist? Why?
Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures
Conforming to nonconformity
Are these students asserting their
individuality or identifying themselves
with others of the same microculture?
75-1
What is automatic mimicry, and how do conformity experiments
reveal the power of social influence?
Automatic Mimicry
Fish swim in schools. Birds fly in flocks. And humans, too,
tend to go with their group, to think what it thinks and
do what it does. Behavior is contagious. Chimpanzees are
more likely to yawn after observing another chimpanzee
yawn (Anderson et al., 2004). Ditto for humans. If one
of us yawns, laughs, coughs, stares at the sky, or checks
a cell phone, others in our group will soon do the same.
Like the chameleon lizards that take on the color of their
surroundings, we humans take on the emotional tones
of those around us. Just hearing someone reading a neutral text in either a happy- or sad-sounding voice creates “mood contagion” in listeners (Neumann & Strack,
2000). We are natural mimics, unconsciously imitating
others’ expressions, postures, and voice tones.
Ted Horowitz/CORBIS
S
ocial psychology’s great lesson is the enormous power of social influence. This influence can be seen in our conformity, our obedience to authority, and our group behavior. Suicides, bomb threats, airplane hijackings, and UFO sightings all have a curious
tendency to come in clusters. On most high school campuses, jeans are the dress code; on
New York’s Wall Street or London’s Bond Street, dress suits are the norm. When we know
how to act, how to groom, how to talk, life functions smoothly. Armed with social influence
principles, advertisers, fundraisers, and campaign workers aim to sway our decisions to buy,
to donate, to vote. Isolated with others who share their grievances, dissenters may gradually become rebels, and rebels may become terrorists. Let’s examine the pull of these social
strings. How strong are they? How do they operate? When do we break them?
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ENGAGE
Critical Questions
Conformity is a controversial issue among
teens who want to fit in, but who also want to
be distinct individuals. Have students discuss
conformity in your school:
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Are the majority of students conformists or
nonconformists? Why?
Is there pressure among students at your
school to dress a certain way or like certain
types of music? Why or why not?
Was there more pressure to conform in
middle school as compared to high school?
Why or why not?
Where is the line between conformity
and nonconformity? Is a group of
nonconformists conforming to each other
or nonconforming against society?
Social Psychology
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Conformity and Obedience
Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh captured this mimicry, which they call the chameleon
effect (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). They had students work in a room alongside another person, who was actually a confederate working for the experimenters. Sometimes the confederates rubbed their own face. Sometimes they shook their foot. Sure enough, the students
tended to rub their face when with the face-rubbing person and shake their foot when with
the foot-shaking person. Other studies have found people synchronizing their grammar to
match material they are reading or people they are hearing (Ireland & Pennebaker, 2010).
Perhaps we should not be surprised then that intricate studies show that obesity, sleep loss,
drug use, loneliness, and happiness spread through social networks (Christakis & Fowler,
2009). We and our friends form a social system.
Automatic mimicry helps us to empathize—to feel what others are feeling. This helps
explain why we feel happier around happy people than around depressed people. It also
helps explain why studies of groups of British nurses and accountants have revealed mood
linkage—sharing up and down moods (Totterdell et al., 1998). Empathic people yawn more
after seeing others yawn (Morrison, 2007). And empathic mimicking fosters fondness (van
Baaren et al., 2003, 2004). Perhaps you’ve noticed that when someone nods their head as
you do and echoes your words, you feel a certain rapport and liking?
Suggestibility and mimicry sometimes lead to tragedy. In the eight days following the
1999 shooting rampage at Colorado’s Columbine High School, every U.S. state except Vermont experienced threats of copycat violence. Pennsylvania alone recorded 60 such threats
(Cooper, 1999). Sociologist David Phillips and his colleagues (1985, 1989) found that suicides, too, sometimes increase following a highly publicized suicide. In the wake of screen
idol Marilyn Monroe’s suicide on August 5, 1962, for example, the number of suicides in the
United States exceeded the usual August count by 200.
What causes behavior clusters? Do people act similarly because of their influence on
one another? Or because they are simultaneously exposed to the same events and conditions? Seeking answers to such questions, social psychologists have conducted experiments
on group pressure and conformity.
Module 75
763
ENGAGE
TR M
TRM
Active Learning
If students believe that conformity is
not an issue for them, ask a question
to which you will likely get a totally
positive or negative response. How
many students raise their hands? Who
told them to raise their hands? While
this activity demonstrates the power
of conditioning, it also shows how
students conform to the behavior the
school demands from them—such
as raising your hand in response to a
teacher’s request.
Use Student Activity: Violating a
Social Norm from the TRM to help
students see the power of conformity.
“When I see synchrony and
mimicry—whether it concerns
yawning, laughing, dancing, or
aping—I see social connection
and bonding.” -PRIMATOLOGIST
FRANS DE WAAL “THE EMPATHY
INSTINCT,” 2009
Adapted from Stork, E. (1992). Operant
conditioning: Role in human behavior. In
M. Sullivan, C. Blair-Broeker, T. Lindenberg,
& A. Carlisle (Eds.), Learning. Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association.
Universal Press Syndicate
TEACH
Concept Connections
Point out that even though chameleon effect is not a bolded key term,
it is important to remember. Connect this concept to mirror neurons,
discussed in Unit VI.
Conformity and Social Norms
Suggestibility and mimicry are subtle types of conformity—adjusting our behavior or
thinking toward some group standard. To study conformity, Solomon Asch (1955) devised a
simple test. As a participant in what you believe is a study of visual perception, you arrive in
time to take a seat at a table with five other people. The experimenter asks the group to state,
one by one, which of three comparison lines is identical to a standard line. You see clearly
that the answer is Line 2, and you await your turn to say so. Your boredom begins to show
when the next set of lines proves equally easy.
Now comes the third trial, and the correct answer seems just as clear-cut (FIGURE
75.1 on the next page). But the first person gives what strikes you as a wrong answer:
“Line 3.” When the second person and then the third and fourth give the same wrong
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conformity adjusting our
behavior or thinking to coincide
with a group standard.
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ENGAGE
Active Learning
Copycat crimes are a concern for law enforcement officials. Contact a local police station
and ask how it tries to limit the possibility of
copycat crimes:
Do the police sometimes limit the amount
of press coverage of particular crimes? Why
or why not? If so, how?
If a criminal is still at large, how can the
police tell if a crime is a copycat crime
or one that has been committed by the
original suspect?
What can schools learn from the police
about limiting copycat crimes or copycat
suicides?
Conformity and Obedience
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
William Vendivert/Scientific American
TEACH
Teaching Tip
Have students note that the correct
answer among the comparison lines
in Figure 75.1 is quite obvious. There
should be no question as to which line
to choose, but the power of conformity to a group may lead normally
confident people to choose the wrong
answer instead of the right one.
1
Standard line
Figure 75.1
Asch’s conformity experiments
Which of the three comparison lines
is equal to the standard line? What
do you suppose most people would
say after hearing five others say, “Line
3”? In this photo from one of Asch’s
experiments, the student in the center
shows the severe discomfort that
comes from disagreeing with the
responses of other group members
(in this case, accomplices of the
experimenter).
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Begin to yawn in class. Count how
many other students then yawn. Try
these alternate activities:
2
3
Comparison lines
answer, you sit up straight and squint. When the fifth person agrees with the first four, you
feel your heart begin to pound. The experimenter then looks to you for your answer. Torn
between the unanimity voiced by the five others and the evidence of your own eyes, you
feel tense and suddenly unsure. You hesitate before answering, wondering whether you
should suffer the discomfort of being the oddball. What answer do you give?
In Asch’s experiments, college students, answering questions alone, erred less than 1
percent of the time. But what about when several others—confederates working for the experimenter—answered incorrectly? Although most people told the truth even when others
did not, Asch was disturbed by his result: More than one-third of the time, these “intelligent
and well-meaning” college students were then “willing to call white black” by going along
with the group.
Later investigations have not always found as much conformity as Asch found, but they
have revealed that we are more likely to conform when we
Stand outside your school and
look up at the building. Have an
observer count how many people
join in.
•
are made to feel incompetent or insecure.
•
are in a group with at least three people.
•
are in a group in which everyone else agrees. (If just one other person disagrees, the
odds of our disagreeing greatly increase.)
•
admire the group’s status and attractiveness.
Go to a public place and start
yawning. Have an observer count
the number of people who then
yawn.
•
have not made a prior commitment to any response.
•
know that others in the group will observe our behavior.
•
are from a culture that strongly encourages respect for social standards.
Set up a booth to give away a
pamphlet or some ballpoint
pens. See how many people stop
by during a certain time period.
Then ask several fellow students
to congregate around the booth,
posing questions and taking the
free items. In the same time period
as before, count how many people
stop by.
normative social influence
influence resulting from a person’s
desire to gain approval or avoid
disapproval.
informational social influence
influence resulting from one’s
willingness to accept others’
opinions about reality.
Why do we so often think what others think and do what they do? Why in college residence halls do students’ attitudes become more similar to those living near them (Cullum &
Harton, 2007)? Why in college classrooms are hand-raised answers to controversial questions less diverse than anonymous electronic clicker responses (Stowell et al., 2010)? Why
do we clap when others clap, eat as others eat, believe what others believe, say what others
say, even see what others see?
Frequently, we conform to avoid rejection or to gain social approval. In such cases, we
are responding to normative social influence. We are sensitive to social norms—understood rules for accepted and expected behavior—because the price we pay for being different can be severe. We need to belong. To get along, we go along.
At other times, we conform because we want to be accurate. Groups provide information, and only an uncommonly stubborn person will never listen to others. “Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth,” observed Joseph Joubert, an eighteenth-century French essayist. When we accept others’ opinions about reality,
we are responding to informational social influence. As Rebecca Denton demonstrated
in 2004, sometimes it pays to assume others are right and to follow their lead. Denton set a
record for the furthest distance driven on the wrong side of a British divided highway—30
miles, with only one minor sideswipe, before the motorway ran out and police were able
TEACH
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod75_B.indd 764
Teaching Tip
Ask your students to consider an ethical issue,
such as cheating or bullying another student,
where they might need to stand up to the
majority in order to do the right thing. Would
they vote their consciences or go with the
crowd? Discuss what personal qualities and
situations may make a person more likely to
act according to his or her conscience.
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Unit XIV
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TEACH
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Flip It
Students can get additional help understanding how norms influence behavior by watching
the Flip It Video: Normative Social Influence.
Social Psychology
3/5/14 12:43 PM
MyersAP_SE_2e
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765
to puncture her tires. Denton, who was intoxicated, later explained that
she thought the hundreds of other drivers coming at her were all on the
wrong side of the road (Woolcock, 2004).
Is conformity good or bad? The answer depends partly on our culturally influenced values. Western Europeans and people in most Englishspeaking countries tend to prize individualism. People in many Asian,
African, and Latin American countries place a higher value on honoring group standards. In social influence experiments across 17 countries,
“I love the little ways you’re identical to everyone else.”
conformity rates have been lower in individualist cultures (Bond & Smith,
1996). American university students, for example, tend to see themselves, in domains ranging from consumer purchases to political views, as less conforming than others (Pronin et al.,
2007). We are, in our own eyes, individuals amid a crowd of sheep.
© The New Yorker Collection, 2006,
Mike Twohy from cartoonbank.com.
All Rights Reserved.
Conformity and Obedience
Obedience: Following Orders
75-2
What did Milgram’s obedience experiments teach us about the power
of social influence?
Social psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974), a student of Solomon Asch, knew that
people often give in to social pressures. But how would they respond to outright commands? To find out, he undertook what became social psychology’s most famous, controversial, and influential experiments (Benjamin & Simpson, 2009).
Imagine yourself as one of the nearly 1000 people who took part in Milgram’s 20 experiments. You respond to an advertisement for participants in a Yale University psychology study
of the effect of punishment on learning. Professor Milgram’s assistant asks you and another
person to draw slips from a hat to see who will be the “teacher” and who will be the “learner.”
You draw the “teacher” slip and are asked to sit down in front of a machine, which has a series
of labeled switches. The learner, a mild and submissive-seeming man, is led to an adjoining
room and strapped into a chair. From the chair, wires run through the wall to “your” machine.
You are given your task: Teach and then test the learner on a list of word pairs. If the learner
gives a wrong answer, you are to flip a switch to deliver a brief electric shock. For the first
wrong answer, you will flip the switch labeled “15 Volts—Slight Shock.” With each succeeding
error, you will move to the next higher voltage. The researcher demonstrates by flipping the
first switch. Lights flash, relay switches click on, and an electric buzzing fills the air.
The experiment begins, and you deliver the shocks after the first and second wrong answers. If you continue, you hear the learner grunt when you flick the third, fourth, and fifth
switches. After you activate the eighth switch (“120 Volts—Moderate Shock”), the learner
cries out that the shocks are painful. After the tenth switch (“150 Volts—Strong Shock”), he
begins shouting. “Get me out of here! I won’t be in the experiment anymore! I refuse to go
on!” You draw back, but the stern experimenter prods you: “Please continue—the experiment requires that you continue.” You resist, but the experimenter insists, “It is absolutely
essential that you continue,” or “You have no other choice, you must go on.”
If you obey, you hear the learner shriek in apparent agony as you continue to raise the
shock level after each new error. After the 330-volt level, the learner refuses to answer and
falls silent. Still, the experimenter pushes you toward the final, 450-volt switch. Ask the
question, he says, and if no correct answer is given, administer the next shock level.
Would you follow the experimenter’s commands to shock someone? At what level
would you refuse to obey? Milgram asked that question in a survey before he started his
experiments. Most people were sure they would stop playing such a sadistic-seeming role
soon after the learner first indicated pain, certainly before he shrieked in agony. Forty psychiatrists agreed with that prediction when Milgram asked them. Were the predictions accurate? Not even close. When Milgram conducted the experiment with men aged 20 to
50, he was astonished. More than 60 percent complied fully—right up to the last switch.
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A P ® E x a m Ti p
Three of the most famous
research projects in psychology
were done by social
psychologists, and you’ve now
read about them all. Milgram,
Asch, and Zimbardo (from the last
module) are all likely to appear on
the AP® exam.
ENGAGE
Critical Questions
Most people will yield to the majority opinion even when it conflicts
with their own. When asked how we
would respond in the Asch situation, we predict that we would resist
group pressure. We underestimate the
power of social forces. Ask students to
imagine themselves violating some
less-than-earthshaking norms: standing in the middle of a class, greeting
some distinguished city officials by
their first names, munching popcorn
at a piano recital, wearing shorts to a
place of worship.
How would they feel in these
situations?
What consequences would they
endure for violating these norms?
Is that why they conform?
Stanley Milgram (1933–1984)
This social psychologist’s obedience
experiments “belong to the selfunderstanding of literate people in our
age” (Sabini, 1986).
1/21/14 10:30 AM
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Stanley Milgram asked his students to violate a
social norm, such as asking another passenger
for his or her seat on a city bus or subway. One
graduate student reported: “I just couldn’t go
on. It was one of the most difficult things I ever
did in my life.” Unconvinced, Milgram tried it
himself. He approached a seated passenger but
the words “seemed lodged in my trachea and
would simply not emerge. I stood there frozen,
then retreated, the mission unfulfilled.” He finally
choked out the request: “Excuse me, sir, may I
have your seat?” To Milgram’s surprise, the man
gave up his seat! In taking the seat, Milgram
observed, “I was overwhelmed by the need to
behave in a way that would justify my request.
My head sank between my knees. . . . I actually felt
as if I were going to perish.” Not until he left the
train did his tension dissipate. This experiment
demonstrated several social principles:
Enormous inhibitory anxiety ordinarily
prevents us from breaking social norms.
We have a powerful need to justify our
actions after violating a norm.
The power of immediate circumstances on
our feelings and behavior is immense.
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
ENGAGE
Percentage 100%
of participants
90
who obeyed
experimenter
80
Active Learning
Milgram completed his research
during a time when people were
dealing with the consequences of the
Holocaust and watching the televised
Nuremberg trials. Some believed that
the German people were evil, having
been complicit in the Holocaust,
and Milgram, himself a Jew, wanted
to demonstrate the power of social
situations on behavior. Have students
research this particularly painful time
in world history:
What techniques did Hitler and
his propaganda officials use to
convince the German people to
remain silent in the face of the
Holocaust?
Highlight some examples of
German citizens who tried to save
Jews from the genocide. Why were
these people able to disobey?
70
60
50
40
The majority of
participants continued
to obey to the end
30
20
10
0
Slight
(15–60)
Moderate
(75–120)
Strong
(135–180)
Very
strong
(195–240)
Figure 75.2
Milgram’s follow-up obedience
experiment In a repeat of the
earlier experiment, 65 percent of the
adult male “teachers” fully obeyed
the experimenter’s commands to
continue. They did so despite the
“learner’s” earlier mention of a heart
condition and despite hearing cries
of protest after they administered
what they thought were 150 volts and
agonized protests after 330 volts.
(Data from Milgram, 1974.)
Intense
(255–300)
Extreme
intensity
(315–360)
Danger:
severe
(375–420)
XXX
(435–450)
Shock levels in volts
Even when Milgram ran a new study, with 40 new teachers, and the learner complained
of a “slight heart condition,” the results were similar. A full 65 percent of the new teachers
obeyed every one of the experimenter’s commands, right up to 450 volts (FIGURE 75.2).
Cultures change over time. Are people today less likely to obey an order to hurt someone? To find out, Jerry Burger (2009) replicated Milgram’s basic experiment. Seventy percent
of the participants obeyed up to the 150-volt point, a slight reduction from Milgram’s result.
And in a French reality TV show replication, 80 percent of people, egged on by a cheering
audience, obeyed and tortured a screaming victim (de Moraes, 2010).
Could Milgram’s findings reflect some aspect of gender behavior found only in males?
No. In 10 later studies, women obeyed at rates similar to men’s (Blass, 1999).
Did the teachers figure out the hoax—that no real shock was being delivered and the
learner was in fact a confederate who was pretending to feel pain? Did they realize the
experiment was really testing their willingness to comply with commands to inflict punishment? No. The teachers typically displayed genuine distress: They perspired, trembled,
laughed nervously, and bit their lips.
Milgram’s use of deception and stress triggered a debate over his research ethics. In
his own defense, Milgram pointed out that, after the participants learned of the deception
and actual research purposes, virtually none regretted taking part (though perhaps by then
the participants had reduced their dissonance). When 40 of the teachers who had agonized
most were later interviewed by a psychiatrist, none appeared to be suffering emotional aftereffects. All in all, said Milgram, the experiments provoked less enduring stress than university students experience when facing and failing big exams (Blass, 1996).
In later experiments, Milgram discovered some things that do influence people’s behavior. When he varied the situation, the percentage of participants who fully obeyed ranged
from 0 to 93 percent. Obedience was highest when
•
the person giving the orders was close at hand and was perceived to be a legitimate authority
figure. (Such was the case in 2005 when Temple University’s basketball coach sent a
250-pound bench player, Nehemiah Ingram, into a game with instructions to commit
“hard fouls.” Following orders, Ingram fouled out in four minutes after breaking an
opposing player’s right arm.)
•
the authority figure was supported by a prestigious institution. (Compliance was
somewhat lower when Milgram dissociated his experiments from Yale University.)
TEACH
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TR M
TRM
Unit XIV
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Teaching Tip
Subjects in Milgram’s studies were actually
sheep, not wolves. Milgram designed an
alternative experiment in which the “teacher”
could select any shock levels on the generator without coercion. Describe this procedure, asking students to make the following
predictions:
766
Stanley Milgram, from the film “Obedience.” Rights held by Alexandra Milgram
766
On average, what shock level did teachers
choose for the learner?
What percentage of teachers set the shock
at the highest setting of 450 volts?
Milgram reports that only one subject opted to
deliver the maximum shock, and in general the
shock level remained in the 45-volt to 60-volt
range. Students typically overestimate the level
of shock subjects would choose, believing they
are wolves, not sheep.
Use Student Activity: Would You Obey?
from the TRM to help students see the power
of authority.
Safer, M. (1980). Attributing evil to the subject, not
the situation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 6, 205–209.
Social Psychology
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MyersAP_SE_2e
Conformity and Obedience
•
AP/Wide World Photos, Inc.
the victim was depersonalized or at a distance,
even in another room. (Similarly, many soldiers
in combat either have not fired their rifles at an
enemy they can see, or have not aimed them
properly. Such refusals to kill were rare among
soldiers who were operating long-distance
artillery or aircraft weapons [Padgett, 1989].)
there were no role models for defiance. (Teachers
did not see any other participant disobey the
experimenter.)
The power of legitimate, close-at-hand authorities was apparent among those who followed orders
to carry out the Holocaust atrocities. Obedience alone
does not explain the Holocaust. Anti-Semitic ideology produced eager killers as well (Mastroianni, 2002). But obedience was a factor. In the
summer of 1942, nearly 500 middle-aged German reserve police officers were dispatched
to German-occupied Jozefow, Poland. On July 13, the group’s visibly upset commander
informed his recruits, mostly family men, of their orders. They were to round up the village’s Jews, who were said to be aiding the enemy. Able-bodied men would be sent to work
camps, and all the rest would be shot on the spot.
The commander gave the recruits a chance to refuse to participate in the executions.
Only about a dozen immediately refused. Within 17 hours, the remaining 485 officers killed
1500 helpless women, children, and elderly, shooting them in the back of the head as they
lay face down. Hearing the victims’ pleas, and seeing the gruesome results, some 20 percent
of the officers did eventually dissent, managing either to miss their victims or to wander
away and hide until the slaughter was over (Browning, 1992). In real life, as in Milgram’s experiments, those who resisted did so early, and they were the minority.
Another story was being played out in the French village of Le
Chambon. There, French Jews destined for deportation to Germany
were sheltered by villagers who openly defied orders to cooperate with
the “New Order.” The villagers’ Protestant ancestors had themselves
been persecuted, and their pastors taught them to “resist whenever
our adversaries will demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of
the Gospel” (Rochat, 1993). Ordered by police to give a list of sheltered
Jews, the head pastor modeled defiance: “I don’t know of Jews, I only
know of human beings.” Without realizing how long and terrible the
war would be, or how much punishment and poverty they would suffer, the resisters made an initial commitment to resist. Supported by
their beliefs, their role models, their interactions with one another, and
their own initial acts, they remained defiant to the war’s end.
Lest we presume that obedience is always evil and resistance is
always good, consider the obedience of British soldiers who, in 1852,
were traveling with civilians aboard the steamship Birkenhead. As they
neared their South African port, the Birkenhead became impaled on a
rock. To calm the passengers and permit an orderly exit of civilians via
the three available lifeboats, soldiers who were not assisting the passengers or working the pumps lined up at parade rest. “Steady, men!”
said their officer as the lifeboats pulled away. Heroically, no one frantically rushed to claim a lifeboat seat. As the boat sank, all were plunged into the sea, most to
be drowned or devoured by sharks. For almost a century, noted James Michener (1978), “the
Birkenhead drill remained the measure by which heroic behavior at sea was measured.”
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767
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ENGAGE
TEACH
Concept Connections
Discuss with students the ethical
issues that arise out of experiments
like Milgram’s obedience study:
Does the APA Ethics Code allow for
deception? Why or why not?
Would this study be approved
by an Institutional Review Board
today? Why or why not?
What responsibilities do
researchers have for the well-being
of participants?
Standing up for democracy
Some individuals—roughly one in three
in Milgram’s experiments—resist social
coercion, as did this unarmed man in
Beijing, by single-handedly challenging
an advancing line of tanks the day after
the 1989 Tiananmen Square student
uprising was suppressed.
For more information on the APA Ethics Code, visit www.apa.org/ethics.
The Argory, County Armagh, Northern Ireland/The Bridgeman Art Library
•
Module 75
The “Birkenhead drill” To calm
and give priority to passengers,
soldiers obeyed orders to line up on
deck as their ship sank.
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Enrichment
We can learn from the minority of Milgram’s
participants who chose to confront authority.
Gretchen Brandt, a young medical technician,
is one fascinating example. She emigrated from
Germany 5 years before the studies. Speaking
with a thick German accent, she coolly turned
to the experimenter at different points and
inquired, “Shall I continue?” At the delivery of
210 volts, she announced firmly, “Well, I’m sorry,
I don’t think we should continue.” In spite of
the experimenter’s prompts, she refused to go
further and the study ended. Gretchen never
appeared tense or nervous. She simply stated
that she “did not want to be responsible for any
harm to the learner.” Milgram notes that her
straightforward, courteous demeanor seemed
to make disobedience a simple and rational
deed. What made her different? Gretchen grew
to adolescence in Nazi Germany and, for the
greater part of her youth, was exposed to Hitler’s
propaganda. When asked about the influence of
her background, she simply remarked, “Perhaps
we have seen too much pain.”
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. New York:
Harper & Row.
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768
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Lessons From the Obedience Studies
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Most colleges and universities have
banned hazing for fraternities,
sororities, and clubs on campus. Why
does the practice still persist? Have
students contact university student
relations departments, fraternity and
sorority members, and alumni of
these organizations to discuss hazing
practices past and present:
“I was only following orders.”
-ADOLF EICHMANN, DIRECTOR OF
NAZI DEPORTATION OF JEWS TO
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
What are current university policies
regarding hazing? What sanctions
will be imposed on organizations
that practice hazing?
How did the university view hazing
in the past?
How do fraternities’ and sororities’
national organizations view
hazing?
Did alumni endure hazing? How
did they view it then? Would they
condone their children enduring
hazing?
“The normal reaction to an
abnormal situation is abnormal
behavior.” -JAMES WALLER,
BECOMING EVIL: HOW ORDINARY
PEOPLE COMMIT GENOCIDE AND MASS
KILLING, 2007
What do the Milgram experiments teach us about ourselves? How does flicking a shock
switch relate to everyday social behavior? Recall from Module 6 that psychological experiments aim not to re-create the literal behaviors of everyday life but to capture and explore
the underlying processes that shape those behaviors. Participants in the Milgram experiments confronted a dilemma we all face frequently: Do I adhere to my own standards, or do
I respond to others?
In these experiments and their modern replications, participants were torn. Should they
respond to the pleas of the victim or the orders of the experimenter? Their moral sense
warned them not to harm another, yet it also prompted them to obey the experimenter and
to be a good research participant. With kindness and obedience on a collision course, obedience usually won.
These experiments demonstrated that strong social influences can make people conform to falsehoods or capitulate to cruelty. Milgram saw this as the fundamental lesson of
this work: “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on
their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process” (1974, p. 6).
