Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology PDF

CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology Source: ©denis_pc/iStock/360/Getty Images. CHAPTER OUTLINE What Is Social Psychology? What Are the Major Themes of Social Psychology? How Do Values Affect Social Psychology? Is Social Psychology Merely...

CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology Source: ©denis_pc/iStock/360/Getty Images. CHAPTER OUTLINE What Is Social Psychology? What Are the Major Themes of Social Psychology? How Do Values Affect Social Psychology? Is Social Psychology Merely Common Sense? Research Methods: How Do We Do Social Psychology? With the number of blended families these days, the following scenario should be easy to imagine. Indeed, you may have lived it! 2 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology Y our mother has remarried. Your stepfather has a child, a few years younger than you, who complains about chores, his or her new room, your pets—everything. Even worse, your new step-sibling goes to the same school as you and wants to follow you everywhere. Although you are only reasonably popular, you manage to get invited to the “party of the year” being thrown by the most popular person in school, whom you have had your eye on for months. Your new sibling wants to come. “No way,” you respond. You arrive at the party, things are going great, and just when you are about to start to make your move on your crush, an interloper shows up in a borrowed limo, dressed to kill, music blaring. The new arrival grabs all of the attention, including that of your host, who now has no time for you. As the two of them leave together in the limo, you suddenly real- ize that the intruder is your step-sibling! Does this story sound even vaguely familiar? If so, it might be because this is simply a retelling of a classic folk tale (“Cinderella”) but told from the perspective of one of the wicked step-sisters. Isn’t it interesting that the person you root for changes depending on the perspective being taken? That is the power of the situation and the power of perspective. The French philosopher-novelist Jean-Paul Sartre (1946) would have had no problem accepting the Cinderella premise. We humans are, he believed, “first of all beings in a situation, we cannot be distinguished from our situations, for they form us and decide our possibilities” (pp. 59–60). What Is Social Psychology? What are the parameters of social psychology? Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situations, with special attention to how we view and affect one another. More precisely, it is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another (Figure 1–1). Social psychology lies at psychology’s boundaries with sociology. Compared with soci- ology (the study of people in groups and societies), social psychology focuses more on Social psychology is the scientific study of... Social thinking Social influence Social relations How we perceive Culture and biology Helping ourselves and others Pressures to conform Aggression What we believe Persuasion Attraction and intimacy Judgments we make Groups of people Prejudice Our attitudes FIGURE 1–1 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IS...  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 3 individuals, employing methods that more often use experimentation. Compared with per- sonality psychology, social psychology focuses less on differences among individuals and more on how individuals, in general, view and affect one another. Social psychology is still a relatively young science. Indeed, the first social psychology experiments were performed just over a century ago (1898), and the first social psychol- ogy texts did not appear until just before and after 1900, in France, Italy, and Germany (Smith, 2005). Not until the 1930s did social psychology assume its current form. And not until the Second World War did it begin to emerge as the vibrant field it is today. Social psychology studies our thinking, influence, and relationships by asking questions that have intrigued us all. Here are some examples: How Much of Our Social World Is Just in Our Heads? As we saw with the story that opened this chapter, our social behaviour varies not just A memorial to Robert with the objective situation but with how we construe it. Social beliefs can be self-fulfill- Dziekanski, who died ing. For example, happily married people will attribute their spouse’s grumpy “Can you at the Vancouver please put that where it belongs?” to something external (“It must have had been a frus- International Airport trating day”). Unhappily married people will attribute the same remark to a mean disposi- after he was tasered by authorities. He tion (“Wow, that’s hostile!”) and may, therefore, respond with a counterattack. Moreover, became confused and expecting hostility from their spouse, they may behave resentfully, thereby eliciting the agitated after a long hostility they expect. flight and could not understand authorities as they tried to deal If You Were Ordered to Be Cruel, Would You Comply? with his behaviour. Police tasered him, Sadly, history is filled with unconscionable acts of genocide: in Nazi Germany, in and, tragically, he died. Rwanda, in Sudan, in Syria, and even in Canada, against our own Indigenous people. Social psychologists These unspeakable acts occurred because thousands of people followed orders. In Ger- ask these questions: Could such an incident many, people put the prisoners on trains, people herded them into crowded showers, have been averted if and people poisoned them with gas. How could ordinary people engage in such horrific rules allowed more actions? To investigate this, Stanley Milgram (1974) set up a situation where people flexible responses were ordered to administer increasing levels of electric shock to someone who was hav- to altercations with ing difficulty learning a series of words. As we will see in Chapter 6, the experimental authorities? Did the police officers’ results were quite disturbing. pre-existing biases influence their actions? Source: The Canadian Would You Help Others? Press/Jonathan Hayward. Or Help Yourself? As bags of cash tumbled from an armoured truck on a fall day in 1987, $2 million was scattered along a Toronto, Ontario, street. The motorists who stopped to help returned $100 000. Judging from what disappeared, however, many more stopped to help them- selves. When similar incidents occurred in San Francisco, California, and Columbus, Ohio, the results were the same: passersby grabbed most of the money (Bowen, 1988). A YouTube video of the August 2011 riots in London, England, showed young people approaching a man who had been injured; one young man seemed to help him while another took the opportunity to rob him. 4 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology What situations trigger people to be helpful or greedy? Do some Throughout this book, sources cultural contexts—perhaps villages and small towns—breed greater for information are cited helpfulness? parenthetically and then fully A common thread runs through these questions: They all deal with how provided in the References people view and affect one another. And that is what social psychology is section at the end of the book. all about. Social psychologists study attitudes and beliefs, conformity and independence, love and hate. What Are the Major Themes of Social Psychology? What are social psychology’s big lessons—its overarching themes? In many academic fields, the results of tens of thousands of studies, the conclusions of thousands of investigators, and the insights of hundreds of theorists can be boiled down to a few central ideas. Biology offers us principles, such as natural selection and adaptation. Sociology builds on concepts, such as social structure and organization. Music harnesses our ideas of rhythm, melody, and harmony. What concepts are on social psychology’s list of central ideas? What themes, or fun- damental principles, will be worth remembering long after you have forgotten most of the details? At a broad level, the fundamental principles of social psychology can be captured by a classic statement by one of its founders, Kurt Lewin, who said, “behaviour is a func- tion of the person and the situation” (1952). From this general principle, we have devel- oped a short list of “great ideas we ought never to forget,” each of which we will unpack in chapters to come (Figure 1–2). We Construct Our Social Reality We humans have an irresistible urge to explain behaviour, to attribute it to some cause, and, therefore, to make it seem orderly, predictable, and controllable. You and I may react differently to similar situations because we think differently. Your perception of the world you live in and the experiences you have depend on whether you are Cinderella or her step-sister. In a way, we are all intuitive scientists. We explain people’s behaviour, usually with enough speed and accuracy to suit our daily needs. When someone’s behaviour is consis- tent and distinctive, we attribute their behaviour to their personality. For example, if we observe someone who makes repeated snide comments, we may infer that that person has a nasty disposition and then we might try to avoid the person. Our beliefs about ourselves also matter. Do we have an optimistic outlook? Do we see ourselves as in control of things? Do we view ourselves as relatively superior or inferior? Our answers influence our emotions and actions. How we construe the world, and our- selves, matters. Our Social Intuitions Are Often Powerful but Sometimes Perilous Our intuitions shape our fears (Is flying dangerous?), impressions (Can I trust him?), and relationships (Does she like me?). Intuitions influence leaders in times of crisis; gamblers, at the table; eyewitnesses, in front of a lineup of suspects; jurors, in their assessments of guilt; and human resources professionals, when assessing applicants. Such intuitions are commonplace. Indeed, psychological science reveals a fascinating nonconscious mind—an intuitive backstage mind—that we often don’t realize is guiding our thoughts and behaviour. As we  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 5 themes in social psychology Major 1. We construct our social 5. Social behaviour is also reality. 