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Don H. Hockenbury and Sandra E. Hockenbury
Psychology
Fifth Edition
Chapter 12:
Social Psychology
Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
Social Psychology
The branch of psychology that studies
how people think, feel, and behave in
social situations
Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
How Do We Form Impressions of Other People? Deciding where to sit in a subway car or on the bus
involves making some quick decisions about other people. What kinds of factors do you consider when you
make such judgments about others?
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“Goodbye everybody.”
© The New Yorker Collection 2004 Robert Leighton from Cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
Person Perception




Your reactions are determined by your
perceptions of others
Your goals determine the amount and
kind of information you collect
You evaluate people partly in terms of
how you expect them to behave
(social norms)
Your self-perception influences how
you perceive others
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What do you expect?
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The New Yorker Collection 2008 Glen Le Lievre from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
Using Social Categories We often use superficial cues such as clothing and context to assign people to social
categories and draw conclusions about their behavior. For example, you might characterize some people in this
crowd as belonging to the category of “businessmen” because they are wearing dress shirts and ties—and
conclude that they are on their way to work. What other sorts of social categories are evident here?
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Physical Attractiveness




Implicit cultural message is “beautiful is good”
Attractive people are perceived as more
intelligent, happier, and better adjusted
Really no difference between attractive and
less attractive people on these characteristics
Attractive people are more likely to attribute
other people’s approval of their
accomplishments to looks rather than effort or
talent.
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What Is Beautiful Is Good We are culturally conditioned to associate beauty with goodness and evil with
ugliness—an implicit personality theory that has been dubbed the “what is beautiful is good” myth. One example
of this cultural conditioning is the classic Disney film Snow White. In the scene shown, the wicked stepmother is
disguised as an old woman, complete with a wart on her nose. She offers the poisoned apple to the innocent and
virtuous heroine, Snow White. (The Walt Disney Co.)
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Pogo the Clown Dressed as Pogo the
clown, John would visit sick children in
the hospital to cheer them up. He was
Also a successful building contractor
and active in local politics. Given
this information, what sorts of personal
qualities would you expect him
to display?
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Eye-Contact Face
Non–Eye-Contact Face
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Attribution


Process of inferring the causes of
people’s behavior, including one’s
own
The explanation given for a
particular behavior
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Attribution Bias





Fundamental attribution error
Actor-observer discrepancy
Blaming the victim (just-world
hypothesis)
Self-serving bias
Self-effacing bias
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Fundamental attribution error


We attribute the behavior of others
to internal, personal characteristics
while ignoring or underestimating
the effect of external or situational
factors.
Situation: It appears that someone
cut you off when changing lanes on
the highway.
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FAE thought
 “What
a stupid jerk. He
doesn’t care who he hurts.”
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The reality

The driver’s wife is lying down in
the back seat in labor; they’re on
their way to the hospital. He wasn’t
focused on the road because his
wife was screaming in pain.
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
Situation: A man is in line at the
grocery store in the express lane
(12 items or less). He had 16 items.
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FAE thought:

A customer comes up behind the
man just as he is placing items on
the belt and thinks, “How dare he
have so many extra items. This is
an express lane. He can wait in the
long lines like everyone else. He
thinks he is so special and doesn’t
have to follow the rules.”
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Reality:

No one was behind him when he
was approaching the lane. The man
asked the checker if it was all right
to come through with a few extra
items. The response from the
checker was, “Sure, come on.”
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Using Attitudes as Ways
to “Justify” Injustice

Just-world bias


a tendency to believe that life is fair, e.g., it
would
seem horrible to think that you can be a really
good person and bad things could happen to
you anyway
Just-world bias leads to “blaming the
victim”


