When we began writing this book, our overriding goal was to
capture the excitement of social psychology. We have been pleased
to hear, in many kind letters and e-mail messages from professors
and students, that we succeeded. One of our favorites was from a
student who said that the book was so interesting that she always
saved it for last, to reward herself for finishing her other
work.With that one student, at least, we succeeded in making our
book an enjoyable, fascinating story, not a dry report of
facts and figures.
There is always room for improvement, however, and our goal in
this, the seventh edition, is to make the field of social
psychology an even better read. When we teach the course, there is
nothing more gratifying than seeing the sleepy students in the back
row sit up with interest and say, “Wow, I didn’t know that!Now
that’s interesting.” We hope that students who read our book will
have that very same reaction.
What’s New in This Edition?
We are pleased to add two new features to this edition that we
believe will appeal greatly to students. The first being the,
“Critical Thinking: How Could You Use This?” feature. In Chapter 9,
for example, we point out to students that sooner or later they
will be part of a group that needs to make an important decision,
and invite them to think about how they might use concepts
from
the chapter to ensure that the group makes the best decision it
can. The purpose of this feature is to encourage students to think
critically about the material and apply it to their own
lives.
In addition, we added sample test questions at the end of each
chapter.Both of these new features, we believe, will be of
substantial help in teaching students how to approach the material
presented in the book.
In addition to adding these new features we have updated the
seventh edition substantially with numerous references to new
research. Here is a sampling of the new research that is
covered:
?A brand new section at the end of each chapter called, “Critical
Thinking: How Could You Use This?” We pose questions to students
about their everyday lives—ones that they should find interesting
and intriguing—and ask them to address the questions using one or
more of the major concepts from the chapter. The purpose of this
feature is to encourage students to think critically about the
material and apply it to their own lives.
?Also new to this edition are end of chapter sample test questions
that are designed to communicate how to study and learn the
material. These questions, which are mostly from our own test
files, are critical-thinking type questions that are designed to
encourage students to understand social psychological concepts and
apply them to new situations, rather than viewing the material as a
set of facts to be memorized.
?Chapter 2, “Methodology: How Social Psychologists Do Research”
includes a new section entitled, “New Frontiers in Social
Psychological Research.” This section discusses new methods and
approaches that social psychologists have adopted in recent years,
including cross-cultural research, evolutionary psychology, and
social neuroscience.
?Chapter 3, “Social Cognition: How We Think about the Social
World,” has been updated with over 40 references to recent
research.We added a major new section entitled “Cultural
Differences in Social Cognition” that discusses cultural influences
on schemas and recent research
on holistic versus analytic thinking in different cultures.
?In Chapter 4, “Social Perception: How We Come to Understand Other
People,” we have updated the section on nonverbal
communication,discussing several recent studies that address the
evolutionary significance of facial expressions of emotion for
example, the work on pride and shame by Tracy Matsumoto,
2008. We have revised and updated the section on attribution and
culture. We begin this section with holistic versus analytic
thinking, discussing the research of Masuda and colleagues2008.
We continue with studies that have used a social neuroscience
methodology to study cultural differences in attribution,
discussing the work of Hedden and colleagues 2008 and Lewis and
colleagues 2008. In the area of attributional biases, we include
new research on how perceptual saliency affects the correspondence
bias in police interrogations and new research on cultural
differences in the self-serving bias.
?Chapter 5 has been reorganized and renamed, “The Self:
Understanding Ourselves in a Social Context,” to reflect the fact
that it is includes a broad coverage of research on the self and
not just self-knowledge. Reflecting the broader coverage of
research on the self, there is a new major heading called,
“Self-Control: The Executive Function Of The Self” that discusses
recent research on self-regulation. There is also increased
coverage of cultural differences in the self.
?In Chapter 6, “The Need to Justify Our Actions,” we have sharpened
and updated our coverage of self-justification and included some
new research on cultural differences. We have also included some
recent research showing cognitive dissonance in monkeys. We have
also expanded our coverage of research by Harmon-Jones showing
differences in brain activity during the experi- ence of dissonance
and dissonance reduction.
?Chapter 7, “Attitudes and Attitude Change: Influencing Thoughts
and Feelings,” includes over 50 references to recent research.