3. Social influences shape biological behaviour. 2. Our social intuitions are behaviour. 6. Relating to others is a basic often powerful, sometimes need. perilous. 4. Dispositions shape behaviour. So c i a Socia l thinking Soc l relations ial influences 7. Social psychology’s principles are applicable to everyday life. Ap ply gy ing s y ch olo ocial ps FIGURE 1–2 MAJOR THEMES IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. will see, studies of automatic processing, implicit memory, heuristics, spontaneous trait inference, instant emotions, and nonverbal communication unveil our intuitive capacities. Thinking, memory, and attitudes all operate on two levels—one conscious and deliberate, the other nonconscious and automatic—which today’s researchers call “dual processing.” We know more than we know we know. Intuitions are powerful, but they are also perilous. We misperceive others, and we often fail to appreciate how our expectations shape our evaluations. Even our intuitions about ourselves often err. We intuitively trust our memories more than we should. We misread our own minds: In experiments, subjects have denied being affected by things that did influence them. We mispredict our own feelings: how bad we’ll feel a year from now if we lose our job, our relationship, or even a hand! Similarly, we are bad at predicting how good we’ll feel a year from now if we win the lottery or get that job we want. And we often mis- predict our own future: When buying clothes, people approaching middle age will still buy snug clothing, claiming, “I can lose this weight”; rarely does anyone say, more realistically, “I’d better buy a relatively loose fit.” Our social intuitions, then, are noteworthy for both their power and their perils. For example, during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many people liked Donald Trump because his off-the-cuff responses and snap decisions made him seem more “authen- tic.” But people mistake authenticity for truthfulness and competence when, in fact, the opposite is often true (Leary, 2016). Indeed, Nicolo Machiavelli wrote almost 500 years ago in his famous work The Prince (1532) that people’s tendency toward uncritically believing what they are told, their instinct for self-preservation, and their desire to be part of a group could be used by a leader (or aspiring leader) to manipulate the populace to support him or her. 6 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology By reminding us of intuition’s gifts and alerting us to its pitfalls, social psychologists aim to fortify our thinking. In most situations, “fast and frugal” snap judgments serve us well enough. But in others, where accuracy matters—as when needing to fear the right things and spend our resources accordingly—we had best restrain our impulsive intuitions with critical thinking. Social Influences Shape Our Behaviour We are, as Aristotle long ago observed, social animals. We speak and think in words we learned from others. We long to connect, to belong, to live in a society, and to be well thought of. For example, Matthias Mehl and James Pennebaker (2003) quantified their University of Texas students’ social behaviour by inviting them to wear recording devices. Once every 12 minutes during their waking hours, the computer-operated recorder would record for 30 seconds. Although the observation period covered only weekdays (including class time), almost 30 percent of their time was spent talking. Relationships are a large part of being human. As social creatures, we respond to our immediate contexts. Sometimes, the power of a social situation leads us to act in ways that depart from our espoused attitudes. Indeed, powerful situations sometimes overwhelm good intentions, inducing people to unspeak- able cruelty: Under Nazi influence, many otherwise decent people became instru- ments of the Holocaust. Other situations may elicit great generosity and compassion: The Japanese tsunami in 2011, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and the 2016 fires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, for example, resulted in unprecedented generosity from Canadians across the country. Your culture helps define your situation; your standards regarding promptness, frank- ness, and clothing vary with your culture. Here are some examples: Whether you prefer a slim or voluptuous body depends on when and where in the world you live. Whether you define social justice as equality (all receive the same) or as equity (those who earn more receive more) depends on whether your ideology has been shaped more by socialism or by capitalism. Whether you tend to be expressive or reserved, casual or formal, hinges partly on your culture and your ethnicity. Whether you focus primarily on yourself—your personal needs, desires, and moral- ity—or on your family, clan, and communal groups depends on how much you are a product of modern Western individualism. Social psychologist Hazel Markus (2005) summed it up: “People are, above all, mallea- ble.” Said differently, we adapt to our social context. Our behaviour, then, is shaped by external forces. Personal Attitudes and Dispositions Also Shape Behaviour Internal forces also matter. We are not passive tumbleweeds, merely blown this way and that by the social winds. Our inner attitudes affect our behaviour. Our political attitudes influ- ence our voting behaviour. Our attitudes toward smoking influence our susceptibility to peer pressures to smoke. Our attitudes toward poor people influence our willingness to support them. (As we will see, attitudes also follow behaviour, which leads us to believe strongly in those things for which we have committed ourselves or for which we have suffered.) Personality dispositions also affect behaviour. Facing the same situation, different people may react differently. Emerging from years of political imprisonment, one person  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 7 exudes bitterness and seeks revenge. Another, such as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, seeks reconciliation and unity with former enemies. Social Behaviour Is Biologically Rooted Twenty-first-century social psychology is providing us with ever-growing insights into our behaviour’s biological foundations. Many of our social behaviours reflect a deep biological wisdom. Nature and nurture together form who we are. Biology and experience together create us. As evolutionary psychologists remind us, our inherited human nature predisposes us to behave in ways that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. We carry the genes of those whose traits enabled them and their children to survive and reproduce. Thus, evo- lutionary psychologists ask how natural selection might predispose our actions and reac- tions when we are dating and mating, hating and hurting, caring and sharing. Nature also endows us with an enormous capacity to learn and to adapt to varied environments. We are sensitive and responsive to our social context. If every psychological event (every thought, every emotion, every behaviour) is simul- taneously a biological event, then we can also examine the neurobiology that underlies social behaviour. What brain areas enable our experiences of love and contempt, of helping and aggression, of perception and belief? How do mind and behaviour function together as one coordinated system? What does the timing of brain events reveal about how we process information? Such questions are asked by those in social neuroscience (Cacioppo et al., 2010; Klein et al., 2010). Social neuroscientists do not reduce complex social behaviours, such as helping and hurting, to simple neural or molecular mechanisms. Their point is this: To understand social behaviour, we must consider both under-the-skin (biological) and between-skins (social) influences. Mind and body are one grand system. Stress hormones affect how we feel and act. Social ostracism elevates blood pressure. Social support strengthens the dis- ease-fighting immune system. We are bio-psycho-social organisms: We reflect the interplay of our biological, psycho- logical, and social influences. And that is why today’s psychologists study behaviour from these different levels of analysis. Relating to Others Is a Basic Need We want to fit in with others, and our relationship with others can be an important source of stress and pain as well as joy and comfort. Kip Williams and his colleagues (Williams, 2002; Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000; Williams & Zadro, 2001) have shown that feeling left out can have dramatic effects on how people feel about them- selves. They had university students play a simple computer game in which each player was represented by a cartoon figure on the screen and the figures passed a ball to one another. When confederates of the experimenter passed the ball to one another and left the real participants out of the action, the participants felt miserable and reported steep drops in their self-esteem. Apparently, even university students can feel the pain that many schoolchildren experience when they are not included. Acts of aggression and prejudice inflict this sort of pain. Of course, relating to others is not all pain. When others help, when we form roman- tic relationships, and when we promote harmony between groups, interpersonal relations can be an important source of joy and comfort. In fact, according to Mark Leary and Roy Baumeister, our relationships with others form the basis of our self-esteem (Leary & Baumeister, 2000). They argue that our self-esteem is nothing more than a reading of how accepted we feel by others. In this view, relating to others is a basic need that shapes all of our social actions. 