we explain others’ misfortunes as being their
fault,
e.g., she deserved to be raped, what was she
doing
in that neighborhood anyway?
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Blaming the Victim Fifteen-year-old Shawn Hornbeck is shown at a press conference, shortly after being reunited
with his family. Four years earlier, Shawn had been kidnapped and held captive. When the FBI suspected Shawn’s
kidnapper in the abduction of another boy, both boys were rescued. As details of Shawn’s captivity became public,
many people asked why Shawn hadn’t tried to escape or call the police while his kidnapper was at work. As it
turned out, the kidnapper had abused and terrorized Shawn for months. At one point, he tried to strangle Shawn.
When Shawn pleaded for his life, the kidnapper made the boy promise that he would never try to escape. “There
wasn’t a day when I didn’t think that he’d just kill me, ”Shawn later recalled. Why do people often “blame the
victim” after crimes, accidents, or other tragedies?
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When You Can’t Blame the Victim “Blaming the victim” is
one way that people reestablish their belief that the world
is just. But what about situations where it is impossible to
justify the victim’s fate, as in the case of people who died
in the terrorist attacks against the United States in
September 2001? Psychologist Cheryl Kaiser and her
colleagues (2004) found that when people feel sympathy
for the victim, they tend to use a different strategy to
restore balance to the world: they advocate revenge
against those who perpetrated the injustice. As Kaiser
explains, “Punishing the people who perpetrated the
injustice is a form of retributive justice: Although bad
things happened to good people, if the bad people are
punished, they will get what they deserve, which will
restore justice.”
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Actor observer discrepancy



When it comes to explaining our
behavior (actor), we use external or
situational factors, but in the same
situation, we attribute other’s
behavior to internal factors.
It could be that we have more
information to make an explanation.
We are less susceptible to this with
people we know well.
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Explaining Misfortune: The Self-Serving Bias Given the self-serving bias, is this bicyclist likely to explain his
accident by listing internal factors such as his own carelessness or recklessness? Or is he more likely to blame
external factors, such as swerving to miss a spectator or catching his tire in a rut? Just so you know, the fallen rider
Wearing orange is American Lance Armstrong, who crashed after his handlebars snagged on a plastic bag held
by a spectator, Armstrong went on to win the Tour de France.
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Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
Attitudes
What is an attitude?



predisposition to evaluate some people,
groups, or issues in a particular way
can be negative or positive
Has three components
Cognitive—thoughts about given topic or situation
 Affective—feelings or emotions about topic
 Behavioral—your actions regarding the topic or
situation

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Figure 12.1 The Components of Attitudes An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation of an object,
person, or idea. An attitude may have cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.
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Attitudes and Behavior These Greenpeace
activists have set up a symbolic wind turbine
in front of the Castle Peak coal power station
in Hong Kong. They are demonstrating their
commitment to renewable energy and their
opposition to coal plants in Asia that
contribute to global warming. People who
hold strong opinions and express them
frequently, like these Greenpeace activists,
are most likely to behave in accordance with
their attitudes.
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Cognitive Dissonance


Unpleasant state of psychological
tension or arousal that occurs when
two thoughts or perceptions are
inconsistent
Attitudes and behaviors are in
conflict


it is uncomfortable for us
we seek ways to decrease discomfort
caused by the inconsistency
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Fried Grasshoppers: Tasty or Disgusting? Most
Americans do not rate fried grasshoppers as one of their
favorite foods. Suppose you agreed to eat a handful of
grasshoppers after being asked to do so by a rude,
unfriendly research assistant. Do you think your attitude
toward fried grasshoppers would improve more than a
person who ate grasshoppers after being asked to do so
by a friendly, polite experimenter?
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Figure 12.2 How Cognitive Dissonance Leads to Attitude Change When your behavior conflicts with your
attitudes, an uncomfortable state of tension is produced. However, if you can rationalize or explain your
behavior, the conflict (and the tension) is eliminated or avoided. If you can’t ex-plain your behavior, you may
change your attitude so that it is in harmony with your behavior.
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Dissonance-Reducing Mechanisms
 Avoiding
dissonant information
– we attend to information in support of our
existing views, rather than information that
doesn’t support them
 Firming
up an attitude to be
consistent with an action
– once we’ve made a choice to do something,
lingering doubts about our actions would
cause dissonance, so we are motivated to set
them aside
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Prejudice
A negative attitude toward
people who belong to a specific
social group
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Stereotypes
What is a stereotype?