There is an expanded discussion of implicit attitudes, including
recent research on the origins of implicit attitudes. We added a
new section with the heading “Confidence in One’s Thoughts and
Attitude Change” that discusses recent research by Petty and Brinol
and colleagues. Finally, we revised substantially the section on
subliminal advertising, with new research examples, and added a
section on the effects of the media on attitudes toward weight in
men and women.
?Chapter 8, “Conformity: Influencing Behavior,” includes over 45
new references to recent research. The opening vignette the
McDonald’s hoax has been updated to reflect the recent conclusion
of the suspect’s criminal trial. We have substantially revised the
section on injunctive and descriptive norms, including discussion
of the “boomerang effect.” We discuss new research on the use of
informational conformity to change people’s behavior. The section
on body image and conformity has also been updated with recent
research. A major new section has been added, “The Obedience
Studies, Then and Now,” which discusses the startling results of
Jerry Burger’s 2009 research, the first replication of the
Milgram obedience study in the United States in 30 years. This
section has also been expanded to include a discussion of the
ethical issues surrounding the obedience studies.
?Chapter 9, “Group Processes: Influence in Social Groups” has a new
opening vignette that discusses President George W. Bush’s decision
to initiate the Iraq War. Later in the chapter we return to this
example in a “Connections” feature that discusses whether the
decision to invade Iraq was the result of group-think, based on
recent books by Bob Woodward, Scott McClelland, and others. The
section on “Why People Join Groups” has been revised to include
research on social rejection and social identity, and the section
on gender and leadership is updated with a discussion of recent
research on the “glass cliff.”
?Chapter 10, “Interpersonal Attraction: From First Impressions to
Close Relationships,” includes over 50 new references to recent
research. The section on evolution and love has been substantially
revised. For example, recent research by Johnston and colleagues
2001 and Gangestad and colleagues 2007 is presented, which
focuses on how the menstrualovulatory cycle affects women’s
perceptions of male attractiveness. A second major addition is to
the attachment styles section, which focuses on the genetic
contribution to attachment styles, and discusses the recent work of
Gillath and colleagues 2008 and Donnellan and colleagues 2008.
Additional new material and revisions occur throughout the chapter,
for example, in the sections on propinquity, similarity, facial
attractiveness, assumptions about attractive people, and cultural
definitions of love.
?Chapter 11, “Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People Help?” features two
new Try It! exercises. This popular feature makes concepts from
social psychology concrete and helps you see how they can be
applied to your own life. Also, discussions of group selection,
what causes people to feel empathy, and research on religion and
prosocial behavior have been added.
?In Chapter 12, “Aggression: Why We Hurt Other People,” we have
added comments on Craig Anderson’s recent study 2009 on the
possible effects of global warming on aggression. We have also
discussed Bushman’s 2007 research on scriptural violence and
aggressive behavior. We have also included some recent research on
building empathy as a way of curbing aggression.
?In Chapter 13, “Prejudice: Causes and Cures,” one of the major
additions is on the election of an African American to the
presidency. It has produced what one social psychologist has dubbed
the Obama effect. Shortly after the election of Barack Obama,
researchers were able to show two consequences of that election.
Plant and colleagues 2009 showed a decrease in prejudice against
African Americans; Dillon 2009 showed an apparent decrease in
stereotype threat among African American test takers.
?Social Psychology in Action 1, “Making a Difference with Social
Psychology: Attaining a Sustainable Future,” was new to the
previous edition. We believe it was a timely addition, given
current interest in global warming and other environmental issues,
as well as the more general question of how social psychology can
be used to address important social problems. We updated the
chapter in this edition with a discussion of recent research,
including studies by Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius 2008
on getting hotel guests to reuse their towels, research by Graham,
Koo, and Wilson in press on how to get college students to
conserve energy by driving less, and a study by Holland, Aarts, and
Langendam 2006 on getting people to recycle more. Finally, in the
section, “What Makes People Happy?” we added a description of a
study by Dunn, Aknin, and Norton 2008 showing that helping others
makes people happy.
?Social Psychology in Action 2: “Social Psychology and Health”
includes a new opening vignette, namely a true story about a woman
who showed remarkable resilience after losing 12 family members in
a four-year period. The section on social support is completely
revised, including the addition of recent reseach by Shelley Taylor
and colleagues on cultural differences in social support and
research by Niall Bolger and colleagues on visible versus invisible
social support.