8 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology “You can never foretell what Social Psychology’s Principles Are any [person] will do, but Applicable in Everyday Life you can say with precision Social psychology has the potential to illuminate our lives, to make visible what an average number will the subtle forces that guide our thinking and acting. It also offers many be up to. Individuals may ideas about how to know ourselves better, how to win friends and influence vary, but percentages remain people, how to transform closed fists into open arms. constant.” Scholars are also applying social psychological insights to other disci- Sherlock Holmes, in Sir Arthur plines. Principles of social thinking, social influence, and social relations Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, 1887 have implications for human health and well-being, for judicial procedures and juror decisions in courtrooms, and for the encouragement of behav- iours that will enable an environmentally sustainable human future. As but one perspective on human existence, psychological science does not seek to engage life’s ultimate questions: What is the meaning of human life? What should be our purpose? What is our ultimate destiny? But social psychology does give us a method for asking and answering some exceedingly interesting and important ques- tions. Social psychology is all about life—your life: your beliefs, your attitudes, your relationships. How Do Values Affect Social Psychology? Social psychologists’ values penetrate their work in ways both obvious and subtle. What are these ways? Social psychology is less a collection of findings than a set of strategies for answering questions. In science, as in courts of law, personal opinions are inadmissible. When ideas are put on trial, evidence determines the verdict. But are social psychologists really this objective? Because they are human beings, don’t their values—their personal convictions about what is desirable and about how people ought to behave—seep into their work? And, if so, can social psychology really be scientific? Obvious Ways in Which Values Enter Social Psychology Values enter the picture with our choice of research topics. These choices typically reflect social history (Kagan, 2009). It was no accident that the study of prejudice flourished dur- ing the 1940s as fascism raged in Europe; that the 1950s, a time of look-alike fashions and rows of identical suburban homes, gave us studies of conformity; that the 1960s saw inter- est in aggression increase with riots and rising crime rates; that the 1970s feminist move- ment helped stimulate a wave of research on gender and sexism; that the 1980s offered a resurgence of attention to psychological aspects of the arms race; that the 1990s were marked by heightened interest in how people respond to cultural diversity; and that the 2000s saw substantial research on extremism and terrorism. Social psychology reflects social history (Kagan, 2009). Values differ not only across time but also across cultures. In Europe, people take pride in their nationalities. The Scots are self-consciously distinct from the English; and the Austrians, from the Germans. Consequently, Europe has given us a major theory of “social identity,” whereas North American social psychologists have focused more on individu- als—how one person thinks about others, is influenced by them, and relates to them (Fiske, 2004; Tajfel, 1981; Turner, 1984). Australian social psychologists have drawn theories and methods from both Europe and North America (Feather, 2005). Values also influence the types of people attracted to various disciplines (Campbell, 1975a; Moynihan, 1979). Have  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 9 you noticed differences in students attracted to the humanities, the natural sciences, or the social sciences? Finally, values obviously enter the picture as the object of social-psychological analysis. Social psychologists investigate how values form, why they change, and how they influ- ence attitudes and actions. None of this, however, tells us which values are “right.” Not-So-Obvious Ways in Which Values Enter Social Psychology We less often recognize the subtler ways in which value commitments masquerade as objective truth. Consider these not-so-obvious ways in which values enter social psychol- ogy and related areas. The subjective aspects of science Scientists and philosophers now agree: Science is not purely objective. Scientists do not simply read the book of nature. Rather, they interpret nature, using their own mental cat- egories. In our daily lives, too, we view the world through the lens of our preconceptions. While reading these words, you have been unaware that you are also looking at your nose. Your mind blocks from awareness something that is there, if only you were predis- posed to perceive it. This tendency to prejudge reality based on our expectations is a basic fact about the human mind. Because scholars at work in any given area often share a common view- point or come from the same culture, their assumptions may go unchal- “Science does not simply lenged. What we take for granted—the shared beliefs that European social describe and explain nature; psychologists call our social representations (Augoustinos & Innes, 1990; it is part of the interplay Moscovici, 1988, 2001)—are our most important but often most unexam- between nature and ourselves; it ined convictions. Sometimes, however, someone from outside the camp describes nature as exposed to will also call attention to these assumptions. our method of questioning.” During the 1980s, feminists exposed some of social psychology’s unex- Werner Heisenberg, amined assumptions, criticizing the ideas of scientists who favoured a Physics and Philosophy, 1958 biological interpretation of gender differences in social behaviour (Unger, 1985). Socialist thinkers called attention to the inherent support for the benefit of competition and individualism—for example, the assumptions that conformity is bad and that individual rewards are good. These groups, of course, make their own assumptions, as critics of “political correctness” are fond of noting. Social psychologist Lee Jussim (2005), for example, argues that progressive social psychologists sometimes feel compelled to deny group differences and to assume that stereotypes of group differ- ence are never rooted in actual group differences but that perceived differences are just the result of racism. In Chapter 3, we will see more ways in which our preconceptions guide our inter- pretations. What’s crucial for our behaviour is less the situation-as-it-is than the situation-as-we-construe-it. The hidden values in psychological concepts Implicit in our understanding that psychology is not objective is the realization that psy- chologists’ own values play an important part in the theories and judgments they support. Psychologists refer to people as mature or immature, as well-adjusted or poorly adjusted, as mentally healthy or mentally ill. They talk as if they were stating facts, when really they are value judgments. Here are some examples: Forming concepts. Hidden values even seep into psychology’s research-based con- cepts. Pretend you have taken a personality test and the psychologist, after scoring your answers, announces, “You scored high in self-esteem. You are low in anxiety. 10 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology And you have exceptional ego-strength.” “Ah,” you think, “I suspected as much, but it feels good to know that.” Now another psychologist gives you a similar test. For some peculiar reason, this test asks some of the same questions. Afterwards, the psychologist informs you that you seem defensive, for you scored high in “repres- siveness.” “How could this be?” you wonder. “The other psychologist said such nice things about me.” It could be because all these labels describe the same set of responses (a tendency to say nice things about oneself and to not acknowledge problems). Shall we call it high self-esteem or defensiveness? The label reflects a value judgment. Labelling. Value judgments are often hidden within our social-psychological lan- guage—but that is also true of everyday language. Here are some examples: Whether we label someone engaged in guerrilla warfare a “terrorist” or a “free- dom fighter” depends on our view of the cause. Whether we view wartime civilian deaths as “the loss of innocent lives” or as “collateral damage” affects our acceptance of the deaths. Whether we call public assistance “welfare” or “aid to the needy” reflects our political views. When “they” exalt their country and people, it’s nationalism; when “we” do it, it’s patriotism. Whether Donald Trump is a “racist misogynist” or an “authentic straight-shooter” depends on your place on the political spectrum. “Brainwashing” is bad but “social influence” is good. Whether wearing a hijab is “oppression of women” or an “expression of religious devotion” depends on your interpretation of the Islamic faith. Hidden (and not-so- Naturalistic fallacy. A seductive error for those who work in the social sciences hidden) values seep is sliding from a description of what is into a prescription of what ought to be. into psychological Philosophers call this the naturalistic fallacy. The gulf between “is” and “ought advice. They permeate to be,” between scientific description and ethical