ENDURING ISSUES IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
A key issue throughout this chapter is the extent to which a particular behavior reflects personal characteristics like attitudes and values, versus situational ones like the behavior of others and social expectations (Person-Situation). And especially prominent in this chapter is the extent to which there are differences in social behavior among people in different cultures (Individuality-Universality). Finally, you will notice the influence of the neuroscience movement (Mind-Body) in this chapter where social psychologists apply the tools of neuroimaging to the study of social psychology in the rapidly expanding field of social neuroscience.
SOCIAL COGNITION
Part of the process of being influenced by other people involves organizing and interpreting information about them to form first impressions, to try to understand their behavior, and to determine to what extent we are attracted to them. This collecting and assessing of information about other people is called social cognition. Social cognition is a major area of interest to social psychologists (Shrum, 2007).
Forming Impressions
Research has shown that the impression a student forms about a professor during the first class tends to persist until the end of the semester (Laws, Apperson, Buchert, & Bregman, 2010), supporting the expression "You'll never get a second chance to make a great first impression." Interestingly, research indicates the persistence of the first impression effect may extend to the virtual world. For example, when a recruiter initially examines an individual's online application for a job, the first impression that is formed is generally quite strong and durable (Danley, 2014).
Surprisingly, research indicates it only takes about 100 msec. or 1/10 of a second for an observer to form a durable first impression (Willis & Todorov, 2006). Despite the speed with which we make a first impression, the process is more complex than you may think. You must direct your attention to various aspect of the person's appearance and behavior and then make a rapid assessment of what those characteristics mean. How do you complete this process? What cues do you interpret? How accurate are your impressions? The concept of schemata helps to answer these questions.
Schemata
When we meet someone for the first time, we notice a number of things about that person - clothes, gestures, manner of speaking, body build, and facial features. We then we draw on these cues to fit the person into a category. No matter how little information we have or how contradictory it is, no matter how many times our initial impressions have been wrong, we still categorize people after meeting them only briefly. Associated with each category is a schema - an organized set of beliefs and expectations based on past experience that is presumed to apply to all members of that category (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005). Schemata (the plural of schema) influence the information we notice and remember. They also help us flesh out our impressions as we peg people into categories. For example, if a woman is wearing a white coat and has a stethoscope around her neck, you could reasonably categorize her as a doctor. Associated with this category is a schema of various beliefs and expectations: highly trained professional, knowledgeable about diseases and their cures, qualified to prescribe medication, and so on.
Over time, as we continue to interact with people, we add new information about them to our mental files. Our later experiences, however, generally do not influence us nearly as much as our earliest impressions. This phenomenon is called the primacy effect.
Schemata and the primacy effect reflect a desire to lessen our mental effort. Humans have been called "cognitive misers" (Fiske, 2004; Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Instead of exerting ourselves to interpret every detail that we learn about a person, we are stingy with our mental efforts. Once we have formed an impression about someone, we tend not to exert the mental effort to change it, even if that impression was formed by jumping to conclusions or through prejudice (Fiske, 1995).
Sometimes schemata can even help us create the behavior we expect from other people. In a classic study, pairs of participants played a competitive game (M. Snyder & Swann, 1978). The researchers told one member of each pair that his or her partner was either hostile or friendly. The players who were led to believe that their partner was hostile behaved differently toward that partner than did the players led to believe that their partner was friendly. In turn, those treated as hostile actually began to display hostility. When we bring about expected behavior in another person in this way, our impression becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Considerable scientific research has shown how teacher expectations can take the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy and can influence student performance in the classroom (Agirdag, Van Avermaet, & Van Houtte, 2013; M. Harris & Rosenthal, 1985; Jussim, Robustelli, & Cain, 2009; Rosenthal, 2002b, 2006). That finding has been named the Pygmalion effect, after the mythical sculptor who created the statue of a woman and then brought it to life. Although the research does not suggest that high teacher expectations can turn an "F" student into an "A" student, it does show that both high and low expectations can significantly influence student achievement. One study, for example, compared the performance of "at risk" ninth-grade students who had been assigned to regular classrooms with that of students assigned to experimental classrooms that received a year-long intervention aimed at increasing teachers' expectations. After 1 year, the students in the experimental classrooms had higher grades in English and history than the students who were not in the intervention classrooms. Two years later, the experimental students were also less likely to drop out of high school (Weinstein et al., 1991).
