Introducing Social Psychology PDF

CHAPTER Introducing 1 Social Psychology  Confirming Pages Wha...

CHAPTER Introducing 1 Social Psychology  Confirming Pages What is social psychology? Social psychology’s big ideas Social psychology and human values I knew it all along: Is social psychol- ogy simply common sense? Research methods: How we do social psychology Postscript: Why I wrote this book T here once was a man whose second wife was a vain and selfish woman. This woman’s two daughters were similarly vain and selfish. The man’s own daughter, however, was meek and unselfish. This sweet, kind daughter, whom we all know as Cinderella, learned early on that she should do as she was told, accept ill treatment and insults, and avoid doing anything to upstage her stepsisters and their mother. But then, thanks to her fairy godmother, Cinderella was able to escape her situation for an evening and attend a grand ball, where she attracted the attention of a handsome prince. When the love-struck prince later encountered Cinderella back in her degrading home, he failed to recognize her. Implausible? The folktale demands that we accept the power of the situation. In the presence of her oppressive stepmother, Cinderella was humble and unattractive. At the ball, Cinderella felt more beautiful— and walked and talked and smiled as if she were. In one situation, she cowered. In the other, she charmed. The French philosopher-novelist Jean-Paul Sartre (1946) would have had no problem accepting the Cinderella premise. We humans are “first of all beings in a situation,” he wrote. “We cannot be distin- guished from our situations, for they form us and decide our possibili- ties” (pp. 59–60, paraphrased). mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 3 9/24/09 9:30:13 PM 4 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology What Is Social Psychology? social psychology Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situations, with The scientific study of how special attention to how we view and affect one another. More precisely, it is the sci- people think about, influence, entific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another (Figure 1.1). and relate to one another. Social psychology lies at psychology’s boundary with sociology. Compared with sociology (the study of people in groups and societies), social psychology focuses more on individuals and uses more experimentation. Compared with personality psychology, social psychology focuses less on individuals’ differences and more on how individuals, in general, view and affect one another. Social psychology is still a young science. The first social psychology experi- ments were reported barely more than a century ago (1898), and the first social Throughout this book, sources for information are psychology texts did not appear until just before and after 1900 (Smith, 2005). Not cited parenthetically. The until the 1930s did social psychology assume its current form. And not until World complete source is provided War II did it begin to emerge as the vibrant field it is today. in the reference section that Social psychology studies our thinking, influence, and relationships by asking begins on page R-1. questions that have intrigued us all. Here are some examples: How Much of Our Social World Is Just in Our Heads? As we will see in later chapters, our social behavior varies not just with the objective situation but also with how we construe it. Social beliefs can be self-fulfilling. For example, happily married people will attribute their spouse’s acid remark (“Can’t you ever put that where it belongs?”) to something external (“He must have had a frustrating day”). Unhappily married people will attribute the same remark to a mean disposition (“Is he ever hostile!”) and may respond with a coun- terattack. Moreover, expecting hostility from their spouse, they may behave resentfully, thereby eliciting the hostility they expect. Would People Be Cruel If Ordered? How did Nazi Germany conceive and implement the unconscionable slaughter of 6 million Jews? Those evil acts occurred partly because thousands of people followed orders. They put the prisoners on trains, herded them into crowded “showers,” and poisoned them with gas. How could people engage in such horrific actions? Were those individuals normal human beings? Stanley Milgram (1974) wondered. So he set up a situation where people were ordered to administer increasing FIGURE :: 1.1 Social psychology is the Social Psychology Is... scientific study of... Social thinking Social influence Social relations How we perceive Culture Prejudice ourselves and others Pressures to conform Aggression What we believe Persuasion Attraction and intimacy Judgments we make Groups of people Helping Our attitudes  Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 5 levels of electric shock to someone who was having difficulty learning a series of words. As we will see in Chapter 6, nearly two-thirds of the participants fully complied. To Help? Or to Help Oneself? As bags of cash tumbled from an armored truck one fall day, $2 million was scattered along a Columbus, Ohio, street. Some motorists stopped to help, returning $100,000. Judging from the $1,900,000 that disap- peared, many more stopped to help themselves. (What would you have done?) When similar incidents occurred several months later in San Francisco and Toronto, the results were the same: Passersby grabbed most of the money (Bowen, 1988). What situations trigger people to be helpful or greedy? Do some cultural contexts—perhaps villages and small towns— breed greater helpfulness? A common thread runs through these questions: They all deal with how people view and affect one another. And that is what social psychology is all about. Social psychologists study attitudes and beliefs, conformity and independence, love and hate. Tired of looking at the stars, Social Psychology’s Big Ideas Professor Mueller takes up social psychology. What are social psychology’s big lessons—its overarching themes? In many aca- Reprinted with permission of Jason Love at www.jasonlove.com. demic fields, the results of tens of thousands of studies, the conclusions of thou- sands 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 short list of big ideas? What themes, or fundamental principles, will be worth remembering long after you have forgotten most of the details? My short list of “great ideas we ought never to forget” includes these, each of which we will explore further in chapters to come (Figure 1.2). We Construct Our Social Reality We humans have an irresistible urge to explain behavior, 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. How we react to a friend’s insult depends on whether we attribute it to hostility or to a bad day. A 1951 Princeton-Dartmouth football game provided a classic demonstration of how we construct reality (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954; see also Loy & Andrews, 1981). The game lived up to its billing as a grudge match; it turned out to be one of the roughest and dirtiest games in the history of either school. A Princeton All- American was gang-tackled, piled on, and finally forced out of the game with a broken nose. Fistfights erupted, and there were further injuries on both sides. The whole performance hardly fit the Ivy League image of upper-class gentility. Not long afterward, two psychologists, one from each school, showed films of the game to students on each campus. The students played the role of scientist- observer, noting each infraction as they watched and who was responsible for it. But they could not set aside their loyalties. The Princeton students, for example, saw twice as many Dartmouth violations as the Dartmouth students saw. The con- clusion: There is an objective reality out there, but we always view it through the lens of our beliefs and values.  