prescription, remains as wide popular psychology books that offer today as when philosopher David Hume pointed it out 200 years ago. No survey guidance on living and of human behaviour—say, of sexual practices—logically dictates what is “right” loving. behaviour. If most people don’t do something, that does not make it wrong. If Source: Alison Derry/ most people do it, that does not make it right. We inject our values whenever we McGraw-Hill Education. move from objective statements of fact to prescriptive statements of what ought to be As these examples indicate, values lie hidden within our cultural definitions of mental health, our psychological advice for living, our concepts, and our psychological labels. Throughout this book, we will call your attention to additional examples of hidden values. The point is never that the implicit values are necessarily bad. The point is that scientific interpretation, even at the level of labelling a phe- nomenon, is a human activity. It is, therefore, natural and inevitable that prior beliefs and values will influence what social psychologists think and write. Should we dismiss science because it has its subjective side? Quite the contrary: The realization that human thinking always involves inter- pretation is precisely why we need researchers with varying biases to undertake scientific analysis. By constantly checking our beliefs against the facts, as best we know them, we check and retrain our biases. Sys- tematic observation and experimentation help us clean the lens through which we see reality.  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 11 Is Social Psychology Merely Common Sense? Is social psychology simply common sense? Do social psychology’s theories provide new insight into the human condition? Or do they only describe the obvious? Many of the conclusions presented in this book will probably have already occurred to you, for social psychology is all around you. We constantly observe people thinking about, influencing, and relating to one another. Much of our thinking aims to discern and explain relationships among social events. It pays to discern what that facial expression predicts, how to get someone to do something, or whether to regard another person as friend or foe. For centuries, philosophers, novelists, and poets have observed and commented on social behaviour, often with keen insight. Does this mean that social psychology is only common sense but using fancy words? We wouldn’t have written this book if we thought so. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms: first, that it is trivial because it Activity: Is Common Sense Really That Common? For each statement, please determine whether you think it is true or false. 1. T F Although women’s salaries in 1994 were approximately $14 000 less than men’s, women’s incomes have gradually increased so that today we are see- ing women’s salaries at wages comparable to those of their male counterparts. 2. T F Due to the high cost of living, the number of full-time workers in a single household has increased dramatically over the past 10 years. 3. T F Canada is known for its attitudes of acceptance of others and its respect for human rights and freedoms. It is, therefore, not unexpected that we would have fewer active terrorist groups here than in any other Western democracy. 4. T F There is a positive relationship between how much money we make and how many hours we volunteer. The more money we make, the more hours we volunteer. 5. T F Manitobans are the most likely to say they have more in common with people in Nova Scotia than with Americans just south of them in North Dakota. 6. T F Nine out of every ten Canadians strongly or somewhat support “having more women in elected office to achieve a well-functioning political system.” 7. T F Most of us have quite accurate insight into the factors that influence our moods. 8. T F Most people rate themselves as worse than average on socially desir- able characteristics. 9. T F Memory is like a storage chest in the brain into which we deposit mate- rial and from which we can withdraw it later if needed. Occasionally, some- thing gets lost from the chest, and then we say we have forgotten it. 10. T F The greater the reward promised for an activity, the more we will come to enjoy the activity. How did you do? Go to the end of the chapter to find out. 12 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology documents the obvious; second, that it is dangerous because its findings “A first-rate theory predicts; could be used to manipulate people. a second-rate theory forbids; We will explore the second criticism in Chapter 5. For the moment, let’s and a third-rate theory explains examine the first objection. after the event.” Do social psychology and the other social sciences simply formalize Aleksander Isaakovich what any amateur already knows intuitively? Writer Cullen Murphy (1990) Kitaigorodskii, 1975 thought so: “Day after day social scientists go out into the world. Day after day they discover that people’s behaviour is pretty much what you’d expect.” But why did you give the answers you did to the questions above? For example, let’s look at number 10. Does this make sense to you? Many students say yes. When asked why, students will explain that we want to be rewarded for our work, and when we are, we enjoy it. Yet you might also argue that doing something is its own reward—we do not need to be compensated. As it turns out... it depends, but typically once we are paid for doing something, we do not enjoy it as much. One problem with common sense is that we invoke it after we know the facts. Events are far more “obvious” and predictable in hindsight than beforehand. Experiments reveal that when people learn the outcome of an experiment, that outcome suddenly seems unsur- prising—certainly less surprising than it is to people who are simply told about the experi- mental procedure and the possible outcomes (Slovic & Fischhoff, 1977). Likewise, in everyday life, we often do not expect something to happen until it does. We then suddenly see clearly the forces that brought it about, and we feel unsurprised. On June 23, 2012, a section of the roof parking lot at the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake, Ontario, collapsed onto shoppers and employees, killing 2 people and injur- ing more than 20 more. The media and residents of Elliot Lake strongly criticized the mall’s owners as well as the structural engineer who had inspected the structure prior to its collapse. Couldn’t more have been done to avoid the death and destruction in this case? Maybe. However, given what we know about the hindsight bias, is the extent of the criticism fair? We often think we knew what we actually did not. As the philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard put it, “Life is lived forwards, but under- stood backwards.” If this hindsight bias (also called the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) is pervasive, you may now be feeling that you already knew about it. Indeed, almost any conceivable result of a psychological experiment can seem like common sense—after you know the result. You can demonstrate this phenomenon yourself. Take a group of people and tell half of them one psychological finding; and the other half, the opposite result. For example, tell half the group this: Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in love, we are most attracted to people whose traits are different from our own. There seems to be wisdom in the old saying, “Opposites attract.” Tell the other half this: Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in love, we are most attracted to people whose traits are similar to our own. There seems to be wisdom in the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Ask each group of people to explain the result given to that group. Then ask each group to indicate whether the finding is “surprising” or “not surprising.” Virtually everyone will find whichever result they were given “not surprising.” Indeed, we can draw upon our stockpile of proverbs to make almost any result seem to make sense. If a social psychologist reports that separation intensifies romantic  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 13 attraction, Joe Public responds, “You get paid for this? Everybody knows that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’” If, however, it turns out that separa- tion weakens attraction, Judy Public may say, “My grandmother could have told you ‘out of sight, out of mind.’” The hindsight bias creates a problem for many psy- chology students. Sometimes, results are genuinely sur- prising (for example, that Olympic bronze medallists take more joy in their achievement than do silver med- allists, something you might have noticed by watching the numerous Canadian athletes at the 2016 Summer Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro as they won their many bronze medals). In hindsight, events seem obvious and predictable. Consider the last time you failed a test (or had a Source: ScienceCartoonsPlus.com. car accident, or experienced some other negative out- come). Why did it happen? Is there something you could have done to avoid it? Considering what you now know about the hindsight bias, and counterfactual thinking, how accurate do you “It is easy to be wise after think your judgments are in terms of how you could have changed the the event.” outcome? Sherlock Holmes, in Sir Arthur Importantly, especially in academic contexts, people are not very Conan Doyle’s “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” 1922 good at identifying the causes of their failure, and when they try to (and make mistakes) it can actually inhibit later performance (Petrocelli, Seta, & Seta, 2013; Petrocelli et al., 2012). For example, you might think you