Focusing on the end point—450 volts, or someone’s real-life reprehensible deceit or
violence—we can hardly comprehend the inhumanity. But we ignore how they get there,
in tiny increments. Milgram did not entrap his teachers by asking them first to zap learners
with enough electricity to make their hair stand on end. Rather, he exploited the foot-inthe-door effect, beginning with a little tickle of electricity and escalating step by step. In the
minds of those throwing the switches, the small action became justified, making the next
act tolerable. In Jozefow and Le Chambon, as in Milgram’s experiments, those who resisted
usually did so early. After the first acts of compliance or resistance, attitudes began to follow
and justify behavior.
So it happens when people succumb, gradually, to evil. In any society, great evils sometimes grow out of people’s compliance with lesser evils. The Nazi leaders suspected that
most German civil servants would resist shooting or gassing Jews directly, but they found
them surprisingly willing to handle the paperwork of the Holocaust (Silver & Geller, 1978).
Milgram found a similar reaction in his experiments. When he asked 40 men to administer
the learning test while someone else did the shocking, 93 percent complied. Cruelty does
not require devilish villains. All it takes is ordinary people corrupted by an evil situation.
Ordinary students may follow orders to haze initiates into their group. Ordinary employees
may follow orders to produce and market harmful products. Ordinary soldiers may follow
orders to punish and then torture prisoners (Lankford, 2009).
Before You Move On
䉴 ASK YOURSELF
How have you found yourself conforming, or perhaps “conforming to nonconformity”? In
what ways have you seen others identifying themselves with those of the same culture or
microculture?
䉴 TEST YOURSELF
What types of situations have researchers found to be most likely to encourage obedience in
participants?
Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod75_B.indd 768
CLOSE & ASSESS
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Exit Assessment
Have students turn in an exit slip contrasting
obedience and conformity. Remind students
that these terms are related, but different.
Knowing the difference is important for the
AP® exam.
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Conformity and Obedience
Module 75
769
Module 75 Review
What is automatic mimicry, and how do
conformity experiments reveal the power of
social influence?
75-1
•
Automatic mimicry (the chameleon effect), our tendency
to unconsciously imitate others’ expressions, postures, and
voice tones, is a form of conformity.
•
Solomon Asch and others have found that we are most
likely to adjust our behavior or thinking to coincide
with a group standard when (a) we feel incompetent
or insecure, (b) our group has at least three people,
(c) everyone else agrees, (d) we admire the group’s status
and attractiveness, (e) we have not already committed to
another response, (f ) we know we are being observed,
and (g) our culture encourages respect for social
standards.
•
75-2
What did Milgram’s obedience experiments
teach us about the power of social
influence?
•
Stanley Milgram’s experiments—in which people
obeyed orders even when they thought they were
harming another person—demonstrated that strong
social influences can make ordinary people conform to
falsehoods or give in to cruelty.
•
Obedience was highest when (a) the person giving orders
was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority
figure; (b) the research was supported by a prestigious
institution; (c) the victim was depersonalized or at a
distance; and (d) there were no role models for defiance.
We may conform to gain approval (normative social
influence) or because we are willing to accept others’
opinions as new information (informational social
influence).
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Which of the following is an example of conformity?
a. Malik has had a series of dogs over the years. Each
has learned to curl up at his feet when he was
watching television.
b. Renee begins to buy the same brand of sweatshirt
that most of the kids in her school are wearing.
c. Jonah makes sure to arrive home before his curfew
because he knows he will be grounded if he doesn’t.
d. Yuri makes sure to arrive home before her curfew
because she does not want her parents to be
disappointed in her.
e. Terry cranks it up a notch during volleyball practice
because the team captain has been on her case for
not showing enough effort.
2. Groundbreaking research on obedience was conducted
by
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Albert Bandura.
Solomon Asch.
Philip Zimbardo.
Stanley Milgram.
John Bargh.
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3. Classic studies of obedience indicate that about
of the participants were willing to administer
what they believed to be 450-volt shocks to other
humans.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
one-tenth
one-half
one-third
one-fourth
two-thirds
Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
1. b
2. d
4. Obedience to authority when the authority figure is
asking someone to shock another person is highest
when
a. the person receiving orders has witnessed others
defy the authority figure.
b. the person receiving orders wonders whether the
person giving orders has legitimate authority.
c. the victim receiving the shocks is physically near the
person receiving orders.
d. the authority figure is from a prestigious institution.
e. the person receiving the orders is female.
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3. e
4. d
Module 75
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770
Answer to Practice FRQ 2
1 point: Milgram’s research placed
undue stress on the participants since
they believed they were administering
powerful shocks to another person.
Also, Milgram used deception in his
research. He told his participants
several things that were not true. For
example, it was untrue that the roles
of teacher and learner were assigned
by chance.
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Practice FRQs
1. Define conformity and obedience. Then, provide an
example of each.
Answer
1 point: Conformity is adjusting our behavior or thinking to
coincide with a group standard.
2. Stanley Milgram’s research on obedience triggered a
debate over ethics. Explain the concern and Milgram’s
defense.
(2 points)
1 point: Obedience is following the orders of an authority
figure.
1 point: Any correct example of conformity. Answers will
vary.
1 point: Any correct example of obedience. Answers will
vary.
1 point: Milgram noted that after
the participants learned the truth
behind the experiment, almost none
regretted taking part in it. Also, none
of the 40 teachers appeared to suffer
emotional aftereffects.
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Unit XIV
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Social Psychology
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MyersAP_SE_2e
Group Behavior
Module 76
771
TEACH
Module 76
Discussion Starter
s
/Corbi
emotix
mes Lu
mb/D
Group Behavior
TR M
TRM
Use the Module 76 Fact or Falsehood?
activity from the TRM to introduce the
concepts from this module.
76-1
Describe how our behavior is affected by the presence of others.
76-2
Explain group polarization and groupthink, and discuss the power
of the individual.
76-3
Describe how behavior is influenced by cultural norms.
76-1
How is our behavior affected by the presence of others?
TEACH
© Ja
Module Learning Objectives
Imagine yourself standing in a room, holding a fishing pole. Your task is to wind the reel as
fast as you can. On some occasions you wind in the presence of another participant who
is also winding as fast as possible. Will the other’s presence affect your own performance?
In one of social psychology’s first experiments, Norman Triplett (1898) found that adolescents would wind a fishing reel faster in the presence of someone doing the same thing.
He and later social psychologists studied how others’ presence affects our behavior. Group
influences operate in such simple groups—one person in the presence of another—and in
more complex groups.
Concept Connections
Relate social facilitation to test anxiety.
Although some people experience
anxiety any time they take a test, most
only do so if they are not prepared
for an assessment. Edward Thorndike
proposed the so-called Law of Readiness, which states in part that if a
person is not ready for a performance,
he or she will feel frustrated and
actively seek to avoid it. If the person
is prepared, then he or she will be willing and ready to perform.
A P ® E x a m Ti p
As you work through this material,
identify examples of group
behavior in your own life. Then,
compare your examples with a
classmate’s. This is a great way to
make psychology come alive and
to study effectively.
ENGAGE
Critical Questions
Social Facilitation
Triplett’s finding—of strengthened performance in others’ presence—is called social
facilitation. But on tougher tasks (learning nonsense syllables or solving complex multiplication problems), people perform worse when observers or others working on the
same task are present. Further studies revealed that the presence of others sometimes
helps and sometimes hinders performance (Guerin, 1986; Zajonc, 1965). Why? Because
when others observe us, we become aroused, and this arousal amplifies our other reactions. It strengthens our most likely response—the correct one on an easy task, an
incorrect one on a difficult task. Thus, expert pool players who made 71 percent of their
shots when alone made 80 percent when four people came to watch them (Michaels et
al., 1982). Poor shooters, who made 36 percent of their shots when alone, made only 25
percent when watched.
The energizing effect of an enthusiastic audience probably contributes to the home
advantage that has shown up in studies of more than a quarter-million college and professional athletic events in various countries (Jamieson, 2010). Home teams win about 6 in 10
games (somewhat fewer for baseball, cricket, and football, somewhat more for basketball,
rugby, and soccer—see TABLE 76.1 on the next page).
1/21/14 10:30 AM
TEACH
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod76_B.indd 771
If performance on tasks diminishes
when we are not good at that task,
consider the following scenarios:
social facilitation improved
performance on simple or welllearned tasks in the presence of
others.
Should students be able to
schedule their tests so that they
can take them when they feel
ready? Why or why not?
Should a student be allowed to
give an oral presentation in front
of the teacher or the class if he or
she believes the project isn’t very
good or is uncomfortable when
speaking in a public setting? Why
or why not?
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Flip It
Students can get additional help understanding how other people affect our behavior by
watching the Flip It Video: Social Facilitation
and Social Loafing.
Group Behavior
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© Spencer Grant/age fotostock
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TEACH
Concept Connections
The Yerkes–Dodson Law also
addresses how arousal impacts
performance (Unit VIII, Figure 37.2,
page 393). This law states that an optimal level of arousal needs to be present if we want to perform our best.
Too little arousal means performance
is half-hearted. Too much arousal
leads performance to be sloppy.
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Have students research your school’s
sports teams’ statistics. Do they notice
signs of social facilitation in the following stats?
Home wins versus away wins
for team sports such as football,
soccer, basketball, and baseball
Home wins versus away wins for
individual sports such as track,
wrestling, and cross-country
Individual records/best games
accomplished at home or away
for all sports. (For example, do
basketball players make more
free throws at home or away? Do
track athletes run faster at home
or away? Do football players
individually have higher stats for
home games or away games?)
Social Loafing
Social facilitation experiments test the effect of others’ presence on performance on an individual task, such as shooting pool. But what happens to performance when people perform
the task as a group? In a team tug-of-war, for example, do you suppose your effort would be
more than, less than, or the same as the effort you would exert in a one-on-one tug-of-war?
To find out, a University of Massachusetts research team asked blindfolded students “to pull
as hard as you can” on a rope. When they fooled the students into believing three others
were also pulling behind them, they exerted only 82 percent as much effort as when they
thought they were pulling alone (Ingham et al., 1974). And consider what happened when
blindfolded people seated in a group clapped or shouted as loud as they could while hearing (through headphones) other people clapping or shouting loudly (Latané, 1981). When
they thought they were part of a group effort, the participants produced about one-third less
noise than when clapping or shouting “alone.”
Ted Humble Smith/Getty Images
The point to remember: What you do
well, you are likely to do even better in
Team Sports
front of an audience, especially a friendly
audience. What you normally find difHome Team
ficult may seem all but impossible when
Games
Winning
you are being watched.
Sport
Studied
Percentage
Social facilitation also helps explain
Baseball
120,576
55.6%
a funny effect of crowding. Comedians
Cricket
513
57.0
and actors know that a “good house”
is a full one. Crowding triggers arousal,
American
which, as we have seen, strengthens
football
11,708
57.3
other reactions, too. Comedy routines
Ice hockey
50,739
59.5
that are mildly amusing to people in
an uncrowded room seem funnier in a
Basketball
30,174
62.9
densely packed room (Aiello et al., 1983;
Rugby
2,653
63.7
Freedman & Perlick, 1979). And in exSoccer
40,380
67.4
periments, when participants have been
seated close to one another, they liked
Source: From Jeremy Jamieson (2010).
a friendly person even more, an unfriendly person even less (Schiffenbauer
& Schiavo, 1976; Storms & Thomas, 1977). So, for an energetic class or event, choose a
room or set up seating that will just barely accommodate everyone.
Table 76.1 Home Advantage in
Working hard, or hardly
working? In group
projects, social loafing often
occurs, as individuals free
ride on the efforts of others.
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ENGAGE
Critical Questions
If social loafing in group work is such a problem, why do teachers still assign group work?
Have students brainstorm ways to minimize
social loafing in group projects:
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Unit XIV
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 772
Should teachers stop assigning group
projects altogether? Why or why not?
If group members must evaluate each
other, will that help minimize social loafing?
Why or why not?
Would assigning roles minimize social
loafing? Why or why not?
How can group members motivate each
other to their hardest during group work?
Social Psychology
3/5/14 12:43 PM
MyersAP_SE_2e
Group Behavior
•
People acting as part of a group feel less accountable, and therefore worry less about
what others think.
•
Group members may view their individual contributions as dispensable (Harkins &
Szymanski, 1989; Kerr & Bruun, 1983).
•
When group members share equally in the benefits, regardless of how much they
contribute, some may slack off (as you perhaps have observed on group assignments).
Unless highly motivated and strongly identified with the group, people may free ride
on others’ efforts.
773
Active Learning
deindividuation the loss of
self-awareness and self-restraint
occurring in group situations that
foster arousal and anonymity.
Deindividuation
We’ve seen that the presence of others can arouse people
(social facilitation), or it can diminish their feelings of responsibility (social loafing). But sometimes the presence of
others does both. The uninhibited behavior that results can
range from a food fight to vandalism or rioting. This process
of losing self-awareness and self-restraint, called deindividuation, often occurs when group participation makes people
both aroused and anonymous. In one experiment, New York
University women dressed in depersonalizing Ku Klux Klan–
style hoods. Compared with identifiable women in a control
group, the hooded women delivered twice as much electric
shock to a victim (Zimbardo, 1970). (As in all such experiments, the “victim” did not actually receive the shocks.)
Deindividuation thrives, for better or for worse, in many different settings. Tribal warriors who depersonalize themselves with face paints or masks are more likely than those
with exposed faces to kill, torture, or mutilate captured enemies (Watson, 1973). Online,
Internet trolls and bullies, who would never say “You’re so fake” to someone’s face, will
hide behind anonymity. Whether in a mob, at a rock concert, at a ballgame, or at worship,
when we shed self-awareness and self-restraint, we become more responsive to the group
experience—bad or good.
***
We have examined the conditions under which being in the presence of others can motivate
people to exert themselves or tempt them to free ride on the efforts of others, make easy
tasks easier and difficult tasks harder, and enhance humor or fuel mob violence. Research
also shows that interacting with others can similarly have both bad and good effects.
ENGAGE
social loafing the tendency for
people in a group to exert less effort
when pooling their efforts toward
attaining a common goal than
when individually accountable.
Lewis Whyld/PA Wire (Press Association via AP Images)
Bibb Latané and his colleagues (1981; Jackson & Williams, 1988) described this diminished effort as social loafing. Experiments in the United States, India, Thailand, Japan,
China, and Taiwan have recorded social loafing on various tasks, though it was especially
common among men in individualist cultures (Karau & Williams, 1993). What causes social
loafing? Three things:
Module 76
Take students to your school’s gym
and have some volunteers shoot baskets, with the rest of the class acting
as either a supportive home crowd
or a hostile away crowd (not too
hostile—only booing and distracting
behavior allowed). Ask one student to
record the number of shots each volunteer makes under each condition.
Do the volunteers perform
better under friendly or hostile
conditions?
How much experience does each
volunteer have shooting baskets?
Will a basketball team member
perform better under the “away
crowd” condition than someone
who has never played before? Why
or why not?
Deindividuation During England’s
2011 riots and looting, rioters were
disinhibited by social arousal and by
the anonymity provided by darkness
and their hoods and masks. Later,
some of those arrested expressed
bewilderment over their own behavior.
Group Polarization
What are group polarization and groupthink, and how much power do
we have as individuals?
76-2
Over time, initial differences between groups of college students tend to grow. If the firstyear students at College X tend to be artistic and those at College Y tend to be businesssavvy, those differences will probably be even greater by the time they graduate. Similarly,
gender differences tend to widen over time, as Eleanor Maccoby (2002) noted from her
decades of observing gender development. Girls talk more intimately than boys do and play
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ENGAGE
Critical Questions
Students may have seen news reports of sports
fans rioting after either winning or losing major
championship games. Have students come up
with reasons why this behavior occurs.
What types of actions does the crowd
engage in that are considered illegal?
How does deindividuation play into these
events?
Does alcohol use during sporting events
increase the effects of deindividuation?
Does dressing up or painting one’s face
increase or decrease the likelihood of
deindividuation?
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ENGAGE
and fantasize less aggressively; these differences will be amplified as boys and girls
interact mostly with their own gender.
High +4
like-minded, discussion strengthens its
In each case, the beliefs and attitudes
prevailing opinions. Talking over racial
+3
issues increased prejudice in a highwe bring to a group grow stronger as we
prejudice group of high school students
discuss them with like-minded others.
High-prejudice
and decreased it in a low-prejudice
+2
groups
This process, called group polarization,
group (Myers & Bishop, 1970).
Discussion among like-minded
can have beneficial results, as when it
+1
people tends to strengthen
preexisting attitudes
amplifies a sought-after spiritual awarePREJUDICE 0
ness or reinforces the resolve of those
in a self-help group. But it can also have
Low-prejudice
–1
groups
dire consequences. George Bishop and I
discovered that when high-prejudice stu–2
dents discussed racial issues, they became
–3
more prejudiced (FIGURE 76.1). (Lowprejudice students became even more acLow –4
cepting.) Thus ideological separation + deBefore discussion
After discussion
liberation = polarization between groups.
Group polarization can feed extremism and even suicide terrorism. Analysis of terrorist organizations around the world reveals that the terrorist mentality does not erupt sudgroup polarization
the enhancement of a group’s
denly, on a whim (McCauley, 2002; McCauley & Segal, 1987; Merari, 2002). It usually begins
prevailing inclinations through
slowly, among people who share a grievance. As they interact in isolation (sometimes with
discussion within the group.
other “brothers” and “sisters” in camps) their views grow more and more extreme. Increasingly, they categorize the world as “us” against “them” (Moghaddam, 2005; Qirko, 2004).
The like-minded echo chamber will continue to polarize people, speculated a 2006 U.S.
National Intelligence estimate: “We assess that the operational threat from self-radicalized
cells will grow.”
“What explains the rise of facism
When I got my start in social psychology with experiments on group polarization, I
in the 1930s? The emergence of
student radicalism in the 1960s?
never imagined the potential dangers, or the creative possibilities, of polarization in virThe growth of Islamic terrorism
tual groups. Electronic communication and social networking have created virtual town
in the 1990s?. . . The unifying
halls where people can isolate themselves from those whose perspective differs. People
theme is simple: When people
find themselves in groups of likeread blogs that reinforce their views, and those blogs link to kindred blogs (FIGURE 76.2).
minded types, they are especially
As the Internet connects the like-minded and pools their ideas, climate-change skeptics,
likely to move to extremes. [This]
those who believe they’ve been abducted by aliens, and conspiracy theorists find support for
is the phenomenon of group
their shared ideas and suspicions. White supremacists may become more racist. And militia
polarization.” -CASS SUNSTEIN,
GOING TO EXTREMES, 2009
members may become more terrorism prone. In the echo chambers of virtual worlds, as in
the real world, separation + conversation = polarization.
But the Internet-as-social-amplifier can also work for good. Social networking sites connect friends and family members sharing common interests or coping with challenges. Peacemakers, cancer survivors, and bereaved parents can find strength and solace from kindred
Figure 76.1
Group polarization If a group is
Active Learning
Divide students into 2 groups. Assign
to each group the side of an issue that
it must defend, whether group members believe in that position or not.
Give students 10–15 minutes to discuss the issue in their respective small
groups, and then let the 2 groups
debate it in class. Discuss their feelings
about the issue they addressed:
How did students feel about their
assigned positions on the issue
when they started discussion
within their groups?
Did their feelings about the issue
change as they discussed it within
their groups?
Did they become more defensive
about their positions during the
whole-class debate?
Use Student Activity: Group Polarization from the TRM for another
activity to put group polarization into
practice.
Figure 76.2
Like minds network in the
blogosphere Blue liberal blogs
link mostly to one another, as do red
conservative blogs. (The intervening
colors display links across the liberalconservative boundary.) Each blog’s
size reflects the number of other blogs
linking to it. (From Lazer et al., 2009.)
TEACH
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod76_B.indd 774
Lada Adamic and Natalie Glance. The political
blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. election: Divided they
blog. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop
on Link Discovery, pages 36–43, 2005.
TR M
TRM
Unit XIV Social Psychology
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Concept Connections
Link group polarization and deindividuation
by helping students see that being part of
a group can release people from individual
responsibility and often discourages critical thinking. Group polarization is fueled by
deindividuation.
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spirits. By amplifying shared concerns and ideas, Internet-enhanced communication can also
foster social ventures. (I know this personally from social networking with others with hearing
loss to transform U. S. assistive-listening technology.)
The point to remember: By linking and magnifying the inclinations of like-minded people, the Internet can be very, very bad, but also very, very good.
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Groupthink has impacted several
famous historical events. Have
students research the following
events, citing how groupthink was
either avoided or led to dreadful
consequences:
Groupthink
So group interaction can influence our personal decisions. Does it ever distort important
national decisions? Consider the “Bay of Pigs fiasco.” In 1961, President John F. Kennedy
and his advisers decided to invade Cuba with 1400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles. When the
invaders were easily captured and soon linked to the U.S. government, Kennedy wondered
in hindsight, “How could we have been so stupid?”
Social psychologist Irving Janis (1982) studied the decision-making procedures leading to the ill-fated invasion. He discovered that the soaring morale of the recently elected
president and his advisers fostered undue confidence. To preserve the good feeling, group
members suppressed or self-censored their dissenting views, especially after President Kennedy voiced his enthusiasm for the scheme. Since no one spoke strongly against the idea,
everyone assumed the support was unanimous. To describe this harmonious but unrealistic
group thinking, Janis coined the term groupthink.
Later studies showed that groupthink—fed by overconfidence, conformity, selfjustification, and group polarization—contributed to other fiascos as well. Among them
were the failure to anticipate the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the escalation of the
Vietnam war; the U.S. Watergate cover-up; the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident (Reason,
1987); the U.S. space shuttle Challenger explosion (Esser & Lindoerfer, 1989); and the Iraq
war, launched on the false idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (U.S. Senate
Intelligence Committee, 2004).
Despite the dangers of groupthink, two heads are better than one in solving many
problems. Knowing this, Janis also studied instances in which U.S. presidents and their
advisers collectively made good decisions, such as when the Truman administration formulated the Marshall Plan, which offered assistance to Europe after World War II, and when the
Kennedy administration successfully prevented the Soviets from installing missiles in Cuba.
In such instances—and in the business world, too, Janis believed—groupthink is prevented
when a leader welcomes various opinions, invites experts’ critiques of developing plans,
and assigns people to identify possible problems. Just as the suppression of dissent bends
a group toward bad decisions, so open debate often shapes good ones. This is especially so
with diverse groups, whose varied perspectives often enable creative or superior outcomes
(Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007; Page, 2007). None of us is as smart as all of us.
The Power of Individuals
In affirming the power of social influence, we must not overlook the power of individuals. Social control (the power of the situation) and personal control (the power of
the individual) interact. People aren’t billiard balls. When feeling coerced, we may react
by doing the opposite of what is expected, thereby reasserting our sense of freedom
(Brehm & Brehm, 1981).
Committed individuals can sway the majority and make social history. Were this not so,
communism would have remained an obscure theory, Christianity would be a small Middle
Eastern sect, and Rosa Parks’ refusal to sit at the back of the bus would not have ignited the
U.S. civil rights movement. Technological history, too, is often made by innovative minorities
who overcome the majority’s resistance to change. To many, the railroad was a nonsensical
idea; some farmers even feared that train noise would prevent hens from laying eggs. People
1/21/14 10:30 AM
TEACH
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“One of the dangers in the White
House, based on my reading of
history, is that you get wrapped
up in groupthink and everybody
agrees with everything, and
there’s no discussion and there
are no dissenting views.” -BARACK
OBAMA, DECEMBER 1, 2008, PRESS
CONFERENCE
The space shuttle Columbia
disaster
The Bay of Pigs
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The Vietnam war
The run-up to the Iraq war
The Bernie Madoff scandal
“Truth springs from argument
among friends.” -PHILOSOPHER
DAVID HUME, 1711–1776
“If you have an apple and I have
an apple and we exchange apples
then you and I will still each
have one apple. But if you have
an idea and I have an idea and
we exchange these ideas, then
each of us will have two ideas.”
-ATTRIBUTED TO DRAMATIST GEORGE
BERNARD SHAW, 1856–1950
groupthink the mode of thinking
that occurs when the desire for
harmony in a decision-making
group overrides a realistic appraisal
of alternatives.
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Common Pitfalls
Ask students if they have ever experienced
groupthink or the pressure to conform. Students may confuse conformity and groupthink.
Help them distinguish between the 2 concepts
using these explanations:
Groupthink occurs when people suppress
their opinions (also known as selfcensoring) in order to maintain perceived
group harmony. In a groupthink situation,
someone does not want to become
the “odd one out.”
Groupthink also reflects the presence of a
charismatic leader. Everyone in the group
seems to be going along with the leader,
making it difficult for an individual to speak
out.
Conformity occurs simply when people
don’t want to be different. They are not
necessarily self-censoring. Rather, they
are going along due to normative or
informational social influence.
Group Behavior
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akg-images/Newscom
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ENGAGE
Active Learning
Have students do a character study of
famous individuals who stood up to
the majority to enact positive change,
exploring the qualities and beliefs
they possessed that enabled them
to stand firm. Encourage students to
find examples not found on the list
below that represent diverse cultural
backgrounds:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Che Guevara
William Wallace (whose story was
featured in the movie Braveheart)
Martin Luther
Galileo Galilei
Joan of Arc
Gandhi As the life of Hindu nationalist
and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi
powerfully testifies, a consistent
and persistent minority voice can
sometimes sway the majority.
Gandhi’s nonviolent appeals and fasts
were instrumental in winning India’s
independence from Britain in 1947.
culture the enduring behaviors,
ideas, attitudes, values, and
traditions shared by a group of
people and transmitted from one
generation to the next.
derided Robert Fulton’s steamboat as “Fulton’s Folly.” As Fulton
later said, “Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope,
a warm wish, cross my path.” Much the same reaction greeted
the printing press, the telegraph, the incandescent lamp, and the
typewriter (Cantril & Bumstead, 1960).
The power of one or two individuals to sway majorities is minority influence (Moscovici, 1985). In studies of groups in which
one or two individuals consistently express a controversial attitude or an unusual perceptual judgment, one finding repeatedly
stands out: When you are the minority, you are far more likely to
sway the majority if you hold firmly to your position and don’t
waffle. This tactic won’t make you popular, but it may make you
influential, especially if your self-confidence stimulates others to
consider why you react as you do. Even when a minority’s influence is not yet visible, people may privately develop sympathy
for the minority position and rethink their views (Wood et al.,
1994). The powers of social influence are enormous, but so are the powers of the committed individual.