?Social Psychology in Action 3: “Social Psychology and the Law” has
been updated considerably. For example, the section on line-ups and
how to improve them is updated with an example of recent research
by Gary Wells, research on individual differences in detecting lies
by Bond and DePaulo 2008, and a study on recovered memories by
Geraerts and colleagues 2007.
Social psychology comes alive for students when they understand the
whole context of the field: how theories inspire research, why
research is performed as it is, how further research triggers yet
new avenues of study. We have tried to convey our own fascination
with the research process in a down-to-earth, meaningful way and
have presented the results of the scientific process in terms of
the everyday experience of the reader; however, we did not want to
“water down” our presentation of the field. In a world where human
behavior can be endlessly surprising and where research results can
be quite counterintuitive, students need a firm foundation on which
to build their understanding of this challenging discipline.
The main way we try to engage students is with a storytelling
approach. Social psychology is full of good stories, such as how
the Holocaust inspired investigations into obedience to authority
and how reactions to the marriage of the crown prince of Japan to
Masako Owada, a career diplomat, illustrates cultural differences
in the self-concept.By placing research in a real-world context, we
make the material more familiar, understandable, and memorable.
Each chapter begins with a real-life vignette that illustrates the
concepts to come. We refer to this event at several points in the
chapter, clarifying to students the relevance of the material they
are learning. Examples of the pening vignettes include the tragic
death of Amadou Diallo, who was shot 41 times by four white police
officers, as he reached for his wallet in the vestibule of his New
York apartment building Chapter 3, “Social Cognition: How We Think
about the Social World”, and some amazing acts of altruism at the
sites of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 Chapter 11,
“Prosocial Behavior: Why do People Help?”.
We also weave “mini-stories” into each chapter that both illustrate
specific concepts and bring the material to life. For each one, we
first describe an example of a real-life phenomenon that is
designed to pique students’ interest. These stories are taken from
current events, literature, and our own lives. Next, we describe an
experiment that attempts to explain the phenomenon. This experiment
is typically described in some detail because we believe that
students should not only learn the major theories in social
psychology, but also understand and appreciate the methods used to
test those theories. For example, in Chapter 4 on social
perception, we introduce the correspondence bias by discussing
public reaction to an event celebrating Rosa Parks’s
courageous refusal in 1955 to move to the back of the bus in
segregationist Montgomery, Alabama. In 2005, at the time of her
death, transit companies across America posted signs in their city
buses, asking people to leave the seat behind the driver empty for
the day, in tribute to her. Despite the sign, some people sat in
the seat anyway. A journalist, traveling on New York City buses,
asked other riders what they thought of these “sitters.” Very
negative internal attributions were made about them e.g., that
they were disrespectful, contemptuous or even racist. In fact, the
explanation for their behavior was typically situational, that is,
something external to them as a person. They hadn’t seen the sign,
which was small in size and lost in the visual clutter of other
signs in the bus, and therefore didn’t know that they weren’t
supposed to sit in that seat. We invite you to thumb through the
book to find examples of these mini-stories.
Last but not least, we discuss the methods used by social
psychologists in some detail. How can “boring” details about
methodology be part of a storytelling approach, you might ask? We
believe that part of what makes the story of social psycyhology so
interesting is explaining to students how to test hypotheses
scientifically. In recent years, the trend has been for textbooks
to include only short sections on research methodology and provide
only brief descriptions of the findings of individual studies. In
this book, we integrate the science and methodology of the field
into our story in several ways. First, we devote an entire chapter
to methodology Chapter 2. We use our storytelling approach by
presenting two compelling real-world problems related to violence
and aggression: Does pornography promote violence against women?
Why don’t bystanders intervene more to help victims of violence? We
then use actual research studies on these questions to illustrate
the three major scientific methods observational research,
correlational research, and experimental research. Rather than a
dry recitation of methodological principles, the scientific method
unfolds like a story with a “hook” what are the causes of
real-world aggression and apathy toward violence? and a moral
such interesting, real-world questions can be addressed
scientifically. We have been pleased by the positive reactions to
this chapter in the previous editions.