As you have probably noticed, first impressions often contain a significant emotional component. In other words, when we form a first impression, it often includes judgments about an individual's trustworthiness, friendliness, and competence. Thus, one would expect that areas of the brain involved in emotional memory should play an important role in forming first impressions, and this is exactly what one study found. Using neuroimaging techniques, researches found that the amygdala, a region of the brain known to be associated with emotional memory, becomes significantly more active when people form first impressions about individuals they later described as being competent and having the potential to make a good leader (Rule et al., 2010).
Stereotypes
Just as schemata shape our impressions of others, so do stereotypes. A set of characteristics presumed to be shared by all members of a social category, a stereotype is actually a special kind of schema - one that is simplistic, very strongly held, and not necessarily based on firsthand experience. A stereotype can involve almost any distinguishing personal attribute, such as age, sex, race, occupation, place of residence, or membership in a certain group. As Sher Singh learned after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many Americans developed a stereotype suggesting that all males who "looked" like they were from the Middle East were potential terrorists.
When our first impression of a person is governed by a stereotype, we tend to infer things about that person solely on the basis of some key distinguishing feature and to ignore facts that are inconsistent with the stereotype, no matter how apparent they are. For example, once you have categorized someone as male or female, you may rely more on your stereotype of that gender than on your own observations of how the person acts. Recent studies indicate that sorting people into categories is not automatic or inevitable (Castelli, Macrae, Zogmaister, & Arcuri, 2004). People are more likely to apply stereotyped schemata in a chance encounter than in a structured, task-oriented situation (such as a classroom or the office); more likely to pay attention to individual signals than to stereotypes when they are pursuing a goal; and are more likely to suppress stereotypes that violate social norms.
Attribution
Explaining Behavior
Social interaction is filled with occasions that invite us to make judgments about the causes of behavior. When something unexpected or unpleasant occurs, we wonder about it and try to understand it. Social psychologists' observations about how we go about attributing causes to behavior form the basis of attribution theory.
An early attribution theorist, Fritz Heider (1958), argued that we attribute behavior to either internal or external causes, but not both. Thus, we might conclude that a classmate's lateness was caused by his laziness (a personal factor, or an internal attribution) or by traffic congestion (a situational factor, or an external attribution).
How do we decide whether to attribute a given behavior to internal or external causes? According to another influential attribution theorist, Harold Kelley (Kelley, 1967, 1973; also see B. Weiner, 2008), we rely on three kinds of information about the behavior: distinctiveness, consistency, and consensus. For example, if your instructor asks you to stay briefly after class so that she can talk with you, you will probably try to figure out what lies behind her request by asking yourself three questions.
First, how distinctive is the instructor's request? Does she often ask students to stay and talk (low distinctiveness) or is such a request unusual (high distinctiveness)? If she often asks students to speak with her, you will probably conclude that she has personal reasons for talking with you. But if her request is highly distinctive, you will probably conclude that something about you, not her, underlies her request.
Second, how consistent is the instructor's behavior? Does she regularly ask you to stay and talk (high consistency), or is this a first for you (low consistency)? If she has consistently made this request of you before, you will probably guess that this occasion is like those others. But if her request is inconsistent with past behavior, you will probably wonder whether some particular event - perhaps something you said in class - motivated her to request a private conference.
Finally, what degree of consensus among teachers exists regarding this behavior? Do your other instructors ask you to stay and talk with them (high consensus), or is this instructor unique in making such a request (low consensus)? If it is common for your instructors to ask to speak with you, this instructor's request is probably due to some external factor. But if she is the only instructor ever to ask to speak privately with you, it must be something about this particular person - an internal motive or a concern - that accounts for her behavior.
If you conclude that the instructor has her own reasons for wanting to speak with you, you may feel mildly curious for the remainder of class until you can find out what she wants. But if you think external factors - like your own actions - have prompted her request, you may worry about whether you are in trouble and nervously wait for the end of class.
Biases
Unfortunately, the causal attributions we make are often vulnerable to biases. For instance, imagine that you are at a party and you see an acquaintance, Ted, walk across the room carrying several plates of food and a drink. As he approaches his chair, Ted spills food on himself. You may attribute the spill to Ted's personal characteristics - he is clumsy. Ted, however, is likely to make a very different attribution. He will likely attribute the spill to an external factor - he was carrying too many other things. Your explanation for this behavior reflects the fundamental attribution error - the tendency to attribute others' behavior to causes within themselves (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005; D. L. Watson, 2008).