Cultural Influences
76-3
How do cultural norms affect our behavior?
Compared with the narrow path taken by flies, fish, and foxes, the road along which environment drives us is wider. The mark of our species—nature’s great gift to us—is our ability to learn and adapt. We come equipped with a huge cerebral hard drive ready to receive
cultural software.
Culture is the behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of
people and transmitted from one generation to the next (Brislin, 1988; Cohen, 2009). Human nature, notes Roy Baumeister (2005), seems designed for culture. We are social animals,
but more. Wolves are social animals; they live and hunt in packs. Ants are incessantly social,
never alone. But “culture is a better way of being social,” notes Baumeister. Wolves function
pretty much as they did 10,000 years ago. You and I enjoy things unknown to most of our
century-ago ancestors, including electricity, indoor plumbing, antibiotics, and the Internet.
Culture works.
Other animals exhibit the rudiments of culture. Primates have local customs of tool use,
grooming, and courtship. Younger chimpanzees and macaque monkeys sometimes invent
customs—potato washing, in one famous example—and pass them on to their peers and
offspring. But human culture does more. It supports our species’ survival and reproduction
by enabling social and economic systems that give us an edge.
Thanks to our mastery of language, we humans enjoy the preservation of innovation.
Within the span of this day, I have, thanks to my culture, made good use of Post-it Notes,
Google, and digital hearing technology. Moreover, culture enables an efficient division of
labor. Although one lucky person gets his name on this book’s cover, the product actually
results from the coordination and commitment of a team of people, no one of whom could
produce it alone.
Across cultures, we differ in our language, our monetary systems, our sports, which
fork—if any—we eat with, even which side of the road we drive on. But beneath these differences is our great similarity—our capacity for culture. Culture transmits the customs and
beliefs that enable us to communicate, to exchange money for things, to play, to eat, and to
drive with agreed-upon rules and without crashing into one another.
TEACH
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Concept Connections
David Matsumoto defines culture not as
nationalities or ethnic groups; he connects it to
shared experiences. He says that the influential
factors for determining a culture are:
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Relative affluence. The relative wealth of
people in a culture helps distinguish them
from others.
Population density. The conditions under
which people live (crowded apartment
buildings or wide, open prairies) help
distinguish cultural groups.
Technology access. How accessible
technology (computers versus hand tools)
is helps determine culture.
Climate. Cultural practices can be largely
determined by climate conditions—arid or
wet, hot or cold.
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Variation Across Cultures
TEACH
Teaching Tip
norm an understood rule for
accepted and expected behavior.
Norms prescribe “proper” behavior.
Have students explore cultural-specific behaviors and customs. They can
interview people from a single culture,
look up information about that culture
on the Internet, or research different
books that contain cultural information. The differences in culture that
are uncovered should help students
understand diverse cultural traditions.
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Have students conduct an informal
survey of their friends, family, and
neighbors to see what behaviors or
customs they consider to be rude
within their cultures:
© The New Yorker Collection, 2010, Harry Bliss from cartoonbank.com.
All Rights Reserved
We see our adaptability in cultural variations among our beliefs and our values, in how we
raise our children and bury our dead, and in what we wear (or whether we wear anything
at all). I am ever mindful that the readers of this book are culturally diverse. You and your
ancestors reach from Australia to Africa and from Singapore to Sweden.
Riding along with a unified culture is like biking with the wind: As it carries us along,
we hardly notice it is there. When we try riding against the wind, we feel its force. Face to
face with a different culture, we become aware of the cultural winds. Stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, American and European soldiers were reminded how liberal their
home cultures were.
Humans in varied cultures nevertheless share some basic moral ideas, as we noted
earlier. Even before they can walk, babies display a moral sense by showing disapproval
of what’s wrong or naughty (Bloom, 2010). Yet each cultural group also evolves its own
norms—rules for accepted and expected behavior. The British have a norm for orderly waiting in line. Many South Asians use only the right hand’s fingers for eating. Sometimes social
expectations seem oppressive: “Why should it matter how I dress?” Yet, norms grease the
social machinery and free us from self-preoccupation.
When cultures collide, their differing norms often befuddle. Should we greet people
by shaking hands or kissing each cheek? The answer depends on the surrounding culture.
Learning when to clap or bow, how to order at a new restaurant, and what sorts of gestures
and compliments are appropriate help us avoid accidental insults and embarrassment.
When we don’t understand what’s expected or accepted, we may experience culture shock.
People from Mediterranean cultures have perceived
northern Europeans as efficient but cold and preoccupied with punctuality (Triandis, 1981). People from
time-conscious Japan—where bank clocks keep exact time, pedestrians walk briskly, and postal clerks
fill requests speedily—have found themselves growing impatient when visiting Indonesia, where clocks
keep less accurate time and the pace of life is more
leisurely (Levine & Norenzayan, 1999). In adjusting to
their host countries, the first wave of U.S. Peace Corps
volunteers reported that two of their greatest culture
shocks, after the language differences, were the differing pace of life and the people’s differing sense of
punctuality (Spradley & Phillips, 1972).
What do you consider rude? Why
do you consider it rude?
What kind of politeness do you
expect from others? Why?
Do you confront people who are
rude or impolite? Why or why not?
Variation Over Time
Like biological creatures, cultures vary and compete for resources, and thus evolve over
time (Mesoudi, 2009). Consider how rapidly cultures may change. English poet Geoffrey
Chaucer (1342–1400) is separated from a modern Briton by only 25 generations, but the
two would converse with great difficulty. In the thin slice of history since 1960, most Western cultures have changed with remarkable speed. Middle-class people today fly to places
they once only read about. They enjoy the convenience of air-conditioned housing, online
shopping, anywhere-anytime electronic communication, and—enriched by doubled perperson real income—eating out more than twice as often as did their grandparents back
in the culture of 1960. Many minority groups enjoy expanded human rights. And, with
greater economic independence, today’s women more often marry for love and less often
endure abusive relationships (Circle of Prevention, 2002).
But some changes seem not so wonderfully positive. Had you fallen asleep in the
United States in 1960 and awakened today, you would open your eyes to a culture with
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Diversity Connections
Have students write a reflective paper about
their cultural experiences. Recall your first (or a
recent) experience of cultural difference. How
did it happen? How did you feel? Given the
importance of cultural context, explain how
the following may be considered ethnic and
cultural stumbling blocks:
Language and nonverbal communications
Ethnocentricity
Culture- and class-related values
Racism and stereotypes
Adapted from Ernst, R. M. (1997, January). A matter of
context. Presentation to the National Institute for the
Teaching of Psychology, St. Petersburg, FL.
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more divorce and depression.You would also find North Americans—like their counterparts
in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand—spending more hours at work, fewer hours with
friends and family, and fewer hours asleep (BLS, 2011; Putnam, 2000).
Whether we love or loathe these changes, we cannot fail to be impressed by their
breathtaking speed. And we cannot explain them by changes in the human gene pool,
which evolves far too slowly to account for high-speed cultural transformations. Cultures
vary. Cultures change. And cultures shape our lives.
CLOSE & ASSESS
Exit Assessment
As preparation for the AP® exam, have
students explain how a group can be
positively and negatively influenced in
a short paper. Students should be able
to accurately describe social facilitation and, at times, group polarization
on the positive side and social loafing,
deindividuation, and groupthink on
the negative side.
Before You Move On
c ASK YOURSELF
What two examples of social influence have you experienced this week? (Remember,
influence may be informational.)
c TEST YOURSELF
You are organizing a Town Hall–style meeting of fiercely competitive political candidates.
To add to the fun, friends have suggested handing out masks of the candidates’ faces for
supporters to wear. What phenomenon might these masks engage?
Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.
Module 76 Review
76-1
How is our behavior affected by the
presence of others?
In social facilitation, the mere presence of others arouses
us, improving our performance on easy or well-learned
tasks but decreasing it on difficult ones.
•
A culture is a set of behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and
traditions shared by a group and transmitted from one
generation to the next.
•
In social loafing, participating in a group project makes us
feel less responsible, and we may free ride on others’ efforts.
•
Cultural norms are understood rules that inform members
of a culture about accepted and expected behaviors.
•
When the presence of others both arouses us and makes
us feel anonymous, we may experience deindividuation—
loss of self-awareness and self-restraint.
•
Cultures differ across time and space.
What are group polarization and groupthink,
and how much power do we have as
individuals?
•
In group polarization, group discussions with like-minded
others strengthen members’ prevailing beliefs and
attitudes. Internet communication magnifies this effect,
for better and for worse.
•
Groupthink is driven by a desire for harmony within a
decision-making group, overriding realistic appraisal of
alternatives.
•
The power of the individual and the power of the
situation interact. A small minority that consistently
expresses its views may sway the majority.
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How do cultural norms affect our behavior?
•
76-2
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76-3
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Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. What do we call the improved performance on simple or
well-learned tasks in the presence of others?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Social facilitation
Group behavior
Social loafing
Deindividuation
Group polarization
2. Which of the following terms or phrases best describes
the behavior of rowdy fans yelling obscenities at a
football or soccer referee after a controversial penalty has
been called?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Culture
Social facilitation
Groupthink
Deindividuation
Group polarization
3. Which of the following is most likely to occur when the
desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides
a realistic appraisal of alternatives?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Group polarization
Groupthink
Social loafing
Norming
Prejudice
Answer
1 point: People acting as part of a group feel less
accountable.
3. b
4. d
4. What do we call the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes,
values, and traditions shared by a group of people and
transmitted from one generation to the next?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Deindividuation
Norms
Social facilitation
Culture
Social control
Practice FRQs
1. Describe the three causes of social loafing.
1. a
2. d
Answer to Practice FRQ 2
2. Define groupthink and group polarization. Then, provide
1 point: Groupthink is the mode of
thinking that occurs when the desire
for harmony in a decision-making
group overrides a realistic appraisal of
alternatives.
an example of each.
(4 points)
1 point: Group members may view their individual
contributions as dispensable.
1 point: Unless highly motivated and strongly identified
with the group, people may free ride on others’ efforts.
1 point: Group polarization is the
enhancement of a group’s prevailing
inclinations through discussion within
the group.
1 point: Any correct example of
groupthink can earn credit. Answers
will vary.
1 point: Any correct example of group
polarization can earn credit. Answers
will vary.
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Discussion Starter
Prejudice and Discrimination
Module Learning Objectives
Teaching Tip
77-1
Define prejudice, and identify its social and emotional roots.
This unit primarily focuses on ways
in which groups influence behavior
negatively. Students may thus miss
the ways in which group influence
can be positive. Have students create
a chart in which they list the ways
in which groups influence individuals both positively and negatively.
This may help them understand the
nuances of these concepts.
77-2
Identify the cognitive roots of prejudice.
TEACH
Teaching Tip
Point out that even though ethnocentrism is not a bolded key term, it is
important to remember. This is a term
they may see on the AP® exam.
Paolo
TEACH
Bruno
/Getty
Use the Module 77 Fact or Falsehood?
activity from the TRM to introduce the
concepts from this module.
Module 77
Images
TEACH
Unit XIV Social Psychology
W
e have sampled how we think about and influence
one another. Now we come to social psychology’s
third focus—how we relate to one another. What
causes us to harm or to help or to fall in love? How can we move a
destructive conflict toward a just peace? We will ponder the bad and the good:
from prejudice and aggression to attraction, altruism, and peacemaking.
prejudice an unjustifiable and
usually negative attitude toward a
group and its members. Prejudice
generally involves stereotyped beliefs,
negative feelings, and a predisposition
to discriminatory action.
Prejudice
j
stereotype a generalized
(sometimes accurate but often
overgeneralized) belief about a
group of people.
Prejudice means “prejudgment.” It is an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward
a group—often a different cultural, ethnic, or gender group. Like all attitudes, prejudice is a
three-part mixture of
discrimination unjustifiable
negative behavior toward a group
and its members.
77-1
What is prejudice? What are its social and emotional roots?
•
beliefs (in this case, called stereotypes).
•
emotions (for example, hostility or fear).
•
predispositions to action (to discriminate).
Ethnocentrism—assuming the superiority of one’s ethnic group—is one example of prejudice. To believe that a person of another ethnicity is somehow inferior or threatening, to feel
dislike for that person, and to be hesitant to hire or date that person is to be prejudiced.
Prejudice is a negative attitude. Discrimination is a negative behavior.
FYI
Percentage of 2010 American
marriages to someone whose
race or ethnicity differed from
one’s own:
Whites
9%
Blacks
17%
Hispanics 26%
Asians
28%
Source: Wang, 2012
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How Prejudiced Are People?
To assess prejudice, we can observe what people say and what they do. Americans’ expressed gender and racial attitudes have changed dramatically in the last half-century.
The one-third of Americans who in 1937 told Gallup pollsters that they would vote for a
qualified woman whom their party nominated for president soared to 89 percent in 2007
(Gallup Brain, 2008; Jones & Moore, 2003). Nearly everyone now agrees that women and
men should receive the same pay for the same job, and that children of all races should
attend the same schools.
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Support for all forms of racial contact, including interracial dating (FIGURE 77.1), has
also dramatically increased. Among 18- to 29-year old Americans, 9 in 10 now say they
would be fine with a family member marrying someone of a different race (Pew, 2010).
Yet as overt prejudice wanes, subtle prejudice lingers. Despite increased verbal support
for interracial marriage, many people admit that in socially intimate settings (dating, dancing, marrying) they would feel uncomfortable with someone of another race. And many
people who say they would feel upset with someone making racist slurs actually, when hearing such racism, respond indifferently (Kawakami et al., 2009). In Western Europe, where
many “guest workers” and refugees settled at the end of the twentieth century, “modern
prejudice”—rejecting immigrant minorities as job applicants for supposedly nonracial reasons—has been replacing blatant prejudice (Jackson et al., 2001; Lester, 2004; Pettigrew,
1998, 2006). A slew of recent experiments illustrates that prejudice can be not only subtle
but also automatic and unconscious (see Close-up: Automatic Prejudice on the next page).
Nevertheless, overt prejudice persists in many places. Just ask Italy’s AC Milan soccer star Kevin-Prince Boateng (pictured at the beginning of this module), of Ghanaian
descent, who strode off the field in protest after being subjected to racial taunts from
spectators. And in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars, 4 in 10 Americans acknowledged “some feelings of prejudice against Muslims,” and
about half of non-Muslims in Western Europe and the United States perceived Muslims
as “violent” (Saad, 2006; Wike & Grim, 2007). With Americans feeling threatened by Arabs, and as opposition to Islamic mosques and immigration flared in 2010, one national
observer noted that “Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it
is still possible to demean openly” (Kristof, 2010; Lyons et al., 2010). Muslims reciprocated the negativity, with most in Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Britain seeing Westerners as
“greedy” and “immoral.”
In most places in the world, gays and lesbians cannot comfortably acknowledge who
they are and whom they love. Gender prejudice and discrimination persist, too. Despite
gender equality in intelligence scores, people have tended to perceive their fathers as
more intelligent than their mothers (Furnham & Rawles, 1995). In Saudi Arabia, women
are not allowed to drive. In Western countries, we pay more to those (usually men) who
care for our streets than to those (usually women) who care for our children. Worldwide,
women are more likely to live in poverty (Lipps, 1999), and two-thirds of illiterate adults
are women (CIA, 2010).
Unwanted female infants are no longer left out on a hillside to die of exposure, as
was the practice in ancient Greece. Yet natural female mortality and the normal maleto-female newborn ratio (105-to-100) hardly explain the world’s estimated 163 million
Support for
interracial
dating
100%
80
Born 1977+
Born 1965–76
Born 1946–64
70
Born 1928–45
90
Module 77
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A P ® E x a m Ti p
TEACH
It’s worth spending a little time
focusing on the distinction
between discrimination and
prejudice. They are related, but
different. The most important
thing to note is that prejudice is
cognitive in nature. Discrimination,
on the other hand, is behavior
motivated by prejudice.
“Unhappily, the world has yet to
learn how to live with diversity.”
-POPE JOHN PAUL II, ADDRESS TO THE
UNITED NATIONS, 1995
Adults who lived through the civil
rights movement know that prejudice
and discrimination involved clashes
among people of different racial
or ethnic groups. Today, students
are confronted with prejudice and
discrimination based on religion, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, and body
type. Help students see the varied
ways people hold prejudices and
discriminate against each other. This
will help them apply studies regarding
one type of prejudice with another.
ENGAGE
Enrichment
In 1942, less than one-third of whites
supported school integration. Today,
nearly everyone agrees that children
of all races should attend the same
schools. Still, prejudice persists.
Opinions about interracial contacts
reveal prejudice. In one survey, only
3 percent of whites indicated that
they didn’t want their children to
attend an integrated school, but 57
percent suggested that a Black son- or
daughter-in-law would make them
unhappy.
Figure 77.1
Prejudice over time Americans’
approval of interracial dating has
soared over the past quarter-century
(Pew, 2010).
60
50
40
Common Pitfalls
Born before 1928
30
Patterson, J., & Kim, P. (1991). The day
America told the truth. New York: Prentice
Hall.
20
10
0
1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Year
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Concept Connections
Link the discussion of prejudice to framing, as
discussed in Unit VII. People will respond in a
prejudiced fashion or not, depending on how
the situation is framed. If we are aware of the
effects of framing, we are less likely to succumb
to it.
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Close-up
ENGAGE
Automatic Prejudice
Have students prepare a 1- to 2-page
profile of one of the hate groups
described on the www.tolerance.org
site, which is a project of the Southern
Poverty Law Center.
How are the beliefs of this
particular group prejudiced?
What stereotypes does the group
embrace and against whom?
What type of discrimination is
recommended against the hated
group?
Does the First Amendment protect
this type of behavior? Why or why
not?
TEACH
TR M
TRM
Concept Connections
Link stereotyping to Jean Piaget’s concept of schema (Unit IX). As children,
we categorize the world around us
into schemas. We form schemas for
everything, from people to animals
to plants. When we learn something
new, we assimilate that information
into our existing schemas. When what
we learn conflicts with a schema,
we will need to adjust our schemas
through a process called accommodation. Hopefully, prejudiced schemas
are accommodated quickly when we
learn positive qualities about a person
or group of people!
Use Student Activity: Measuring
Stereotypes from the TRM to provide
an activity on how researchers measure stereotypes.
this killing of an unarmed man, two research teams reenacted the
situation (Correll et al., 2002, 2007; Greenwald et al., 2003). They
asked viewers to press buttons quickly to “shoot” or not shoot men
who suddenly appeared on screen. Some of the on-screen men
held a gun. Others held a harmless object, such as a flashlight or
bottle. People (both Blacks and Whites, in one study) more often
shot Black men holding the harmless objects. Priming people with
a flashed Black rather than White face also makes them more likely
to misperceive a flashed tool as a gun (FIGURE 77.2).
Reflexive Bodily Responses Even people who consciously
express little prejudice may give off telltale signals as their body
responds selectively to another’s race. Neuroscientists can detect
these signals when people look at White and Black faces. The
viewers’ implicit prejudice may show up in facial-muscle responses and in the activation of their emotion-processing amygdala
(Cunningham et al., 2004; Eberhardt, 2005; Stanley et al., 2008).
If your own gut check reveals you sometimes have feelings you
would rather not have about other people, remember this: It is what
we do with our feelings that matters. By monitoring our feelings and
actions, and by replacing old habits with new ones based on new
friendships, we can work to free ourselves from prejudice.
Stanislav Popov/Shutterstock
As we have seen throughout this book, the human mind processes thoughts, memories, and attitudes on two different tracks.
Sometimes that processing is explicit—on the radar screen of our
awareness. To an even greater extent, it is implicit—below the
radar, leaving us unaware of how our attitudes are influencing our
behavior. Modern studies indicate that prejudice is often implicit,
an automatic attitude that is an unthinking knee-jerk response.
Consider these findings:
Implicit Racial Associations Using Implicit Association Tests,
researchers have demonstrated that even people who deny harboring racial prejudice may carry negative associations (Greenwald et
al., 1998, 2009). (By 2011, nearly 5 million people had taken the
Implicit Association Test, as you can at www.implicit.harvard.edu.)
For example, 9 in 10 White respondents took longer to identify pleasant words (such as peace and paradise) as “good” when presented
with Black-sounding names (such as Latisha and Darnell) rather than
White-sounding names (such as Katie and Ian). Moreover, people
who more quickly associate good things with White names or faces
also are the quickest to perceive anger and apparent threat in Black
faces (Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003).
Although the test is useful for studying automatic prejudice,
critics caution against using it to assess or label individuals (Blanton et al., 2006, 2007, 2009). Defenders counter that implicit
biases predict behaviors that range from simple acts of friendliness to the evaluation of work quality (Greenwald et al., 2009).
In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, implicit as well as explicit
prejudice predicted voters’ support for candidate Barack Obama,
whose election in turn served to reduce implicit prejudice (Bernstein et al., 2010; Payne et al., 2010).
Unconscious Patronization When White university women
evaluated a flawed essay said to be written by a Black fellow student, they gave markedly higher ratings and never expressed the
harsh criticisms they assigned to flawed essays supposedly written by White students (Harber, 1998). Did the evaluators calibrate
their evaluations to their racial stereotypes, leading to less exacting standards and a patronizing attitude? In real-world evaluations, such low expectations and the resulting “inflated praise and
insufficient criticism” could hinder minority student achievement,
the researcher noted. (To preclude such bias, many teachers read
essays while “blind” to their authors.)
Race-Influenced Perceptions Our expectations influence
our perceptions. In 1999, Amadou Diallo was accosted as he approached his apartment house doorway by police officers looking
for a rapist. When he pulled out his wallet, the officers, perceiving a
gun, riddled his body with 19 bullets from 41 shots. Curious about
Inti St Clair/Blend Images/Corbis
Online Activities
(a)
Visual Mask
(b)
(c)
Figure 77.2 Race primes perceptions In experiments by Keith
Payne (2006), people viewed (a) a White or Black face, immediately
followed by (b) a gun or hand tool, which was then followed by (c) a
visual mask. Participants were more likely to misperceive a tool as a
gun when it was preceded by a Black rather than White face.
(say that number slowly) “missing women” (Hvistendahl, 2011). In many places, sons
are valued more than daughters. With testing that enables sex-selective abortions, several
Asian countries have experienced a shortfall in female births (FIGURE 77.3). Although
China has declared that sex-selective abortions—gender genocide—are now a criminal
offense, the country’s newborn sex ratio is still 118 boys for every 100 girls (Hvistendahl,
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TR M
TRM
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Online Activities
Students can test their own implicit prejudices
with the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT)
found online at http://implicit.harvard.edu.
The researchers have posted several versions
of the IAT, including items that test for age,
gender-career, Arab-Muslim, disability, Native
American/Alaska Native, race, religion, and
weight prejudices.
Use Student Activity: Implicit Association
Test from the TRM for a worksheet that students can use in conjunction with the Harvard
IAT.
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Percent boys
at birth
China
54%
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ENGAGE
Figure 77.3
Missing girls In several Asian
Active Learning
countries, especially in China, which
has mandated one-child families, boy
babies are overrepresented (Abrevaya,
2009). In China, this overrepresentation
still occurred in 2009: 54.5 percent
of babies were boys and only 45.5
percent were girls (Hvistendahl, 2010).
53
India
Divide students into homogeneous
groups according to race, gender, or
school group affiliation (band members, athletes, drama club members,
and the like). Have them write down
the positive and negative stereotypes others may associate with their
groups.
South Korea
52
United States
51
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
Year
Professor Dave Perrett, St. Andrews University
2009, 2010, 2011), and 95 percent of the children in Chinese orphanages are girls (Webley,
2009). With males under age 20 exceeding females by 32 million, many Chinese bachelors
will be unable to find mates (Zhu et al., 2009).
In the United States, a striking sex-ratio bias appears among Chinese, Korean, and
Asian Indian parents with a third child. Sons outnumber daughters by 50 percent after two
previous girl births. Given a previous boy birth, or given Caucasian parents, there is no sexratio bias (Almond & Edlund, 2008).
Studies have shown, however, that most people feel more positively about women
in general than they do about men (Eagly, 1994; Haddock & Zanna, 1994). Worldwide,
people see women as having some traits (such as nurturance, sensitivity, and less aggressiveness) that most people prefer (Glick et al., 2004; Swim, 1994). That may explain why
women tend to like women more than men like men (Rudman & Goodwin, 2004). And
perhaps that is also why people prefer slightly feminized computer-generated faces—
men’s and women’s—to slightly masculinized faces. Researcher David Perrett and his
colleagues (1998) have speculated that a slightly feminized male face connotes kindness,
cooperativeness, and other traits of a good father. When the British Broadcasting Corporation invited 18,000 women to guess which of the men in FIGURE 77.4 was most likely
to place a personal ad seeking a “special lady to love and cherish forever,” which one do
you think they picked?
Which aspects of your group’s
stereotype do you like? Which do
you not like?
Do all members of your group fit
the common stereotype? Why or
why not?
How can your group communicate
to others that all its members don’t
necessarily correspond to the
stereotype?
ENGAGE
TR M
TRM
What types of discrimination does
the law allow? Why? (Consider the
treatment of people with special
needs in school and affirmative
action in many arenas.)
What types of discrimination does
the law not allow? Why? (Consider
the applications people fill out when
registering to vote or applying for a
job. Most states prohibit employers
from asking about a person’s race on
a job application.)
What types of discrimination
does the law seem ambivalent
about? (Consider the vague areas,
for example, of age discrimination
and discrimination against people
because of their sexual orientation
or gender.)
one placed an ad seeking “a special
lady to love and cherish forever”?
(See answer below.)
Research suggests that subtly
feminized features convey a likable
image, which people tend to
associate more with committed dads
than with promiscuous cads. Thus,
66 percent of the women picked
computer-generated face (b) in
response to both of these questions.
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Active Learning
Have students research laws
that encourage and prohibit
discrimination.
Figure 77.4
Who do you like best? Which
(a)
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(b)
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Use Student Activity: Positions of
Privilege and Institutional Racism and
Student Activity: Institutional Discrimination from the TRM to help students
explore the effects of discrimination.
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TEACH
Unit XIV Social Psychology
just-world phenomenon
the tendency for people to believe
the world is just and that people
therefore get what they deserve and
deserve what they get.
Common Pitfalls
© The New Yorker Collection, 1981, Robert Mankoff from
cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Remind students that sometimes
having a group identity is desirable.