Confirming Pages 6 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology B ig Ideas in Social Psycholog Some y 1. We construct our social reality 6. Social behavior is also biological behavior 2. Our social intuitions are powerful, sometimes 4. Social influences shape 7. Feelings and actions toward perilous behavior people are sometimes 5. Dispositions shape negative and sometimes 3. Attitudes shape, and are positive shaped by, behavior behavior So c i Soci al thinking al relations So cial in ences flu Social psychology‘s principles are applicable Ap to everyday life y pl y g ing yc holo social ps FIGURE :: 1.2 Some Big Ideas in Social Psychology We are all intuitive scientists. We explain people’s behavior, usually with enough speed and accuracy to suit our daily needs. When someone’s behavior is consistent and distinctive, we attribute that behavior to his or her personality. For example, if you observe someone who makes repeated snide comments, you may infer that this person has a nasty disposition, and then you 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 supe- rior or inferior? Our answers influence our emotions and actions. How we construe the world, and ourselves, matters. Our Social Intuitions Are Often Powerful but Sometimes Perilous Our instant intuitions shape our fears (is flying dangerous?), impressions (can I trust him?), and relationships (does she like me?). Intuitions influence presi- dents in times of crisis, gamblers at the table, jurors assessing guilt, and person- nel directors screening applicants. Such intuitions are commonplace. Indeed, psychological science reveals a fascinating unconscious mind—an intuitive backstage mind—that Freud never told us about. More than psychologists realized until recently, thinking occurs offstage, out of sight. Our intuitive capaci- ties are revealed by studies of what later chapters will explain: “automatic pro- cessing,” “implicit memory,” “heuristics,” “spontaneous trait inference,” instant emotions, and nonverbal communication. Thinking, memory, and attitudes all operate on two levels—one conscious and deliberate, the other unconscious and automatic. “Dual processing,” today’s researchers call it. We know more than we know we know. mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 6 9/24/09 9:30:15 PM  Rev.Confirming Pages Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 7 Intuition is huge, but intuition is also perilous. An example: As we cruise through life, mostly on automatic pilot, we intuitively judge the likeli- hood of things by how easily various instances come to mind. Especially since September 11, 2001, we carry readily available mental images of plane crashes. Thus, most people fear flying more than driving, and many will drive great distances to avoid risking the skies. Actually, we’re many times safer (per mile traveled) in a commercial plane than in a motor vehicle (in the United States, air travel was 230 times safer between 2002 and 2005, reports the National Safety Council ). Even our intuitions about ourselves often err. We intuitively trust our memories more than we should. We misread our own minds; in ex- periments, we deny being affected by things that do influence us. We mispredict our own feelings—how bad we’ll feel a year from now if we lose our job or our romance breaks up, and Social cognition matters. Our behavior is influenced not just by the how good we’ll feel a year from now, or even objective situation, but also by how we construe it. © The New Yorker Collection, 2005, Lee Lorenz, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. a week from now, if we win our state’s lottery. And we often mispredict our own future. For example, when selecting clothes, people approaching middle age will still buy snug (“I anticipate shedding a few pounds”); rarely does anyone say, more real- istically, “I’d better buy a relatively loose fit; people my age tend to put on pounds.” Our social intuitions, then, are noteworthy for both their powers and their perils. By reminding us of intuition’s gifts and alerting us to its pitfalls, social psy- chologists 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. Our intuitions and uncon- scious information processing are routinely powerful and sometimes perilous. Social Influences Shape Our Behavior 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, and to be well thought of. Matthias Mehl and James Pennebaker (2003) quantified their University of Texas students’ social behavior by inviting them to wear microcassette recorders and microphones. Once every 12 minutes during their waking hours, the computer- operated recorder would imperceptibly record for 30 seconds. Although the obser- vation period covered only weekdays (including class time), almost 30 percent of the students’ time was spent in conversation. 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 contrary to our expressed attitudes. Indeed, powerfully evil situations sometimes overwhelm good intentions, induc- ing people to agree with falsehoods or comply with cruelty. Under Nazi influence, many decent-seeming people became instruments of the Holocaust. Other situa- tions may elicit great generosity and compassion. After the 9/11 catastrophe, New York City was overwhelmed with donations of food, clothing, and help from eager volunteers. mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 7 10/8/09 11:09:07 PM  Confirming Pages 8 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology The power of the situation was also dramatically evident in varying attitudes toward the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Opinion polls revealed that Americans and Israelis overwhelmingly favored the war. Their distant cousins elsewhere in the world overwhelmingly opposed it. Tell me where you live and I’ll make a reason- able guess as to what your attitudes were as the war began. Tell me your edu- cational level and what media you watch and read, and I’ll make an even more confident guess. Our situations matter. Our cultures help define our situations. For example, our standards regarding promptness, frankness, and clothing vary with our culture. 