The fundamental attribution error is part of the actor-observer bias - the tendency to explain the behavior of others as caused by internal factors, while attributing one's own behavior to external forces (Hennessey, Jakubowski, & Benedetti, 2005). For example, during World War II, some Europeans risked their own safety to help Jewish refugees. From the perspective of an observer, we tend to attribute this behavior to personal qualities. Indeed, Robert Goodkind, chairman of the foundation that honored the rescuers, called for parents to "inculcate in our children the values of altruism and moral courage as exemplified by the rescuers." Clearly, Goodkind was making an internal attribution for the heroic behavior. The rescuers themselves, however, attributed their actions to external factors. One said, "We didn't feel like rescuers at all. We were just ordinary students doing what we had to do." (Lipman, 1991).
A related class of biases is called defensive attribution. These types of attributions occur when we are motivated to present ourselves well, either to impress others or to feel good about ourselves. One example of a defensive attribution is the self-serving bias, which is a tendency to attribute our successes to our personal attributes while chalking up our failures to external forces beyond our control (Sedikides & Luke, 2008). Students do this all the time. They tend to regard exams on which they do well as good indicators of their abilities and exams on which they do poorly as bad indicators (R. A. Smith, 2005). Similarly, teachers are more likely to assume responsibility for students' successes than for their failures (R. A. Smith, 2005).
A second type of defensive attribution comes from thinking that people get what they deserve. Bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. This is called the just-world hypothesis (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005; Melvyn Lerner, 1980). When misfortune strikes someone, we often jump to the conclusion that the person deserved it, rather than giving full weight to situational factors that may have been responsible. Why do we behave this way? One reason is that by reassigning the blame for a terrible misfortune from a chance event (something that could happen to us) to the victim's own negligence (a trait that we, of course, do not share), we delude ourselves into believing that we could never suffer such a fate (Dalbert, 2001). Interestingly, research has shown that because believing in a just world reduces stress, it may also promote good health, posttraumatic growth, and a sense of well-being following a traumatic event (Fatima & Suhail, 2010; Park, Edmondson, Fenster, & Blank, 2008).
Attribution Across Cultures
Historically, most of the research on attribution theory has been conducted in Western cultures. Do the basic principles of attribution theory apply to people in other cultures as well? The answer appears to be "not always." Some recent research has confirmed the self-serving bias among people from Eastern collectivist cultures like Japan and Taiwan (L. Gaertner, Sedikides, & Chang, 2008; Kudo & Numazaki, 2003; Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003), while other research has not (An & Trafimow 2014; Balcetis, Dunning, & Miller, 2008). In one study, Japanese students studying in the United States usually explained failure as a lack of effort (an individual attribution) and attributed their successes to the assistance that they received from others (an external attribution) (Kashima & Triandis, 1986). This process is the reverse of the self-serving bias. Similarly, the fundamental attribution error may not be universal. In some other cultures, people place more emphasis on the role of external, situational factors in explaining both their own behavior and that of others (Incheo Choi, Dalal, Kim-Prieto, & Park, 2003; Morling & Kitayama, 2008). Perhaps research from social neuroscience will someday provide more insight into what role culture plays in shaping the underlying neurological processes that shape the formation of attributions (Brosch, Schiller, Mojdehbakhsh, Uleman, & Phelps, 2013; Mason & Morris, 2010)
Interpersonal Attraction
A third aspect of social cognition involves interpersonal attraction. When people meet, what determines whether they will like each other? This is the subject of much speculation and even mystification, with popular explanations running the gamut from fate to compatible astrological signs. As you might expect, social psychologists take a more data-based approach. Studies have found that attraction and the tendency to like someone else are closely linked to such factors as proximity, physical attractiveness, similarity, and intimacy.
Proximity
Proximity is usually the most important factor in determining attraction (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005; J. W. Brehm, 2002). The closer two people live to each other, the more likely they are to interact; the more frequent their interaction, the more they will tend to like each other. Conversely, two people separated by considerable geographic distance are not likely to run into each other and thus have little chance to develop a mutual attraction. The proximity effect has less to do with simple convenience than with the security and comfort we feel with people and things that have become familiar. In other words, mere exposure, and especially repeated exposure, enhances familiarity (de Vries, Holland, Chenier, Starr, & Winkielman, 2010) and familiarity leads to liking. Thus, the more people interact with one another, the more likely they are to become attracted to each other (Reis, Maniaci, Caprariello, Eastwick, & Finkel, 2011).