Sports teams and performing groups
like a choir or band would be less
effective if everyone didn’t dress the
same or bond on a personal level.
TEACH
Flip It
Students can get additional help
understanding biases by watching
the Flip It Video: Ingroup and Outgroup Bias.
“If the King destroys a man,
that’s proof to the King it must
have been a bad man.” -THOMAS
CROMWELL, IN ROBERT BOLT’S A MAN
FOR ALL SEASONS, 1960
Social Roots of Prejudice
Why does prejudice arise? Social inequalities and divisions are partly responsible.
SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
When some people have money, power, and prestige and others do not, the “haves” usually
develop attitudes that justify things as they are. The just-world phenomenon reflects an
idea we commonly teach our children—that good is rewarded
and evil is punished. From this it is but a short leap to assume
that those who succeed must be good and those who suffer
must be bad. Such reasoning enables the rich to see both their
own wealth and the poor’s misfortune as justly deserved.
Are women naturally unassertive and sensitive? This common perception suggests that women are well-suited for the
caretaking tasks they have traditionally performed (Hoffman
& Hurst, 1990). In an extreme case, slave “owners” perceived
slaves as innately lazy, ignorant, and irresponsible—as having
the very traits that justified enslaving them. Stereotypes rationalize inequalities.
Victims of discrimination may react with either self-blame or anger (Allport, 1954). Either reaction can feed prejudice through the classic blame-the-victim dynamic. Do the circumstances of poverty breed a higher crime rate? If so, that higher crime rate can be used to
justify discrimination against those who live in poverty.
US AND THEM: INGROUP AND OUTGROUP
ENGAGE
ingroup “Us”—people with
whom we share a common identity.
Active Learning
outgroup “Them”—those
perceived as different or apart from
our ingroup.
Illustrate how easy it is to fall victim to
ingroup bias. Divide the class on the
basis of some arbitrary characteristic
(wearing sneakers or having blue
eyes), making sure that at least onethird of the students are in a given
group. When you have defined the
groups, have them sit together. Ask
each group to compile a list of reasons
why those in the other groups are not
like them.
Each group usually begins by
listing neutral reasons, which quickly
become more derogatory. If the
groups overhear each other’s less
complimentary reasons, the hostility
heightens. At the end of the exercise,
the groups should share their lists.
Students quickly learn how easily we
categorize and develop ingroup bias.
Mueller, J. (1995, February 11). Teaching
about prejudice and discrimination. Teaching in the psychological sciences (TIPSOnline Discussion Group),
ingroup bias the tendency to
favor our own group.
Courtesy Hope College Public Relations
The ingroup Basketball fans, shown
here from my own college during a
game against their archrival, share a
social identity that defines “us” (the
ingroup) and “them” (the outgroup).
We have inherited our Stone Age ancestors’ need to belong, to live and love in groups. There
was safety in solidarity (those who didn’t band together left fewer descendants). Whether
hunting, defending, or attacking, 10 hands were better than 2. Dividing the world into “us”
and “them” entails racism and war, but it also provides the benefits of communal solidarity. Thus we cheer for our groups, kill for them, die for them. Indeed, we define who we are
partly in terms of our groups. Through our social identities we associate ourselves with certain groups and contrast ourselves with others (Hogg, 1996, 2006; Turner, 1987, 2007). When
Ian identifies himself as a man, an Aussie, a University of Sydney student, a Catholic, and a
MacGregor, he knows who he is, and so do we.
Evolution prepared us, when encountering strangers, to make instant judgments: friend
or foe? Those from our group, those who look like us, and also those who sound like us—
with accents like our own—we instantly tend to like, from childhood onward (Gluszek &
Dovidio, 2010; Kinzler et al., 2009). Mentally drawing a circle defines “us,” the ingroup. But
the social definition of who you are also states who you are
not. People outside that circle are “them,” the outgroup. An
ingroup bias—a favoring of our own group—soon follows.
Even arbitrarily creating us-them groups by tossing a coin creates this bias. In experiments, people have favored their own
group when dividing any rewards (Tajfel, 1982; Wilder, 1981).
The urge to distinguish enemies from friends predisposes prejudice against strangers (Whitley, 1999). To Greeks
of the classical era, all non-Greeks were “barbarians.” In our
own era, most students believe their school is better than
all other schools in town. Perhaps you can recall being most
conscious of your school identity when competing with an
archrival school. Many high school students form cliques—
jocks, gamers, stoners, theater types, LGBT supporters—and
disparage those outside their own group. Even chimpanzees
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ENGAGE
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Critical Questions
Most schools have loosely defined cliques that
separate people. Have students brainstorm about
the different cliques that exist in your school, noting particular behaviors that set each group apart:
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How many different cliques exist in your
school? What defines these groups?
How do these groups differentiate
themselves from others?
Where do these groups hang out during
down times at school? Where do they eat
lunch? If someone from another group or a
new kid enters their areas, how do they react?
Social Psychology
3/5/14 12:44 PM
MyersAP_SE_2e
Prejudice and Discrimination
have been seen to wipe clean the spot where they were touched by a chimpanzee from
another group (Goodall, 1986). They also display ingroup empathy, by yawning more after
seeing ingroup (rather than outgroup) members yawn (Campbell & de Waal, 2011).
Ingroup bias explains the cognitive power of partisanship (Cooper, 2010; Douthat,
2010). In the United States in the late 1980s, most Democrats believed inflation had risen
under Republican president Ronald Reagan (it had dropped). In 2010, most Republicans
believed that taxes had increased under Democrat president Barack Obama (for most, they
had decreased).
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
Prejudice springs not only from the divisions of society but also from the passions of the
heart. Scapegoat theory notes that when things go wrong, finding someone to blame can
provide a target for anger. Following 9/11, some outraged people lashed out at innocent
Arab-Americans. Others called for eliminating Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader whom
Americans had been grudgingly tolerating. “Fear and anger create aggression, and aggression against citizens of different ethnicity or race creates racism and, in turn, new forms of
terrorism,” noted Philip Zimbardo (2001). A decade after 9/11, anti-Muslim animosities still
flared, with mosque burnings and efforts to block an Islamic community center near New
York City’s Ground Zero.
Evidence for the scapegoat theory of prejudice comes from high prejudice levels among
economically frustrated people, and from experiments in which a temporary frustration intensifies prejudice. Students who experience failure or are made to feel insecure often restore
their self-esteem by disparaging a rival school or another person (Cialdini & Richardson,
1980; Crocker et al., 1987). To boost our own sense of status, it helps to have others to denigrate. That is why a rival’s misfortune sometimes provides a twinge of pleasure. By contrast,
those made to feel loved and supported become more open to and accepting of others who
differ (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2001).
Negative emotions nourish prejudice. When facing death, fearing threats, or experiencing
frustration, people cling more tightly to their ingroup and their friends. As the terror of death
heightens patriotism, it also produces loathing and aggression toward “them”—those who
threaten our world (Pyszczynski et al., 2002, 2008). The few individuals who lack fear and
its associated amygdala activity—such as children with the genetic disorder Williams syndrome—also display a notable lack of racial stereotypes and prejudice (Santos et al., 2010).
Module 77
785
TEACH
“For if [people were] to choose
out of all the customs in the world
[they would] end by preferring
their own.” -GREEK HISTORIAN
HERODOTUS, 440 B.C.E.
Diversity Connections
scapegoat theory the theory that
prejudice offers an outlet for anger
by providing someone to blame.
“If the Tiber reaches the walls,
if the Nile does not rise to the
fields, if the sky doesn’t move or
the Earth does, if there is famine,
if there is plague, the cry is at
once: ‘The Christians to the lion!’”
-TERTULLIAN, APOLOGETICUS, 197 C.E.
The term scapegoat derives from
the Hebrew tradition of Yom Kippur. According to the Torah, on Yom
Kippur, the Day of Atonement for the
people of Israel, the high priest designated a goat that would symbolically
bear the sins of the entire nation. This
goat would then be sent out into the
wilderness to fend for itself, carrying away the sins of the people for
another year.
“The misfortunes of others are the
taste of honey.” -JAPANESE SAYING
A P ® E x a m Ti p
Pause for a minute and try to
identify examples of the just-world
phenomenon, ingroup bias, and
scapegoating in your own school.
Are there a few or a lot?
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
77-2
What are the cognitive roots of prejudice?
Prejudice springs from a culture’s divisions, the heart’s passions, and also from the mind’s natural workings. Stereotyped beliefs are a by-product of how we cognitively simplify the world.
FORMING CATEGORIES
One way we simplify our world is to categorize. A chemist categorizes molecules as organic
and inorganic. A football coach categorizes offensive players as quarterbacks, running
backs, and wide receivers. Therapists categorize psychological disorders. Human beings
categorize people by race, with mixed-race people often assigned to their minority identity. Despite his mixed-race background and being raised by a White mother and White
grandparents, Barack Obama has been perceived by White Americans as Black. Researchers believe this happens because, after learning the features of a familiar racial group,
the observer’s selective attention is drawn to the distinctive features of the less-familiar
minority. Jamin Halberstadt and his colleagues (2011) illustrated this learned-association
effect by showing New Zealanders blended Chinese-Caucasian faces. Compared with
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
ENGAGE
Enrichment
The other-race effect (or outgroup
homogeneity) comes into play when
people offer descriptions of people
from other races. People tend to focus
on the traits that typically differentiate people within their own race.
For instance, White people tend to
focus on traits like hair and eye color
when describing others, which can be
meaningless when describing Blacks
or Asians, most of whom share similar
hair and eye color.
100% Chinese
80% Chinese
20% Caucasian
Figure 77.5
Categorizing mixed-race
people When New Zealanders
quickly classified 104 photos by race,
those of European descent more
often than those of Chinese descent
classified the ambiguous middle two
as Chinese (Halberstadt et al., 2011).
TEACH
Concept Connections
Remind students that the term for
making judgments based on vivid
cases is availability heuristic (Unit VII).
Some adults believe physical illness
can be a payback for bad behavior.
Even victims themselves may attribute
their serious illnesses to bad choices.
Just weeks before his death from pancreatic cancer, actor Michael Landon
stated,
I think I have it because for most of
my life, though I was never a drunk,
I drank too much. I also smoked
too many cigarettes and ate a lot of
wrong things. And if you do that,
even if you think you are too strong
to get anything, somehow you’re
going to pay.
20% Chinese
80% Caucasian
100% Caucasian
participants of Chinese descent, European-descent New Zealanders more readily classified ambiguous faces as Chinese (see FIGURE 77.5).
In categorizing people into groups, however, we often stereotype them. We recognize how
greatly we differ from other individuals in our groups. But we overestimate the homogeneity of
other groups (we perceive outgroup homogeneity). “They”—the members of some other group—
seem to look and act alike, while “we” are more diverse (Bothwell et al., 1989). To those in one
ethnic group, members of another often seem more alike than they really are in attitudes, personality, and appearance. Our greater recognition for faces of our own race—called the otherrace effect (also called the cross-race effect or own-race bias)—emerges during infancy,
between 3 and 9 months of age (Gross, 2009; Kelly et al., 2007).
With effort and with experience, people get better at recognizing individual
faces from another group (Hugenberg et al., 2010). People of European descent, for
example, more accurately identify individual African faces if they have watched a
great deal of basketball on television, exposing them to many African-heritage faces
(Li et al., 1996). And the longer Chinese people have resided in a Western country,
the less they exhibit the other-race effect (Hancock & Rhodes, 2008).
As we saw in Module 35’s discussion of the availability heuristic, we often judge the
frequency of events by instances that readily come to mind. In a classic experiment,
researchers showed two groups of University of Oregon students lists containing
information about 50 men (Rothbart et al., 1978). The first group’s list included 10
men arrested for nonviolent crimes, such as forgery. The second group’s list included
10 men arrested for violent crimes, such as assault. Later, both groups were asked
how many men on their list had committed any sort of crime. The second group
overestimated the number. Vivid (violent) cases are more readily available to our memory
and feed our stereotypes (FIGURE 77.6).
© Dave Coverly
Critical Questions
40% Chinese
60% Caucasian
REMEMBERING VIVID CASES
other-race effect the tendency
to recall faces of one’s own race
more accurately than faces of other
races. Also called the cross-race effect
or the own-race bias.
ENGAGE
60% Chinese
40% Caucasian
Dr. Jamin Halberstadt, Steven J. Sherman, Jeff
Sherman, and Gillian Rhodes
786
BELIEVING THE WORLD IS JUST
As we noted earlier, people often justify their prejudices by blaming victims. If the world is
just, “people must get what they deserve.” As one German civilian is said to have remarked
when visiting the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly after World War II, “What terrible criminals these prisoners must have been to receive such treatment.”
Figure 77.6
Vivid cases feed stereotypes The 9/11 Muslim
terrorists created, in many minds, an exaggerated
stereotype of Muslims as terrorism prone. Actually,
reported a U.S. National Research Council panel on
terrorism, when offering this inexact illustration, most
terrorists are not Muslim and “the vast majority of
Islamic people have no connection with and do not
sympathize with terrorism” (Smelser & Mitchell, 2002).
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If you were diagnosed
with a terminal
illness, would you wonder what you did to
deserve such an illness? Why or why not?
Islam
Terrorism
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Do you believe that illness is
payback for mistakes in life? For
example, do you think that AIDS is
a punishment for people who have
lived a risky life? Would this apply
to all people with AIDS? Why or
why not?
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Hindsight bias is also at work here (Carli & Leonard, 1989). Have you ever heard people
say that rape victims, abused spouses, or people with AIDS got what they deserved? In some
countries, such as Pakistan, women who have been raped have sometimes been sentenced
to severe punishment for having violated a law against adultery (Mydans, 2002). In one
experiment illustrating the blame-the-victim phenomenon, people were given a detailed
account of a date that ended with the woman being raped (Janoff-Bulman et al., 1985). They
perceived the woman’s behavior as at least partly to blame, and in hindsight, they thought,
“She should have known better.” (Blaming the victim also serves to reassure people that it
couldn’t happen to them.) Others, given the same account with the rape ending deleted, did
not perceive the woman’s behavior as inviting rape.
People also have a basic tendency to justify their culture’s social systems (Jost et al.,
2009; Kay et al, 2009). We’re inclined to see the way things are as the way they ought to be.
This natural conservatism makes it difficult to legislate major social changes, such as health
care or climate-change policies. Once such policies are in place, our “system justification”
tends to preserve them.
TEACH
TR M
TRM
Before You Move On
䉴 ASK YOURSELF
What are some examples of ingroup bias in your community?
䉴 TEST YOURSELF
What is the difference between prejudice and discrimination?
Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.
Module 77 Review
77-1
1/21/14 10:30 AM
What is prejudice? What are its social and
emotional roots?
•
Prejudice is an unjustifiable, usually negative attitude
toward a group and its members.
•
Prejudice’s three components are beliefs (often stereotypes),
emotions, and predispositions to action (discrimination).
•
Overt prejudice in North America has decreased over
time, but implicit prejudice—an automatic, unthinking
attitude—continues.
•
The social roots of prejudice include social inequalities
and divisions.
• Higher-status groups often justify their privileged
position with the just-world phenomenon.
• We tend to favor our own group (ingroup bias) as we
divide ourselves into“us”(the ingroup) and“them” (the
outgroup).
•
Prejudice can also be a tool for protecting our emotional
well-being, as when we focus our anger by blaming
events on a scapegoat.
77-2
•
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CLOSE & ASSESS
Teaching Tip
To test the just-world phenomenon,
you could have students participate in
a study presumably on the perception
of emotional cues. One of the participants (actually a confederate) would
be selected to perform a memory
task. She would receive what appears
to be a painful shock for each error;
the other students would be asked
to observe and note her emotional
responses. Do you think the students
would respond with compassion and
sympathy? No. Results from similar
experiments indicate that when the
observers are powerless to alter her
fate, they tend to reject and devalue
her. Subsequent research has suggested that this is particularly true of
those who have a strong belief in a
just world.
Use Student Activity: Belief in a
Just World from the TRM to help students further explore this topic.
What are the cognitive roots of prejudice?
The cognitive roots of prejudice grow from our natural
ways of processing information: forming categories,
remembering vivid cases, and believing that the world is
just and our own and our culture’s ways of doing things
are the right ways.
1/21/14 10:30 AM
Exit Assessment
Have students create scenarios on flashcards to
help them differentiate among the commonly
confused words found in this unit (particularly
discrimination/prejudice and ingroup/outgroup/
ingroup bias). They should construct sentences
or scenarios that make the nuances of each
term apparent.
Prejudice and Discrimination
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Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Which of the following is the primary distinction
between prejudice and discrimination?
1. a
2. e
3. c
4. e
5. b
a. Prejudice is cognitive and discrimination is
behavioral.
b. Prejudice is based on anger and discrimination is
based on fear.
c. Prejudice is a legal term and discrimination is a
psychological term.
d. Discrimination typically develops in infancy and
prejudice typically develops in adolescence.
e. Discrimination is primarily caused by nature and
prejudice is primarily caused by nurture.
2. Which of the following is true of prejudice in recent years?
a. Both overt and subtle prejudice have shown steady
and equal increases.
b. Subtle prejudice has been decreasing more than
overt prejudice.
c. Both overt and subtle prejudice have been increasing,
but overt prejudice is increasing at a faster rate.
d. Both overt and subtle prejudice have been increasing,
but subtle prejudice is increasing at a faster rate.
e. Overt prejudice has been decreasing more than
subtle prejudice.
4. Which of the following is an example of ingroup bias?
a. Hinata talked only to her five best friends when she
was in ninth grade.
b. Sabrina has been a New York Yankee fan since she
was in fourth grade.
c. Kimia believes she is the best student in her AP®
Psychology class, but her grades are not as good as
several students.
d. Francisco believes he is the best student in his AP®
Psychology class, and in fact he has the highest test
average.
e. Derek believes his t-ball team is the best in the
league.
5. A member of one racial group viciously beats someone
from a different racial group. The incident is widely
publicized in the local media. Which of the following
terms best describes this incident?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Scapegoat theory
Vivid case
Just-world phenomenon
Other-race effect
Ingroup bias
3. Which of the following accurately describes the just-
world phenomenon?
a. It’s the reduction in prejudice that has resulted from
improvements in our laws and judicial system.
b. It’s the reduction in discrimination that has resulted
from improvements in our laws and judicial system.
c. It’s the belief that most people get what they deserve
and deserve what they get.
d. It’s the tendency of people to deny that prejudice is
still a problem.
e. It’s our mind’s desire to categorize daily events as
either “fair” or “unfair.”
Answer to Practice FRQ 2
1 point: Social root: social inequalities
or ingroup bias
1 point: Emotional root: scapegoat
theory
1 point: Cognitive root: categorization, vivid cases, or the just-world
phenomenon
Practice FRQs
1. Describe the three major components of prejudice.
Answer
1 point: Stereotyped judgments, which are generalized,
negative beliefs about a group of people.
Unit XIV
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 788
emotional root of prejudice, and a cognitive root of
prejudice.
(3 points)
1 point: Negative emotions, such as hostility or fear, toward
the members of a group.
1 point: A predisposition to discriminate against members
of a group.
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2. Describe an example of a social root of prejudice, an
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Aggression
Module 78
789
TEACH
Module 78
78-2
78-1
s
TR M
TRM
Explain how psychology’s definition of aggression differs from
everyday usage, and identify the biological factors that make us
more prone to hurt one another.
How does psychology’s definition of aggression differ from everyday
usage? What biological factors make us more prone to hurt one
another?
The Biology of Aggression
Aggression varies too widely from culture to culture, era to era, and person to person to be
considered an unlearned instinct. But biology does influence aggression. We can look for
biological influences at three levels—genetic, neural, and biochemical.
Genetic Influences
Genes influence aggression. We know this because animals have been bred for aggressiveness—sometimes for sport, sometimes for research. The effect of genes also appears in
human twin studies (Miles & Carey, 1997; Rowe et al., 1999). If one identical twin admits
to “having a violent temper,” the other twin will often independently admit the same.
Fraternal twins are much less likely to respond similarly. Researchers continue to search
for genetic markers in those who commit the most violence. (One is already well known
and is carried by half the human race: the Y chromosome.)
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aggression any physical or verbal
behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
FYI
In the last 40 years in the United
States, well over 1 million
people—more than all deaths in
all wars in American history—have
been killed by firearms in nonwar
settings. Compared with people
of the same sex, race, age, and
neighborhood, those who keep a
gun in the home (ironically, often
for protection) are almost three
times more likely to be murdered
in the home—nearly always
by a family member or close
acquaintance. For every selfdefense use of a gun in the home,
there have been 4 unintentional
shootings, 7 criminal assaults or
homicides, and 11 attempted or
completed suicides (Kellermann
et al., 1993, 1997, 1998; see also
Branas et al., 2009).
Which list is longer, appropriate or
inappropriate aggression?
Does there seem to be a gender
difference in the perception of
appropriate aggression?
Do students from different cultural
backgrounds have different ideas
about what is appropriate?
Use Student Activity: Defining Aggression from the TRM to help students
further explore the concept of
aggression.
A P ® E x a m Ti p
Notice that you’re back to a nature
and nurture analysis again. The
biology section is, of course, the
nature component. When you get to
the psychological and social-cultural
factors coming up, that’s nurture.
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Aggression
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Teaching Tip
Have students make a chart with 2
columns—one labeled “Appropriate
Aggression” and one labeled “Inappropriate Aggression.” Have them
brainstorm about what aggression
society deems appropriate and what
behavior is considered inappropriate.
Then create a class list to see if everyone agrees on what constitutes an
appropriate expression of aggression:
Outline psychological and social-cultural triggers of aggression.
Prejudice hurts, but aggression often hurts more. In psychology, aggression is any physical
or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy, whether done out of hostility or as a calculated means to an end. The assertive, persistent salesperson is not aggressive. Nor is the
dentist who makes you wince with pain. But the person who passes along a vicious rumor
about you, the person who verbally assaults you, and the attacker who mugs you for your
money are aggressive.
Aggressive behavior emerges from the interaction of biology and experience. For a
gun to fire, the trigger must be pulled; with some people, as with hair-trigger guns, it
doesn’t take much to trip an explosion. Let’s look first at some biological factors that influence our thresholds for aggressive behavior, then at the psychological factors that pull
the trigger.
1/21/14 10:30 AM
TEACH
I Love
Module Learning Objectives
78-1
Discussion Starter
/Corbi
Images
Aggression
TR M
TRM
Use the Module 78 Fact or Falsehood?
activity from the TRM to introduce the
concepts from this module.
Module 78
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790
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Neural Influences
© The New Yorker Collection, 1995, Donald Reilly from cartoonbank.com.
All Rights Reserved.
There is no one spot in the brain that controls aggression. Aggression is a complex behavior,
and it occurs in particular contexts. But animal and human brains have neural systems that,
given provocation, will either inhibit or facilitate aggressive behavior (Denson, 2011; Moyer,
1983). Consider:
“It’s a guy thing.”
Researchers implanted a radio-controlled electrode in the brain of the domineering leader
of a caged monkey colony. The electrode was in an area that, when stimulated, inhibits
aggression. When researchers placed the control button for the electrode in the colony’s
cage, one small monkey learned to push it every time the boss became threatening.
•
A neurosurgeon, seeking to diagnose a disorder, implanted an electrode in the
amygdala of a mild-mannered woman. Because the brain has no sensory receptors,
she was unable to feel the stimulation. But at the flick of a switch she snarled, “Take
my blood pressure. Take it now,” then stood up and began to strike the doctor.
•
Studies of violent criminals have revealed diminished activity in the frontal lobes,
which play an important role in controlling impulses. If the frontal lobes are damaged,
inactive, disconnected, or not yet fully mature, aggression may be more likely (Amen
et al., 1996; Davidson et al., 2000; Raine, 1999, 2005).
Biochemical Influences
TEACH
Concept Connections
Link the discussion of testosterone
and biochemistry to the endocrine
system (Unit III). Major endocrine
glands include the following:
䊉
•
Adrenal glands (located atop
the kidneys)—adrenaline and
noradrenaline
Pancreas—insulin, which regulates
the body’s sugar levels
䊉
Thyroid—calcitonin, which
regulates calcium and phosphorus
levels in the body
䊉
Ovaries—estrogen and
progesterone
䊉
Testes—testosterone
Ocean/Corbis
䊉
“We could avoid two-thirds of all
crime simply by putting all ablebodied young men in cryogenic
sleep from the age of 12 through
28.” -DAVID T. LYKKEN, THE
ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITIES, 1995
Our genes engineer our individual nervous systems, which operate electrochemically. The
hormone testosterone, for example, circulates in the bloodstream and influences the neural
systems that control aggression. A raging bull will become a gentle Ferdinand when castration reduces its testosterone level. The same is true of mice. When injected with testosterone, gentle, castrated mice once again become aggressive.
Humans are less sensitive to hormonal changes. But as men age, their testosterone
levels—and their aggressiveness—diminish. Hormonally charged, aggressive 17-year-olds
mature into hormonally quieter and gentler 70-year-olds. Also, violent criminals tend to be
muscular young males with higher-than-average testosterone levels, lower-than-average
intelligence scores, and low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin (Dabbs et al., 2001a;
Pendick, 1994). Men more than women tend to have wide faces, a testosterone-linked trait,
rather than roundish or long faces. And men’s facial width is a predictor of their aggressiveness (Carré et al., 2009; Stirrat & Perrett, 2010).
High testosterone correlates with irritability, assertiveness, impulsiveness, and low tolerance
for frustration—qualities that predispose somewhat more aggressive responses to provocation
or competition for status (Dabbs et al., 2001b; Harris, 1999; McAndrew, 2009). Among both teenage boys and adult men, high testosterone levels correlate with delinquency, hard drug use, and
aggressive-bullying responses to frustration (Berman et al., 1993; Dabbs & Morris, 1990; Olweus
et al., 1988). Drugs that sharply reduce testosterone levels subdue men’s aggressive tendencies.
A lean, mean fighting machine—
the testosterone-laden female
hyena The hyena’s unusual
embryology pumps testosterone into
female fetuses. The result is revved-up
young female hyenas who seem born
to fight.