A cluster of characteristics associated with all
members of a specific group of people
a belief held by members of one group about
members of another group
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Philip G. Zimbardo Phil Zimbardo (b.1933) grew up in an immigrant family in a poor neighborhood in the South
Bronx, an experience that sensitized him to the power of situational influences and the destructive nature of
stereotypes and prejudice (Zimbardo, 2005, 2007). Much of Zimbardo’s research has been focused on investigating
what he has called “the subtle but pervasive power of situations to influence human behavior.” Zimbardo’s research
has ranged from attitude change to shyness, prison reform, and the psychology of evil. As Zimbardo (2000b)
observes, "The joy of being a psychologist is that almost everything in life is psychology, or should be, or could be.
One can’t live mindfully without being enmeshed in the psychological processes that are around us.” Later in the
chapter, we’ll encounter the experiment for which Zimbardo is most famous—the Stanford Prison Experiment.
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Combating Prejudice and Stereotyping The attacks on the United States by members of a radical Islamic
terrorist group in September 2001 brought an increased awareness of religious differences among ethnic groups.
But along with outbreaks of anger against members of certain religious groups, there were also many attempts to
reach across racial, ethnic, and religious divisions to find a new sense of national unity. Here, clergy of different
faiths join hands and sing during an interfaith prayer service in Detroit, Michigan, one of hundreds that took place
in cities across the country in the days and weeks following the attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon.
Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
The Power of Stereo-types American movies have made the
image of the cowboy almost universally recognizable. What
kinds of qualities are associated with the stereotype of the
cowboy? How might that stereotype be an inaccurate portrayal
of a person working on a cattle ranch today?
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Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers
Social Categories

In-group—the social group to which we
belong



In-group bias—tendency to make favorable
attributions for members of our in-group
Ethnocentrism is one type of in-group bias
Out-group—the social group to which
you do not belong

Out group homogeneity effect—tendency to
see members of the out-group as more
similar to each other
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ON SEQUITUR © 2003 Wiley Miller. Dist. by UNIVERSAL PRESSSYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission.
All rights reserved.
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Social Identity and Cooperation
Social identity theory


states that when you’re assigned to a group, you
automatically think of that group as an in-group for
you
Sherif’s Robbers Cave study
 11–12 year old boys at camp
boys were divided into 2 groups and kept
separate
from one another
 each group took on characteristics of distinct
social group, with leaders, rules, norms of
behavior, and names

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Robbers Cave (Sherif)

Leaders proposed series of competitive
interactions which led to 3 changes
between groups and within groups
 within-group solidarity
 negative stereotyping of other group
 hostile between-group interactions
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Creating Conflict Between Groups Psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his co-leagues demonstrated how
easily hostility and distrust could be created between two groups. Competitive situations, like this tug-of-war,
increased tension between the Rattlers and the Eagles.
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Robbers Cave
Overcoming the strong we/they
effect

establishment of superordinate goals
 e.g.,

breakdown in camp water supply
overcoming intergroup strife research
 stereotypes
are diluted when people
share individuating information
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Overcoming Group Conflict
To decrease hostility between
the Rattlers and the Eagles at
Robbers Cave, the
Researchers created situations
that required the joint efforts
Of both groups to achieve a
common goal, such as fixing
the water supply. These
cooperative tasks helped the
Boys recognize their common
interests and become friends.
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Social Influence
• How behavior is influenced by the
social environment and the
presence of other people
Conformity
Obedience
Helping
Behaviors
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Conformity


Adopting attitudes or behaviors of others
because of pressure to do so; the
pressure can be real or imagined
2 general reasons for conformity


Informational social influence—other people
can provide useful and crucial information
Normative social influence—desire to be
accepted as part of a group leads to that
group having an influence
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Asch’s Experiments on Conformity
Previous research had shown people
will conform to others’ judgments
more often when the evidence is
ambiguous
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Life in society requires consensus as
An indispensable condition. But consensus,
to be productive, requires that each
individual contribute independently out
of his experience and insight. When
consensus comes under the dominance
of conformity, he social process is polluted
and the individual at the same time
surrenders the powers on which his
functioning as a feeling and thinking being
depends.”
—SOLOMON ASCH (1955)
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Figure 12.3 Sample Line Judgment Task Used in the Asch Conformity Studies In Asch’s classic studies on
conformity, subjects were asked to pick the comparison line that matched the standard line.
Source: Asch (1957).
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Asch’s Experiments
on Conformity




All but 1 in group
was confederate
Seating was rigged
Asked to rate
which line matched
a “standard” line
Confederates were
instructed to pick
the wrong line
12/18 times
1
Standard lines
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2
3
Comparison lines
Asch’s Experiments
on Conformity

Results



Asch found that 75% participants conformed to at
least one wrong choice
subjects gave wrong answer (conformed) on 37% of
the critical trials
Why did they conform to clearly wrong
choices?


informational influence?
subjects reported having doubted their own
perceptual abilities which led to their conformance –
didn’t report seeing the lines the way the
confederates had
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Effects of a Nonconformist