Physical Attractiveness
Contrary to the old adage, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," research has found that people generally agree when rating the attractiveness of others (Gottschall, 2008; Langlois et al., 2000). Even people from different cultures and ethnic groups appear to have a similar standard for who is or is not considered beautiful. This cross-cultural, cross-ethnic agreement suggests the possibility of a universal standard of beauty (Bronstad, Langlois, & Russell, 2008; Rhodes, 2006).
Consistent with the idea of a universal standard of beauty, neuroimaging studies have found specific regions of the brain that are responsive to facial beauty (Chatterjee, Thomas, Smith, & Aguirre, 2009). Perhaps not surprisingly, the areas of the brain that become most active when we view attractive faces are associated with positive emotions, while the areas that respond to less attractive faces are more linked with negative emotions such as disgust (Principe & Langlois, 2011). Even infant brains respond differently to attractive versus less attractive faces, showing more positive emotion toward attractive faces (Partridge, 2010). Finally, social neuroscience has confirmed that these appear to be specific brain regions dedicated to remembering attractive faces which, by the way, are remembered better than less attractive ones (Perrett, 2012; Tsukiura & Cabeza, 2011).
Physical attractiveness can powerfully influence the conclusions that we reach about a person's character. We actually give attractive people credit for more than their beauty (Lorenzo, Biesanz, & Human, 2010). We tend to presume they are more intelligent, interesting, happy, kind, sensitive, moral, and successful than people who are not perceived as attractive. They are also thought to make better spouses and to be more sexually responsive (Griffin & Langlois, 2006; Hosoda, Stone, & Coats, 2003; Katz, 2003; Riniolo, Johnson, Sherman, & Misso, 2006). In addition, research has shown that women are more likely to evaluate the risk of having unprotected sex with an attractive partner as being lower than with an unattractive partner (Lennon & Kenny, 2013).
We also tend to like the attractive people more than we do less attractive people. One reason is that physical attractiveness itself is generally considered a positive attribute. We often perceive beauty as a valuable asset that can be exchanged for other things in social interactions. We may also believe that beauty has a "radiating effect" - that the glow of a companion's good looks enhances our own public image (Sedikides, Olsen, & Reis, 1993).
Our preoccupation with physical attractiveness has material consequences. Research has found that mothers of more attractive infants tend to show their children more affection and to play with them more often than mothers of unattractive infants (Langlois, Ritter, Casey, & Sawin, 1995). Even in hospitals, premature infants rated as more attractive by attending nurses thrived better and gained weight faster than those judged as less attractive, presumably because they receive more nurturing (Badr & Abdullah, 2001). Attractive children are also more likely to be better adjusted, to display greater intelligence, and to be treated more leniently by teachers (Langlois et al., 2000; M. McCall, 1997). Similarly, attractive adults enjoy better health, tend to be slightly more intelligent, self-confident, successful in college, and are generally judged to be more hirable and productive by employers (Desrumaux, De Bosscher, & Leoni, 2009; Gordon, Crosnoe, & Wang, 2013; Hosoda, Stone, & Coats, 2003; L. A. Jackson, Hunter, & Hodge, 1995).
We also tend to give good-looking people the benefit of the doubt: If they don't live up to our expectations during the first encounter, we are likely to give them a second chance, ask for or accept a second date, or seek further opportunities for interaction. These reactions can give attractive people substantial advantages in life and can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. Physically attractive people may come to think of themselves as good or lovable because they are continually treated as if they are. Conversely, unattractive people may begin to see themselves as bad or unlovable because they have always been regarded that way - even as children.
In general, research indicates men place a higher value on the importance of physical attractiveness than women do when selecting a mate for a long-term relationship (Meltzer, McNulty, Jackson, & Karney, 2014). However, this may not always be the case, especially with regard to what people find to be initially attractive in another person. Think of what you consider to be an important difference between what males and females find to be attractive.