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Unit XIV
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Another drug that sometimes circulates in the bloodstream—alcohol—unleashes
aggressive responses to frustration. In police data and prison surveys, as in experiments,
aggression-prone people are more likely to drink, and they are more likely to become violent
when intoxicated (White et al., 1993). People who have been drinking commit 4 in 10 violent
crimes and 3 in 4 acts of spousal abuse (Karberg & James, 2005). Alcohol’s effects are both
biological and psychological (Bushman, 1993; Ito et al., 1996; Taylor & Chermack, 1993). Those
who only think they’ve imbibed alcohol will be somewhat affected, but so, too, will those
who have had alcohol unknowingly slipped into a drink. Unless people are distracted, alcohol
tends to focus their attention on a provocation rather than on inhibitory cues (Giancola &
Corman, 2007). Alcohol also inclines people to interpret ambiguous acts (such as a bump in a
crowd) as provocations (Bègue et al., 2010).
TEACH
Concept Connections
Frustration is typically defined as the
failure to achieve a desired goal. Have
students discuss how not achieving
a goal might lead to frustration and
then aggression. Also discuss ways
to keep frustration from building
into aggression, citing research from
Unit VIII.
Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors
in Aggression
What psychological and social-cultural factors may trigger aggressive
behavior?
78-2
ENGAGE
Biological factors influence the ease with which aggression is triggered. But what psychological and social-cultural factors pull the trigger?
Enrichment
Psychologists in the late 1930s proposed that frustration was the cause
of aggression. Research seems to
point to several ways that frustration
is linked to aggression:
Aversive Events
Suffering sometimes builds character. In laboratory experiments, however, those made miserable have often made others miserable (Berkowitz, 1983, 1989). This phenomenon is called the
frustration-aggression principle: Frustration creates anger, which can spark aggression.
One analysis of 27,667 hit-by-pitch Major League Baseball incidents between 1960 and 2004
revealed this link (Timmerman, 2007). Pitchers were most likely to hit batters when
•
they had been frustrated by the previous batter hitting a home run.
•
the current batter had hit a home run the last time at bat.
•
a teammate had been hit by a pitch in the previous half-inning.
frustration-aggression principle
the principle that frustration—the
blocking of an attempt to achieve
some goal—creates anger, which
can generate aggression.
Other aversive stimuli—hot temperatures, physical pain, personal insults, foul odors,
cigarette smoke, crowding, and a host of others—can also evoke hostility. In laboratory
experiments, when people get overheated, they think, feel, and act more aggressively. In
baseball games, the number of hit batters rises with the temperature (Reifman et al., 1991;
see FIGURE 78.1). And in the wider world, violent crime and spousal abuse rates have
been higher during hotter years, seasons, months, and days (Anderson & Anderson, 1984).
.012
AP Photo/Brita Meng Outzen
Probability
of hit batter
Number of teammates hit:
3 or more
2
.011
1
.010
0
Richard Larrick and his
colleagues (2011) looked for
occurrences of batters hit by
pitchers during 4,566,468
pitcher-batter matchups
across 57,293 Major League
Baseball games since 1952.
The probability of a hit batter
increased if one or more of the
pitcher’s teammates had been
hit, and also with temperature.
.008
.007
60–69
70–79
80–89
If aggression helps to alleviate
frustration, aggression is more
likely to occur.
If a goal is almost accomplished
and frustration sets in, aggression
is more likely.
If an aggressive stimulus is
perceived while frustration is being
experienced, aggression is more
likely.
Figure 78.1
Temperature and retaliation
.009
.006
59 and
below
Does frustration always lead to
aggression? No, but environmental
factors can determine when a frustrating situation will lead someone to act
aggressively.
90 and
above
Temperature (°F)
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TRM
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Diversity Connections
Compare crime rates in the U.S. and other
countries to see if people in the U.S. are the
perpetrators and victims of more aggressive
forms of crime.
Consider all aggressive forms of crime—
from murder to assault. Where do the
higher rates of these crimes occur—in the
U.S. or in other countries?
How does the U.S. compare to other
Westernized nations? How do we compare
to developing or third world countries?
Do these statistics suggest that people
living in the U.S. are more aggressive than
people living in other countries?
Use Student Activity: Road Rage from the TRM
to help students learn more about the effects
of aggression.
Aggression
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From the available data, Craig Anderson and his colleagues (2000; 2011) have projected
that, other things being equal, global warming of 4 degrees Fahrenheit (about 2 degrees
centigrade) would induce tens of thousands of additional assaults and murders—and that’s
before the added violence inducement from climate-change-related drought, poverty, food
insecurity, and migration.
TEACH
Teaching Tip
Quiz students on how aggression
can be reinforced. Remind students
that reinforcement occurs when we
are rewarded, or when something
unpleasant is taken away because
we behave a certain way. If a child is
looking for attention and learns that
a parent will offer it in response to
aggressive behavior, then the child
will learn to be aggressive to get
attention.
Reinforcement and Modeling
A P ® E x a m Ti p
David Myers points out that
this section is an application of
material that was introduced in
Unit VI. You should go back there
for a quick review if you don’t
recognize the basic components
of operant conditioning and
observational learning in this
material.
Aggression may be a natural response to aversive events, but learning can alter natural
reactions. As Unit VI explained, we learn when our behavior is reinforced, and we learn by
watching others.
In situations where experience has taught us that aggression pays, we are likely to act aggressively again. Children whose aggression has successfully intimidated other children may
become bullies. Animals that have successfully fought to get food or mates become increasingly
ferocious. To foster a kinder, gentler world we had best model and reward sensitivity and cooperation from an early age, perhaps by training parents to discipline without modeling violence.
Parents of delinquent youth frequently cave in to (reward) their children’s tears and temper tantrums. Then, exasperated, they discipline with beatings (Patterson et al., 1982, 1992).
Parent-training programs often advise parents to avoid modeling violence by screaming and hitting. Instead, parents should reinforce desirable behaviors and frame statements
positively. (“When you finish loading the dishwasher you can go play,” rather than “If you
don’t load the dishwasher, there’ll be no playing.”)
One aggression-replacement program worked with juvenile offenders and gang members
and their parents. It taught both generations new ways to control anger, and more thoughtful approaches to moral reasoning (Goldstein et al., 1998). The result? The youths’ re-arrest
rates dropped.
Different cultures model, reinforce, and evoke different tendencies toward violence. For example, crime rates are higher (and average happiness is lower) in countries marked by a great
disparity between rich and poor (Triandis, 1994). In the United States, cultures and families that
experience minimal father care also have high violence rates (Triandis, 1994). Even after controlling for parental education, race, income, and teen motherhood, American male youths from
father-absent homes have double their peers’ incarceration rate (Harper & McLanahan, 2004).
Violence can also vary by culture within a country. Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen
(1996) analyzed violence among White Americans in southern towns settled by Scots-Irish
herders whose tradition emphasized “manly honor,” the use of arms to protect one’s flock,
and a history of coercive slavery. Compared with their White counterparts in New England
towns settled by the more traditionally peaceful Puritan, Quaker, and Dutch farmer-artisans,
the cultural descendants of those herders have triple the homicide rates and are more supportive of physically punishing children, of warfare initiatives, and of uncontrolled gun
ownership. “Culture-of-honor” states also have higher rates of students bringing weapons
to school and of school shootings (Brown et al., 2009).
Media Models for Violence
social script culturally modeled
guide for how to act in various
situations.
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Parents are hardly the only aggression models. In the United States and elsewhere, TV
shows, films, video games, and YouTube offer supersized portions of violence. Repeatedly
viewing on-screen violence teaches us social scripts—culturally provided mental files for
how to act. When we find ourselves in new situations, uncertain how to behave, we rely on
social scripts. After so many action films, teens may acquire a script that plays in their head
when they face real-life conflicts. Challenged, they may “act like a man” by intimidating
or eliminating the threat. Likewise, after viewing the multiple sexual innuendoes and acts
found in most prime-time TV shows—often involving impulsive or short-term relationships—youths may acquire sexual scripts they later enact in real-life relationships (Kunkel
et al., 2001; Sapolsky & Tabarlet, 1991).
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Aggression
Music lyrics also write social scripts. In one set of experiments, German university
men administered hotter chili sauce to a woman and recalled more negative feelings
and beliefs about women after listening to woman-hating song lyrics. Man-hating song
lyrics had a similar effect on the aggressive behavior of women listeners (Fischer &
Greitemeyer, 2006).
Sexual aggression is sometimes modeled in X-rated films and pornography. Content
analyses have revealed that most X-rated films depict quick, casual sex between strangers,
but sometimes also provide scenes of rape and sexual exploitation of women by men (Cowan et al., 1988; NCTV, 1987; Yang & Linz, 1990). These scenes often include enactments of
the rape myth—the idea that some women invite or enjoy rape and get “swept away” while
being “taken.” (In actuality, rape is traumatic, and it frequently harms women’s reproductive
and psychological health [Golding, 1996].) Most rapists accept this myth (Brinson, 1992). So
do many men and women who watch a great deal of TV: Compared with those who watch
little television, heavy viewers are more accepting of the rape myth (Kahlor & Morrison,
2007). Might sexually explicit media models in the $97 billion global pornography business
contribute to sexually aggressive tendencies (D’Orlando, 2011)?
Most consumers of child and adult pornography commit no known sexual crimes (Seto,
2009). But they are more likely to accept the rape myth as reality (Kingston et al., 2009).
Canadian and U.S. sex offenders acknowledge a greater-than-usual appetite for sexually explicit and sexually violent materials—materials typically labeled as pornography (Kingston
et al., 2009; Marshall, 1989, 2000; Oddone-Paolucci et al., 2000). The Los Angeles Police Department, for example, reported that pornography was “conspicuously present” in 62 percent of its extrafamilial child sexual abuse cases during the 1980s (Bennett, 1991). High pornography consumption also has predicted greater sexual aggressiveness among university
men, even after controlling for other predictors of antisocial behavior (Vega & Malamuth,
2007). But critics object. Since 1990, the reported U.S. rape rate has declined while pornography consumption has increased (Ferguson & Hartley, 2009). And aren’t many sexual aggressors merely, as sex researcher John Money (1988) suspected, using pornography “as an
alibi to explain to themselves what otherwise is inexplicable”?
People heavily exposed to televised crime see the world as more dangerous. People
heavily exposed to pornography see the world as more sexual. Repeatedly watching X-rated
films, even nonviolent films, has many effects (Kingston et al., 2009). One’s own partner
seems less attractive (Module 39). Extramarital sex seems less troubling (Zillmann, 1989).
A woman’s friendliness seems more sexual. Sexual aggression seems less serious (Harris,
1994; Zillmann, 1989). These effects feed the ingredients of coercion against women.
In one experiment, undergraduates viewed six brief, sexually explicit films each week
for six weeks (Zillmann & Bryant, 1984). A control group viewed nonerotic films during the
same six-week period. Three weeks later, both groups read a newspaper report about a man
convicted but not yet sentenced for raping a hitchhiker. When asked to suggest an appropriate prison term, viewers of the sexually explicit films recommended sentences half as long
as those recommended by the control group.
Experiments cannot elicit actual sexual violence, but they can assess a man’s willingness
to hurt a woman. Often the research gauges the effect of violent versus nonviolent erotic
films on men’s willingness to deliver supposed electric shocks to women who had earlier
provoked them. These experiments suggest that it’s less the eroticism than the depictions of
sexual violence (whether in R-rated slasher films or X-rated films) that most directly affect
men’s acceptance and performance of aggression against women.
To a lesser extent, nonviolent pornography can also influence aggression. In a series of
studies, Nathaniel Lambert and his colleagues (2011) used various methods to explore pornography’s effects on aggression against relationship partners. They found that pornography
consumption predicted both self-reported aggression and laboratory noise blasts to their
partner, and that abstaining from customary pornography consumption decreased aggression
(while abstaining from their favorite food did not).
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TEACH
Concept Connections
Link viewing television violence to
Albert Bandura’s famous Bobo doll
studies (Unit VI). Bandura and his
colleagues showed young children
videos of adults playing with a Bobo
doll (an inflated doll with sand in the
bottom that rights itself whenever it is
knocked over). One group of children
observed adults acting aggressively
toward the doll. The other group saw
the adults playing nicely. How did the
children react when put in a room
with a Bobo doll? Those who saw the
aggressive behavior played aggressively with it. Those who witnessed
the nice behavior played nicely.
A P ® E x a m Ti p
In the experiment described here,
can you identify the independent
and dependent variables?
It’s great practice to do this
every time you read about an
experiment.
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ENGAGE
Active Learning
Have students watch several different types of
television programs to see how many acts of
violence are depicted. Suggest that they watch
a news broadcast (both local and national), a
sitcom, a police drama, a medical drama, and a
nonspecific drama (family or relational shows).
Be sure to define operationally what an “act
of violence” is before they start viewing the
programs.
Did one type of program depict more
violence than others?
What was different about the violence
depicted on the different types of shows?
How did watching this violence affect you?
Would you feel comfortable allowing young
children to watch the acts you observed?
How many acts of violence occurred
overall? How many occurred in each show?
Aggression
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794
Sexual
promiscuity
Coerciveness
against
women
Hostile
masculinity
Figure 78.2
Men who sexually coerce
women The recipe for coercion
ENGAGE
against women combines an
impersonal approach to sex with a
hostile masculinity. (Adapted from
Malamuth, 1996.)
Active Learning
What are the most popular video
games today? How many of them
are considered violent?
What impact does the rating
system have on the popularity of a
particular video game?
Do students own many violent
video games?
Do students believe that
violent video games affect their
behaviors?
REUTERS/Andrew Berwick via
www. freak.no/Handout
Have students research the popularity of violent video games and survey
their own video game collections.
Neil Malamuth (1996) has shown that sexually coercive men typically are sexually promiscuous and hostile in their relationships with women (FIGURE 78.2). Several factors can
create a predisposition to sexual violence (Malamuth et al., 1991, 1995). They include media influences but also dominance motives, disinhibition by alcohol, and a history of child
abuse. Still, media depictions of violence can disinhibit and desensitize; viewing sexual violence fosters hostile, domineering attitudes and behaviors; and viewing pornography leads
viewers to trivialize rape, devalue their partners, and engage in uncommitted sex. Media
influence is not a minor issue.
Might public consciousness be raised by making people aware of the information you
have just been reading? In the 1940s, movies often depicted African-Americans as childlike,
superstitious buffoons, images we would not tolerate today. Many hope that entertainers,
producers, and audiences might someday look back with embarrassment on the days when
movies “entertained” us with scenes of sexual coercion, torture, and mutilation.
Do Violent Video Games Teach Social Scripts for Violence?
Violent video games became an issue for public debate after teenagers in more than a dozen places seemed to mimic the carnage in the shooter games they had so often played
(Anderson, 2004a). In 2002, two Grand Rapids, Michigan, teens and a man in his early twenties spent part of a night drinking beer and playing Grand Theft Auto III. Using simulated cars,
they ran down pedestrians, then beat them with fists, leaving a bloody body behind (Kolker,
2002). The same teens and man then went out for a real drive. Spotting a 38-year-old man on
a bicycle, they ran him down with their car, got out, stomped and punched him, and returned
home to play the game some more. (The victim, a father of three, died six days later.)
As we noted in Module 30, observing media violence tends to desensitize people to
cruelty and prime them to respond aggressively when provoked. Does this violence-viewing
effect extend to playing violent video games? Should parents worry about the ways actively
role-playing aggression will affect their children? Experiments indicate that playing positive
games has positive effects. For example, playing Lemmings, where a goal is to help others,
increases real-life helping (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2010). So, might a parallel effect occur
after playing games that enact violence?
When combining data from 400 studies with 130,296 participants, Craig Anderson and his
colleagues (2010) found such an effect: Playing violent video games increased aggression. The
finding held for youth and for young adults; in North America, Japan, and Western Europe;
and with each of three major research designs (correlational, experimental, and longitudinal).
In a 2010 statement submitted for a U.S. Supreme Court case, Anderson was joined by more
than 100 social scientists in explaining that “the psychological processes underlying such effects are well understood and include: imitation; observational learning; priming of cognitive,
emotional, and behavioral scripts; physiological arousal; and emotional desensitization.”
Consider some evidence:
•
University men who spent the most hours playing violent video games tended to be
the most physically aggressive (for example, more likely to acknowledge having hit or
attacked someone else) (Anderson & Dill, 2000).
•
People randomly assigned to play a game involving bloody murders with groaning
victims (rather than to play nonviolent Myst) became more hostile. On a follow-up
task, they also were more likely to blast intense noise at a fellow student.
•
People with extensive experience in violent video gaming display desensitization to
violence, as shown by blunted brain responses; they also are less likely to help an
injured victim (Bartholow et al., 2006; Bushman & Anderson, 2009).
•
After playing a violent rather than a neutral or prosocial video game, people
become more likely to express dehumanized perceptions of immigrant outgroups
(Greitemeyer & McLatchie, 2011).
Coincidence or cause? In 2011,
Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik
bombed government buildings in Oslo,
and then went to a youth camp where
he shot and killed 69 people, mostly
teens. As a player of first-person shooter
games, Breivik stirred debate when he
commented that “I see MW2 [Modern
Warfare 2] more as a part of my trainingsimulation than anything else.” Did his
violent game playing contribute to his
violence, or was it a mere coincidental
association? To explore such questions,
psychologists experiment.
TEACH
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Concept Connections
Students may have already protested that
many people watch violence in the media and
play violent video games and do not ultimately turn to violence to solve their problems. Remind them that just because research
suggests exposure to media violence tends to
lead to more expressions of aggression does
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Unit XIV
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not mean that every person exposed to media
violence will become more aggressive. As the
text explains, many other factors also contribute to aggressive behavior. Still, it would be
unwise not to consider the effects of the media
to which we are exposed.
Social Psychology
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Young adolescents who play a lot of violent video games see the world as more hostile.
Compared with nongaming kids, they get into more arguments and fights and get worse
grades (Gentile, 2009). Ah, but is this merely because naturally hostile kids are drawn to
such games? Apparently not. Comparisons of gamers and nongamers who scored low in
hostility revealed a difference in the number of reported fights: 38 percent of the violentgame players had been in fights, versus only 4 percent of the nongamers. Over time, the
nongamers became more likely to have fights only if they started playing the violent games
(Anderson, 2004a). Another study, with German adolescents, found that today’s violent
game playing predicts future aggression, but today’s aggression does not predict future
game playing (Möller & Krahé, 2008). Some researchers believe that, due partly to the more
active participation and rewarded violence of game play, violent video games have even
greater effects on aggressive behavior and cognition than do violent TV shows and movies
(Anderson et al., 2007). The effects of violent gaming, some say, are comparable to the toxic
effects of asbestos or second-hand smoke exposure (Bushman et al., 2010). “Playing violent
video games probably will not turn your child into a psychopathic killer,” acknowledges
researcher Brad Bushman (2011), “but I would want to know how the child treats his or her
parents, how they treat their siblings, how much compassion they have.”
Others are unimpressed by violent-game-effect findings (Ferguson & Kilburn, 2010).
They note that from 1996 to 2006, youth violence was declining while video game sales
were increasing. Moreover, some point out that avid game players are quick and sharp: they
develop speedy reaction times and enhanced visual skills (Dye et al., 2009; Green et al.,
2010). The focused fun of game playing can satisfy basic needs for a sense of competence,
control, and social connection (Przbylski et al., 2010). That helps explain why, in one experiment, elementary school boys randomly selected to receive a game system spent enormous
amounts of time on it over the next four months, with diminished time spent on schoolwork
and with more academic problems (Weis & Cerankosky, 2010).
Figure 78.3
This much seems clear. Aggressive thoughts can lead to violent behavior and role playBiopsychosocial understanding
ing can increase aggressive thoughts and emotions. As the Greek philosopher Aristotle ob- of aggression Because many
factors contribute to aggressive
served, “We are what we repeatedly do.”
Nevertheless, a 2011 Supreme Court decision overturned a California state law that behavior, there are many ways to
change such behavior, including
banned violent video game sales to children (much like the ban on sales of sexually ex- learning anger management and
plicit materials to children). The First Amendment’s free speech guarantee protects even communication skills, and avoiding
violent media and video games.
offensive games, said the court’s majority,
which was unpersuaded by the evidence of
Biological influences:
Psychological influences:
harm. But the debate goes on. “What sense
• genetic influences
• dominating behavior (which boosts
testosterone levels in the blood)
• biochemical influences, such as
does it make to forbid selling to a 13-yeartestosterone and alcohol
• believing the alcohol’s been drunk
old a magazine with an image of a nude
(whether it actually has or not)
• neural influences, such as a severe
woman,” wrote Justice Stephen Breyer, in
head injury
• frustration
aggressive
role models
•
a dissenting opinion, “while protecting the
• rewards for aggressive behavior
sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive vid• low self-control
eo game in which he actively, but virtually,
binds and gags the woman, then tortures and
Aggressive
A
ressive beha
behaviorr
kills her?”
***
To sum up, significant behaviors, such as violence, usually have
many determinants, making any single explanation an oversimplification. Asking what causes violence is therefore like asking
what causes cancer. Asbestos exposure, for example, is indeed a
cancer cause, albeit only one among many. Research reveals many
different biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences
on aggressive behavior. Like so much else, aggression is a biopsychosocial phenomenon (FIGURE 78.3).
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ENGAGE
Enrichment
Psychological research offers limited
support for the catharsis hypothesis,
which states that people experience
a release (catharsis) when they vent
their anger. Laboratory tests of catharsis have produced mixed results at
best. One study found that when students were allowed to counterattack
someone who had provoked them,
their blood pressure more quickly
returned to normal. The calming effect
seems to occur, however, only when
the target is one’s actual tormenter,
the retaliation is justified, and the
target is nonintimidating.
Does the viewing of aggression
prove cathartic? Alfred Hitchcock
once said, “One of television’s great
contributions is that it brought
murder back into the home where it
belongs. Seeing a murder on television can be good therapy. It can help
work off one’s antagonisms. If you
have no antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.” Once again,
research is not supportive. Spectators
of football, wrestling, and hockey
exhibit more hostility after watching the sports event than before it.
Similarly, after a war a nation’s murder
rate tends to increase, not decrease.
The near consensus in the research
community is that viewing television
violence increases aggression in the
viewer.
Social-cultural influences:
• deindividuation from being in a crowd
• challenging environmental factors, such
as crowding, heat, and direct provocations
• parental models of aggression
• minimal father involvement
• being rejected from a group
• exposure to violent media
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It is also important to note that many people are leading gentle, even heroic lives amid
personal and social stresses, reminding us again that individuals differ. The person matters.
That people vary over time and place reminds us that environments also differ. Yesterday’s
plundering Vikings have become today’s peace-promoting Scandinavians. Situations matter. Like all behavior, aggression arises from the interaction of persons and situations.
CLOSE & ASSESS
Exit Assessment
Use Figure 78.3 to highlight the
biopsychosocial model of aggression.
Have students provide explanations
for aggressive behavior based on the
components of the model.
Before You Move On
䉴 ASK YOURSELF
Do you think there should be laws to prevent children’s exposure to violent media? Why or
why not?
䉴 TEST YOURSELF
What psychological, biological, and social-cultural influences interact to produce aggressive
behaviors?
Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.
Module 78 Review
78-1
How does psychology’s definition of
aggression differ from everyday usage?
What biological factors make us more prone
to hurt one another?
•
In psychology, aggression is any physical or verbal behavior
intended to hurt or destroy.
•
Biology influences our threshold for aggressive behaviors
at three levels: genetic (inherited traits), neural (activity
in key brain areas), and biochemical (such as alcohol or
excess testosterone in the bloodstream).
•
Aggression is a complex behavior resulting from the
interaction of biology and experience.
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78-2
•
What psychological and social-cultural
factors may trigger aggressive behavior?
Frustration (frustration-aggression principle), previous
reinforcement for aggressive behavior, and observing an
aggressive role model can all contribute to aggression.
• Media portrayals of violence provide social scripts that
children learn to follow.
• Viewing sexual violence contributes to greater
aggression toward women.
• Playing violent video games increases aggressive
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
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Multiple-Choice Questions
1. A friend fails to meet an achievement goal. As a result,
he gets angry and behaves aggressively. Which of the
following terms best identifies this chain of events?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Aggression
Fundamental attribution error
Frustration-aggression principle
Social scripts
Biopsychosocial hypothesis
Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
3. Which of the following is an example of a social-cultural
influence on aggressive behavior?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
1. c
2. d
Exposure to violent media
Frustration
Testosterone
Believing you’ve drunk alcohol
Genetics
3. a
2. What do we call culturally modeled guides for how to act
in various situations?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Aggressive behavior
Cultures of honor
Reinforcement modeling
Social scripts
Social-cultural influences
Practice FRQs
1. Using the biopsychosocial model, give a biological
influence, social-cultural influence, and a psychological
influence on aggressive behavior.
Answer to Practice FRQ 2
2. Define social scripts and the frustration-aggression
1 point: A social script is a culturally
modeled guide for how to act in various situations.
principle. Then, provide an example of each.
(4 points)
Answer
1 point: Biological: genetics, biochemicals (for example,
testosterone), or neural (for example, severe frontal lobe
injury).
1 point: The frustration-aggression
principle is the notion that a blocked
goal frustrates, causes anger, and
elicits aggression.
1 point: Social-cultural: exposure to violent media, rejection
from a group, or parental models of aggression.
1 point: Psychological: frustration, aggressive role models, or
rewards for aggressive behavior.
1 point: Any correct example of a
social script can earn credit. Answers
will vary.
1 point: Any correct example of the
group frustration-aggression principle
can earn credit. Answers will vary.
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Module 79
TEACH
Discussion Starter
Use the Module 79 Fact or Falsehood?
activity from the TRM to introduce the
concepts from this module.
/Corbi
Klaus
TEACH
TR M
TRM
s
Attraction
Tiedge
TR M
TRM
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Module Learning Objectives
Teaching Tip
Have students consider the following
aphorisms:
Birds of a feather flock together.
Opposites attract.
Which statement is true? Are both?
How can that be?
Use Student Activity: Love Styles
from the TRM to help students understand the different types of love.
79-1
Explain why we befriend or fall in love with some people but not
others.
79-2
Describe how romantic love typically changes as time passes.
mere exposure effect
the phenomenon that repeated
exposure to novel stimuli increases
liking of them.
A P ® E x a m Ti p
Rex USA
Can you remember the other use
of the term proximity earlier in the
course? It’s one of the Gestalt
principles from Unit IV, Sensation
and Perception.
P
ause a moment and think about your relationships with two people—a close friend,
and someone who has stirred your feelings of romantic love. What psychological
chemistry binds us together in these special sorts of attachments that help us cope
with all other relationships? Social psychology suggests some answers.
The Psychology of Attraction
79-1
Why do we befriend or fall in love with some people but not others?