If everyone agrees, you are less
likely to disagree
If one person disagrees, even if
they give the wrong answer, you are
more likely to express your
nonconforming view
Asch tested this hypothesis


one confederate gave different answer from
others
conformity dropped significantly
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Adolescents and Conformity Conformity to group
norms peaks in early adolescence, as the similar
Hairstyles and clothing of these friends show. Think
back to your own adolescence. Do you remember how
important it was to you to fit in with other adolescents,
especially those in your peer group?
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Obedience

Obedience



compliance of
person is due to
perceived authority
of asker
request is
perceived as a
command
Milgram
interested in
unquestioning
obedience to
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Social Psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933–1984)
Milgram is best known for his obedience studies, but his
creative research skills went far beyond the topic of
obedience. To study the power of social norms, for
example, Milgram sent his students out into New York
City to intrude into waiting lines or ask subway
passengers to give up their seats. Milgram often
capitalized on the “texture of every day life” to
“examine the way in which the social world impinges
on individual action and experience”
(Milgram, 1974a).
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The “Electric Chair” With the help of the real subject, who had been assigned to the role of “teacher,” the
experimenter straps the “learner” into the electric chair. Unbeknownst to the real subject, the learner was actually
a 47-year-old accountant who had been carefully rehearsed for his part in the experimental deception. The
experimenter told both subjects, “Although the shocks can be extremely painful, they cause no permanent
tissue damage.”
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Milgram’s “Shock Generator” Machine A young Stanley Milgram sits next to his “shock generator.” Milgram
went to great lengths to make the shock generator look as authentic as possible. The front panel of the bogus
shock generator had been engraved by professional industrial engravers. Whenever the teacher pressed a shock
switch, the red light above the switch went on, a buzzing and clicking sound was heard, and the needle on the
voltage meter swung to the right. Very convincing details. Do you think you would have been fooled into believing
that this was a real shock generator?
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The After effects of Milgram’s Study:
Were Subjects Harmed? Milgram’s findings were
disturbing. But some psychologists found
his methods equally upsetting. For example, in one
experimental variation, participants were ordered to
physically hold the learner’s hand on a “shock plate.”
Thirty percent obeyed. To psychologist Diana
Baumrind (1964), it was unethical for Milgram to
subject his participants to that level of emotional
stress, humiliation, and loss of dignity. But Milgram
(1964) countered that he had not set out to create
stress in his subjects. It was his unanticipated
results, not his methods, that disturbed people.
Who would object to his experiment, he asked,
“if everyone had broken off at ‘slight shock’ or at
the first sign of the learner’s discomfort?
”Concerns were also expressed that participants
would experience serious after effects from the
experiment. However, in a follow up questionnaire,
84% of participants in Milgram’s experiment
Indicated that they were “glad to have taken part
In the experiment,” and only about 1 percent
regretted participating (Milgram, 1974b).
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Figure 12.4 Factors That Decrease Destructive Obedience By systematically varying his basic experimental
design, Milgram identified several factors that diminish the likelihood of destructive obedience. In this graph, you
can see the percentage of subjects who administered the maximum shock in different experimental variations.
For example, when Milgram’s subjects observed what they thought were two other subjects disobeying the
experimenter, the real subjects followed their lead 90 per-cent of the time and refused to continue.
Source: Adapted from data reported in Milgram (1974a).
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Would you have obeyed? “I was instructed by persons in higher rank to ‘stand there, hold this leash, look at the
camera,’” Lynndie England (2005) said. Among those calling the shots was her then lover, Corporal Charles
Graner, the alleged ring leader who was sentenced to ten years in prison for his attacks on Iraqi detainees. Graner,
England, and one other reservist were convicted of mistreatment and given prison sentences, while the other six
Reservists made plea deals. No officers were court-martialed or charged with any criminal offense, although some
were fined, demoted, or relieved of their command.
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Accepting Responsibility At her trial, Lynndie England, the file
clerk from a small town in West Virginia, apologized for her
actions. In an interview after her conviction, England (2005)
Said that she was still “haunted” by memories of events in the
prison. She would always feel guilty, she said, “for doing the
wrong thing, posing in pictures when I shouldn’t have, degrading
[the prisoners] and humiliating them—and not saying anything
to anybody else to stop it.”
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Destructive Obedience and Prejudice Blind obedience to authority combined with ethnic prejudice in Germany
during World War II led to the slaughter of millions of Jews in concentration camps. When questioned after the
war, Nazi officials and soldiers claimed that they were “just following orders.” Over the half-century since the end
of World War II, genocide and politically inspired mass killings occurred in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda.
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Destructive Obedience and Prejudice
Today, in the Sudanese Darfur, more than 300,000 people have been killed and thousands more driven from
their homes by armed militia groups.
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Explanations for
Milgram’s Results
 Abnormal