Similarity
Attractiveness isn't everything. In the abstract, people might prefer extremely attractive individuals, but in reality they usually choose friends and partners who are close to their own level of attractiveness (L. Lee, Loewenstein, Ariely, Hong, & Young, 2008). Similarity - of attitudes, interests, values, backgrounds, and beliefs, as well as looks - underlies much interpersonal attraction (Reid, Davis, & Green, 2013; S. Solomon & Knafo, 2007). When we know that someone shares our attitudes and interests, we tend to have more positive feelings toward that person in part because they are likely to agree with our choices and beliefs. In turn that strengthens our convictions and boosts our self-esteem. Finally, as much as we like people who like us, we are especially drawn to people who like us and who don't generally like others (Eastwick, Finkel, Mochon, & Ariely, 2007).
If similarity is such a critical determinant of attraction, what about the notion that opposites attract? Aren't people sometimes attracted to others who are completely different from them? Extensive research has failed to confirm this notion. In long-term relationships, where attraction plays an especially important role, people overwhelmingly prefer to associate with people who are similar to themselves (Buss, 1985; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). It is true that in some cases, people are attracted to others with complementary characteristics (K. H. Rubin, Fredstrom, & Bowker, 2008). For example, a person who likes to care for and fuss over others could be compatible with a mate who enjoys receiving such attention. But complementary almost always occurs between people who share similar goals and similar values. True opposites are unlikely even to meet each other, much less interact long enough to achieve such compatibility.
Intimacy
When does liking someone become something more? Intimacy is the quality of genuine closeness to and trust in another person. People become closer and stay closer through a continuing reciprocal pattern where each person tries to know the other and allows the other to know him or her (Theiss & Solomon, 2008). When you are first getting to know someone, you communicate about "safe," superficial topics like the weather, sports, or shared activities. As you get to know each other better over time, your conversation progresses to more personal subjects: your personal experiences, memories, hopes and fears, goals and failures. Thus, intimate communication is based on a process of gradual self-disclosure. Because self-disclosure is possible only when you trust the listener, you will seek - and usually receive - a reciprocal disclosure to keep the conversation balanced and emotionally satisfying (Bauminger, Finzi-Dottan, Chason, & Har-Even, 2008). The pacing of disclosure is important. If you "jump levels" by revealing too much too soon - or to someone who is not ready to make a reciprocal personal response - the other person will probably retreat, and communication will go no further.
ATTITUDES
An attitude is a relatively stable organization of beliefs, feelings, and tendencies toward something or someone. Attitudes are important because they often influence our behavior. For example, the phrase "I don't like his attitude" is a telling one. People are often told to "change your attitude" or make an "attitude adjustment." Since attitudes can affect behavior, social psychologists are interested in how attitudes are formed and how they can be changed.
The Nature of Attitudes
An attitude has three major components: evaluative beliefs about an object, feelings about that object, and behavior tendencies toward that object. Beliefs include facts, opinions, and our general knowledge. Feelings encompass love, hate, like, dislike, and similar sentiments. Behavior tendencies refer to our inclinations to act in certain ways toward the object - to approach it, avoid it, and so on. For example, our attitude toward a political candidate includes our beliefs about the candidate's qualifications and positions on crucial issues and our expectations about how the candidate will vote on those issues. We also have feelings about the candidate - like or dislike, trust or mistrust. And because of these beliefs and feelings, we are inclined to behave in certain ways toward the candidate - to vote for or against the candidate, to contribute time or money to the candidate's campaign, to make a point of attending or staying away from rallies for the candidate, and so forth.
These three aspects of an attitude are often consistent with one another. For example, if we have positive feelings toward something, we tend to have positive beliefs about it and to behave positively toward it. This tendency does not mean, however, that our every action will accurately reflect our attitudes. For example, our feelings about going to dentists may be negative, yet most of us make an annual visit anyway.
Attitudes and Behavior
The relationship between attitudes and behavior is not always straightforward (Ajzen & Cote, 2008). Variables such as the strength of the attitude, how easily it comes to mind, how noticeable a particular attitude is in a given situation, and how relevant the attitude is to the particular behavior in question help to determine whether a person will act in accordance with an attitude.
Moreover, attitudes predict behavior better for some people than for others. People who rate highly on self-monitoring are especially likely to override their attitudes to behave in accordance with others' expectations (Jawahar, 2001; O. Klein, Snyder, & Livingston, 2004). For example, before speaking or acting, those who score high in self-monitoring observe the situation for clues about how they should react. Then they try to meet those "demands," rather than behave according to their own beliefs or sentiments. In contrast, those who score low in self-monitoring express and act on their attitudes with great consistency, showing relatively little regard for situational clues or constraints.