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 morality—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) sums it up: “People are, above all, mal- leable.” Said differently, we adapt to our social context. Our attitudes and behavior are shaped by external social forces. Personal Attitudes and Dispositions Also Shape Behavior Internal forces also matter. We are not passive tumbleweeds, merely blown this way and that by the social winds. Our inner attitudes affect our behavior. Our polit- ical attitudes influence our voting behavior. Our smoking attitudes influence our susceptibility to peer pressures to smoke. Our attitudes toward the poor influence our willingness to help them. (As we will see, our attitudes also follow our behav- ior, which leads us to believe strongly in those things we have committed ourselves to or suffered for.) Personality dispositions also affect behavior. Facing the same situation, differ- ent people may react differently. Emerging from years of political imprisonment, one person exudes bitterness and seeks revenge. Another, such as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, seeks reconciliation and unity with his former enemies. Attitudes and personality influence behavior. Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted Twenty-first-century social psychology is providing us with ever-growing insights into our behavior’s biological foundations. Many of our social behaviors reflect a deep biological wisdom. Everyone who has taken introductory psychology has learned that nature and nurture together form who we are. As the area of a rectangle is determined by both its length and its width, so do biology and experience together create us. As evolutionary psychologists remind us (see Chapter 5), 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, evolutionary psychologists ask how natural selection might predispose our actions and reactions when dating and mating, hating and hurting, caring and sharing. Nature also endows us with an mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 8 9/24/09 9:30:17 PM  Confirming Pages Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 9 enormous capacity to learn and to adapt to varied environments. We are sensi- tive and responsive to our social context. If every psychological event (every thought, every emotion, every behavior) is simultaneously a biological event, then we can also examine the neurobiology that underlies social behavior. What brain areas enable our experiences of love and con- tempt, helping and aggression, perception and belief? How do brain, mind, and behavior 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 & others, 2007). social neuroscience Social neuroscientists do not reduce complex social behaviors, such as helping An integration of biological and hurting, to simple neural or molecular mechanisms. Their point is this: To and social perspectives understand social behavior, we must consider both under-the-skin (biological) and that explores the neural and between-skins (social) influences. Mind and body are one grand system. Stress hor- psychological bases of social mones affect how we feel and act. Social ostracism elevates blood pressure. Social and emotional behaviors. support strengthens the disease-fighting immune system. We are bio-psycho-social organisms. We reflect the interplay of our biological, psychological, and social influ- ences. And that is why today’s psychologists study behavior from these different levels of analysis. Social Psychology’s Principles Are Applicable in Everyday Life Social psychology has the potential to illuminate your life, to make visible the sub- tle influences that guide your thinking and acting. And, as we will see, it offers many ideas about how to know ourselves better, how to win friends and influence people, how to transform closed fists into open arms. Scholars are also applying social psychological insights. Principles of social thinking, social influence, and social relations have implications for human health and well-being, for judicial procedures and juror decisions in courtrooms, and for influencing behaviors 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 questions. Social psychology is all about life—your life: your beliefs, your attitudes, your relationships. The rest of this chapter takes us inside social psychology. Let’s first consider how Throughout this book, a brief social psychologists’ own values influence their work in obvious and subtle ways. summary will conclude each And then let’s focus on this chapter’s biggest task: glimpsing how we do social psy- major section. I hope these chology. How do social psychologists search for explanations of social thinking, summaries will help you social influence, and social relations? And how might you and I use these analytical assess how well you have learned the material in each tools to think smarter? section. Summing Up: Social Psychology’s Big Ideas Social psychology is the scientific study of how peo- How our social behavior is shaped by other peo- ple think about, influence, and relate to one another. ple, by our attitudes and personalities, and by our Its central themes include the following: biology How we construe our social worlds How social psychology’s principles apply to our everyday lives and to various other fields of study How our social intuitions guide and sometimes deceive us mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 9 9/24/09 9:30:17 PM 10 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology Social Psychology and Human Values Social psychologists’ values penetrate their work in ways both obvious and subtle. What are such 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 inadmis- sible. When ideas are put on trial, evidence determines the verdict. But are social psychologists really that objective? Because they are human beings, don’t their values—their personal convictions about what is desirable and how people ought to behave—seep into their work? If so, can social psychology really be scientific? Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology Values enter the picture when social psychologists choose research topics. It was no accident that the study of prejudice flourished during the 1940s as fascism raged in Europe; that the 1950s, a time of look-alike fashions and intolerance of differ- ing views, gave us studies of conformity; that the 1960s saw interest in aggression increase with riots and rising crime rates; that the feminist movement of the 1970s 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; and that the 1990s and the early twenty-first century were marked by heightened interest in how peo- ple respond to diversity in culture, race, and sexual orientation. 