failed your test because you were out drinking, but if the real cause was that you did not read the material, simply not drinking the night before the next test will not solve your problem. We sometimes blame ourselves for “stupid mistakes”—perhaps for not having handled a person or a situation better. Looking back on the event, we see how we should have handled it. “I should have known how busy I would be at the end of semester and started that paper earlier.” But sometimes we are too hard on ourselves. We forget that what is obvious to us now was not nearly as obvious at the time. Physicians who are told both a patient’s symptoms and the cause of death (as determined by an autopsy) sometimes wonder how an incorrect diagnosis could have been made. Other physicians, given only the symptoms, don’t find the diagnosis nearly as obvious (Dawson et al., 1988). Indeed, this even extends to judgments of defendants in criminal trials – jurors who know that a crime victim died were more likely to say the defendant should have foreseen the outcome (Evelo & Greene, 2013). So what do we conclude—that common sense is usually wrong? Sometimes it is. Until science dethroned the common-sense view, centuries of daily experience assured people that the sun revolved around the earth. Medical experience assured doctors that bleeding was an effective treatment for typhoid fever, until someone in the middle of the last century bothered to experiment by dividing patients into two groups: one group was bled while the other was given mere bed rest. Other times, conventional wisdom is right, or it falls on both sides of an issue: Does happiness come from knowing the truth or from preserving illusions? From being with others or from living in peaceful solitude? No matter what we find, there will be someone who foresaw it. But which of the many competing ideas best fits reality? The point is not that common sense is predictably wrong. Rather, common sense usu- ally is right after the fact. We, therefore, easily deceive ourselves into thinking that we know and knew more than we do and did. And this is precisely why we need science—to help us sift reality from illusion and genuine predictions from easy hindsight. 14 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology Research Methods: How Do We Do Social Psychology? How does social psychology try to accomplish its goals? We have considered some of the intriguing questions that social psychology seeks to answer. We have also seen the ways in which subjective, often unconscious, processes influence the work that social psychologists do. Now let’s consider the sci- entific methods that make social psychology a science. “Nothing has such power to In their quest for insight, social psychologists propose theories that broaden the mind as the ability organize their observations and imply testable hypotheses and practical to investigate systematically and predictions. To test a hypothesis, social psychologists may do research that truly all that comes under thy predicts behaviour using correlational studies, often conducted in natural observation in life.” settings. Or they may seek to explain behaviour by conducting experiments Marcus Aurelius, Meditations that manipulate one or more factors under controlled conditions. Once they have conducted a research study, they explore ways to apply their findings to improve people’s lives. We are all amateur social psychologists. People-watching is a universal hobby: in parks, on the street, at school. As we observe people, we form ideas about how humans think about, influence, and relate to one another. Professional social psychologists do the same, only more systematically (by forming theories) and painstakingly (often with experiments that create miniature social dramas to pin down cause and effect). Forming and Testing Hypotheses We social psychologists have a hard time thinking of anything more fascinating than human existence. As we wrestle with human nature to pin down its secrets, we organize our ideas and findings into theories. A theory is an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events. Theories are a scientific shorthand. In everyday conversation, “theory” often means “less than fact”—a middle rung on a confidence ladder from guess to theory to fact. Thus, people may, for example, dis- miss Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as “just a theory.” Indeed, noted Alan Leshner (2005), “Evolution is only a theory, but so is gravity.” People often respond that gravity is a fact—but the fact is that your keys fall to the ground when dropped. Gravity is the theoreti- cal explanation that accounts for this observed fact. To a scientist, facts and theories are apples and oranges. Facts are agreed-upon state- ments that we observe. Theories are ideas that summarize and explain facts. “Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones,” wrote French scientist Jules Henri Poincaré (1905), “but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” Theories not only summarize; they also imply testable predictions, called hypotheses. Hypotheses serve several purposes. First, they allow us to test the theory on which they are based. By making specific predictions, a theory puts its money where its mouth is. Second, predictions give direction to research. Any scientific field will mature more rap- idly if its researchers have a sense of direction. Theoretical predictions suggest new areas for research; they send investigators looking for things they might never have thought of. Third, the predictive feature of good theories can also make them practical. What, for example, would be of greater practical value today than a theory of aggression that would predict when to expect aggression and how to control it? When testing our theories with specific hypotheses, however, we must always trans- late variables that are described at the theoretical level into the specific variables that we are going to observe. This process, called operationalization, is often as much an art as a science.  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 15 Consider how this works. Say we observe that people who loot, taunt, or attack others (i.e., exhibit extreme violence) often do so in crowds. We might, therefore, theorize that the presence of others in a crowd leads to extreme violence. Let’s play with this idea for a moment. In order to test this hypothesis, we need to translate our theoretical variable crowd into a meaningful example of it that we will observe. In this case, maybe we would operationalize this variable as 20 strangers together in a relatively small room, even though this definition of crowd would probably be different from the crowds we origi- nally observed. The crucial question for this study would be this: Does our operational variable of crowd represent what we mean theoretically by a crowd? The answer to that question determines whether our operational variable is a valid measure of our theoretical variable. If we can accept it as valid, then we can go on to test our hypothesis. If we can’t accept it as valid, then the proposed research will not tell us much about our theory, and we should develop a new operationalization. What do you think of this operationaliza- tion of crowd? Could you do better? Good social psychology requires both following the principles of science and developing tests of theories that creatively capture the essence of the theory being tested. If we are going to test our hypothesis, however, we would also need to operational- ize extreme violence. What if we asked individuals in “crowds” to administer punishing shocks to a hapless victim without knowing which one of the group was actually shocking the victim? Would these individuals administer stronger shocks than individuals acting alone, as our theory predicts? In this example, administering punishing shocks would be the operational variable of our concept of extreme violence. To be a good operationaliza- tion, we would need to believe that it is a valid measure of violence; we would also need to believe that by using this measure, differences in violence could emerge and we would get basically the same results if we did the study over again. That is, we would need to believe that it is a reliable measure. If this measure of violence sometimes showed violence and other times didn’t, we might very well miss our effect. When we test our theories, we necessarily must make observations; and when we make observations, we have to decide what we are going to observe. This process of deciding on our observations, called operationalization (as mentioned above) is how science puts its theories to test. A good operationalization captures the essence of the theoretical con- cept—that is, it is valid—and it does so sensitively and consistently—that is, reliably—so that tests of the theory can be observed. You will note throughout the text, however, that quite regularly more than one theory can explain what we know about a given phenomenon. Not only must we test our own theory, but science often proceeds by testing between two theories. How do we conclude that one theory is better than another? A good theory accomplishes the following: It effectively summarizes many observations. It makes clear predictions that we can use to do the following: Confirm or modify the theory. Generate new exploration. Suggest practical applications. When we discard theories, usually it’s not because they have been proved false. Rather, like old cars, they get replaced by newer, better models. Correlational Research: Detecting Natural Associations Let’s go backstage now and take a brief look at how social psychology is done. This glimpse behind the scenes will be just enough, we trust, for you to appreciate findings discussed later and to think critically about everyday social events. 