We endlessly wonder how we can win others’ affection and what makes our own affections
flourish or fade. Does familiarity breed contempt, or does it intensify affection? Do birds of
a feather flock together, or do opposites attract? Is beauty only skin deep, or does attractiveness matter greatly? To explore these questions, let’s consider three ingredients of our liking
for one another: proximity, attractiveness, and similarity.
Proximity
ENGAGE
Familiarity breeds acceptance
Enrichment
Relate these 2 anecdotes to illustrate
how familiarity breeds fondness rather
than contempt.
Several years ago the Associated
Press carried the following
story from Corvallis, Oregon: A
mysterious student had been
attending a class at Oregon State
University for the past 2 months
enveloped in a big black bag. Only
his bare feet showed. Each Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday at 11 o’clock
in the morning, the black bag sat
at a small table near the back of
the classroom. Professor Charles
Goetzinger knew the identity of
the person inside, but none of the
students did. Goetzinger indicated
that his students’ attitudes changed
from hostility toward the black bag
to curiosity and finally to friendship.
798
Unit XIV
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When this rare white penguin was
born in the Sydney, Australia, zoo,
his tuxedoed peers ostracized him.
Zookeepers thought they would need
to dye him black to gain acceptance.
But after three weeks of contact, the
other penguins came to accept him.
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod79_B.indd
In 1972, a small798town
Before friendships become close, they must begin. Proximity—geographic nearness—is
friendship’s most powerful predictor. Proximity provides opportunities for aggression, but
much more often it breeds liking. Study after study reveals that people are most inclined to
like, and even to marry, those who live in the same neighborhood, who sit nearby in class,
who work in the same office, who share the same parking lot, who eat in the same cafeteria.
Look around. Mating starts with meeting. (For more on modern ways to connect people, see
Close-up: Online Matchmaking and Speed Dating.)
Proximity breeds liking partly because of the mere exposure effect. Repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases our liking for them. This applies to nonsense syllables,
musical selections, geometric figures, Chinese characters, human faces, and the letters of
our own name (Moreland & Zajonc, 1982; Nuttin, 1987; Zajonc, 2001). We are even somewhat more likely to marry someone whose first or last name resembles our own (Jones et
al., 2004).
So, within certain limits, familiarity breeds fondness (Bornstein, 1989, 1999). Researchers demonstrated this by having four equally attractive women silently attend a
in Ecuador was
confronted with this challenge: how to deal
with its new mayor, Pulvapies. Pulvapies
had been fairly elected, having beaten
his nearest opponent by a comfortable
margin. There was only one problem:
Pulvapies was a foot deodorant! During
the election, the deodorant’s manufacturer
launched what it believed to be a clever
marketing campaign. It posted billboards
and distributed flyers saying, “For mayor:
Honorable Pulvapies.” Little did the
company realize that its deodorant might
be elected.
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Module 79
799
Close-up
ENGAGE
Online Matchmaking and Speed Dating
© Dave Coverly
Those who have not found a romantic
partner in their immediate proximity may
cast a wider net by joining the estimated
30 million people who each year try one
of the some 1500 online dating services
(Ellin, 2009). Online matchmaking works
mostly by expanding the pool of potential
mates (Finkel et al., 2012a,b).
Although published research on the
effectiveness of Internet matchmaking
services is sparse, this much seems
well established: Some people, including occasional predators, dishonestly
represent their age, attractiveness, occupation, or other details, and thus are
not who they seem to be. Nevertheless,
Katelyn McKenna and John Bargh and their colleagues have
offered a surprising finding: Compared with relationships
formed in person, Internet-formed friendships and romantic
relationships have been, on average, more likely to last beyond two years (Bargh et al. 2002, 2004; McKenna & Bargh,
1998, 2000; McKenna et al., 2002). In one of their studies,
people disclosed more, with less posturing, to those whom
they met online. When conversing online with someone for 20
minutes, they felt more liking for that person than they did for
someone they had met and talked with face to face. This was
true even when (unknown to them) it was the same person!
Internet friendships often feel as real and important to people
as in-person relationships. That helps explain why one-third of
American marriages occur among partners who met online,
and why those marriages are slightly more stable and satisfying than marriages that began offline (Cacioppo et al., 2013).
Speed dating pushes the search for romance into high
gear. In a process pioneered by a matchmaking Jewish rabbi,
•
Men are more transparent. Observers (male or female)
watching videos of speed-dating encounters can read a
man’s level of romantic interest more accurately than a
woman’s (Place et al., 2009).
•
Given more options, people’s choices become more
superficial. Meeting lots of potential partners leads people
to focus on more easily assessed characteristics, such as
height and weight (Lenton & Francesconi, 2010). This was
true even when researchers controlled for time spent with
each partner.
•
Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod79_B.indd 799
Students will likely have much to say
about online relationships. With the
advance of social networking sites
such as Facebook, Google Buzz, and
Twitter, maintaining online relationships with hundreds, if not thousands,
of people is quite possible. Ask
students to discuss the implications of
social networking:
Have students developed their
own “rules” about whom they
friend online and whom they do
not?
How have your students handled
failed relationships online? How
easy is it to “unfriend” someone
online?
Has students’ openness changed
as result of spending more time
on social networking sites? Are
students now more open or more
closed than when they started?
Men wish for future contact with more of their speed
dates; women tend to be more choosy. But this gender
difference disappears if the conventional roles are
reversed, so that men stay seated while women circulate
(Finkel & Eastwick, 2009).
200-student class for zero, 5, 10, or 15 class sessions (Moreland & Beach, 1992). At the end
of the course, students were shown slides of each woman and asked to rate her attractiveness. The most attractive? The ones
they’d seen most often. The phenomenon would come as no surprise to the
young Taiwanese man who wrote more
than 700 letters to his girlfriend, urging
her to marry him. She did marry—the
mail carrier (Steinberg, 1993).
No face is more familiar than your
own. And that helps explain an interesting finding by Lisa DeBruine (2004):
We like other people when their faces
incorporate some morphed features of
our own. When DeBruine (2002) had
1/21/14 10:31 AM
Critical Question
people meet a succession of prospective partners, either in person or via
webcam (Bower, 2009). After a 3- to
8-minute conversation, people move
on to the next person. (In an in-person meeting, one partner—usually the
woman—remains seated and the other circulates.) Those who want to meet
again can arrange for future contacts.
For many participants, 4 minutes is
enough time to form a feeling about a
conversational partner and to register
whether the partner likes them (Eastwick & Finkel, 2008a,b).
Researchers have quickly realized
that speed dating offers a unique opportunity for studying influences on our first impressions of
potential romantic partners. Among recent findings are these:
The mere exposure effect
The mere exposure effect applies
even to ourselves. Because
the human face is not perfectly
symmetrical, the face we see in
the mirror is not the same face our
friends see. Most of us prefer the
familiar mirror image, while our
friends like the reverse (Mita et al.,
1977). The Maggie Smith (actor)
known to her fans is at left. The
person she sees in the mirror each
morning is shown at right, and that’s
the photo she would probably prefer.
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
McMaster University students (both men and women) play a game with a supposed other
player, they were more trusting and cooperative when the other person’s image had some
of their own facial features morphed into it. In me I trust.
For our ancestors, the mere exposure effect had survival value. What was familiar was
generally safe and approachable. What was unfamiliar was more often dangerous and
threatening. Evolution may therefore have hard-wired into us the tendency to bond with
those who are familiar and to be wary of those who are unfamiliar (Zajonc, 1998). If so,
gut-level prejudice against those who are culturally different could be a primitive, automatic
emotional response (Devine, 1995). It’s what we do with our knee-jerk prejudice that matters, say researchers. Do we let those feelings control our behavior? Or do we monitor our
feelings and act in ways that reflect our conscious valuing of human equality?
ENGAGE
Have students conduct research on
attractiveness. Ask them to collect
pictures of “attractive” and “unattractive” people and then to show
them to various participants. Participants will then be asked to guess
what kind of job, personality, and
education each pictured person has.
Compare the answers offered for
the “attractive” and “unattractive”
individuals to determine if more positive predictions are made for those
labeled “attractive.”
Be sure to obtain Institutional
Review Board approval and informed
consent for all research endeavors.
AP Photo/Herman Miller
Active Learning
Physical Attractiveness
Beauty grows with mere
exposure Herman Miller, Inc.’s
famed Aeron chair initially received high
comfort ratings but abysmal beauty
ratings. To some it looked like “lawn
furniture” or “a giant prehistoric insect”
(Gladwell, 2005). But then, with design
awards, media visibility, and imitators,
the ugly duckling came to be the
company’s best-selling chair ever and
to be seen as beautiful. With people,
too, beauty lies partly in the beholder’s
eye and can grow with exposure.
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Have students consider their favorite
movies and TV shows, and ask them
to describe the physical appearance of
the villains and the heroes.
Are people who are villainous
or less than heroic portrayed as
physically attractive? Why or why
not?
How are the heroes physically
different from the villains?
“Personal beauty is a greater
recommendation than any letter
of introduction.” -ARISTOTLE,
APOTHEGEMS, 330 B.C.E.
FYI
Percentage of Men and Women
Who “Constantly Think About
Their Looks”
Men Women
Canada
18%
20%
United States
17
27
Mexico
40
45
Venezuela
47
65
From Roper Starch survey,
reported by McCool (1999).
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Once proximity affords us contact, what most affects our first impressions? The person’s sincerity? Intelligence? Personality? Hundreds of experiments reveal that it is something far more
superficial: physical appearance. This finding is unnerving for most of us who were taught that
“beauty is only skin deep” and that “appearances can be deceiving.”
In one early study, researchers randomly matched new University of Minnesota students
for a Welcome Week dance (Walster et al., 1966). Before the dance, the researchers gave each
student a battery of personality and aptitude tests, and they rated each student’s level of physical attractiveness. On the night of the blind date, the couples danced and talked for more than
two hours and then took a brief intermission to rate their dates. What determined whether
they liked each other? Only one thing seemed to matter: appearance. Both the men and the
women liked good-looking dates best. Women are more likely than men to say that another’s
looks don’t affect them (Lippa, 2007). But studies show that a man’s looks do affect women’s
behavior (Feingold, 1990; Sprecher, 1989; Woll, 1986). Speed-dating experiments confirm that
attractiveness influences first impressions for both sexes (Belot & Francesconi, 2006; Finkel &
Eastwick, 2008).
Physical attractiveness also predicts how often people date and how popular they feel.
It affects initial impressions of people’s personalities. We don’t assume that attractive people
are more compassionate, but we do perceive them as healthier, happier, more sensitive,
more successful, and more socially skilled (Eagly et al., 1991; Feingold, 1992; Hatfield &
Sprecher, 1986). Attractive, well-dressed people are more likely to make a favorable impression on potential employers, and they tend to be more successful in their jobs (Cash
& Janda, 1984; Langlois et al., 2000; Solomon, 1987). Income analyses show a penalty for
plainness or obesity and a premium for beauty (Engemann & Owyang, 2005).
An analysis of 100 top-grossing films since 1940 found that attractive characters were
portrayed as morally superior to unattractive characters (Smith et al., 1999). But Hollywood
modeling doesn’t explain why, to judge from their gazing times, even babies prefer attractive
over unattractive faces (Langlois et al., 1987). So do some blind people, as University of Birmingham professor John Hull (1990, p. 23) discovered after going blind. A colleague’s remarks
on a woman’s beauty would strangely affect his feelings. He found this “deplorable. . . . What
can it matter to me what sighted men think of women . . . yet I do care what sighted men think,
and I do not seem able to throw off this prejudice.”
For those who find importance of looks unfair and unenlightened, two attractiveness
findings may be reassuring. First, people’s attractiveness is surprisingly unrelated to their
self-esteem and happiness (Diener et al., 1995; Major et al., 1984). Unless we have just
compared ourselves with superattractive people, few of us (thanks, perhaps, to the mere
exposure effect) view ourselves as unattractive (Thornton & Moore, 1993). Second, strikingly attractive people are sometimes suspicious that praise for their work may simply be
a reaction to their looks. Less attractive people are more likely to accept praise as sincere
(Berscheid, 1981).
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Module 79
ENGAGE
Conceptions of attractiveness
vary by culture. Yet some adult
physical features, such as a
youthful form and face, seem
attractive everywhere.
Active Learning
Collect current fashion magazine
cover photos of contemporary
women, and compare them with past
cover images of women as displayed
in magazines of the 1980s, the 1970s,
or even the 1960s.
How were women physically
different in the past?
Was makeup applied differently?
Were hairstyles different? Do
women seem more “natural” today
than in years past?
FYI
New York Times columnist
Maureen Dowd on liposuction
(January 19, 2000): “Women
in the 50’s vacuumed. Women
in the 00’s are vacuumed. Our
Hoovers have turned on us!”
TEACH
Diversity Connections
FYI
Have students obtain fashion magazines from different cultures to see
how their standards of beauty are
different from and similar to those in
the United States.
Women have 91 percent of
cosmetic procedures (ASPS,
2010). Women also recall others’
appearance better than do men
(Mast & Hall, 2006).
Figure 79.1
Average is attractive Which of
these faces offered by University
of St. Andrews psychologist
David Perrett (2002, 2010) is most
attractive? Most people say it’s the
face on the right—of a nonexistent
person that is the average composite
of these 3 plus 57 other actual faces.
David Perrett/
University of St. Andrews
Beauty is in the eye of the culture. Hoping to look attractive, people across the globe
have pierced their noses, lengthened their necks, bound their feet, and dyed or painted
their skin and hair. They have gorged themselves to achieve a full figure or liposuctioned
fat to achieve a slim one, applied chemicals hoping to rid themselves of unwanted hair or
to regrow wanted hair, strapped on leather garments to make their breasts seem smaller or
surgically filled their breasts with silicone and put on Wonderbras to make them look bigger.
Cultural ideals also change over time. For women in North America, the ultra-thin ideal of
the Roaring Twenties gave way to the soft, voluptuous Marilyn Monroe ideal of the 1950s,
only to be replaced by today’s lean yet busty ideal.
If we’re not born attractive, we may try to buy beauty. Americans now spend more on
beauty supplies than on education and social services combined. Still not satisfied, millions
undergo plastic surgery, teeth capping and whitening, Botox skin smoothing, and laser hair
removal (ASPS, 2010).
Some aspects of attractiveness, however, do cross place and time (Cunningham et al.,
2005; Langlois et al., 2000). By providing reproductive clues, bodies influence sexual attraction. As evolutionary psychologists explain (Module 15), men in many cultures, from Australia to Zambia, judge women as more attractive if they have a youthful, fertile appearance,
suggested by a low waist-to-hip ratio (Karremans et al., 2010; Perilloux et al., 2010; Platek &
Singh, 2010). Women feel attracted to healthy-looking men, but especially—and the more
so when ovulating—to those who seem mature, dominant, masculine, and affluent (Gallup
& Frederick, 2010; Gangestad et al., 2010). But faces matter, too. When people separately
rate opposite-sex faces and bodies, the face tends to be the better predictor of overall physical attractiveness (Currie & Little, 2009; Peters et al., 2007).
People everywhere also seem to prefer physical features—noses, legs, physiques—
that are neither unusually large nor small. An averaged face is attractive (FIGURE 79.1).
In one clever demonstration, researchers digitized the faces of up to 32 college students and used a computer to average them (Langlois & Roggman, 1990). Students
801
In the eye of the beholder
Caterina Bernardi/Corbis
© SCPhotos/Alamy
© Michele Falzone/Alamy
Attraction
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Extreme makeover Greater wealth
ENGAGE
Critical Questions
Students may insist that opposites
do attract. They will cite examples of
friends in their intimate circle who
are completely unlike them. Have
them discuss these differences to see
whether the friends they mention
really are different:
Unit XIV Social Psychology
and concerns about appearance in
China have led to increasing numbers
of women seeking to alter their
appearance. This woman underwent
six months of grueling plastic surgery to
transform her eyes, nose, chin, breasts,
abdomen, bottom, legs, and skin in
hopes of obtaining a career in film.
How are you different from
someone whom you consider
an “opposite” ? Do such differences
exist in areas that involve strongly
held values and beliefs? For
example, are you friends with
someone who is a racist even
though you are strongly opposed
to racism?
Similarity
So proximity has brought you into contact with someone, and your appearance has made
an acceptable first impression. What now influences whether you will become friends? As
you get to know each other better, will the chemistry be better if you are opposites or if you
are alike?
It makes a good story—extremely different types living in harmonious union: Rat, Mole,
and Badger in The Wind in the Willows, Frog and Toad in Arnold Lobel’s books. The stories delight us by expressing what we seldom experience, for in real life, opposites retract
(Rosenbaum, 1986). Compared with randomly paired people, friends and couples are far
more likely to share common attitudes, beliefs, and interests (and, for that matter, age, religion, race, education, intelligence, smoking behavior, and economic status).
Moreover, the more alike people are, the more their liking endures (Byrne, 1971).
Journalist Walter Lippmann was right to suppose that love lasts “when the lovers love
many things together, and not merely each other.” Similarity breeds content. Dissimilarity often fosters disfavor, which helps explain many straight men’s disapproval of gay
men who are doubly dissimilar from themselves in sexual orientation and gender roles
(Lehavot & Lambert, 2007).
Proximity, attractiveness, and similarity are not the only determinants of attraction. We
also like those who like us. This is especially so when our self-image is low. When we believe
someone likes us, we feel good and respond to them warmly, which leads them to like us
even more (Curtis & Miller, 1986). To be liked is powerfully rewarding.
Indeed, all the findings we have considered so far can be explained by a simple reward theory of attraction: We will like those whose behavior is rewarding to us, and we will
continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs. When people live or work in
close proximity with us, it costs less time and effort to develop the friendship and enjoy its
benefits. When people are attractive, they are aesthetically pleasing, and associating with
them can be socially rewarding. When people share our views, they reward us by validating our own.
Does the friend you consider
an “opposite” represent values
very different from those of your
parents? If so, could that explain
the attraction of this friendship?
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Unit XIV
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judged the averaged, composite
faces as more attractive than 96
percent of the individual faces.
One reason is that averaged faces
are symmetrical, and people with
symmetrical faces and bodies are
more sexually attractive (Rhodes
et al., 1999; Singh, 1995; Thornhill
& Gangestad, 1994). Merge either
half of your face with its mirror
image and your symmetrical new
face would boost your attractiveness a notch.
Our feelings also influence our attractiveness judgments. Imagine two people. The
first is honest, humorous, and polite. The second is rude, unfair, and abusive. Which one
is more attractive? Most people perceive the person with the appealing traits as also more
physically attractive (Lewandowski et al., 2007). Those we like we find attractive. In a
Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Prince Charming asks Cinderella, “Do I love you because you’re beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you?” Chances are it’s both. As
we see our loved ones again and again, their physical imperfections grow less noticeable
and their attractiveness grows more apparent (Beaman & Klentz, 1983; Gross & Crofton,
1977). Shakespeare said it in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Love looks not with the eyes,
but with the mind.” Come to love someone and watch beauty grow.
PhotoTex/EyePress; EyePress/Newscom
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Module 79
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Romantic Love
79-2
TEACH
How does romantic love typically change as time passes?
Diversity Connections
Sometimes people move quickly from initial impressions, to friendship, to the more
intense, complex, and mysterious state of romantic love. If love endures, temporary
passionate love will mellow into a lingering companionate love (Hatfield, 1988).
Investigate the success of arranged
marriages. If students in your school
are from cultures where marriages are
arranged, have them come to your
class to discuss this custom. You may
even invite their parents to class if
they will feel comfortable doing so.
Snapshots at jasonlove.com
Passionate Love
A key ingredient of passionate love is arousal. The two-factor theory of emotion
(Module 41) can help us understand this intense positive absorption in another (Hatfield, 1988). That theory assumes that:
•
Emotions have two ingredients—physical arousal plus cognitive appraisal.
•
Arousal from any source can enhance one emotion or another, depending on
how we interpret and label the arousal.
Bill looked at Susan, Susan at Bill. Suddenly
death didn’t seem like an option. This was
love at first sight.
In tests of the two-factor theory, college men have been aroused by fright, by
running in place, by viewing erotic materials, or by listening to humorous or repulsive
monologues. They were then introduced to an attractive woman and asked to rate her (or
their girlfriend). Unlike unaroused men, the stirred-up men attributed some of their arousal
to the woman or girlfriend, and felt more attracted to her (Carducci et al., 1978; Dermer &
Pyszczynski, 1978; White & Kight, 1984).
A sample experiment: Researchers studied people crossing two bridges above British
Columbia’s rocky Capilano River (Dutton & Aron, 1974, 1989). One, a swaying footbridge,
was 230 feet above the rocks; the other was low and solid. The researchers had an attractive
young woman intercept men coming off each bridge, and ask their help in filling out a short
questionnaire. She then offered her phone number in case they wanted to hear more about
her project. Far more of those who had just crossed the high bridge—which left their hearts
pounding—accepted the number and later called the woman. To be revved up and to associate some of that arousal with a desirable person is to feel the pull of passion. Adrenaline
makes the heart grow fonder. And when sexual desire is supplemented by a growing attachment, the result is the passion of romantic love (Berscheid, 2010).
FYI
How long do arranged marriages
typically last?
Do couples in arranged marriages
grow to love each other? Why or
why not?
Do young people who will
probably enter into arranged
marriages agree with the practice?
Why or why not?
Would your students trust their
parents to find them a suitable
mate? Why or why not?
Note the difference between lust
(immediate desire) and romantic
love (desire + attachment).
Companionate Love
Although the desire and attachment of romantic love often endure, the intense absorption in
the other, the thrill of the romance, the giddy “floating on a cloud” feelings typically fade. Does
this mean the French are correct in saying that “love makes the time pass and time makes love
pass”? Or can friendship and commitment keep a relationship going after the passion cools?
The evidence indicates that, as love matures, it becomes a steadier companionate
love—a deep, affectionate attachment (Hatfield, 1988). The flood of passion-facilitating
hormones (testosterone, dopamine, adrenaline) subsides and another hormone, oxytocin,
supports feelings of trust, calmness, and bonding with the mate. In the most satisfying of
marriages, attraction and sexual desire endure, minus the obsession of early stage romance
(Acevedo & Aron, 2009).
There may be adaptive wisdom to the shift from passion to attachment (Reis & Aron,
2008). Passionate love often produces children, whose survival is aided by the parents’ waning obsession with each other. Failure to appreciate passionate love’s limited half-life can
doom a relationship (Berscheid et al., 1984). Indeed, recognizing the short duration of obsessive passionate love, some societies deem such feelings to be an irrational reason for
marrying. Better, they say, to choose (or have someone choose for you) a partner with a
compatible background and interests. Non-Western cultures, where people rate love less
important for marriage, do have lower divorce rates (Levine et al., 1995).
1/21/14 10:31 AM
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passionate love an aroused
state of intense positive absorption
in another, usually present at the
beginning of a love relationship.
TEACH
companionate love the deep
affectionate attachment we feel
for those with whom our lives are
intertwined.
Concept Connections
Remind students which 2 factors are
included in the 2-factor theory of
emotion (Unit VIII):
“When two people are under the
influence of the most violent, most
insane, most delusive, and most
transient of passions, they are
required to swear that they will
remain in that excited, abnormal,
and exhausting condition
continuously until death do them
part.” -GEORGE BERNARD SHAW,
“GETTING MARRIED,” 1908
Physiological response
Cognitive label
According to this theory, which
Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer
developed, both factors must be present in order to experience an emotion.
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
ENGAGE
HI & LOIS © 1990 by King Features
Syndicate, Inc. World rights reserved.
Active Learning
The divorce rate is much higher today
than it was when your students’ greatgrandparents married. Have students
investigate why people get divorced:
Are the values of society different
today than they were a generation
ago regarding divorce?
What are some common reasons
that people cite for getting a
divorce? Do these reasons point to
a lack of companionship between
spouses?
ENGAGE
Have students come up with a list of
self-disclosing questions. Then ask
them to partner with someone they
don’t know well and answer the questions for each other.
How did students feel about each
other before this exercise?
What new things did they learn
about each other?
What was the most interesting
thing they learned? What would
they like to know more about?
equity a condition in which
people receive from a relationship
in proportion to what they give to it.
self-disclosure revealing intimate
aspects of oneself to others.
AP Photo/Archaeological Society SAP, ho
Active Learning
Love is an ancient
thing In 2007, a 5000- to
6000-year-old “Romeo
and Juliet” young couple
was unearthed locked in
embrace, near Rome.
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Unit XIV
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 804
One key to a gratifying and enduring relationship is equity. When equity exists—when
both partners receive in proportion to what they give—their chances for sustained and satisfying companionate love are good (Gray-Little & Burks, 1983; Van Yperen & Buunk, 1990).
In one national survey, “sharing household chores” ranked third, after “faithfulness” and a
“happy sexual relationship,” on a list of nine things people associated with successful marriages. “I like hugs. I like kisses. But what I really love is help with the dishes,” summarized
the Pew Research Center (2007).
Equity’s importance extends beyond marriage. Mutually sharing self and possessions,
making decisions together, giving and getting emotional support, promoting and caring
about each other’s welfare—all of these acts are at the core of every type of loving relationship (Sternberg & Grajek, 1984). It’s true for lovers, for parent and child, and for intimate
friends.
Another vital ingredient of loving relationships is self-disclosure, the revealing of
intimate details about ourselves—our likes and dislikes, our dreams and worries, our proud
and shameful moments. “When I am with my friend,” noted the Roman statesman Seneca, “me thinks I am alone, and as much at liberty to speak anything as to think it.” Selfdisclosure breeds liking, and liking breeds self-disclosure (Collins & Miller, 1994). As one
person reveals a little, the other reciprocates, the first then reveals more, and on and on, as
friends or lovers move to deeper and deeper intimacy (Baumeister & Bratslavsky, 1999).
One experiment marched student pairs through 45 minutes of increasingly selfdisclosing conversation—from “When did you last sing to yourself?” to “When did you last
cry in front of another person? By yourself?” Others spent the time with small-talk questions, such as “What was your high school like?” (Aron et al., 1997). By the experiment’s
end, those experiencing the escalating intimacy felt remarkably close to their conversation
partner, much closer than did the small-talkers.
Intimacy can also grow from pausing to ponder and
write our feelings. In another study, researchers invited
one person from each of 86 dating couples to spend 20
minutes a day over three days either writing their deepest thoughts and feelings about the relationship or writing
merely about their daily activities (Slatcher & Pennebaker,
2006). Those who had written about their feelings expressed more emotion in their instant messages with their
partners in the days following, and 77 percent were still
dating three months later (compared with 52 percent of
those who had written about their activities).
