WHAT OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY? IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY JUST COMMON ... - Pearson

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WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?

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SOCIAL FACILITATION the enhancement of a well-learned performance when another person is present

SOCIAL LOAFING a phenomenon that occurs when individuals make less of an effort when attempting to achieve a particular goal as a group than they would if they were attempting to achieve the goal on their own

To understand how pace keeping and competition among others affect an individual's performance, Triplett arranged a study that measured the performance of 40 children while playing a simple game. The results of the study suggested that the children performed better when playing in pairs than when playing alone. This study, considered to be the first published study in social psychology, documented the concept of social facilitation, or the enhancement of performance when another person is present. You may feel the effects of social facilitation in your academic life. For example, your instructor asks you to complete a task that you are well skilled at, such as reading a paragraph in a foreign language, and you perform better in class than if you were alone.

While the concept of social facilitation has been supported in studies beyond Triplett's studies, at the time, it was at odds with an earlier study that involved performance evaluation. In 1883, French professor Max Ringelmann conducted a study (although it was not published until 1913) from which he concluded that an individual's performance actually gets worse in the presence of others. Ringelmann asked a group of individuals to tug on a rope both individually and as a team. He found that the

The phenomenon of social facilitation would cause this athlete to lift more weight in front of a crowd than he would alone.

According to the concept of social loafing, the presence of others may cause these rowers to put forth less of an effort when working

as a team than they would if they were working

individually.

participants pulled harder when working as individuals than as a team. In fact, he found that the larger the group, the weaker the individual effort.

On the surface, Ringelmann's and Triplett's studies seem to be at odds, but when examined closely, one can see that the results actually highlight two different patterns of human behavior. In the bicycle study, the contribution of each individual member could not be identified, but in the rope study, each individual's contribution was not discernible, meaning that each individual's effort, or lack thereof, would not be noticed by the spectators.

Ringlemann's study illustrated the concept of social loafing, a phenomenon that occurs when individuals make less of an effort when attempting to achieve a goal as a group than they would if they were attempting to achieve the goal on their own. You may have had firsthand experience with social loafing if you have worked on a group project for class and one member of the group doesn't pull his or her weight. You might refer to this type of social loafer as a slacker. Social loafing can apply to more than just the individual. A subgroup that is part of a larger unit can participate in social loafing. This can occur in the corporate world when one department does not make an adequate contribution to the success of a company and leaves other departments to pick up the slack.

Other early social psychologists had profound impacts on the field. When people began to recognize social prejudice in the 1930s, researchers Katz and Braly gave shape to the idea of stereotypes as social psychologists study them now. After asking 100 Princeton University graduates to list five characteristics of 10 different racial and ethnic groups, Katz and Braly found that the subjects developed ideas about each group without having necessarily had any contact with members of these groups (Katz & Braly, 1933).

Another example of a landmark study is Richard LaPiere's empirical study of the discrepancies between individuals' attitudes and behaviors. LaPiere traveled around the country with a Chinese couple. Visiting over 350 restaurants and hotels, the couple was rejected entry just once. When surveyed after the trip, however, 92 percent of the businesses who answered the questions reported they would not accept Chinese individuals (LaPiere, 1934). The topic of the relationship between attitudes and behaviors became a mainstay among the topics social psychologists continue to study.

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respectively. Both works laid the ground-

work for further study in the field. In 1924,

psychologist Floyd Allport created a sec-

Likely Amount of Effort Put Forth by Each Individual

ond version of Social Psychology that

was heavily based on experimental

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research studies. Unlike McDougall's ideas, which focused on instinct as the

main driver of behavior, many of the theo-

ries Allport established in his text focused

Social Facilitation

on external influences (Katz, 1979). This contradiction helped bring a new depth

and a new way of thinking to the field of

social psychology. The Handbook of

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Social Psychology, now in its fifth edition, was first published in 1935 and is consid-

ered the quintessential reference guide for

the field of social psychology.

In 1936, Gordon Allport, Floyd's

younger brother, and other social psy-

Social Loafing

chologists formed the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

(SPSSI) in an effort to bring together a

national group of socially minded

Number of People Involved in Completing a Task

psychologists to address social and economic issues, applying social psycho-

logical research to social issues and pub-

Social Loafing vs. Social Facilitation. Accountability is a

lic policy. The organization established a mission to utilize theory and practice to

major factor in determining if a person will be a loafer or a facilitator, as illustrated here. But if the task is important, loafing is diminished,

focus on social problems of the group, the community, and the nation. Since its formation, the SPSSI has had a significant

and if we are good at it, we will likely perform well. These factors

can eclipse accountability.

impact on the discipline of psychology and on society as a whole. Its publication, the Journal of Social Issues, has pub-

lished research that has changed the way

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY

psychologists and other concerned members of society understand human behavior. The organization strives to inform public policy and encourages public education through its research

By the start of the 20th century, social psychology had begun to establish

and advocacy efforts. Today, SPSSI has grown into an international group

itself as an independent discipline through the development of a separate

of more than 3,000 psychologists, allied scientists, students, and other

curriculum and the formation of a specialized organization.

A major milestone in the development of social psycholo-

gy curriculum was the publishing of textbooks. The first

two textbooks on the subject of social psychology were

published in 1908, one by sociologist Edward Ross and

the other by psychologist William McDougall, titled Social

Psychology and Introduction to Social Psychology,

>>> Social psychologists address

important social issues by working with refugees, or internally displaced

persons (IDPs), to help them deal with the stress of being forced to migrate from their homes and communities (Porter & Haslam, 2005).

WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?