Attitude Development
How do we acquire our attitudes? Where do they come from? Many of our most basic attitudes derive from early, direct personal experience. Children are rewarded with smiles and encouragement when they please their parents, and they are punished through disapproval when they displease them. These early experiences give children enduring attitudes (Castelli, Zogmaister, & Tomelleri, 2009). Attitudes are also formed by imitation. Children mimic the behavior of their parents and peers, acquiring attitudes even when no one is deliberately trying to shape them.
But parents are not the only source of attitudes. Teachers, friends, and even famous people are also important in shaping our attitudes. New fraternity and sorority members, for example, may model their behavior and attitudes on upper-class members (McConnell, Rydell, Strain, & Mackie, 2008). A student who idolizes a teacher may adopt many of the teacher's attitudes toward controversial subjects, even if they run counter to attitudes of parents or friends.
The mass media, particularly television, also have a great impact on attitude formation (Lin & Reid, 2009; Nielsen & Bonn, 2008). This is why having his photo televised with the label of terrorist suspect was particularly devastating for Sher Singh. Television and magazines bombard us with messages - not merely through news and entertainment, but also through commercials. Without experience of their own against which to measure the merit of these messages, children are particularly susceptible to the influence of television on their attitudes.
Attitudes are adaptive, because they provide us with a quick way to evaluate a situation or individual. However, to be accurate, attitudes must also be flexible enough to change with self-reflection, and as we acquire new information. Social neuroscience has found that the prefrontal cortex, a brain region principally involved in self-monitoring, plays a pivotal role in reprocessing evaluative information during attitude formation (Cunningham & Zelazo, 2007).
Prejudice and Discrimination
Although the terms prejudice and discrimination are often used interchangeably, they actually refer to different concepts. Prejudice - an attitude - is an unfair, intolerant, or unfavorable view of a group of people. Discrimination - a behavior - is an unfair act or a series of acts directed against an entire group of people or individual members of that group. To discriminate is to treat an entire class of people in an unfair way.
Prejudice
Like all other attitudes, prejudice has three components: beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies. Prejudicial beliefs are virtually always negative stereotypes; and, as mentioned earlier, reliance on stereotypes can lead to erroneous thinking about other people. The ultimate attribution error refers to the tendency for a person with stereotyped beliefs about a particular group of people to make internal attributions for their shortcomings (they were given special advantages) (P. J. Henry, Reyna, & Weiner, 2004). Along with stereotyped beliefs, prejudiced attitudes are usually marked by strong emotions, such as dislike, fear, hatred, or loathing and corresponding negative behavioral tendencies such as avoidance, hostility, and criticism.
Sources of Prejudice
Many theories attempt to sort out the causes and sources of prejudice. According to the frustration-aggression theory, prejudice is the result of people's frustrations (Allport, 1954; E. R. Smith & Mackie, 2005). Under some circumstances frustration can spill over into anger and hostility. People who feel exploited and oppressed often cannot vent their anger against an identifiable or proper target, so they displace their hostility onto those even "lower" on the social scale than themselves. The result is prejudice and discrimination. The people who are victims of this displaced aggression, or scapegoats, are blamed for the problems of the times. After the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, many Arabs, Muslims, and even people who looked Middle Eastern, became scapegoats for the frustration of some Americans about the violence.
Another theory locates the source of prejudice in a bigoted or authoritarian personality (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Altemeyer, 2004; Duckitt, 2013; McAvoy, 2012). Authoritarian people tend to be rigidly conventional. They favor following the rules and abiding by tradition and are hostile to those who defy social norms. They respect and submit to authority and are preoccupied with power and toughness. Looking at the world through a lens of rigid categories, they are cynical about human nature, fearing, suspecting, and rejecting all groups other than those to which they belong. Prejudice is only one expression of their suspicious, mistrusting views (Jost & Sidanius, 2004).
Cognitive sources of prejudice also exist (Cornelis & Van Hiel, 2006). People are "cognitive misers" who try to simplify and organize their social thinking as much as possible. Oversimplification can lead to erroneous thinking, stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. For example, belief in a just world - where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get - oversimplifies one's view of the victim's of prejudice as somehow "deserving" their plight. This may be why some people watching Sher Singh's arrest jumped to the conclusion that he was a terrorist who "deserved" to be arrested.