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 more self-consciously distinct from the English, and the Austrians from the Germans, than are similarly adjacent Michiganders from Ohioans. Conse- quently, Europe has given us a major theory of “social iden- tity,” whereas American social psychologists have focused more on individuals—how one person thinks about oth- ers, 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 who are attracted to various disciplines (Campbell, 1975a; Moynihan, 1979). At your school, do the students majoring in the humanities, the arts, the natural sciences, and the social sciences differ noticeably from one another? Do social psychology and sociology attract people who are—for example—relatively eager to challenge tradition, people more inclined to shape the future than preserve the past? Finally, values obviously enter the picture as the object of social-psychological analysis. Social psychologists inves- tigate how values form, why they change, and how they in- fluence attitudes and actions. None of that, however, tells us which values are “right.” Different sciences offer Not-So-Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology different perspectives. We less often recognize the subtler ways in which value commitments masquerade ScienceCartoonsPlus.com as objective truth. Consider three not-so-obvious ways values enter psychology.  Confirming Pages Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 11 THE SUBJECTIVE ASPECTS OF SCIENCE “Science does not simply Scientists and philosophers now agree: Science is not purely objective. Scientists do describe and explain nature; not simply read the book of nature. Rather, they interpret nature, using their own it is part of the interplay mental categories. In our daily lives, too, we view the world through the lens of between nature and our- our preconceptions. Pause a moment: What do you see in Figure 1.3? Can you see selves; it describes nature as a Dalmatian sniffing the ground at the picture’s center? Without that preconcep- exposed to our method of tion, most people are blind to the Dalmatian. Once your mind grasps the concept, it informs your interpretation of the picture—so much so that it becomes difficult not questioning.” to see the dog. —WERNER HEISENBERG, PHYSICS AND This is the way our minds work. While reading these words, you have been PHILOSOPHY, 1958 unaware that you are also looking at your nose. Your mind blocks from awareness something that is there, if only you were predisposed 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 viewpoint or come from the same culture, their assumptions may go unchallenged. What we culture take for granted—the shared beliefs that some European social psychologists call The enduring behaviors, our social representations (Augoustinos & Innes, 1990; Moscovici, 1988, 2001)—are ideas, attitudes, and often our most important yet most unexamined convictions. Sometimes, however, traditions shared by a someone from outside the camp will call attention to those assumptions. During large group of people the 1980s feminists and Marxists exposed some of social psychology’s unexam- and transmitted from one generation to the next. ined assumptions. Feminist critics called attention to subtle biases—for example, the political conservatism of some scientists who favored a biological interpreta- tion of gender differences in social behavior (Unger, 1985). Marxist critics called social representations attention to competitive, individualist biases—for example, the assumption that Socially shared beliefs— conformity is bad and that individual rewards are good. Marxists and feminists, of widely held ideas and values, course, make their own assumptions, as critics of academic “political correctness” including our assumptions are fond of noting. Social psychologist Lee Jussim (2005), for example, argues that and cultural ideologies. Our progressive social psychologists sometimes feel compelled to deny group differ- social representations help ences and to assume that stereotypes of group difference are never rooted in reality us make sense of our world. but always in racism. FIGURE :: 1.3 What Do You See? mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 11 9/24/09 9:30:18 PM  Confirming Pages 12 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology In Chapter 3 we will see more ways in which our preconceptions guide our interpretations. As those Princeton and Dartmouth football fans remind us, what guides our behavior is less the situation-as-it-is than the situation-as-we- construe-it. PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS CONTAIN HIDDEN VALUES Implicit in our understanding that psychology is not objective is the realization that psychologists’ own values may play an important part in the theories and judgments they support. Psychologists may refer to people as mature or immature, as well adjusted or poorly adjusted, as mentally healthy or mentally ill. They may talk as if they were stating facts, when they are really making value judgments. Here are some examples: Defining the Good Life. Values influence our idea of the best way to live our lives. The personality psychologist Abraham Maslow, for example, was known for his sensitive descriptions of “self-actualized” people—people who, with their needs for survival, safety, belonging, and self-esteem satis- fied, go on to fulfill their human potential. Few readers noticed that Maslow himself, guided by his own values, selected the sample of self-actualized people he described. The resulting description of self-actualized person- alities—as spontaneous, autonomous, mystical, and so forth—reflected Maslow’s personal values. Had he begun with someone else’s heroes—say, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and John D. Rockefeller—his resulting description of self-actualization would have differed (Smith, 1978). Professional Advice. Psychological advice also reflects the advice giver’s personal values. When mental health professionals advise us how to get along with our spouse or our co-workers, when child-rearing experts tell us how to handle our children, and when some psychologists advocate living free of concern for others’ expectations, they are expressing their personal values. (In Western cultures, those val- ues usually will be individualistic—encouraging what feels best for “me.” Non-Western cultures more often encourage what’s best for “we.”) Many people, unaware of those hidden values, defer to the “professional.” But professional psychologists cannot answer questions of ultimate moral obligation, of purpose and direction, and of life’s meaning. Forming Concepts. Hidden values even seep into psychology’s research-based concepts. 