In addition to equity and self-disclosure, a third key
to enduring love is positive support. While relationship
conflicts are inevitable, we can ask ourselves whether our
communications more often express sarcasm or support,
scorn or sympathy, sneers or smiles. For unhappy couples,
1/21/14 10:31 AM
Social Psychology
3/5/14 12:45 PM
MyersAP_SE_2e
Attraction
Module 79
805
disagreements, criticisms, and put downs are routine. For happy couples in enduring relationships, positive interactions (compliments, touches, laughing) outnumber negative interactions (sarcasm, disapproval, insults) by at least 5 to 1 (Gottman, 2007; see also Sullivan
et al., 2010).
In the mathematics of love, self-disclosing intimacy + mutually supportive equity =
enduring companionate love.
CLOSE & ASSESS
Exit Assessment
Ask students to describe the factors
that lead people to fall in love and
the factors that help them stay in a
relationship.
Before You Move On
c ASK YOURSELF
When you think of some of the older couples you know, which ones seem to experience
companionate love? How do you think they’ve achieved it?
c TEST YOURSELF
How does being physically attractive influence others’ perceptions?
Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.
Module 79 Review
79-1
1/21/14 10:31 AM
Why do we befriend or fall in love with some
people but not others?
•
Proximity (geographical nearness) increases liking, in part
because of the mere exposure effect—exposure to novel
stimuli increases liking of those stimuli.
•
Physical attractiveness increases social opportunities and
improves the way we are perceived.
•
Similarity of attitudes and interests greatly increases
liking, especially as relationships develop. We also like
those who like us.
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod79_B.indd 805
79-2
How does romantic love typically change as
time passes?
•
Intimate love relationships start with passionate love—an
intensely aroused state.
•
Over time, the strong affection of companionate love may
develop, especially if enhanced by an equitable relationship
and by intimate self-disclosure.
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Attraction
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
806
Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
1. b
2. e
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Which of the following terms describes our geographic
3. a
4. d
attractiveness that appears to be true across cultures?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Mere exposure effect
Proximity
Similarity
Ingroup bias
Symmetry
2. Which of the following is an example of the mere
exposure effect?
a. Adrianna has started arriving tardy to her second
period class to avoid a group of kids in the hall who
constantly tease her.
b. Abe has biked the same route to school so many times
that he no longer has to think about where to turn.
c. Daiyu has seen the same toothpaste ad on television
a hundred times. Each time she sees it she hates it
more.
d. Abdul has always loved dogs, so he adopted one
from the local shelter.
e. Guiren didn’t like sushi the first couple times he tried
it, but his friend encouraged him to keep eating it
and now it’s one of his favorite foods.
Answer to Practice FRQ 2
2 points: Equity and self-disclosure
are the key factors that accompany
companionate love. Equity occurs
when people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give
to it. Self-disclosure is revealing intimate aspects of yourself to others.
Answer
1 point: Proximity, which is geographic nearness.
Unit XIV
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 806
4. Over time, which of the following is typically true of the
relationship between passionate love and companionate
love?
a. Passionate and companionate love both decrease.
b. Passionate love increases and companionate love
decreases.
c. Passionate and companionate love both increase.
d. Passionate love decreases and companionate love
increases.
e. There is no consistent relationship between the levels
of passionate love and companionate love.
2. Describe one key factor present in passionate love and
two key factors present in companionate love.
(3 points)
1 point: Physical attractiveness.
1 point: Similarity.
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod79_B.indd 806
806
Indications of reproductive health
Height
Weight
Size of the ears
Shape of the chin
Practice FRQs
1. List the three major factors that influence attraction.
1 point: Physical arousal is the key factor that accompanies passionate love.
3. Which of the following is an aspect of physical
nearness to another person?
1/21/14 10:31 AM
Social Psychology
3/5/14 12:45 PM
MyersAP_SE_2e
Altruism, Conflict, and Peacemaking
Module 80
807
TEACH
Module 80
TR M
TRM
Edit
/Photo
onklin
Paul C
Altruism, Conflict, and Peacemaking
ENGAGE
Module Learning Objectives
80-1
Identify the times when people are most—and least—likely to help.
80-2
Discuss how social exchange theory and social norms explain
helping behavior.
80-3
Explain how social traps and mirror-image perceptions fuel social
conflict.
80-4
Discuss how we can transform feelings of prejudice, aggression, and
conflict into attitudes that promote peace.
Active Learning
Have students research back issues of
the local paper for stories of people
who acted heroically. Contact these
people if possible and interview them
over the phone, asking them about
their particular acts of courage.
What caused them to act in the
first place?
How did they feel before, during,
and after the event? Why weren’t
they paralyzed by fear or more
concerned for their own safety?
Have they received recognition
for their heroic acts? How did such
recognition make them feel?
Altruism
80-1
When are people most—and least—likely to help?
Altruism is an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. In rescuing his jailer, Dirk
Willems exemplified altruism (Unit XIV opener). So also did Carl Wilkens and Paul
Rusesabagina in Kigali, Rwanda. Wilkens, a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, was living there in 1994 with his family when Hutu militia began to slaughter the Tutsi. The U.S.
government, church leaders, and friends all implored Wilkens to leave. He refused. After
evacuating his family, and even after every other American had left Kigali, he alone stayed
and contested the 800,000-person genocide. When the militia came to kill him and his Tutsi
servants, Wilkens’ Hutu neighbors deterred them. Despite repeated death threats, he spent
his days running roadblocks to take food and water to orphanages and to negotiate, plead,
and bully his way through the bloodshed, saving lives time and again. “It just seemed the
right thing to do,” he later explained (Kristof, 2004).
Elsewhere in Kigali, Rusesabagina, a Hutu married to a Tutsi and the acting manager
of a luxury hotel, was sheltering more than 1200 terrified Tutsis and moderate Hutus. When
international peacekeepers abandoned the city and hostile militia threatened his guests in
the “Hotel Rwanda” (as it came to be called in a 2004 movie), the courageous Rusesabagina
began cashing in past favors. He bribed the militia and telephoned influential people abroad
to exert pressure on local authorities, thereby sparing the lives of the hotel’s occupants from
the surrounding chaos.
Both Wilkens and Rusesabagina were displaying altruism. Altruism became a major
concern of social psychologists after an especially vile act of sexual violence. On March
13, 1964, a stalker repeatedly stabbed Kitty Genovese, then raped her as she lay dying
outside her Queens, New York, apartment at 3:30 A.M. “Oh, my God, he stabbed me!”
1/21/14 10:31 AM
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod80_B.indd 807
ENGAGE
Discussion Starter
Use the Module 80 Fact or Falsehood?
activity from the TRM to introduce the
concepts from this module.
altruism unselfish regard for the
welfare of others.
ENGAGE
Enrichment
“Probably no single incident has
caused social psychologists to pay
as much attention to an aspect of
social behavior as Kitty Genovese’s
murder.” -R. LANCE SHOTLAND (1984)
1/21/14 10:31 AM
Andrew Carnegie was inspired to
establish the Hero Fund Commission
in 1904 after 2 attempted rescues
from a coal mining disaster in which
both rescuers died. Carnegie set aside
$5 million to compensate rescuers
or their families. The commission has
recognized more than 8300 acts of
heroism. In addition to the medal,
awardees or their survivors receive
$3500 and, occasionally, a pension
or scholarship. For more information,
go to the commission’s website at
www.carnegiehero.org.
Active Learning
It is usually fairly easy to have students both
enjoy and learn from performing a random
act of kindness. After performing an act of
kindness, students should write a brief paper
describing the act, the recipient’s reaction,
and their own reaction. Recipients’ reactions,
particularly when the recipient is not grateful,
provide the basis for a lively classroom discussion. Extend the text discussion of altruism by
asking students to reflect on why some recipients might react negatively to receiving help.
Radmacher, S. (1997, January 19). Social psychology
projects. Teaching in the psychological sciences (TIPSOnline Discussion Group).
Altruism, Conflict, and Peacemaking
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Module 80
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3/5/14 12:45 PM
808
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Genovese screamed into the early morning stillness. “Please help me!” Windows opened
and lights went on as neighbors (38 of them, said an initial New York Times report, though
that number was later contested) heard her screams. Her attacker fled and then returned
to stab and rape her again. Not until he had fled for good did anyone so much as call the
police, at 3:50 A.M.
ENGAGE
Active Learning
Although the story of Kitty Genovese
is tragic and horrific, there are other
stories of people who did help in
similar situations. Have students investigate some of these stories, noting
how they are different from cases like
Genovese’s.
Reflecting on initial reports of the Genovese murder and other such tragedies, most commentators were outraged by the bystanders’ “apathy” and “indifference.” Rather than
blaming the onlookers, social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané (1968b) attributed
their inaction to an important situational factor—the presence of others. Given certain circumstances, they suspected, most of us might behave similarly.
After staging emergencies under various conditions, Darley and Latané assembled their
findings into a decision scheme: We will help only if the situation enables us first to notice
the incident, then to interpret it as an emergency, and finally to assume responsibility for helping (FIGURE 80.1). At each step, the presence of others can turn us away from the path
that leads to helping.
Many people both in and out of
Nazi Germany helped Jews escape
the Holocaust. Why did they risk
their own lives to help people
whom their society had deemed
unworthy?
Figure 80.1
The decisionmaking process
for bystander
intervention Before
White Southerners in the
Confederate South helped establish
and maintain the Underground
Railroad, the network of secret
routes and safe houses that helped
thousands of slaves escape to
freedom. What caused these people
to rebel against their society’s
norms and laws?
helping, one must first
notice an emergency,
then correctly interpret
it, and then feel
responsible. (From
Darley & Latané,
1968b.)
TR M
TRM
Enrichment
The results of the original studies by
John Darley and Bibb Latané were
robust. When bystanders were alone,
85 percent would seek help. When
they were in a crowd, only 31 percent
would do so. So if you need help,
hope that there isn’t a big crowd
around!
Use Student Activity: Why Do People Volunteer? from the TRM to help
students explore helping behavior.
Interprets
incident as
emergency?
No
help
A P ® E x a m Ti p
Common sense suggests that you
would be more likely to get help
if there are more people around,
but research on the bystander
effect has in fact shown just the
opposite is true. This concept
often shows up on the AP® exam,
so be sure you understand it.
Yes
No
No
bystander effect the tendency
for any given bystander to be less
likely to give aid if other bystanders
are present.
ENGAGE
Yes
Notices
incident?
No
help
Assumes
responsibility
Yes
Attempts
to help
No
No
help
Viviane Moos/CORBIS
Bystander Intervention
Darley and Latané reached their conclusions after interpreting the results of a series of
experiments. For example, they simulated a physical emergency in their laboratory as students participated in a discussion over an intercom. Each student was in a separate cubicle,
and only the person whose microphone was switched on could be heard. When his turn
came, one student (an accomplice of the experimenters) made sounds as though he were
having an epileptic seizure, and he called for help (Darley & Latané, 1968a).
How did the other students react? As FIGURE 80.2 shows, those who believed only
they could hear the victim—and therefore thought they alone were responsible for helping
him—usually went to his aid. Students who thought others also could hear the victim’s cries
were more likely to ignore the victim. When more people shared responsibility for helping—when there was a diffusion of responsibility—any single listener was less likely to help.
Hundreds of additional experiments have confirmed this bystander effect. For example, researchers and their assistants took 1497 elevator rides in three cities and “accidentally” dropped coins or pencils in front of 4813 fellow passengers (Latané & Dabbs, 1975).
When alone with the person in need, 40 percent helped; in the presence of 5 other bystanders, only 20 percent helped.
Observations of behavior in thousands of such situations—relaying an emergency
phone call, aiding a stranded motorist, donating blood, picking up dropped books, contributing money, giving time—show that the best odds of our helping someone occur when
•
•
the person appears to need and deserve help.
the person is in some way similar to us.
•
the person is a woman.
TEACH
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1/21/14 10:31 AM
Concept Connections
Link the bystander effect to deindividuation
and social loafing.
808
Unit XIV
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 808
When individuals are in a crowd, they are
less likely to behave rationally. Their sense
of responsibility will diffuse, causing them
to do things like riot, loot, or vandalize.
When people are in a group, they are less
likely to make their best efforts, especially if
they believe others are available to help.
Social Psychology
3/7/14 9:54 AM
MyersAP_SE_2e
Altruism, Conflict, and Peacemaking
•
we have just observed someone
else being helpful.
•
we are not in a hurry.
•
we are in a small town or rural
area.
•
we are feeling guilty.
•
we are focused on others and not
preoccupied.
•
we are in a good mood.
Percentage 90%
attempting
to help
80
Fewer people help
if others seem
available
70
60
50
Module 80
809
Figure 80.2
Responses to a simulated
physical emergency When
people thought they alone heard
the calls for help from a person they
believed to be having an epileptic
seizure, they usually helped. But
when they thought four others were
also hearing the calls, fewer than
one-third responded. (From Darley &
Latané, 1968a.)
40
This last result, that happy people are helpful
30
people, is one of the most consistent findings in
20
all of psychology. As poet Robert Browning (1868)
observed, “Oh, make us happy and you make
10
us good!” It doesn’t matter how we are cheered.
0
Whether by being made to feel successful and in1
2
3
4
telligent, by thinking happy thoughts, by finding
Number of others
presumed
available
to
help
money, or even by receiving a posthypnotic suggestion, we become more generous and more eager to help (Carlson et al., 1988). And given a feeling of elevation after witnessing or learning of someone else’s self-giving deed, our helping will become even more pronounced
(Schnall et al., 2010).
So happiness breeds helpfulness. But it’s also true that helpfulness breeds happiness. Making charitable donations activates brain areas associated with reward (Harbaugh et al., 2007). That helps explain a curious finding: People who give money away
are happier than those who spend it almost entirely on themselves. In one experiment,
researchers gave people an envelope with cash and instructions either to spend it on
themselves or to spend it on others (Dunn et al., 2008). Which group was happiest at the
day’s end? It was, indeed, those assigned to the spend-it-on-others condition.
ENGAGE
Active Learning
The Norms for Helping
How do social exchange theory and social norms explain helping
behavior?
80-2
Why do we help? One widely held view is that self-interest underlies all human interactions, that our constant goal is to maximize rewards and minimize costs. Accountants call
it cost-benefit analysis. Philosophers call it utilitarianism. Social psychologists call it social
exchange theory. If you are pondering whether to donate blood, you may weigh the costs
of doing so (time, discomfort, and anxiety) against the benefits (reduced guilt, social approval,
and good feelings). If the rewards exceed the costs, you will help.
Others believe that we help because we have been socialized to do so, through norms
that prescribe how we ought to behave. Through socialization, we learn the reciprocity
norm, the expectation that we should return help, not harm, to those who have helped us.
In our relations with others of similar status, the reciprocity norm compels us to give (in
favors, gifts, or social invitations) about as much as we receive.
The reciprocity norm kicked in after Dave Tally, a Tempe, Arizona, homeless man, found
$3300 in a backpack that had been lost by an Arizona State University student headed to
buy a used car (Lacey, 2010). Instead of using the cash for much-needed bike repairs, food,
and shelter, Tally turned the backpack in to the social service agency where he volunteered.
To reciprocate Tally’s help, the student thanked him with a reward. Hearing about Tally’s
self-giving deeds, dozens of others also sent him money and job offers.
social exchange theory
the theory that our social behavior
is an exchange process, the aim of
which is to maximize benefits and
minimize costs.
reciprocity norm an expectation
that people will help, not hurt,
those who have helped them.
Have student pairs go to a public
area in school. The “displayer” should
walk or stand about 5 feet in front of
the “coder” and make eye contact
with a single oncoming subject. The
displayer should then signal the coder
to discreetly observe the respondent’s
facial expression.
In the original study, over half the
subjects responded to a smile with
a smile, but few subjects responded
to a frown with a frown. The reciprocity norm may explain why we
should respond in kind to rewarding
actions. A frown generally represents
unfriendly or negative affect. Passersby seemed to respond to a frown
with a look of bewilderment. Females
were more likely to smile than males.
People were more likely to smile at
a female. Did your students obtain
similar results? Why or why not?
Hinsz, V., & Tomhave, J. (1991). Smile and
(half ) the world smiles with you, frown
and you frown alone. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 17, 586–592.
1/21/14 10:31 AM
TEACH
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod80_B.indd 809
TR M
TRM
Teaching Tip
Reciprocity is a powerful social norm.
1/21/14 10:31 AM
A professor sent holiday cards to strangers.
Cards poured back from people who had
never met him.
Many people who receive free samples in
the supermarket find it difficult to return
to discard the sample’s trash (for example,
a cup or spoon) after it’s been used. They
often wind up buying the product even if
they do not need it.
Use Student Activity: Pleasurable Versus Philanthropic Activities—Which Brings More Happiness? from the TRM to help students explore
the benefits of helping behavior.
Cialdini, R. (1998). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: William Morrow.
Altruism, Conflict, and Peacemaking
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 809
Module 80
809
3/5/14 12:45 PM
Unit XIV Social Psychology
AP Photo/Newsday, Nick Brooks
810
ENGAGE
Enrichment
Researchers identify 5 specific strategies for dealing with social conflict.
Consider the hypothetical case of
Peter, who is looking forward to a
vacation at a mountain lodge. His wife
wants to go to a seaside resort.
He can respond by stubbornly
insisting on the mountain vacation,
even threatening to go alone.
Concern only about his own needs
would lead to this response.
He can yield to his wife’s preference.
Concern only for others’ needs
might lead to this response.
He can take a problem-solving
approach and come up with a
vacation plan that will satisfy both him
and his wife. Concerns for the self and
others can lead to problem solving.
Subway hero Wesley Autrey
“I don’t feel like I did something
spectacular; I just saw someone who
needed help.”
We also learn a social-responsibility norm: that we should help those who
need our help—young children and others who cannot give as much as they receive—even if the costs outweigh the benefits. Construction worker Wesley Autrey
exemplified the social-responsibility norm on January 2, 2007. He and his 6- and
4-year-old daughters were awaiting a New York City subway train when, before them,
a man collapsed in a seizure, got up, then stumbled to the platform’s edge and fell
onto the tracks. With train headlights approaching, “I had to make a split decision,”
Autrey later recalled (Buckley, 2007). His decision, as his girls looked on in horror,
was to leap from the platform, push the man off the tracks and into a foot-deep space
between them, and lay atop him. As the train screeched to a halt, five cars traveled
just above his head, leaving grease on his knit cap. When Autrey cried out, “I’ve got
two daughters up there. Let them know their father is okay,” the onlookers erupted
into applause.
People who attend weekly religious services often are admonished to practice the
social-responsibility norm, and sometimes they do. In American surveys, they have
reported twice as many volunteer hours spent helping the poor and infirm, compared
with those who rarely or never attend religious services (Hodgkinson & Weitzman,
1992; Independent Sector, 2002). Between 2006 and 2008, Gallup polls sampled more
than 300,000 people across 140 countries, comparing those “highly religious” (who said
religion was important to them and who had attended a religious service in the prior week)
with those less religious. The highly religious, despite being poorer, were about 50 percent
more likely to report having “donated money to a charity in the last month” and to have
volunteered time to an organization (Pelham & Crabtree, 2008). Although positive social
norms encourage generosity and enable group living, conflicts often divide us.
Conflict and Peacemaking
We live in surprising times. With astonishing speed, recent democratic movements swept
away totalitarian rule in Eastern European and Arab countries, and hopes for a new world
order displaced the Cold War chill. And yet, the twenty-first century began with terrorist
acts and war. Every day, the world has continued to spend more than $3 billion for arms and
armies—money that could have been used for housing, nutrition, education, and health
care. Knowing that wars begin in human minds, psychologists have wondered: What in the
human mind causes destructive conflict? How might the perceived threats of social diversity
be replaced by a spirit of cooperation?
Elements of Conflict
80-3
He can be inactive and hope the
disagreement will just dissipate.
When both concerns for the self
and others are weak, inaction is the
likely approach.
social-responsibility norm
an expectation that people will help
those needing their help.
conflict a perceived
incompatibility of actions, goals, or
ideas.
Peter can withdraw from the
controversy by deciding not to take
any vacation. The model makes no
prediction about the antecedents
of withdrawing.
social trap a situation in which
the conflicting parties, by each
rationally pursuing their selfinterest rather than the good of the
group, become caught in mutually
destructive behavior.
How do social traps and mirror-image perceptions fuel social
conflict?
To a social psychologist, a conflict is a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas.
The elements of conflict are much the same, whether we are speaking of nations at war, cultural groups feuding within a society, or partners sparring in a relationship. In each situation,
people become enmeshed in potentially destructive processes that can produce results no
one wants. Among these processes are social traps and distorted perceptions.
SOCIAL TRAPS
In some situations, we support our collective well-being by pursuing our personal interests. As capitalist Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (1776), “It is not from the
benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from
their regard to their own interest.” In other situations, we harm our collective well-being by
pursuing our personal interests. Such situations are social traps.
Pruitt, D., Rubin, J., & Kim, S. (1994). Social
conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement
(2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod80_B.indd 810
1/21/14 10:31 AM
ENGAGE
TR M
TRM
Active Learning
Have students sit around a shallow bowl that
initially contains 10 metal “nuts.” State that
the goal is for each student to accumulate as
many nuts as possible. A student may take as
many as he or she wants, and every 10 seconds
the number of nuts remaining in the bowl will
be doubled. What happens? Unless students
are allowed some time to devise a strategy
810
Unit XIV
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 810
for conservation, 65 percent of the groups will
never reach the first 10-second replenishment.
Often they knock the bowl right off the table,
grabbing for their shares!
Use Teacher Demonstration: Social Traps
from the TRM to help demonstrate social traps
to students.
Social Psychology
3/5/14 12:45 PM
MyersAP_SE_2e
Altruism, Conflict, and Peacemaking
Person 1
Optimal
outcome
+$10
–$5
–$5
Choose B
Choose B
+$5
+$5
Person 2
Choose A
Choose A
Probable
outcome
Module 80
811
Figure 80.3
Social-trap game matrix By pursuing our
ENGAGE
self-interest and not trusting others, we can end
up losers. To illustrate this, imagine playing the
game on the left. The light-orange triangles show
the outcomes for Person 1, which depend on the
choices made by both players. If you were Person
1, would you choose A or B? (This game is called
a non-zero-sum game because the outcomes
need not add up to zero; both sides can win or
both can lose.)
TR M
TRM
Critical Questions
Many teachers use cooperative learning groups, but are these groups truly
cooperative? Discuss with students
what a truly cooperative situation
looks like, including the use of superordinate goals, common values, and
mutual benefits.
0
0
+$10
Consider the simple game matrix in FIGURE 80.3, which is similar to those used in experiments with countless thousands of people. Both sides can win or both can lose, depending on the players’ individual choices. Pretend you are Person 1, and that you and Person 2
will each receive the amount shown after you separately choose either A or B. (You might
invite someone to look at the matrix with you and take the role of Person 2.) Which do you
choose—A or B?
You and Person 2 are caught in a dilemma. If you both choose A, you both benefit, making $5 each. Neither of you benefits if you both choose B, for neither of you makes anything.
Nevertheless, on any single trial you serve your own interests if you choose B: You can’t lose,
and you might make $10. But the same is true for the other person. Hence, the social trap:
As long as you both pursue your own immediate best interest and choose B, you will both
end up with nothing—the typical result—when you could have made $5.
Many real-life situations similarly pit our individual interests against our communal
well-being. Individual whalers reasoned that the few whales they took would not threaten
the species and that if they didn’t take them others would anyway. The result: Some species
of whales became endangered. Ditto for the buffalo hunters of yesterday and the elephanttusk poachers of today. Individual car owners and home owners reason, “It would cost me
comfort or money to buy a more fuel-efficient car and furnace. Besides, the fossil fuels I burn
don’t noticeably add to the greenhouse gases.” When enough others reason similarly, the
collective result threatens disaster—climate change, rising seas, and more extreme weather.
Do the work groups for projects
at school typically reflect these
qualities?
Do the groups have any
superordinate goals other than
getting a good grade?
Do the group members share
common values such as hard work
and attention to detail?
How are groups typically graded?
Do such grading practices reduce
cooperation or improve it?
How does social loafing fit into all
this?
AP Photo/Lisa Poole
Use Student Activity: A Matter of Context from the TRM to help students
explore cooperation in context.
Not in my ocean! Many people
support alternative energy sources,
including wind turbines. But proposals
to construct wind farms in real-world
neighborhoods elicit less support.
One such proposal, for locating wind
turbines off the coast of Massachusetts’
Nantucket Island, produced heated
debate over the future benefits of clean
energy versus the costs of altering
treasured ocean views and, possibly,
migratory bird routes.
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Unit XIV Social Psychology
Social traps challenge us to find ways of reconciling our right to pursue our personal
well-being with our responsibility for the well-being of all. Psychologists have therefore explored ways to convince people to cooperate for their mutual betterment—through agreedupon regulations, through better communication, and through promoting awareness of our responsibilities toward community, nation, and the whole of humanity (Dawes, 1980; Linder,
1982; Sato, 1987). Given effective regulations, communication, and awareness, people more
often cooperate, whether it be in playing a laboratory game or the real game of life.
TEACH
Concept Connections
Link mirror-image perceptions to
ingroup bias and other-race effect,
topics discussed earlier in this unit. We
tend to feel defensive and protective
of our own group and to view those
in the outgroup as being homogeneous and indistinguishable. These
tendencies lead to quicker responses
to others that may not be well reasoned, resulting in rash behaviors and
statements.
ENEMY PERCEPTIONS
mirror-image perceptions
mutual views often held by
conflicting people, as when each
side sees itself as ethical and
peaceful and views the other side as
evil and aggressive.
self-fulfilling prophecy a belief
that leads to its own fulfillment.
TEACH
Common Pitfalls
Students often get confused by
self-fulfilling prophecies. Using the
following example, help them better
understand this concept:
A student believes that she will not
pass the next AP® Psychology test.
The student then does not study
for the test, since she is certain she
will fail anyway.
The student fails the test,
confirming her belief.
The prophecy is fulfilled, even
though her actions could have
altered the prophecy.
Promoting Peace
80-4
CONTACT
Does it help to put two conflicting parties into close contact? It depends. When contact is
noncompetitive and between parties of equal status, such as fellow store clerks, it typically
helps. Initially prejudiced co-workers of different races have, in such circumstances, usually
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How can we transform feelings of prejudice, aggression, and conflict
into attitudes that promote peace?