Second, we describe prototypical studies in more detail than most
texts. We discuss how a study was set up, what the research
participants perceived and did, how the research design derives
from theoretical issues, and the ways in which the findings support
the initial hypotheses. We often ask readers to pretend that they
were participants so they can better understand the study from the
participants’ point of view. Whenever pertinent, we’ve also
included anecdotal information about how a study was done or came
to be; these brief stories allow readers insights into the
heretofore hidden world of creating research. See, for example, the
description of how Nisbett and Wilson 1977 designed one of their
experiments on the accuracy of people’s causal inferences in
Chapter 5 and the description of the origins of Aronson’s jigsaw
puzzle technique in Chapter 13.
Finally, we include a balanced coverage of classic and modern
research. The field of social psychology is expanding rapidly, and
exciting new work is being done in all areas of the discipline. In
this seventh edition, we have added a great deal of new material,
describing dozens of major studies done within the past few years.
We have added hundreds of references from the past few years. Thus
the book provides thorough coverage of up-to-date, cutting-edge
research. But by emphasizing what is new, some texts have a
tendency to ignore what is old.We have tried to strike a balance
between the latest research findings and classic research in social
psychology. Some older studies e.g., early work in dissonance,
conformity, and attribution deserve their status as classics and
are important cornerstones of the discipline. For example, unlike
several other current texts, we present detailed descriptions of
the Schachter and Singer 1962 study on misattribution of emotion
Chapter 5, the Festinger and Carlsmith 1959 dissonance study
Chapter 6, and the Asch 1956, and Sherif 1936 conformity
studies Chapter 8. We then bring up the older theories to date,
following our discussions of the classics with modern approaches to
the same topics. This allows students to experience the continuity
and depth of the field, rather than regarding it as a collection of
studies published in the past few years.
……
About the Authors 关于作者
Elliot Aronson
When I was a kid, we were the only Jewish family in a virulently
anti-Semitic neighborhood. I had to go to Hebrew school every day,
late in the afternoon. Being the only youngster in my neighborhood
going to Hebrew school made me an easy target for some of the older
neighborhood toughs. On my way home from Hebrew school, after
dark,I was frequently waylaid and roughed up by roving gangs
shouting anti-Semitic epithets.
I have a vivid memory of sitting on a curb after one of these
beatings, nursing a bloody nose or a split lip, feeling very sorry
for myself and wondering how these kids could hate me so much when
they didn’t even know me. I thought about whether those kids were
taught to hate Jews or whether, somehow, they were born that way. I
wondered if their hatred could be changed—if they got to know me
better, would they hate me less? I speculated about my own
character. What would I have done if the shoe were on the other
foot—that is, if I were bigger and stronger than they—would I be
capable of beating them up for no good reason?
I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, but eventually I
discovered that these were profound questions. And some thirty
years later, as an experimental social psychologist, I had the
great good fortune to be in a position to answer some of those
questions and to invent techniques to reduce the kind of prejudice
that had claimed me as a victim.
Elliot Aronson is one of the most renowned social psychologists in
the world. In 2002 he was chosen as one of the 100 most eminent
psychologists of the twentieth century. He is currently Professor
Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Cruz and
Distinguished Visiting Professor at Stanford University.
Dr. Aronson is the only person in the 110-year history of the
American Psychological Association to have received all three of
its major awards:for distinguished writing, distinguished teaching,
and distinguished research. Many other professional societies have
honored his research and teaching as well. These include the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, which gave him
its highest honor, the Distinguished Scientific Research award; the
American Council for the Advancement and Support of Education,
which named him Professor of the Year of 1989; and the Society for
the Psychological Study of Social Issues, which awarded him the
Gordon Allport prize for his contributions to the reduction of
prejudice among racial and ethnic groups. In 1992, he was named a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served
as president of the Western Psychological Association as well as
president of the Society of Personality and Social
Psychology.
Tim Wilson
One day, when I was 8, a couple of older kids rode up on their
bikes to share some big news: They had discovered an abandoned
house down a country road. “It’s really neat,” they said. “We broke
a window and nobody cared!” My friend and I hopped onto our bikes
to investigate. We had no trouble finding the house—there it was,
sitting off by itself,with a big, jagged hole in a first-floor
window. We got off of our bikes and looked around. My friend found
a baseball-sized rock lying on the ground and threw a perfect
strike through another first-floor window. There was something
exhilarating about the smash-and-tingle of shattering glass,
especially when we knew there was nothing wrong with what we were
doing. After all, the house was abandoned, wasn’t it? We broke
nearly every window in the house and then climbed through one of
the first-floor windows to look around.
