didn’t she recycle that bottle?” I could choose to conduct a study to figure out why (I have in fact studied recycling behavior).
Figure 1.1 Muzafer Sherif on Why He Studied Social Psychology
Source: Aron & Aron (1989). The Heart of Social Psychology).
Fourth, social psychology is fun. Not only do we learn the sometimes-surprising reasons people do what they do, but also we often get to concoct funny experiments to figure out why. For instance, one prominent social psychologist convinced research participants to suck on a pacifier while waiting to begin an experiment on Freud (Sarnoff & Zimbardo, 1961). I surely wish I had seen that one!
Social Psychology: Scientific study of the social experiences and behaviors of individuals
Think Again!
1 In your own words, what is social psychology?
2 Name three social behaviors that you would like to understand better and hope to learn more about in this text.
Social Psychology Is Unique
Social psychology is a diverse, dynamic discipline that investigates a wide range of topics, issues, and aspects of human social behavior. Although all of the social sciences study people, social psychology stands apart in the way that we examine the person in the group, take into account multiple levels of analysis, and focus primarily on laboratory research. Let’s briefly contrast social psychology with several other social sciences and psychology subdisciplines.
Sociology overlaps with social psychology, because it also emphasizes social aspects of human existence. However, sociology examines group-level phenomena—such as societal trends, cultural norms, the effects of race or social class, and so forth—without examining the internal processes occurring at the individual level that are affected by those phenomena. Anthropology is similar to social psychology in that both examine the relationship between culture and social behavior. Anthropology seeks culture-level explanations for human behavior by exploring a specific culture in-depth utilizing observational research, whereas social psychologists study cultural and noncultural explanations, primarily using laboratory experimentation, and also typically compare social behavior in multiple cultures.
Biological/physiological psychology inquires about the influence of genes, hormones, brain functioning and structure, and other elements of the nervous system on all kinds of human behavior. As we’ve seen, social psychology takes biology into account, but it focuses exclusively on social behavior and considers other, nonbiological levels of explanation for it.
Cognitive psychology seeks to explain mental processes such as memory, problem solving, decision-making, language, and the nature of consciousness. Although social psychologists examine some of these same processes, we limit ourselves to their social aspects, such as person memory, judgments of persons, and so forth.
Clinical psychology examines the nature, causes, and consequences of mental disorders and dysfunction of individuals who deviate from the norm and seeks ways to treat them. Social psychology emphasizes normal psychological functioning; how most people act, feel, or think.
Personality psychologists investigate the development and nature of personality traits over the lifespan. Social psychologists often examine personality characteristics but are more interested in how social situations affect most people, regardless of their personalities. Both clinical and personality psychologists are primarily concerned with individual-level causes, whereas social psychologists balance individual- and group-level explanations for social behavior.
Sociology: Examines group-level phenomena—such as societal trends, cultural norms, the effects of race or social class, and so forth
Anthropology: Seeks culture-level explanations for human behavior by exploring a specific culture in depth, utilizing primarily observational research
Biological/Physiological Psychology: Examines the influence of genes, hormones, brain functioning and structure and other elements of the nervous system on all kinds of human behavior
Cognitive Psychology: Seeks to explain mental processes such as memory, problem solving, decision-making, language, and the nature of consciousness
Clinical Psychology: Examines the nature, causes, and consequences of mental disorders and dysfunction of individuals who deviate from the norm and seeks ways to treat them
Personality Psychology: Investigates the development and nature of personality traits over the lifespan
Think Again!
1 Take a social behavior—say helping others—and imagine how social psychologists might study it. Then contrast that with the way other kinds of psychologists and social scientists might examine it.
Social Psychology And The Quest For Human Nature
What is human nature? If you had to list the fundamental topics that get to the very heart of what it means to be human, what would they be? When I ask my students, friends, or dead philosophers, several common themes emerge: Do humans have free will? Are people mostly independent or conformist? Are we rational? What is the self? Do we really need other people? Are people inherently good? These issues go a long way toward capturing the essence of humanity. (See Table 1.1.) Questions like these often come to the fore during late adolescence and early adulthood and are most salient during our college years (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). They have been pondered across thousands of years of human history and in cultures all around the globe, in part because their answers have profound implications for how we understand ourselves. The fact that we can and do contemplate these questions in part defines the very essence of who we—as intelligent, self-aware beings—are as well as how we are different from other animals. The French sculptor Auguste Rodin captured the human propensity for wonder in his famous work, The Thinker (see photo).
Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker
Getty—516604053.
These six enduring questions will serve as continuing themes throughout this book, providing reminders about the relevance of social psychological research to the core of human nature and to our everyday lives. One appealing aspect of social psychology is that it can shed light on these questions. Social psychology cannot give life meaning or determine what is good or evil, but it can inform our thinking about these topics by scientifically studying what we do and why we do it. Although these questions are both philosophical and psychological, we’ll leave the philosophy to the philosophers and in this text focus on only their psychological, scientific aspects. Let’s elaborate on these questions.
Table 1.1
Free Will
If you raise your hand to ask a question in class or choose to eat chocolate cheesecake rather than artichoke salad, are you making your decisions consciously? That is, do you do them out of your own free will? When I ask my students this, the overwhelming majority believe that yes, we have free will, and of course humans can consciously control what we do or think (Sharif et al., 2014). But psychologists are not so sure (Baer, Kaufman, & Baumeister, 2008; Hassin, Uleman, & Bargh, 2005). There is ample evidence that nonconscious processes—those we are not aware of—significantly affect what we think, feel, and do (Andersen, Moskowitz, Blair, & Nosek, 2007;