How can we make peace? Can contact, cooperation, communication, and conciliation
transform the antagonisms fed by prejudice and conflicts into attitudes that promote peace?
Research indicates that, in some cases, they can.
Students need to understand that
their own subsequent action is what
creates the self-fulfilling prophecy, not
the belief itself.
812
Psychologists have noted that those in conflict have a curious tendency to form diabolical
images of one another. These distorted images are, ironically, so similar that we call them
mirror-image perceptions: As we see “them”—as untrustworthy, with evil intentions—
so “they” see us. Each demonizes the other.
Mirror-image perceptions can often feed a vicious cycle of hostility. If Juan believes
Maria is annoyed with him, he may snub her, causing her to act in ways that justify his
perception. As with individuals, so with countries. Perceptions can become self-fulfilling
prophecies. They may confirm themselves by influencing the other country to react in
ways that seem to justify them.
Participants tend to see their own actions as responses to provocation, not as the causes
of what happens next. Perceiving themselves as returning tit for tat, they often hit back
harder, as University College London volunteers did in one experiment (Shergill et al.,
2003). Their task: After feeling pressure on their own finger, they were to use a mechanical
device to press on another volunteer’s finger. Although told to reciprocate with the same
amount of pressure, they typically responded with about 40 percent more force than they
had just experienced. Despite seeking only to respond in kind, their touches soon escalated
to hard presses, much as when each child after a fight claims that “I just poked him, but he
hit me harder.”
Perceived provocations feed similar cycles of hostility on the world stage. In 2001, newly
elected U.S. President George W. Bush spoke of Saddam Hussein: “Some of today’s tyrants
are gripped by an implacable hatred of the United States of America. They hate our friends,
they hate our values, they hate democracy and freedom and individual liberty. Many care
little for the lives of their own people.” Hussein reciprocated the perception in 2002. The
United States, he said, is “an evil tyrant,” with Satan as its protector. It lusts for oil and aggressively attacks those who “defend what is right.”
The point is not that truth must lie midway between two such views (one may be more
accurate). The point is that enemy perceptions often form mirror images. Moreover, as enemies change, so do perceptions. In American minds and media, the “bloodthirsty, cruel,
treacherous” Japanese of World War II later became our “intelligent, hardworking, selfdisciplined, resourceful allies” (Gallup, 1972).
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come to accept one another. This finding is confirmed by a statistical digest of more than 500
studies of face-to-face contact with outgroups (such as ethnic minorities, the elderly, and
those with disabilities). Among the quarter-million people studied across 38 nations, contact has been correlated with, or in experimental studies has led to, more positive attitudes
(Pettigrew & Tropp, 2011). Some examples:
•
With interracial contact, South African Whites’ and Blacks’ “attitudes [have
moved] into closer alignment” (Dixon et al, 2007; Finchilescu & Tredoux, 2010).
In South Africa, as elsewhere, the contact effect is somewhat less for lower-status
ethnic groups’ views of higher-status groups (Durrheim & Dixon, 2010; Gibson &
Claassen, 2010).
•
Heterosexuals’ attitudes toward gay people are influenced not only by what they know
but also by whom they know (Smith et al., 2009). In surveys, the reason people most
often give for becoming more supportive of same-sex marriage is “having friends,
family or acquaintances who are gay or lesbian” (Pew, 2013).
•
Friendly contact, say between Blacks and Whites, improves attitudes not only toward
one another, but also toward other outgroups, such as Hispanics (Tausch et al., 2010).
•
Even indirect contact with an outgroup member (via story reading or through a friend
who has an outgroup friend) has reduced prejudice (Cameron & Rutland, 2006;
Pettigrew et al., 2007).
However, contact is not always enough. In most desegregated schools, ethnic groups
resegregate themselves in the lunchrooms and classrooms, and on the school grounds (Alexander & Tredoux, 2010; Clack et al., 2005; Schofield, 1986). People in each group often
think that they would welcome more contact with the other group, but they assume the
other group does not reciprocate the wish (Richeson & Shelton, 2007). “I don’t reach out to
them, because I don’t want to be rebuffed; they don’t reach out to me, because they’re just
not interested.” When such mirror-image misperceptions are corrected, friendships may
then form and prejudices melt.
ENGAGE
TR M
TRM
Online Activities
Do different racial, ethnic, cultural,
or social groups resegregate during
lunch or other common activities at
your school? If so, have your students
participate in some version of a Mix
It Up at Lunch Day (http://www.
tolerance.org/mix-it-up/what-is-mix),
a project of the Southern Poverty
Law Center. With Mix It Up, students
sit with people from outside their
ingroups during lunch, promoting
contact and encouraging tolerance.
Challenge students to continue this
practice once a week.
Use Student Activity: Intercultural
Learning Activities from the TRM to
help students explore perspectives
from other cultures.
“You cannot shake hands with
a clenched fist.” -INDIRA GANDHI,
1971
COOPERATION
To see if enemies could overcome their differences, researcher Muzafer Sherif (1966) set
a conflict in motion. He separated 22 Oklahoma City boys into two separate camp areas. Then he had the two groups compete for prizes in a series of activities. Before long,
each group became intensely proud of itself and hostile to the other group’s “sneaky,”
“smart-alecky stinkers.” Food wars broke out. Cabins were ransacked. Fistfights had to
be broken up by camp counselors. Brought together, the two groups avoided each other,
except to taunt and threaten. Little did they know that within a few days, they would
be friends.
Sherif accomplished this by giving them superordinate goals—shared goals that
could be achieved only through cooperation. When he arranged for the camp water supply to “fail,” all 22 boys had to work together to restore water. To rent a movie in those
pre-DVD days, they all had to pool their resources. To move a stalled truck, the boys
needed to combine their strength, pulling and pushing together. Having used isolation
and competition to make strangers into enemies, Sherif used shared predicaments and
goals to turn enemies into friends. What reduced conflict was not mere contact, but
cooperative contact.
A shared predicament likewise had a powerfully unifying effect in the weeks after 9/11.
Patriotism soared as Americans felt “we” were under attack. Gallup-surveyed approval of
“our President” shot up from 51 percent the week before the attack to a highest-ever 90
percent level 10 days after (Newport, 2002). In chat groups and everyday speech, even the
word we (relative to I) surged in the immediate aftermath (Pennebaker, 2002).
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superordinate goals shared
goals that override differences
among people and require their
cooperation.
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AFP/Getty Images
814
TEACH
Concept Connections
Help students remember that simply
bringing people together does not
mean they will fully cooperate and get
along. Engage students in a discussion of how to avoid the following
when working toward peace and
cooperation:
Group polarization
Groupthink
Ingroup and outgroup bias
Striving for peace The road to
reconciliation in the Middle East
may be arduous, but as former U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted
in his Nobel lecture, “Most of us have
overlapping identities which unite us
with very different groups. We can love
what we are, without hating what—and
who—we are not. We can thrive in
our own tradition, even as we learn
from others” (2001). Pictured here
are Palestinian statesman Mahmoud
Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and U. S. President Barack
Obama.
At such times, cooperation can lead people to define
a new, inclusive group that dissolves their former subgroups (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1999). To accomplish this,
you might seat members of two groups not on opposite
sides, but alternately around a table. Give them a new,
shared name. Have them work together. Then watch “us”
and “them” become “we.” After 9/11, one 18-year-old
New Jersey man described this shift in his own social
identity: “I just thought of myself as Black. But now I feel
like I’m an American, more than ever” (Sengupta, 2001).
In a real experiment, White Americans who read a newspaper article about a terrorist threat against all Americans
subsequently expressed reduced prejudice against Black
Americans (Dovidio et al., 2004).
If cooperative contact between rival group members
encourages positive attitudes, might this principle bring
people together in multicultural schools? Could interracial friendships replace competitive
classroom situations with cooperative ones? Could cooperative learning maintain or even
enhance student achievement? Experiments with adolescents from 11 countries confirm
that, in each case, the answer is Yes (Roseth et al., 2008). In the classroom as in the sports
arena, members of interracial groups who work together on projects typically come to feel
friendly toward one another. Knowing this, thousands of teachers have made interracial
cooperative learning part of their classroom experience.
The power of cooperative activity to make friends of former enemies has led psychologists to urge increased international exchange and cooperation. As we engage in mutually
beneficial trade, as we work to protect our common destiny on this fragile planet, and as we
become more aware that our hopes and fears are shared, we can transform misperceptions
that feed conflict into feelings of solidarity based on common interests.
COMMUNICATION
AP Photo/Grant Hindsley
When real-life conflicts become intense, a third-party mediator—a marriage counselor,
labor mediator, diplomat, community volunteer—may facilitate much-needed communication (Rubin et al., 1994). Mediators help each party to voice its viewpoint and to understand the other’s needs and goals. If successful, mediators can replace a competitive
win-lose orientation with a cooperative win-win orientation that leads to a mutually beneficial resolution. A classic example: Two friends, after quarreling over an orange, agreed to
Superordinate goals override
differences Cooperative efforts to
achieve shared goals are an effective
way to break down social barriers.
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CONCILIATION
815
CLOSE & ASSESS
© The New Yorker Collection, 1983, W. Miller from
cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
split it. One squeezed his half for juice. The other used the peel
from her half to flavor a cake. If only the two had understood
each other’s motives, they could have hit on the win-win solution
of one having all the juice, the other all the peel.
Module 80
Understanding and cooperative resolution are most needed, yet
least likely, in times of anger or crisis (Bodenhausen et al., 1994;
Tetlock, 1988). When conflicts intensify, images become more stereotyped, judgments more rigid, and communication more difficult, or even impossible. Each party is likely to threaten, coerce, or
retaliate. In the weeks before the Persian Gulf war, the first President George Bush threatened, in the full glare of publicity, to “kick
“To begin with, I would like to express my sincere thanks and
deep appreciation for the opportunity to meet with you. While
Saddam’s ass.” Saddam Hussein communicated in kind, threatthere are still profound differences between us, I think the very
ening to make Americans “swim in their own blood.”
fact of my presence here today is a major breakthrough.”
Under such conditions, is there an alternative to war or surrender? Social psychologist Charles Osgood (1962, 1980) advocated a strategy of Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction, nicknamed
GRIT. In applying GRIT, one side first announces its recognition of mutual interests and
its intent to reduce tensions. It then initiates one or more small, conciliatory acts. Without
GRIT Graduated and Reciprocated
weakening one’s retaliatory capability, this modest beginning opens the door for reciprocity
Initiatives in Tension-Reduction—a
by the other party. Should the enemy respond with hostility, one reciprocates in kind. But
strategy designed to decrease
so, too, with any conciliatory response.
international tensions.
In laboratory experiments, small conciliatory gestures—a smile, a touch, a word of
apology—have allowed both parties to begin edging down the tension ladder to a safer
rung where communication and mutual understanding can begin (Lindskold et al., 1978,
1988). In a real-world international conflict, U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s gesture of
stopping atmospheric nuclear tests began a series of reciprocated conciliatory acts that
culminated in the 1963 atmospheric test-ban treaty.
As working toward shared goals reminds us, we are more alike than different. Civilization advances not by conflict and cultural isolation, but by tapping the knowledge, the
skills, and the arts that are each culture’s legacy to the whole human race. Thanks to cultural
sharing, every modern society is enriched by a cultural mix (Sowell, 1991). We have China to
thank for paper and printing and for the magnetic compass that opened the great explorations. We have Egypt to thank for trigonometry. We have the Islamic world and India’s Hindus to thank for our Arabic numerals. While celebrating and claiming these diverse cultural
legacies, we can also welcome the enrichment of today’s social diversity. We can view ourselves as instruments in a human orchestra. And we—this book’s worldwide readers—can
therefore each affirm our own culture’s heritage while building bridges of communication,
understanding, and cooperation across our cultural traditions.
Exit Assessment
Have students outline a strategy
based on the concepts in this module
for reconciling 2 opposing groups.
Make sure students correctly apply
the strategies they choose.
Before You Move On
䉴 ASK YOURSELF
Do you regret not getting along with some friend or family member? How might you go
about reconciling that relationship?
䉴 TEST YOURSELF
Why didn’t anybody help Kitty Genovese? What social relations principle did this incident
illustrate?
Answers to the Test Yourself questions can be found in Appendix E at the end of the book.
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816
***
If you just finished reading this book, your introduction to psychological science is completed. Our tour of psychological science has taught me much—and you, too?—about our
moods and memories, about the reach of our unconscious, about how we flourish and
struggle, about how we perceive our physical and social worlds, and about how our biology
and culture in turn shape us. My hope, as your guide on this tour, is that you have shared
some of my fascination, grown in your understanding and compassion, and sharpened your
critical thinking. I also hope you enjoyed the ride.
With every good wish in your future endeavors (including the AP® exam!),
David G. Myers
www.davidmyers.org
Module 80 Review
80-1
•
•
Altruism is unselfish regard for the well-being of others.
•
We are least likely to help if other bystanders are present
(the bystander effect).
We are most likely to help when we (a) notice an
incident, (b) interpret it as an emergency, and (c) assume
responsibility for helping. Other factors, including our
mood and our similarity to the victim, also affect our
willingness to help.
80-2
•
•
Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
1. c
When are people most—and least—likely to
help?
Social exchange theory is the view that we help others
because it is in our own self-interest; in this view, the goal
of social behavior is maximizing personal benefits and
minimizing costs.
Others believe that helping results from socialization, in
which we are taught guidelines for expected behaviors
in social situations, such as the reciprocity norm and the
social-responsibility norm.
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A conflict is a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or
ideas.
•
Social traps are situations in which people in conflict
pursue their own individual self-interest, harming the
collective well-being.
•
Individuals and cultures in conflict also tend to
form mirror-image perceptions that may become selffulfilling prophecies: Each party views the opponent as
untrustworthy and evil-intentioned, and itself as an
ethical, peaceful victim.
80-4
How can we transform feelings of prejudice,
aggression, and conflict into attitudes that
promote peace?
•
Peace can result when individuals or groups work together
to achieve superordinate (shared) goals.
•
Research indicates that four processes—contact,
cooperation, communication, and conciliation—help
promote peace.
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Which of the following is the best term or phrase for the
2. d
Unit XIV
How do social traps and mirror-image
perceptions fuel social conflict?
•
How do social exchange theory and social
norms explain helping behavior?
2. Which of the following maintains that our social
unselfish concern for the welfare of others?
behavior is an exchange process that minimizes costs?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Assuming responsibility
Bystander intervention
Altruism
Bystander effect
Diffusion of responsibility
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80-3
Social-responsibility norm
Bystander apathy
Reciprocity norm
Social exchange theory
Biopsychosocial hypothesis
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3. What do we call a situation in which the conflicting
817
4. What do we call a belief that leads to its own fulfillment?
parties, by rationally pursuing their self-interest, become
caught in mutually destructive behavior?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Unit XIV
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Social trap
Conflict
Bystander intervention
Diffusion of responsibility
Social-responsibility norm
3. a
4. e
Superordinate goal
Mirror-image perception
Enemy perception
Social trap
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Practice FRQs
Answer to Practice FRQ 2
1. According to Darley and Latané, what three things must
2. The author identifies two “enemy perceptions.” Name
happen for a bystander to intervene?
2 points: Mirror-image perceptions
are mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees
itself as ethical and views the other
side as evil.
and describe both.
(4 points)
Answer
1 point: The bystander must notice the event.
1 point: The bystander must interpret the incident as an
emergency.
1 point: The bystander must assume responsibility.
2 points: A self-fulfilling prophecy is a
belief that leads to its own fulfillment.
Unit XIV Review
Key Terms and Concepts to Remember
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social psychology, p. 754
groupthink, p. 775
passionate love, p. 803
attribution theory, p. 754
culture, p. 776
companionate love, p. 803
fundamental attribution error, p. 754
norm, p. 777
equity, p. 804
attitude, p. 756
prejudice, p. 780
self-disclosure, p. 804
peripheral route persuasion, p. 756
stereotype, p. 780
altruism, p. 807
central route persuasion, p. 756
discrimination, p. 780
bystander effect, p. 808
foot-in-the-door phenomenon, p. 757
just-world phenomenon, p. 784
social exchange theory, p. 809
role, p. 758
ingroup, p. 784
reciprocity norm, p. 809
cognitive dissonance theory, p. 759
outgroup, p. 784
social-responsibility norm, p. 810
conformity, p. 763
ingroup bias, p. 784
conflict, p. 810
normative social influence, p. 764
scapegoat theory, p. 785
social trap, p. 810
informational social influence, p. 764
other-race effect, p. 786
mirror-image perceptions, p. 812
social facilitation, p. 771
aggression, p. 789
self-fulfilling prophecy, p. 812
social loafing, p. 773
frustration-aggression principle, p. 791
superordinate goals, p. 813
deindividuation, p. 773
social script, p. 792
GRIT, p. 815
group polarization, p. 774
mere exposure effect, p. 798
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818
Key Contributors to Remember
Philip Zimbardo, p. 758
Solomon Asch, p. 763
Leon Festinger, p. 759
Stanley Milgram, p. 765
AP® Exam Practice Questions
Answers to Multiple-Choice
Questions
1. a
2. a
3. d
4. a
5. b
6. c
7. e
8. c
9. e
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. The enhancement of a group’s prevailing tendencies occurs
when people within a group discuss an idea that most of
them either favor or oppose. What is this tendency called?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Group polarization
Deindividuation
The just-world phenomenon
Discrimination
Categorization
2. Which of the following statements about the foot-inthe-door phenomenon is false?
a. People who agree to a small action are less likely to
agree to a larger one later.
b. The Chinese army took advantage of this
phenomenon in the thought control program they
used on prisoners during the Korean War.
c. To get people to agree to something big, start small
and build.
d. Succumb to a temptation and you will find the next
temptation harder to resist.
e. This phenomenon has been used to boost charitable
contributions, blood donations, and product sales.
3. According to research on the bystander effect, which of the
following people is most likely to stop and help a stranger?
a. Jacob is on his way to a doctor’s appointment with
his young son.
b. Xavier lives in a crowded city.
c. Malika is in a terrible mood, having just learned that
she failed her midterm exam.
d. Ciera just saw a young girl offering her arm to help
an older woman cross the street.
e. Mahmood is lost in thought as he walks to work,
thinking about his upcoming presentation.
4. Believing that your school is better than all the other
schools in town is an example of what psychological
concept?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Ingroup bias
Conformity
Scapegoat theory
Discrimination
Groupthink
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5. People frequently credit or blame either internal
dispositions or external situations for others’ behavior.
What is this tendency called?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
The foot-in-the-door phenomenon
The fundamental attribution error
Attribution
Social psychology
Social thinking
6. Researchers have found that people tend to become
more hostile in situations when they are exposed to
aversive stimuli, such as heat or personal insults. What is
the term for this tendency?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
The proximity effect
GRIT
The frustration-aggression principle
Social scripting
Deindividuation
7. Galileo’s notion that the earth revolved around the sun
was in opposition to the widespread beliefs of his day.
What social psychological principle is this an example
of?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Social thinking
Group polarization
Conformity
A stereotype
Minority influence
8. Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy is
called
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
the mere exposure effect.
hindsight bias.
aggression.
the just-world phenomenon.
the other-race effect.
9. What tension occurs when we become aware that our
attitudes and actions don’t coincide?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Role playing
The fundamental attribution error
Social pressure
Social influence
Cognitive dissonance
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Social Psychology
3/5/14 12:45 PM
MyersAP_SE_2e
Review
10. Which of the following least describes prejudice?
a. An unjustifiable attitude toward a group
b. Schemas that influence how we notice and interpret
events
c. Preconceived ideas that bias our impressions of
others’ behavior
d. A physical behavior intended to hurt or destroy
e. Automatic and unconscious thoughts and behaviors
11. Which social psychology principle influences people to
perform a task better in the presence of others?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Compliance
Group polarization
Social facilitation
Conformity
Social loafing
12. Becoming less self-conscious and less restrained when in
a group situation is referred to as
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
social loafing.
deindividuation.
social facilitation.
obedience.
cognitive dissonance.
Unit XIV
819
14. Which of the following is the most complete definition
of conformity?
10. d
11. c
a. Sharing a mood with others
b. Unconsciously mimicking the behaviors and
reactions of others
c. Changing thoughts about a situation in order to
please an authority figure
d. Adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some
group standard
e. Bringing our attitudes in line with our actions
12. b
13. e
14. d
15. e
15. Sophia was not sure she would like the new driver of
her school bus, but during the year she realized she
was looking forward to greeting him in the morning
and hearing one of his corny jokes. Which concept best
explains her change in perception?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Similarity
Ingroup bias
Companionate attraction
Social trap
Mere exposure effect
13. If Juan believes Ngoc is annoyed with him, he may snub
her, causing her to act in ways that justify his perception.
What concept is this an example of?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
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Superordinate goals
Tension-reduction
A social trap
A mirror-image perception
Self-fulfilling prophecy
MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod80_B.indd 819
1/21/14 10:31 AM
Review
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 819
Unit XIV
819
3/5/14 12:45 PM
820
Rubric for Free-Response
Question 2
1 point: Reward theory of attraction:
We are likely to be attracted to those
whose behavior is rewarding to us, and
we will continue relationships that offer
more rewards than costs.
p. 802
Unit XIV Social Psychology
Free-Response Questions
1. Abi moved from her small rural hometown to a large
city to pursue her singing career. She was hired for
an important and popular choral performance. She is
nervous but excited about this new opportunity. Explain
how the following social psychology factors might affect
her experiences in the “big city.”
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Frustration-aggression model
• Social facilitation
1 point: Proximity is geographic
nearness, which is friendship’s most
powerful predictor. Manuela and
Peter were together every day in high
school, played on the same team,
and volunteered at the same shelter.
They attended the same college after
graduation.
pp. 798–800
1 point: Equity is a condition in which
people receive from a relationship
in proportion to what they give to it.
Manuela and Peter worked on projects
together and benefited from the work
they did. They may have shared a similar
work ethic, and this may have become
obvious when they volunteered at the
homeless shelter.
p. 804
1 point: Self-disclosure is revealing
intimate aspects of oneself to others.
Participating in class and sharing
ideas and opinions may have led to
discussions of a more personal nature
outside of class.
p. 804
1 point: Companionate love is the
deep affectionate attachment we
feel for those with whom our lives are
intertwined. From high school through
college, Manuela and Peter shared
experiences as a result of their similar
interests and goals. Time, similar values,
and interests deepened their affection
and love for each other.
p. 803
Rubric for Free-Response
Question 3
1 point: Peripheral route persuasion: The band playing the fight song
and the appearance of the head coach
at the rally contributed to Dutch’s
support for the football team without
directly making a reference to the
team. The song and the coach’s appearance encouraged snap judgments
and appealed emotionally instead of
encouraging systematic thinking about
the football team.
p. 756
820
Unit XIV
MyersPsyAP_TE_2e_U14.indd 820
• Reciprocity norm
Rubric for Free Response Question 1
1 point: Self-fulfilling prophecy: Abi may think that she
is not talented enough to compete with all of the
other singers in the performance. Because of her low
expectations of herself, she may not perform to the best
Page 812
of her ability.
1 point: Frustration-aggression model: If Abi does not
progress to her satisfaction, and experiences frustration
as her career stagnates, she may lash out at her
colleagues either physically or verbally or even try to
Page 791
railroad others’ careers to further her own.
1 point: Social facilitation: Abi has been singing for a
number of years. Because this is a well-practiced activity,
Abi’s performance should be enhanced by the presence
of others. Because she will have larger crowds in the “big
city,”Abi’s performance should improve in front of larger
crowds.
Page 771
1 point: Reciprocity norm: If Abi receives gifts (such as
flowers) from the audience, she may be motivated to
give an extra effort in her performances. If the audience
perceives that Abi is throwing herself completely into
her performance and exhausting herself trying to
entertain them, they each will be more likely to applaud
and cheer because the reciprocity norm indicates we will
often return the efforts or feelings of others.
Page 809
2. Peter and Manuela met in their high school senior year
psychology class. They sat near each other and were
often partnered during class discussions and group work.
They were both on the swim team and often volunteered
at the same homelessness prevention shelter. By the
end of the year, they became good friends. Later,
Manuela and Peter attended the same college, and after
graduation they became engaged. When they attended
their five-year high school reunion it was obvious to
their friends from high school that they were a very
happy couple.
Explain the reward theory of attraction and give an
example to show how each of the following factors
may have influenced Manuela and Peter’s developing
relationship from high school through college.
• Proximity
• Equity
• Self-disclosure
• Companionate love
(5 points)
3. Dutch is in his first year as a student at a large university.
At the urging of some friends, he attended a “pep rally”
on the night prior to the football game. At the rally,
the marching band played the university’s fight song
and Dutch began singing along as they did. The head
football coach then gave a rousing speech and Dutch
joined with the hundreds of other students to cheer him.
Although Dutch had not paid attention to the football
team prior to the rally, he enthusiastically participated
in the rally, even going so far as to have an image of the
team’s mascot painted on his face. The following day, he
attended the game and since has become an avid fan of
the football team.
Analyze Dutch’s behavior at the rally and
afterwards, using each of the following principles of
social psychology:
• Peripheral route persuasion
• Central route persuasion
• Automatic mimicry
• Social facilitation
• Deindividuation
(5 points)
Multiple-choice self-tests and more may be found at
www.worthpublishers.com/MyersAP2e
820
1MyersAP_SE_2e_Mod80_B.indd
point: Central route
persuasion: The head
coach’s speech and the team’s performance at
the game both contributed to Dutch’s support
for the team. The speech and the team’s performance were “evidence” of the team’s value,
encouraging Dutch to make a rational decision
about his support of the team.
p. 756
1 point: Automatic mimicry: Dutch’s behavior
was influenced by the hundreds of other students
at the rally, and he began to act in the same way
they did. Humans tend to “mimic” the emotions of
those around them.
pp. 762–763
1 point: Social facilitation: The presence
of hundreds of other students at the rally
facilitated Dutch’s behavior, particularly his
newfound support for the football team. We
tend to perform simple tasks (like cheering at a
pep rally) more energetically when in the presence of others.
pp. 771–772
1/21/14 10:31 AM
1 point: Deindividuation: Being part of a
crowd at both the rally and the football game
contributed to Dutch cheering for the football
team despite the fact that he previously did
not do so. At the pep rally and the game,
Dutch may have experienced the loss of
self-awareness and restraint that exemplifies
deindividuation.
p. 773
Social Psychology
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