2009). For example, would you believe that exposure to words that relate to being elderly can make you act as if you were much older? In a fascinating study of nonconscious influences on behavior, participants were asked to unscramble sentences containing words suggestive of being older—like lonely, grey, wrinkled, forgetful—and this activity caused them to walk more slowly in comparison to a control group (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996). Since this behavior change occurred below the level of awareness, it could be argued that it undermined the free will of the participants. What do you think? More broadly, in what ways do think you exercise your free will? (To gauge your own beliefs about free will, see Self-Reflection Box 1.1.)
Independence
A second important question has to do with how independent we are from outside influences. How much do other people affect what you do and what you say? Are you relatively independent from others or mostly conformist? What about obedience to authority—would you be able to resist authority when it matters most, like if someone’s well being depended on it? Whereas the free will question probes the effects of internal, nonconscious processes on social thinking, feeling, and behavior, the independence question asks how external pressures—namely, people—around us can affect those same things. It is obvious that humans can sometimes change other humans. Social psychologists investigate when and how those social influences occur (Bocchiaro & Zimbardo, 2010; Cialdini, 2008; Kim & Hommel, 2015; Pratkanis, 2007a). The subject of social influence is integral to the science of social psychology and, in fact, several of the field’s best-known studies deal with this very topic. In one, individuals were asked—actually, told—by an experimenter to continue giving another person severe electric shocks, even after that person had stopped responding and may have been unconscious or worse (more on this in Chapter 6) (Milgram, 1965). If you were in that situation, what would you do—go along and administer more shocks or rebel against the experimenter and refuse to follow his request?
Rationality
We are often encouraged by friends, family, and even professors to be “objective” and not allow personal feelings and motivations to interfere with judgments and decisions. Put aside your biases and look at this issue from the perspective of a disinterested third party! Often we try, but can we really do it? Do you think that it is possible to truly separate our thinking from our feeling?
Social psychologists used to assume that we could engage in rational, dispassionate, unbiased thinking—what we call “cold cognition”—but research in the past couple of decades has undermined that assumption (Gladwin & Figner, 2015; Kahneman, 2011). We now recognize that cognition is very often “hot,” which is to say that it is affected by our emotions and motivations. This is the case even when we try to be unbiased. For example, in one study participants were more likely to judge information as valid when they were in a good mood versus a neutral mood (Garcia-Marques, Mackie, Claypool, & Garcia-Marques, 2004). This demonstrates how feeling can alter thinking. Have you ever wondered whether someone who claims to be unbiased is letting his feelings affect his judgment without realizing it?
Self-Reflection 1.1
Do You Think You Have Free Will? (Part 1)
Do you believe that you have the free will to choose what to do or not to do? In your opinion, is your fate in your own hands? In one 36-nation study, over 70% of respondents think that it is (International Social Survey Programme, 1998). One measure of belief in free will is the Free Will and Determinism Scale (FAD-Plus, Paulhus & Carey, 2011), which can be found in Table 1.2. Take a minute and complete the questions below and then turn the page to learn more about your beliefs about free will.
Table 1.2
Source: Paulhus, D. L., & Carey, J. M. (2011). The FAD-Plus: Measuring lay beliefs regarding free will and related constructs. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93, 96–104.
Self-Reflection 1.2
Do You Think You Have Free Will? (Part 2)
Add up your answers for all 7 items and then divide by 7 to get your average or mean score. Paulhus and Carey (2011) found that the average female college student scored a 3.31 and the average male college student 3.47. How do you compare? If your total is less than these, then your belief in free will is weaker than average; If it is greater, then your belief is stronger than average. Fun fact: According to one study, students who have stronger beliefs in free will were less likely to cheat on an experimental math task than those who have weaker beliefs (Vohs & Schooler, 2008). It seems that when people feel less responsible for their behavior, their behavior becomes less moral (Carey & Paulhus, 2013).
Individualistic Culture: Type of society in which people’s self-concepts tend to be stable, not tied to particular groups, and people place their personal preferences and goals above those of the group and value individual choice
Collectivistic Culture: Type of society in which people’s self-concepts tend to be intimately tied to and defined by their group memberships, people subordinate personal preferences and goals to the group’s, and where individual choice is not highly valued
The Self
Virtually all of us, at one time or another, have asked “Who am I?” The answer to this question is called our self-concept or identity: It is the set of beliefs we have about the characteristics we possess. The self-concept is at the core of everything we think, feel, or do. It is our anchor and the filter through which we perceive ourselves and the world. Because the self lies at the center of our being, social psychologists have exerted tremendous effort to better understand how social experiences affect and are affected by it (Baumeister, 2010; Leary & Toner, 2015; Sedikides & Spencer, 2007).
One of the key influences on the self-concept is the culture that we grow up in. For instance, persons from individualistic cultures tend to define themselves as separate from other people, whereas those from collectivistic cultures are more likely to define themselves in terms of their relationships to others (Chua, Carbonneau, Milyavskaya, & Koestner, 2015; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Our conception of the self is closely connected to the culture in which we reside. We will have much more to say about the cultural dimension of social behavior later. For now, be aware that whether we think of ourselves as fundamentally separate from or connected to others has implications for many other aspects of our lives, such as our motivations to perform well and the kinds of choices that we make. What is your self-concept, and how do you think it is affected by culture?
Sociality
One of the most fascinating and complex aspects of human nature is our sociality, which is our tendency to develop and maintain relationships with others (Crosier, Webster, & Dillon, 2012; Gifford, 2013; Leary, 2010; Semin & Echterhoff, 2011). Humans, like other primates, are fundamentally social creatures (Gamble, Gowlett, & Dunbar, 2014). In this text, we’ll examine why our relationships are so important and what sorts of goals they help us meet. Why do you think we need friends or lovers? Each semester I ask my students to think about one of their stronger platonic (nonromantic) friendships and to write down the reasons the friendship developed and why they maintained it. Students frequently mention similarity of attitudes and interests, that they can have fun together, or the ability to depend on each other in times of need, which are all of course important. However, one factor that they often neglect is physical proximity—who they live near, work with, or sit next to in class. As we will discuss in Chapter 11, proximity is one of the strongest influences on who we befriend. In fact, a study of police cadets—who were both seated in class and assigned rooms in a residence hall alphabetically—showed that last name was a strong predictor of who became friends with whom (Segal, 1974). Cadets with last names that begin