16 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology Social-psychological research varies by loca- tion. It can take place in the laboratory (a controlled situation) or it can be field research (everyday situations). And it varies by method: correla- tional research (asking whether two or more fac- tors are naturally associated) or experimental research (manipulating some factor to see its effect on another). If you want to be a critical reader of psychological research reported in newspapers and magazines, you need to understand the difference between correlational and experimental research. Today’s psychologists often relate personal and social factors to human health. Soft drink compa- nies have long argued that weight-conscious con- sumers could help control their weight by drinking Source: Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock.com. diet soft drinks. But Sharon Fowler and her col- leagues (see Fowler et al., 2008) found that con- suming soft drinks was correlated with obesity—the more you drink, the more likely you are to be obese. Given soft drinks’ high sugar content, perhaps this finding was not sur- prising. However, what surprised the researchers even more was that consuming diet soft drinks was even more strongly related to obesity rates. As shown in Figure 1–3, the risk of becoming obese is higher in every consumption category for diet soda drinkers over regular soda drinkers. Why? Could it be that drink- ing diet soda causes weight to increase? Should obese people who drink diet soft drinks switch to regular soft drinks to lose weight? What are some of the alternative explanations for this effect? Correlation versus causation The diet cola–weight-gain question illustrates the most irresistible thinking error made by both amateur and professional social psychologists: When two things go together, it is 60 Up to.5 0.5 to 1 1 to 2 More than 2 50 40 30 20 10 0 Regular Diet FIGURE 1–3  PERCENTAGE RISK OF BECOMING OVERWEIGHT BY TYPE AND AMOUNT OF POP CONSUMED. Source: Myers/Smith, Exploring Social Psychology, Fourth Canadian Edition, Fig. 2.1, from p. 3 of Ch. 2.  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 17 very tempting to conclude that one is causing the other. Correlational research, therefore, allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes in another. Below are a number of potential reasons that drinking diet soft drinks is related to weight gain. Now, for each of the explanations below, evaluate the extent to which you believe this explanation is true (i.e., correct) and also why you think the way you do. 1. There is a direct and causal relationship because there is an as yet unknown property of artificial sweeteners that triggers hunger and causes people to eat more. 2. Drinking diet sodas is causally related to weight gain but reversed: People who are overweight drink diet soft drinks in an attempt to lose weight, but it is too late. Thus the effect is causal, but in the reverse direction (i.e., being overweight causes the drinking of diet soft drinks). 3. There is a third variable involved; thus, there is no causal relationship. People who drink diet colas are less likely to drink good drinks (milk, juice) and good food (fruits, vegetables) that can help control weight gain. Now that you have thought this through, ask your friends what they think. Do they agree or disagree with you? Why? The correlation–causation confusion is behind much muddled thinking in popular psychology. Consider another very real correlation: between self-esteem and academic achievement. Children with high self-esteem tend also to have high academic achievement. (As with any correlation, we can also state this the other way around: High achievers tend to have high self-esteem.) Why do you suppose this is? (See Figure 1–4 for a representa- tion of three possible scenarios.) Some people believe a “healthy self-concept” contributes to achievement. Thus, boost- ing a child’s self-image may also boost school achievement. But others, including psy- chologists William Damon (1995), Robyn Dawes (1994), Mark Leary (1998), and Martin Seligman (1994), doubt that self-esteem is really “the armor that protects kids” from underachievement (or drug abuse and delinquency). Perhaps it’s the other way around: Perhaps problems and failures cause low self-esteem. Perhaps self-esteem often reflects the Correlation X Y Social status Health Academic Self-esteem achievement Possible explanations X Y X Y X Y Z (1) (2) (3) FIGURE 1–4 CORRELATION AND CAUSATION. When two variables correlate, any combination of three explanations is possible. 18 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology reality of how things are going for us. Perhaps self-esteem grows from hard-won achieve- ments. Do well, and you will feel good about yourself; goof off and fail, and you will feel like a dolt. A study of 635 Norwegian schoolchildren suggests that a string of gold stars beside one’s name on the spelling chart and constant praise from an admiring teacher can boost a child’s self-esteem (Skaalvik & Hagtvet, 1990). Or, perhaps, as in a study of nearly 6000 German grade 7 students, the traffic between self-esteem and academic achievement runs both ways (Trautwein & Lüdtke, 2006). It’s also possible that self-esteem and achievement correlate because both are linked to underlying intelligence and family social status. That possibility was raised in two stud- ies: one of 1600 young men; another, of 715 teenagers (Bachman & O’Malley, 1977; Maruyama, Rubin, & Kingbury, 1981). When the researchers statistically removed the effect of intelligence and family status, the correlation between self-esteem and achieve- ment evaporated. Correlations quantify, with a coefficient known as r, the degree of relationship between two factors: from −1.0 (as one factor score goes up, the other goes down), through 0, to +1.0 (the two factors’ scores rise and fall together). Scores on self-esteem and depression tests correlate negatively (r is about −0.6). The intelligence scores of identical twins cor- relate positively (r is about +0.08). The strength of correlational research is that it tends to occur in real-world settings in which we can examine factors such as race, gender, and social status (factors that we cannot manipulate in the laboratory). Its great disadvantage lies in the ambiguity of the results. The point is so important that even if it fails to impress people the first 25 times they hear it, it is worth repeating: Knowing that two variables change together (correlate) enables us to predict one when we know the other, but correla- tion does not specify cause and effect. When correlational research is extended over time, it is called longitudinal research. Longitudinal research can begin to sort out cause and effect because we know that some things happen before others. Causes always happen before effects, so if we know that children almost always have a healthy positive self-image before they start to show more achievement than their peers, then we can rule out that it is achievement that causes a healthy positive self-image. Advanced correlational techniques can suggest cause–effect relations. Time-lagged correlations reveal the sequence of events (for example, by indicat- ing whether changed achievement more often precedes or follows changed self-esteem). Researchers can also use statistical techniques that extract the influence of “confounded” variables, as when the correlation between self-esteem and achievement evaporated after extracting intelligence and family status. Survey research How do we measure such variables in the population? One way is by surveying repre- sentative samples of people. Survey researchers obtain a representative group by taking a random sample—one in which every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion. With this procedure, any subgroup of people—red-haired people, for example—will tend to be represented in the survey to the extent that they are represented in the total population. It is an amazing fact that whether we survey people in a city or in a whole country, 1200 randomly selected participants will enable us to be 95 percent confident of describ- ing the entire population with an error margin of 3 percentage points or less. Imagine a huge jar filled with beans, 50 percent red and 50 percent white. Randomly sample 1200 of these, and you will be 95 percent certain to draw out between 47 percent and 53 percent red beans—regardless of whether the jar contains 10 000 beans or 100 mil- lion beans. If we think of the red beans as supporters of one political party and the white beans as supporters of the other party, we can understand why polls taken just before national elections have diverged from election results by an average of less than  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 19 2 percent. As a few drops of blood can speak for the whole body, so can a random sample speak for a population. Bear in mind that polls do not literally predict voting; they only describe public opinion and voting intentions as of the moment they are taken. Both can shift. For example, in the 2011 federal election, surveys just two days before the election (LISPOP, 2011) suggested that the Liberal Party would get as many seats as the New Democratic Party (NDP); but clearly the NDP was gaining momentum and ended up capturing many more seats than the Liberals. In the 2015 federal election, despite being “too close to call” just prior to the election, the Liberals won a substantial majority (CBC, 2015). Similarly, in the 2016 U.S. election, polls consistently had Hillary Clinton in the lead, but Trump won a majority of the needed electoral college votes. To evaluate surveys, we must also bear in mind four potentially biasing influences: unrepresentative samples, the order of the questions, the response options, and the wording of the questions. Unrepresentative samples How closely the sample represents the population under study matters greatly. In 1984, columnist Ann Landers accepted a letter writer’s challenge to poll her readers on the question of whether women find affection more important than sex. Her question was this: “Would you be content to be held close and treated tenderly and forget about ‘the act’?” Of the more than 100 000 women who replied, 72 percent said yes. An ava- lanche of worldwide publicity followed. In response to critics, Landers (1985, p. 45) granted that “the sampling may not be representative of all American women. But it does provide honest—valuable—insights from a cross-section of the public. This is because my column is read by people from every walk of life, approximately 70 mil- lion of them.” Still, one wonders, are the 70 million readers representative of the entire population? And are the 1 in 700 readers who participated representative of the 699 in 700 who did not? Order of the questions Given a representative sample, we must also contend with other sources of bias, such as the order in which we ask questions. Asked whether “the Japanese government should be allowed to set limits on how much American industry can sell in Japan,” most Americans answered no. Simultaneously, two-thirds of an equivalent sample were answering yes to the same question because they were first asked whether “the American government should be allowed to set limits on how much Japanese industry can sell in the United States.” Most of these people said the United States has the right to limit imports. To appear consistent, they then said that Japan should have the same right (Schuman & Ludwig, 1983). Response bias and social desirability Consider, too, the dramatic effects of the response options. When Joop van der Plight and his colleagues (1987) asked English voters what percentage of Britain’s energy they wished came from nuclear power, the average preference was 41 percent. They asked oth- ers what percentage they wished came from (1) nuclear, (2) coal, and (3) other sources. Their average preference for nuclear power was 21 percent. It is not just the response options, however, that can bias people’s responses. Some- times people don’t want to admit their true actions and beliefs either to the experimenter or sometimes even to themselves. Questions about prejudice often show very low lev- els of reported prejudice by the respondents. Yet systematic experiments demonstrate that prejudice is all too common. Why the difference in findings? People may not want to admit on a survey or even to themselves that they harbour some feelings of preju- dice. This tendency for people to say what they want others to hear or what they want to 20 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology believe about themselves is called social desirability. Social psychologists have devel- oped new methods of measuring people’s beliefs without their knowing that their beliefs are being measured. These implicit measures are often used when concerns about social desirability arise. Wording of the questions Given a representative sample, we must also contend with other sources of bias, such as the wording of questions. For example, one poll found that people favoured cutting “foreign aid” yet opposed cutting funding “to help hungry people in other nations” (Simon, 1996). Even subtle changes in the tone of a question can have large effects (Schuman & Kalton, 1985). Thus, it is not surprising that politicians in Ottawa and Quebec have fought bitterly about the wording of referendum questions about Quebec sovereignty. Federalists have long charged that the Parti Québécois purposely has devised questions that are unclear and designed to elicit a yes vote in favour of sovereignty. In the 1995 election, Quebec residents voted on this question: “Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership, within the scope of the Bill respecting the future of Quebec and the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?” Did this question affect the outcome of the election? It certainly might have because even when people say they feel strongly about an issue, a question’s form and wording may affect their answer (Krosnick & Schuman, 1988). Survey researchers must be sensitive to subtle—and not so subtle—biases. Knowledge of the issues, however, can sometimes interact with the wording of the question to influence responses. Consider a study conducted by Darin Lehman of the University of British Columbia and his colleagues (Lehman et al., 1992). They had stu- dents read a number of newspaper clippings preceding a provincial election. Some of the articles sided with the New Democratic Party (NDP), others sided with the Social Credit Party (SCP)—the two main rivals in the election. After the students had read the articles, Lehman and his colleagues asked the students in one condition to respond to a series of questions about how fair the articles were to the NDP. The students in the other condition were asked to respond to nearly the same questions, except that they rated how fair the articles were to the SCP. The questions tended to lead students to see bias against one party over the other. Did the wording of the question affect all students equally? No. It primarily affected students who were less knowledgeable about the issues in the election. These students saw more bias against the NDP when the questions were about the NDP and more bias against the SCP when the questions were about the SCP. More knowledgeable students, on the other hand, were unaffected by the wording of the question. Source: DOONESBURY © 1990 G. B. Trudeau. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 21 Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and Effect The difficulty of discerning cause and effect among naturally correlated events prompts most social psychologists to create laboratory simulations of everyday processes whenever this is feasible and ethical. These simulations are roughly similar to how aeronautical engineers work. They don’t begin by observing how flying objects perform in a wide variety of natu- ral environments. The variations in both atmospheric conditions and flying objects are so complex that they would surely find it difficult to organize and use such data to design better aircraft. Instead, they construct a simulated reality that is under their control—a wind tunnel. Then they can manipulate wind conditions and observe the precise effect of particular wind conditions on particular wing structures. Control: Manipulating variables Like aeronautical engineers, social psychologists experiment by constructing social situ- ations that simulate important features of our daily lives. By varying just one or two fac- tors at a time—called independent variables—the experimenter pinpoints how changes in these one or two things affect us. Just as the wind tunnel helps the aeronautical engineer discover principles of aerodynamics, the experiment enables the social psychologist to dis- cover principles of social thinking, social influence, and social relations. The ultimate aim of wind-tunnel simulations is to understand and predict the flying characteristics of com- plex aircraft. Social psychologists experiment to understand and predict human behaviour. It is important that we understand the distinction between correlation and experimental research (see Figure 1–5). Historically, social psychologists have used the experimental method in about three-quarters of their research studies (Higbee, Millard, & Folkman, 1982), and in two out of three studies, the setting has been a research laboratory (Adair, Dushenko, & Lindsay, 1985). To illustrate the laboratory experiment, consider two experi- ments that typify research from upcoming chapters on prejudice and aggression. Each sug- gests possible cause–effect explanations of correlational findings. Correlational and experimental studies of prejudice against the obese The first experiment concerns prejudice against people who are obese. People often per- ceive the obese as slow, lazy, and sloppy (Ryckman et al., 1989). Do such attitudes spawn discrimination? In hopes of finding out, Steven Gortmaker and his colleagues (1993) studied 370 obese 16- to 24-year-olds. When they restudied them seven years later, two-thirds of the Condition Treatment Measure Experimental Violent Aggression TV People Control Non-violent Aggression TV FIGURE 1–5 RANDOM ASSIGNMENT. Experiments randomly assigning people either to a condition that receives the experimental treatment or to a control condition that does not. This gives the researcher confidence that any later difference is somehow caused by the treatment. 