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. And you have exceptional ego-strength.” “Ah,” you think, “I sus- pected 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. Afterward, the psy- chologist informs you that you seem defensive, for you scored high in “repressiveness.” “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 not to acknowl- edge problems). Shall we call it high self-esteem or defensive- ness? The label reflects the judgment. Hidden (and not-so-hidden) values seep into psycho- Labeling. Value judgments, then, are often hidden within our social- logical advice. They permeate psychological language—but that is also true of everyday language: popular psychology books that offer guidance on living Whether we label a quiet child as “bashful” on “cautious,” as “holding and loving. back” or as “an observer,” conveys a judgment. mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 12 9/24/09 9:30:19 PM  Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 13 Whether we label someone engaged in guerrilla warfare a “terrorist” or a “freedom 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 such. 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 someone involved in an extramarital affair is practicing “open marriage” or “adultery” depends on one’s personal values. “Brainwashing” is social influence we do not approve of. “Perversions” are sex acts we do not practice. Remarks about “ambitious” men and “aggressive” women convey a hidden message. As these examples indicate, values lie hidden within our cultural definitions of mental health, our psychological advice for living, our concepts, and our psycho- logical labels. Throughout this book I 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 labeling phenomena, 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 interpretation 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 restrain our biases. Systematic observation and experimentation help us clean the lens through which we see reality. Summing Up: Social Psychology and Human Values Social psychologists’ values penetrate their work This penetration of values into science is not a rea- in obvious ways, such as their choice of research son to fault social psychology or any other science. topics and the types of people who are attracted to That human thinking is seldom dispassionate is various fields of study. precisely why we need systematic observation and They also do this in subtler ways, such as their hid- experimentation if we are to check our cherished den assumptions when forming concepts, choosing ideas against reality. labels, and giving advice. I Knew It All Along: 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 may have already occurred to you, for social psychological phenomena are all around you. We constantly observe people thinking about, influencing, and relating to one another. It pays to discern what a facial expression predicts, how to get someone to do something, or whether to regard another as friend or foe. For centuries, philosophers, novelists, and poets have observed and commented on social behavior.  Confirming Pages 14 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology Does this mean that social psychology is just common sense in fancy words? Social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms: first, that it is trivial because it documents the obvious; second, that it is dangerous because its findings could be used to manipulate people. We will explore the second criticism in Chapter 7. For the moment, let’s examine the first objection. Do social psychology and the other social sciences simply formalize what any amateur already knows intuitively? Writer Cullen Murphy (1990) took that view: “Day after day social scientists go out into the world. Day after day they discover that people’s behavior is pretty much what you’d expect.” Nearly a half-century earlier, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1949), reacted with similar scorn to social scientists’ studies of American World War II soldiers. Sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld (1949) reviewed those studies and offered a sample with interpretive comments, a few of which I paraphrase: 1. Better-educated soldiers suffered more adjustment problems than did less- educated soldiers. (Intellectuals were less prepared for battle stresses than street-smart people.) 2. Southern soldiers coped better with the hot South Sea Island climate than did Northern soldiers. (Southerners are more accustomed to hot weather.) 3. White privates were more eager for promotion than were Black privates. (Years of oppression take a toll on achievement motivation.) 4. Southern Blacks preferred Southern to Northern White officers. (Southern officers were more experienced and skilled in interacting with Blacks.) As you read those findings, did you agree that they were basically common sense? If so, you may be surprised to learn that Lazarsfeld went on to say, “Every one of these statements is the direct opposite of what was actually found.” In reality, the studies found that less-educated soldiers adapted more poorly. Southerners were not more likely than northerners to adjust to a tropical climate. Blacks were more eager than Whites for promotion, and so forth. “If we had mentioned the actual results of the investigation first [as Schlesinger experienced], the reader would have labeled these ‘obvious’ also.” 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. Exper- iments reveal that when people learn the outcome of an experiment, that outcome suddenly seems unsurprising—certainly less surprising than it is to people who are simply told about the experimental procedure and the possible outcomes (Slovic & Fischhoff, 1977). Likewise, in everyday life we often do not expect something to happen until it does. Then we suddenly see clearly the forces that brought the event about and feel unsurprised. Moreover, we may also misremember our earlier view (Blank & others, 2008). Errors in judging the future’s foreseeability and in remember- hindsight bias ing our past combine to create hindsight bias (also called the I-knew-it-all-along The tendency to exaggerate, phenomenon). after learning an outcome, Thus, after elections or stock market shifts, most commentators find the turn of one’s ability to have foreseen events unsurprising: “The market was due for a correction.” After the widespread how something turned out. flooding in New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it seemed obvi- Also known as the I-knew-it- ous that public officials should have anticipated the situation: Studies of the levees’ all-along phenomenon. vulnerability had been done. Many residents did not own cars and were too poor to afford transportation and lodging out of town. Meteorologic assessment of the storm’s severity clearly predicted an urgent need to put security and relief supplies in place. As the Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard put it, “Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.” If hindsight bias is pervasive, you may now be feeling that you already knew about this phenomenon. Indeed, almost any conceivable result of a psychological experiment can seem like common sense—after you know the result. mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 14 9/24/09 9:30:21 PM  Confirming Pages Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 