It was then that we realized something was terribly wrong. The
house certainly did not look abandoned. There were pictures on the
wall, nice furniture, books in shelves. We went home feeling
frightened and confused. We soon learned that the house was the
residence of an elderly couple who were away on vacation.
Eventually my parents discovered what we had done and paid a
substantial sum to repair the windows. For years, I pondered this
incident: Why did I do such a terrible thing? Was I a bad kid? I
didn’t think so, and neither did my parents. How, then, could a
good kid do such a bad thing? Even though the neighborhood kids
said the house was abandoned, why couldn’t my friend and I see the
clear signs that someone lived there? How crucial was it that my
friend was there and threw the first rock? Although I didn’t know
it at the time, these reflections touched on several classic social
psychological issues, such as whether only bad people do bad
things, whether the social situation can be powerful enough to make
good people do bad things, and the way in which our expectations
about an event can make it difficult to see it as it really is.
Fortunately, my career as a vandal ended with this one incident. It
did, however, mark the beginning of my fascination with basic
questions about how people understand themselves and the social
world—questions I continue to investigate to this day.
Tim Wilson did his undergraduate work at Williams College and
Hampshire College and received his Ph. D. from the University of
Michigan. Currently Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology at
the University of Virginia, he has published numerous articles in
the areas of introspection, attitude change, self-knowledge, and
affective forecasting, as well as the recent book, Strangers to
Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. His research has
received the support of the National Science Foundation and the
National Institute for Mental Health. He has been associate editor
of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and a member of
the Social and Groups Processes Review Committee at the National
Institute of Mental Health. He has been elected twice to the
Executive Board of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology
and is a Fellow in the American Psychological Society and the
Society for Personality and Social Psychology. In 2009, he was
named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wilson
has taught the Introduction to Social Psychology course at the
University of Virginia for more than twenty years. In 2001 he was
awarded an All University Outstanding Teaching Award.
Robin Akert
One fall day, when I was about 16, I was walking with a friend
along the shore of the San Francisco Bay. Deep in conversation, I
glanced over my shoulder and saw a sailboat capsize. I pointed it
out to my friend, who took only a perfunctory interest and went on
talking. However, I kept watching as we walked, and I realized that
the two sailors were in the water, clinging to the capsized boat.
Again I said something to my friend, who replied, “Oh, they’ll get
it upright, don’t worry.”
But I was worried. Was this an emergency? My friend didn’t think
so. And I was no sailor; I knew nothing about boats. But I kept
thinking, “That water is really cold. They can’t stay in that water
too long.” I remember feeling very confused and unsure. What should
I do? Should I do anything? Did they really need help?
We were near a restaurant with a big window overlooking the bay,
and I decided to go in and see if anyone had done anything about
the boat. Lots of people were watching but not doing anything. This
confused me too. Very meekly, I asked the bartender to call for
some kind of help. He just shrugged. I went back to the window and
watched the two small figures in the water. Why was everyone so
unconcerned? Was I crazy?
Years later, I reflected on how hard it was for me to do what I did
next: I demanded that the bartender let me use his phone. In those
days before “911,” it was lucky that I knew there was a Coast Guard
station on the bay, and I asked the operator for the number. I was
relieved to hear the Guardsman take my message very
seriously.
It had been an emergency. I watched as the Coast Guard cutter sped
across the bay and pulled the two sailors out of the water. Maybe I
saved their lives that day. What really stuck with me over the
years was how other people behaved and how it made me feel. The
other bystanders seemed unconcerned and did nothing to help. Their
reactions made me doubt myself and made it harder for me to decide
to take action. When I later studied social psychology in college,
I realized that on the shore of the San Francisco Bay that day, I
had experienced the “bystander effect” fully: The presence of
other, apparently unconcerned bystanders had made it difficult for
me to decide if the situation was an emergency and whether it was
my responsibility to help.
Robin Akert graduated summa cum laude from the University of
California at Santa Cruz, where she majored in psychology and
sociology. She received her Ph. D. in experimental social
psychology from Princeton University. She is currently a Professor
of psychology at Wellesley College, where she was awarded the
Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching early in her
career. She publishes primarily in the area of nonverbal
communication and recently received the AAUW American Fellowship in
support of her research. She has taught the Social Psychology
course at Wellesley College for nearly thirty years.
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