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SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE a perspective that focuses on the relationship between social behavior and culture

EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE a perspective that focuses on the physical and biological predispositions that result in human survival

topic during this time as well. Due to studies like Milgram's obedience study, in which individuals were ordered to administer what they believed were potentially lethal electric shocks to another individual, and which you will learn more about later, there are stringent ethical guidelines in place today to protect the rights of participants.

During the mid-1950s and 1960s, research turned to topics dealing with social relations and interactions like stereotyping and prejudice. The foundation of social psychology was further built upon by psychologists like Gordon Allport (see Chapter 10), who developed the Scale of Prejudice (1954); Latane and Darley (see Chapter 13), who researched altruism and prosocial behavior (1969); and Clark and Clark (1947), whose work later impacted the Supreme Court's 1954 decision to desegregate schools. Aggression and attraction also took a front seat during this period in social psychology, and these topics will be covered in Chapters 11 and 12, respectively.

During the 1970s and 1980s, a cognitive revolution impacted psychology as a whole, and this included social psychology. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance (1957) was central to this, and researchers Kahneman and Tversky (1973, 1974, 1982) developed the idea of different heuristics, or mental shortcuts, that people unintentionally take to make sense of the world around them. Kahneman and Tversky's findings will be covered in Chapter 3. These ideas changed the approach researchers took to studying topics like stereotyping, personal relationships, and helping behaviors, among other ideas. Today, many researchers take a socialcognitive approach to understanding behavior.

It is important to remember that social psychology is primarily considered to be a Western-dominated discipline. In fact, 75?90 percent of social psychologists live in North America (Smith & Bond, 1993). However, during the 1990s, research by social psychologists in other cultures began to take on more prominence, and the impact of culture became a closely investigated subject (Triandis, 1994). For instance, social psychology is greatly impacted by the idea of individualistic cultures, or those that focus on independent individuals, like that of the United States; and the idea of collectivist cultures, or those that emphasize the individual in relation to his or her connectedness to those surrounding him or her. You will learn more about individualism and collectivism at the cultural level in Chapter 4.

>>> Modern Social Perspectives on Why People Steal. While

each perspective takes a different approach, they

can work together to

address the same issues.

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An evolutionary psychologist might say that we find a muscular build to be attractive because muscles are viewed as a sign of virility, and humans have a natural

desire to reproduce.

What Are the Different Perspectives of Social Psychology?

All psychologists use the scientific method in their

research, but since there is no one single perspec-

tive that can explain all human behavior or think-

ing, they may use several different theoretical

approaches when testing hypotheses.

Modern social psychological perspectives

maintain that prior learning experiences and

intrapsychic forces (e.g., the unconscious),

as well as social and cultural context, shape

human behavior and mental processes. The

sociocultural perspective focuses on the rela-

tionship between social behavior and culture.

This perspective is important because it

highlights the fact that human behavior

is not only influenced by an individ-

ual's close companions, but also

by the culture in which the individ-

ual lives. For example, the chil-

dren in the blue-eye/brown-eye

experiment described in the

chapter opener showed signs

of prejudice as a result of the

Social Cognitive Perspective:

A person steals because he simply doesn't believe it is wrong.

influence of their teacher and classmates, as well as the intolerant culture of their small town.

The evolutionary

perspective takes a slightly

different approach by focus-

ing on the biological bases for universal mental characteristics that all humans share. Psychologists who follow the evolutionary perspective are interested in explaining general mental strategies and characteristics, such as how we attract members of the opposite sex, why we lie, why we like to play sports, and other similar concepts. The evolutionary perspective involves principles that are derived from evolutionary biology and Charles Darwin's principle of natural selection, and it focuses on the physical and biological predispositions that result in human survival (Boyd & Richerson, 1985). Natural selection is the process by which individuals with certain characteristics are more frequently represented in subsequent generations as a result of being better adapted to their environments. The evolutionary perspective would answer the question, "Why do we lie?" by claiming that lying somehow aided in our ancestors' survival, and over time, the characteristic of lying became so widely represented that it is now common in our society.

The social cognitive perspective and the social learning perspective accept and expand on conditioning principles, which assume direct correlations between learning and behavior. The social cognitive perspective builds on behavioral theories and demonstrates that an individual's cognitive process influences and is influenced by behavioral associations. The social learning perspective stresses the particular power of learning through social rewards and punishments.

A key theory to many of social psychology's core concepts, Albert Bandura's (1977) social learning theory argues that, in addition to learning through consequences in our environment, people also learn from each

NATURAL SELECTION the process whereby individuals with certain characteristics are more frequently represented in subsequent generations as the result of being better adapted for their environment SOCIAL COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE a perspective that builds on behavioral theories and demonstrates that an individual's cognitive process influences and is influenced by behavioral associations SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE a perspective that stresses the particular power of learning through social reinforcements and punishments

other. This is called observational learning, when people are influenced by watching the modeled behaviors of others.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES

Social psychologists do not work alone in their field. Economists, business leaders, and even neuroscientists help to guide and also benefit from the work of social psychologists. Because social psychologists are interested in what motivates particular behavior such as purchasing items, economists may team up with social psychologists to better understand the spending habits of certain populations. Similarly, business leaders may enlist the help of social psychologists to better understand and manage the behavior of their employees. Social loafing, for example, may be a problem that a company hopes to minimize. Social psychologists can help the

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Health Care Some people will conform to the popular opinion of what is healthy even if they feel otherwise.

Solomon Asch's

Conformity Experiment

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Business Some employees will conform to a company's standards even if they go against their personal standards.

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Consumer Science

Some consumers will purchase items that are popular even if they do not completely meet their needs.

Government

Some voters will agree with policies that are popular even if they go against their personal views.

Social Psychology and Other Fields. Social psychologists can work with individuals from other disciplines to perform research that is mutually beneficial.

11 WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?

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