15 You can demonstrate the 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 as follows: 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: 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.” In hindsight, events seem Ask the people first to explain the result. Then ask them to say whether it is “sur- obvious and predictable. prising” or “not surprising.” Virtually all will find a good explanation for which- ScienceCartoonsPlus.com ever result they were given and will say it is “not surprising.” Indeed, we can draw on our stockpile of proverbs to make almost any result seem to make sense. If a social psychologist reports that separation intensifies romantic attraction, John Q. Public responds, “You get paid for this? Everybody knows that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’” Should it turn out that separation weakens attraction, John will say, “My grandmother could have told you, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’” Karl Teigen (1986) must have had a few chuckles when he asked University of Leicester (England) students to evaluate actual proverbs and their opposites. When given the proverb “Fear is stronger than love,” most rated it as true. But so did stu- dents who were given its reversed form, “Love is stronger than fear.” Likewise, the genuine proverb “He that is fallen cannot help him who is down” was rated highly; but so too was “He that is fallen can help him who is down.” My favorites, however, were two highly rated proverbs: “Wise men make proverbs and fools repeat them” (authentic) and its made-up counterpart, “Fools make proverbs and wise men repeat them.” For more dueling proverbs, see “Focus On: I Knew It All Along.” The hindsight bias cre- ates a problem for many psychology students. Some- times results are genuinely surprising (for example, focusON I Knew It All Along that Olympic bronze medal- ists take more joy in their Cullen Murphy (1990), managing editor of the Atlantic, faulted “sociology, psychol- achievement than do sil- ogy, and other social sciences for too often merely discerning the obvious or confirm- ver medalists). More often, ing the commonplace.” His own casual survey of social science findings “turned up when you read the results no ideas or conclusions that can’t be found in Bartlett’s or any other encyclopedia of experiments in your text- of quotations.” Nevertheless, to sift through competing sayings, we need research. books, the material seems Consider some dueling proverbs: easy, even obvious. When you later take a multiple- choice test on which you Is it more true that... Or that... must choose among sev- Too many cooks spoil the broth. Two heads are better than one. eral plausible conclusions, The pen is mightier than the sword. Actions speak louder than words. the task may become sur- You can’t teach an old dog new You’re never too old to learn. tricks. prisingly difficult. “I don’t Blood is thicker than water. Many kinfolk, few friends. know what happened,” He who hesitates is lost. Look before you leap. the befuddled student later Forewarned is forearmed. Don’t cross the bridge until you moans. “I thought I knew come to it. the material.” mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 15 9/24/09 9:30:21 PM  Confirming Pages 16 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology The I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon can have unfortunate consequences. It is conducive to arrogance—an overestimation of our own intellectual powers. More- over, because outcomes seem as if they should have been foreseeable, we are more likely to blame decision makers for what are in retrospect “obvious” bad choices than to praise them for good choices, which also seem “obvious.” Starting after the morning of 9/11 and working backward, signals pointing to the impending disaster seemed obvious. A U.S. Senate investigative report listed the missed or misinterpreted clues (Gladwell, 2003), which included the follow- ing. The CIA knew that al Qaeda operatives had entered the country. An FBI agent sent a memo to headquarters that began by warning “the Bureau and New York of the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civilian aviation universities and colleges.” The FBI ignored that accurate warning and failed to relate it to other reports that terrorists were planning to use planes as weapons. The president received a daily briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States” and stayed on holiday. “The dumb fools!” it seemed to hindsight critics. “Why couldn’t they con- nect the dots?” But what seems clear in hindsight is seldom clear on the front side of history. The intelligence community is overwhelmed with “noise”—piles of useless infor- mation surrounding the rare shreds of useful information. Analysts must therefore be selective in deciding which to pursue, and only when a lead is pursued does it stand a chance of being connected to another lead. In the six years before 9/11, the FBI’s counterterrorism unit could never have pursued all 68,000 uninvestigated leads. In hindsight, the few useful ones are now obvious. In the aftermath of the 2008 world financial crisis, it seemed obvious that govern- ment regulators should have placed safeguards against the ill-fated bank lending practices. But what was obvious in hindsight was unforeseen by the chief American regulator, Alan Greenspan, who found himself “in a state of shocked disbelief” at the economic collapse. “It is easy to be wise after the We sometimes blame ourselves for “stupid mistakes”—perhaps for not having event.” handled a person or a situation better. Looking back, we see how we should have —SHERLOCK HOLMES, IN handled it. “I should have known how busy I would be at the semester’s end and ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S started that paper earlier.” But sometimes we are too hard on ourselves. We forget STORY “THE PROBLEM OF that what is obvious to us now was not nearly so obvious at the time. THOR BRIDGE” Physicians who are told both a patient’s symptoms and the cause of death (as determined by autopsy) sometimes wonder how an incorrect diagnosis could have been made. Other physicians, given only the symptoms, don’t find the di- agnosis nearly so obvious (Dawson & others, 1988). Would juries be slower to as- sume malpractice if they were forced to take a foresight rather than a hindsight perspective? What do we conclude—that common sense is usually wrong? Sometimes it is. At 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? Opinions are a dime a dozen. No matter what we find, there will be someone who foresaw it. (Mark Twain jested that Adam was the only person who, when saying a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before.) But which of the many competing ideas best fit reality? Research can specify the circumstances under which a common-sense truism is valid. “Everything important has The point is not that common sense is predictably