In addition, prejudice and discrimination may originate in people's attempts to conform. If we associate with people who express prejudices, we are more likely to go along with their ideas than to resist them. The pressures of social conformity help to explain why children quickly absorb the prejudices of their parents and playmates long before they have formed their own beliefs and opinions on the basis of experience. Peer pressure sometimes makes it "cool" or at least acceptable to harbor biased attitudes toward members of other social groups. Either you are one of "us," or you are one of "them." An in-group is any group of people who feels a sense of solidarity and exclusivity in relation to nonmembers. An out-group, in contrast, is a group of people who are outside the boundary and are viewed as competitors, enemies, or different and unworthy of respect. These terms can be applied to opposing sports teams, rival gangs, and political parties, or to entire nations, regions, religions, and ethnic or racial groups. According to the in-group bias, members see themselves not just as different, but also as superior to members of out-groups (K. Miller, Brewer, & Arbuckle, 2009). In extreme cases, members of an in-group may see members of an out-group as less than human and feel hatred that may lead to violence, civil war, and even genocide.
Racism is the belief that members of certain racial or ethnic groups are innately inferior. Racists believe that intelligence, industry, morality, and other valued traits are biologically determined and therefore cannot be changed. The most blatant forms of racism in the United States have declined during the past several decades as evidenced by the election of the first African American President, Barack Obama in 2008. But racism still exists in subtle forms. For example, many Whites say that they approve of interracial marriage, but would be "uncomfortable" if someone in their family married an African American. Blacks and Whites in America also have different views on race-related policies such as school desegregation and affirmative action, with Blacks generally being more supportive of such policies (Julie Hughes, 2009). In one survey of 1,000 Americans shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, 66% of African Americans said that the government's response would have been faster is most victims had been White; only 26% of White Americans agreed. Only 19% of African Americans, compared to 41% of White Americans, felt that the federal government's response was good or excellent. When asked about people who "took things from businesses and homes" during the flooding, 57% of African Americans said they were ordinary people trying to survive; only 38% of White Americans agreed (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2005).
Strategies For Reducing Prejudice And Discrimination
How can we use our knowledge of prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination to reduce prejudice and its expression? Three strategies appear promising: recategorization, controlled processing, and improving contact between groups.
Recategorization. When we recategorize, we try to expand our schema of a particular group - such as viewing people from different races or genders as sharing similar qualities. These more inclusive schemata become superordinate categories. For instance, both Catholics and Protestants in the United States tend to view themselves as Christians, rather than as separate competing groups (as has occurred in northern Ireland). If people can create such superordinate categories, they can often reduce stereotypes and prejudice (S. L. Gaertner & Dovidio, 2008).
Controlled Processing. Some researchers believe that we all learn cultural stereotypes, so the primary difference between someone who is prejudiced and someone who is not is the ability to suppress prejudiced beliefs through controlled processing (Cunningham, Johnson, Raye, Gatenby, & Gore, 2004; Dion, 2003). We can train ourselves to be more "mindful" of people who differ from us. For example, to reduce children's prejudice toward people with disabilities, children could be shown slides of handicapped people and be asked to imagine how difficult it might be for such individuals to open a door or drive a car.
Improving Group Contact. Finally we can reduce prejudice and tensions between groups by bringing them together (Denson, 2008; McClellan & Linnander, 2006). This was one of the intentions of the famous 1954 U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which mandated that public schools become racially integrated. However, intergroup contact alone is generally not enough (D. M. Taylor & Moghaddam, 1994). It only works to undermine prejudicial attitudes if the following conditions are met
The group members must have equal status
The people involved need to have one-on-one contact with members of the other group
The members of the two groups must cooperate rather than compete
The social norms should encourage intergroup contact
In all of these suggestions, the primary focus is on changing behavior, not on changing attitudes directly. But changing behavior is often a first step toward changing attitudes. This is not to say that attitude change follows automatically. Attitudes can be difficult to budge because they are often so deeply rooted. Completely eliminating deeply held attitudes, then, can be very difficult. That is why social psychologists have concentrated so much effort on techniques that encourage attitude change.
Changing Attitudes
A man watching television on Sunday afternoon ignores scores of beer commercials, but listens to a friend who recommends a particular brand. A political speech convinces one woman to change her vote in favor of the candidate, but leaves her next-door neighbor determined to vote against him. Why would a personal recommendation have greater persuasive power than an expensively produced television commercial? How can two people with similar initial views derive completely different messages from the same speech? What makes one attempt to change attitudes fail and another succeed? Are some people more resistant to attitude change than others are?