22 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology women were still obese, and these women were less likely to be married and earning high salaries than a comparison group of some 5000 other women. Even after correcting for any differences in aptitude test scores, race, and parental income, the obese women’s incomes were $7000 a year below average. Note: Obesity correlated with marital status and income. Correcting for certain other factors makes it look as though discrimination might explain the correlation between obesity and lower status, but we can’t be sure. (Can you think of other possibilities?) Enter social psychologists Mark Snyder and Julie Haugen (1994, 1995). They asked 76 University of Minnesota male students to have a getting- acquainted phone conversation with one of 76 women students. Each man was shown a photo said to picture his conversational partner. Half were shown an obese woman (not the actual partner); the other half were shown a normal-weight woman. Whom the men were shown—a normal or an overweight woman—was the independent variable. In one part of the experiment, the men were asked to form an impression of the wom- en’s traits. Later analysis of just the women’s side of the conversation revealed that when women were being evaluated, the men spoke less warmly and happily if the women were presumed to be obese. Clearly, the men’s beliefs induced the men to behave in a way that led their supposedly obese partners to confirm the idea that such women are undesirable. Prejudice and discrimination were having an effect. Correlational and experimental studies of TV violence viewing As a second example of how an experiment can clarify causation, consider the correlation between television viewing and children’s behaviour. Children who watch many violent tele- vision programs tend to be more aggressive than those who watch few. This suggests that children might be learning from what they see on the screen. But, as we hope you now rec- ognize, this is a correlational finding. There are at least two other cause–effect interpretations that do not implicate television as the cause of the children’s aggression. (What are they?) Social psychologists have, therefore, brought television viewing into the laboratory, where they control the amount of violence the children see. By exposing children to vio- lent and nonviolent programs, researchers can observe how the amount of violence affects behaviour. Chris Boyatzis and his colleagues (1995) showed some elementary school- Does viewing violence children, but not others, an episode of the 1990s’ most popular—and violent—children’s on TV or in other media television program, Power Rangers. Immediately after viewing the episode, the viewers lead to imitation? committed seven times as many aggressive acts per two-minute interval as the nonviewers. Experiments suggest that it does, especially We call the observed aggressive acts the dependent variable. Such experiments indicate among children. that television can be one cause of children’s aggressive behaviour. Source: ©Byron Peter/ So far we have seen that the logic of experimentation is simple: By creating and con- Photo Researchers/Getty Images. trolling a miniature reality, we can vary one factor and then another and discover how these factors, separately or in combi- nation, affect people. Now let’s go a little deeper and see how an experi- ment is done. Every social-psychological experi- ment has two essential ingredients. We have just considered one: control. We manipulate one or two independent variables while trying to hold every- thing else constant. The other ingredi- ent is random assignment. Random assignment: The great equalizer Recall that we were reluctant, on the basis of a correlation, to assume that  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 23 TABLE 1–1 Recognizing Correlations and Experimental Research Can participants be randomly assigned to condition? Independent variable Dependent variable Are early maturing children No → Correlational more confident? Do students learn more in Yes → Experimental Take class online or in Learning online or classroom courses? classroom Do school grades predict No → Correlational vocational success? Does playing violent video Yes → Experimental Play violent or nonviolent Aggressiveness games increase aggressiveness? game Do people find comedy funnier (you answer) when alone or with others? Do higher-income people have (you answer) higher self-esteem? obesity caused lower status (via discrimination) or that viewing violence caused aggres- siveness (see Table 1–1 for more examples). A survey researcher might measure and sta- tistically extract other possibly pertinent factors and see if the correlations survive. But researchers can never control for all of the factors that might distinguish obese from non- obese, and violence viewers from nonviewers. Maybe violence viewers differ in education, culture, intelligence, or in dozens of ways the researcher hasn’t considered. In one fell swoop, random assignment eliminates all such extraneous factors. With random assignment, each person has an equal chance of viewing the violence or the non- violence. Thus, the people in both groups would, in every conceivable way—family status, intelligence, education, initial aggressiveness—average about the same. Highly intelligent people, for example, are equally likely to appear in both groups. Because random assign- ment creates equivalent groups, any later aggression difference between the two groups must have something to do with the only way they differ—whether or not they viewed violence (Figure 1–6). Research methods Correlational Experimental Advantage Disadvantage Advantage Disadvantage Often uses real- Causation often Can explore cause and Some important world settings ambiguous effect by controlling variables cannot variables and by be studied with random assignment experiments FIGURE 1–6 TWO METHODS OF DOING RESEARCH: CORRELATIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL. 24 CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology Note the distinction between random assignment in experiments and random sampling in surveys. Random assignment helps us infer cause and effect. Random sampling helps us generalize to a population. Unfortunately, true experimental manipulation is not always possible. Some situations (such as cases of child welfare) do not allow for random assignment or for direct manipu- lations of independent variables. For example, one cannot randomly assign children to be brought up by “alcoholic” versus “not alcoholic” parents to see what impact a substance- abusing parent has on a child’s welfare (Foster & McCombs-Thornton, 2013). That would be unethical (see below). So, some researchers need to try to make causal inferences using observational research methods where individuals are observed in natural settings, often without awareness, in order to provide the opportunity for objective analysis of behaviour. Observational researchers use sophisticated statistical analysis techniques to make infer- ences about cause and effect where a true experiment is not possible. The ethics of experimentation Our television example illustrates why some experiments are ethically sensitive. Social psychologists would not, over long time periods, expose one group of children to brutal violence. Rather, they briefly alter people’s social experience and note the effects. Some- times, the experimental treatment is a harmless, perhaps even enjoyable, experience to which people give their knowing consent. Sometimes, however, researchers find them- selves operating in a grey area between the harmless and the risky. Social psychologists often venture into that ethical grey area when they design experi- ments that engage intense thoughts and emotions. Experiments need not have what Elliot Aronson, Marilynn Brewer, and Merrill Carlsmith (1985) called mundane realism. That is, laboratory behaviour (for example, delivering electric shocks as part of an experiment What influences occasionally trigger on aggression) need not be literally the same as everyday behaviour. For many researchers, post-game violence that sort of realism is, indeed, mundane—not important. But the experiment should have among European experimental realism—it should absorb and involve the participants. Experimenters do soccer fans—and not want their people consciously play-acting; they want to engage real psychological pro- Canadian hockey fans? cesses. Forcing people to choose whether to give intense or mild electric shock to someone Social psychologists have proposed else can, for example, be a realistic measure of aggression. It functionally simulates real hypotheses that have aggression. been tested with Achieving experimental realism sometimes requires deceiving people with a plausible groups behaving under cover story. If the person in the next room actually is not receiving the shocks, the experi- controlled conditions. menter does not want the participants to know this. That would destroy the experimental Source: The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz. realism. Thus, about one-third of social-psychological studies (though a decreasing num- ber) have required deception (Korn & Nicks, 1993; Vitelli, 1988). Experimenters also seek to hide their predictions lest the participants, in their eagerness to be “good subjects,” merely do what’s expected or, in an ornery mood, do the opposite. In subtle ways, the experimenter’s words, tone of voice, and gestures may call forth desired responses. To minimize such demand characteristics—cues that seem to “demand” certain behaviour—experi- menters typically standardize their instructions or even use a computer to present them. Researchers often walk a tightrope in designing experiments that will be  CHAPTER 1 Introducing Social Psychology 25 involving yet ethical. To believe that you are hurting someone or to be subjected to strong social pressure to see if it will change your opinion or behaviour may be temporarily uncomfortable. Such experiments raise the age-old question of whether ends justify means. Do the insights gained justify deceiving and sometimes distressing people? University ethics committees now review social-psychological research to ensure that it will treat people humanely. Ethical principles developed by major psychological organiza- tions and government organizations, such as Canada’s Tri-Council, which funds natural science, social science, humanities, and health research, urge investigators to follow these practices: Tell potential participants enough about the experiment to enable their informed consent. Be truthful. Use deception only if essential and justified by a significant purpose and if there is no alternative. Protect people from harm and significant discom