wrong. Rather, common sense been said before.” usually is right—after the fact. We therefore easily deceive ourselves into thinking —PHILOSOPHER ALFRED that we know and knew more than we do and did. And that is precisely why we NORTH WHITEHEAD need science to help us sift reality from illusion and genuine predictions from easy (1861–1947) hindsight. mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 16 9/24/09 9:30:21 PM  Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 17 Summing Up: I Knew It All Along: Is Social Psychology Simply Common Sense? Social psychology is criticized for being trivial This hindsight bias (the I-knew-it-all-along phenom- because it documents things that seem obvious. enon) often makes people overconfident about the Experiments, however, reveal that outcomes are validity of their judgments and predictions. more “obvious” after the facts are known. Research Methods: How We Do Social Psychology We have considered some of the intriguing questions social psychology seeks to answer. We have also seen how subjective, often unconscious, processes influence social psychologists’ work. Now let’s consider the scientific methods that make social psychology a science. In their quest for insight, social psychologists propose theories that organize their observations and imply testable hypotheses and practical predictions. To test a hypothesis, social psychologists may do research that predicts behavior using cor- relational studies, often conducted in natural settings. Or they may seek to explain behavior by conducting experiments that manipulate one or more factors under con- trolled conditions. Once they have conducted a research study, they explore ways to apply their findings to improve people’s everyday lives. We are all amateur social psychologists. People-watching is a universal hobby. “Nothing has such power to As we observe people, we form ideas about how human beings think about, influ- broaden the mind as the abil- ence, and relate to one another. Professional social psychologists do the same, only ity to investigate systemati- more systematically (by forming theories) and painstakingly (often with experi- cally and truly all that comes ments that create miniature social dramas that pin down cause and effect). And they have done it extensively, in 25,000 studies of 8 million people by one count under thy observation in life.” (Richard & others, 2003). —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS Forming and Testing Hypotheses We social psychologists have a hard time thinking of anything more fascinat- ing 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 theory set of principles that explain and predict observed events. Theories are a scientific An integrated set of shorthand. principles that explain and In everyday conversation, “theory” often means “less than fact”—a middle predict observed events. rung on a confidence ladder from guess to theory to fact. Thus, people may, for example, dismiss Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as “just a theory.” Indeed, notes Alan Leshner (2005), chief officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Evolution is only a theory, but so is gravity.” Peo- ple often respond that gravity is a fact—but the fact is that your keys fall to the ground when dropped. Gravity is the theoretical explanation that accounts for such observed facts. To a scientist, facts and theories are apples and oranges. Facts are agreed-upon statements about what we observe. Theories are ideas that summarize and explain facts. “Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones,” wrote the French scientist Jules Henri Poincaré, “but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”  Confirming Pages 18 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology Theories not only summarize but also imply testable predictions, called hypothesis hypotheses. Hypotheses serve several A testable proposition that purposes. First, they allow us to test a describes a relationship that theory by suggesting how we might may exist between events. try to falsify it. Second, predictions give direction to research and some- times send investigators looking for things they might never have thought of. Third, the predictive feature of good theories can also make them practical. A complete theory of aggression, for example, would predict when to expect aggression and how to control it. As the pioneering social psychologist Kurt For humans, the most Lewin declared, “There is nothing so fascinating subject is people. practical as a good theory.” © The New Yorker Collection, 1987, Consider how this works. Say we Warren Miller, from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved. observe that people who loot, taunt, or attack often do so in groups or crowds. We might therefore theorize that being part of a crowd, or group, makes individ- uals feel anonymous and lowers their inhibitions. How could we test this theory? Perhaps (I’m playing with this theory) we could devise a laboratory experiment simulating aspects of execution by electric chair. What if we asked individuals in groups to administer punishing shocks to a hapless victim without knowing which member of the group was actually shocking the victim? Would these indi- viduals administer stronger shocks than individuals acting alone, as our theory predicts? We might also manipulate anonymity: Would people deliver stronger shocks if they were wearing masks? If the results confirm our hypothesis, they might suggest some practical applications. Perhaps police brutality could be reduced by having officers wear large name tags and drive cars identified with large numbers, or by videotaping their arrests—all of which have, in fact, become common practice in many cities. But how do we conclude that one theory is better than another? A good theory effectively summarizes many observations, and makes clear predictions that we can use to confirm or modify the theory, generate new exploration, and suggest practical applications. When we discard theories, usually it’s not because they have been proved false. Rather, like old cars, they are replaced by newer, better models. Correlational Research: Detecting Natural Associations Most of what you will learn about social-psychological research methods you will absorb as you read later chapters. But let’s now go backstage and see how social psychology is done. This glimpse behind the scenes should be just enough for you field research to appreciate findings discussed later. Understanding the logic of research can also Research done in natural, help you think critically about everyday social events. real-life settings outside the Social-psychological research varies by location. It can take place in the labora- laboratory. tory (a controlled situation) or in the field (everyday situations). And it varies by mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 18 9/24/09 9:30:21 PM  Confirming Pages Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 19 Age at death FIGURE :: 1.4 Correlating Status 66 and Longevity Men 65 Tall grave pillars commemorated Women people who also tended to live 64 longer. 