numerous replications with variety of
groups shows no support
 People

group of subjects?
in general are sadistic?
videotapes of Milgram’s subjects show
extreme distress
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Explanations for
Milgram’s Results
 Authority
of Yale and value of
science
 Experimenter self-assurance and
acceptance of responsibility
 Proximity of learner and
experimenter
 New situation and no model of how
to behave
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Follow-Up Studies to Milgram
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Why Don’t People Always
Help Others in Need?
 Diffusion
of responsibility
presence of others leads to
decreased help response
 we all think someone else will
help, so we don’t

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Why Don’t People Always
Help Others in Need?
 Latane

studies
several scenarios designed to measure
the help response
 found
that if you think you’re the only
one that can hear or help, you are more
likely to do so
 if there are others around, you will
diffuse the responsibility to others
 Kitty
Genovese incident
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The Murder Scene At the end of the sidewalk you can
see the railroad station where Genovese parked her car.
Along the sidewalk are entrances to shops as well as
stairways leading to apartments above the shops. After
Genovese staggered to the entrance of her apartment,
her attacker returned and stabbed her to death. Later
investigations suggested that there may have been
fewer than 38 witnesses’ stories, and that some of
those witnesses could not have seen the attacks from
their windows (Manning & others, 2007, 2008).
Nevertheless, the essential story is true: Many people
heard Genovese’s screams, yet no one stepped
forward to help (Brock, 2008).
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Prosocial Behavior in Action Everyday life is filled with countless acts of prosocial behavior. Many people
volunteer their time and energy to help others. In Modesto, California, Doug Lilly volunteers for “Meals on
Wheels.” Along with delivering meals to about 65 elderly residents each week, Lilly also checks to make sure
that they are safe and healthy.
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Coming to the Aid of a Stranger Everyday life is filled with examples of people who come to the aid of a
stranger in distress, like this sign posted at the corner of Toronto’s Queen and Palmerston streets. Without
knowing any details beyond those written on the sign, can you identify factors that might have contributed to the
helping behavior of the bystanders in this situation?
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The Bystander Effect The couple on the left is obviously
trying to ignore the heated argument between the man and
Woman on the right—even though the man is physically
threatening the woman. What factors in this situation make
it less likely that bystanders will intervene and try to help
a stranger? Do you think that you would intervene? Why
or why not?
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Individual and Groups


Social Loafing—tendency to expend
less effort on a task when it is a
group effort
Reduced when




Group is composed of people we know
We are members of a highly valued
group
Task is meaningful
Not as common in collectivist
cultures
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Social Loafing These teenagers, hard at work at a Habitat for Humanity building project in Austin, Texas,
demonstrate that social loafing does not always take place. When people know the other members of their group,
social loafing is less likely to occur. What other factors make social loafing less likely?
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Social Facilitation As the crowd watches and applauds their performance, these professional runners are
likely to turn in some of their best running times. When does the presence of other people facilitate the
performance of a task? When does it work against us?
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Deindividuation: Anonymity and Reduced
Self-Awareness The hood and mask of the Ku Klux Klan
Uniform heighten the sense of anonymity felt by Klan
members. So does the darkness of night at this
cross-burning. Such factors add to the likelihood that
People will commit antisocial acts that they would not
commit if their identities were known.
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Sales Techniques and
Cognitive Dissonance
Foot-in-the-door technique



ask for something small at first, then hit
customer with larger request later
small request has paved the way to
compliance with the larger request
cognitive dissonance results if person has
already granted a request for one thing, then
refuses to give the larger item
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Social Pressure in
Group Decisions

Group polarization


majority position
stronger after a group
discussion in which a
minority is arguing
against the majority
point of view
Why does this
occur?

Before group discussion
Group 1
Against
Group 2
For
Strength of opinion
(a)
After group discussion
informational and
normative influences
Group 1
Against
Group 2
For
Strength of opinion
(b)
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FOXTROT © 1999 Bill Amend. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE.
All rights reserved
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