63 62 61 60 59 58 Low Medium High Height of grave pillars method—whether correlational (asking whether two or more factors are naturally correlational research associated) or experimental (manipulating some factor to see its effect on another). The study of the naturally If you want to be a critical reader of psychological research reported in newspapers occurring relationships and magazines, it will pay you to understand the difference between correlational among variables. and experimental research. Using some real examples, let’s first consider the advantages of correlational experimental research research (often involving important variables in natural settings) and its major Studies that seek clues to disadvantage (ambiguous interpretation of cause and effect). As we will see in cause-effect relationships Chapter 14, today’s psychologists relate personal and social factors to human by manipulating one or health. Among the researchers have been Douglas Carroll at Glasgow Caledonian more factors (independent University and his colleagues, George Davey Smith and Paul Bennett (1994). In variables) while controlling others (holding them search of possible links between socioeconomic status and health, the researchers constant). ventured into Glasgow’s old graveyards. As a measure of health, they noted from grave markers the life spans of 843 individuals. As an indication of status, they measured the height of the pillars over the graves, reasoning that height reflected cost and therefore affluence. As Figure 1.4 shows, taller grave markers were related to longer lives, for both men and women. Carroll and his colleagues report that other researchers, using contempo- rary data, have confirmed the status-longevity correlation. Scottish postal-code regions having the least overcrowding and unemployment also have the great- est longevity. In the United States, income correlates with longevity (poor and lower-status people are more at risk for premature death). In today’s Britain, occupational status correlates with longevity. One study followed 17,350 Brit- ish civil service workers over 10 years. Compared with top-grade administra- tors, those at the professional-executive grade were 1.6 times more likely to have died. Clerical workers were 2.2 times and laborers 2.7 times more likely to have died (Adler & others, 1993, 1994). Across times and places, the status-health cor- relation seems reliable. CORRELATION AND CAUSATION The status-longevity question illustrates the most irresistible thinking error made by both amateur and professional social psychologists: When two factors such as sta- tus and health go together, it is terribly tempting to conclude that one is causing the mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 19 9/24/09 9:30:22 PM  Confirming Pages 20 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology other. Status, we might presume, some- how protects a person from health risks. But might it be the other way around? Could it be that health promotes vigor and success? Perhaps people who live longer simply have more time to accu- mulate wealth (enabling them to have more expensive grave markers). Or might a third variable, such as diet, be involved (did wealthy and working- class people tend to eat differently)? Correlations indicate a relationship, but that relationship is not necessarily one of cause and effect. Correlational research allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable (such as social status) will cause changes in another (such as health). An amusing correlation-causation confusion surfaced during the 2008 Commemorative markers presidential campaign when the Asso- in Glasgow Cathedral ciated Press reported a survey show- graveyard. ing that most dog owners favored John McCain (who had two dogs) over Barack Obama (who didn’t own a pet), while those without a dog favored Obama. “The pet owning public seems to have noticed,” noted the writer, inferring that McCain’s dog ownership drew support from fellow dog owners (Schmid, 2008). But had the public noticed and cared who had pets? Or was the pet-preference cor- relation merely a reflection of some “confounded” third factors? For example, the survey also found dog ownership rates much higher among White and married people (who are more often Republicans and therefore McCain’s natural constitu- ency) than among Black and single people. The correlation-causation confusion is behind much muddled thinking in popu- lar psychology. Consider another very real correlation—between self-esteem and academic achievement. Children with high self-esteem tend also to have high aca- demic 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 that is true (Figure 1.5)? FIGURE :: 1.5 Correlation Correlation X Y and Causations Social status Health When two variables correlate, any combination of three expla- Academic nations is possible. Either one Self-esteem achievement may cause the other, or both may be affected by an underlying “third factor.” Possible explanations X Y X Y X Y Z (1) (2) (3) mye70665_ch01_002-032.indd 20 9/24/09 9:30:22 PM  Rev.Confirming Pages Introducing Social Psychology Chapter 1 21 Some people believe a “healthy self-concept” contributes to achievement. Thus, boosting a child’s self-image may also boost school achievement. Believing so, 30 U.S. states have enacted more than 170 self-esteem-promoting statutes. But other people, including psychologists William Damon (1995), Robyn Dawes (1994), Mark Leary (1999), Martin Seligman (1994, 2002), and Roy Baumeister and colleagues (2003, 2005), doubt that self-esteem is really “the armor that pro- tects 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 reality of how things are going for us. Perhaps self-esteem grows from hard-won achievements. 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 showed that a (legitimately earned) string of gold stars by one’s name on the spelling chart and accompanying praise from the admiring teacher can boost a child’s self-esteem (Skaalvik & Hagtvet, 1990). Or perhaps, as in a study of nearly 6,000 German seventh-graders, the traffic between self-esteem and academic achievements 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 studies—one a nationwide sample of 1,600 young American men, another of 715 Minnesota youngsters (Bachman & O’Malley, 1977; Maruyama & others, 1981). When the researchers mathematically removed the predictive power of intelligence and family status, the relationship 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 (about –.6). Identical twins’ intel- ligence scores correlate positively (above +.8). The great strength of correlational research is that it tends to occur in real-world settings where we can examine fac- tors such as race, gender, and social status (factors that we cannot manipul