The Process of Persuasion
The first step in persuasion is to seize and retain the audience's attention. To be persuaded, you must first pay attention to the message; then you must comprehend it; finally, you must accept it as convincing (Perloff, 2003).
As competition has stiffened, advertisers have become increasingly creative in catching your attention. For example, ads that arouse emotions, especially feelings that make you want to act, can be memorable and thus persuasive (DeSteno & Braverman, 2002; Hansen & Christiansen, 2007). Humor, too, is an effective way to keep you watching or reading an ad that you would otherwise ignore (Michael Conway & Dube, 2002; Strick, van Baaren, Holland, & van Knippenberg, 2009). Other ads "hook" the audience by involving them in a narrative. A commercial might open with a dramatic scene or situation - for example, two people seemingly "meant" for each other but not yet making eye contact - and the viewer stays tuned to find out what happens. Some commercials even feature recurring characters and story lines so that each new commercial in the series is really the latest installment in a soap opera. Even annoying ads can still be effective in capturing attention, because people tend to notice them when they appear (Aaker & Bruzzone, 1985).
With so many clever strategies focused on seizing and holding your attention, how can you shield yourself from unwanted influences and resist persuasive appeals? Start by reminding yourself that these are deliberate attempts to influence you and to change your behavior. Research shows that to a great extent, "forewarned is forearmed" (Wood & Quinn, 2003). Another strategy for resisting persuasion is to analyze ads to identify which attention-getting strategies are at work. Make a game of deciphering the advertisers' "code" instead of falling for the ad's appeal. In addition, raise your standards for the kinds of messages that are worthy of your attention and commitment.
Because conflict and violence stem partly from psychological processes, attempts to build peace cannot address only structural problems. Attempts to redistribute resources more equitably, to reduce oppression and victimization, and to increase social justice are essential, but they will succeed only if attention is also given to important psychological processes. Concerted efforts must be made to increase tolerance and improve intergroup relations while also developing new, nonviolent means for resolving conflicts (M. B. Brewer, 2008). The strategies of recategorization, controlled processing, and contact between groups have helped reduce ethnic conflict in some countries (David Smith, 1998). But cognitive changes must also be made: Societal beliefs must be changed, and new beliefs must be developed that are more consistent with conflict resolution and peaceful relationships. In addition, multidisciplinary techniques must be developed if programs are to be fully effective in addressing conflicts in different cultures. As one group of experts put it, "It is both risky and ethnocentric to assume that methods developed in Western contexts can be applied directly in different cultures and contexts. Research on different cultural beliefs and practices and their implications for ethno-political conflict analysis and prevention is essential if the field of psychology is going to be successful in its contributions" (Mays et al., 1998, p. 739).
The Communication Model
The second and third steps in persuasion - comprehending and then accepting the message - are influenced by both the message itself and the way in which it is presented. The communication model of persuasion spotlights four key elements to achieve these goals: the source, the message itself, the medium of communication, and characteristics of the audience.
The effectiveness of a persuasive message first depends on its source, the author or communicator who appeals to the audience to accept the message. Credibility makes a big difference, at least initially (Ito, 2002; Jain & Posavac, 2001), especially if we are not inclined to pay attention to the message (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986a). For example, we are more likely to change our attitude about the oil industry's antipollution efforts if we hear the information from an impartial commission appointed to study the situation than if the president of a major refining company tells us about them. However, over a period of time, the credibility of the source becomes less important. Apparently we are inclined to forget the source, while remembering the content. Not surprisingly, this is known as the sleeper effect (Kumkale & Albarracin, 2004).
In cases in which we have some interest in the message, the message itself plays the greater role in determining whether we change our attitudes (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986b). Researchers have discovered that we frequently tune out messages that simply contradict our own point of view. Thus, messages are generally more successful when they present both sides of an argument and when they present novel arguments, rather than when they rehash old standbys, heard many times before. Messages that create fear sometimes work well, too (Cochrane & Quester, 2005; Dillard & Anderson, 2004), for example in convincing people to stop smoking (Dahl, Frankenberger, & Manchanda, 2003; K.H. Smith & Stutts, 2003), or to drive safely (Shehryar & Hunt, 2005). However, research has shown that the persuasiveness of fearful ads is relatively short lived compared to the longer term influence of positive ads (Lewis, Watson, & White, 2008).
When it comes to choosing an effective medium of persuasion, written documentation is best suited to making people understand complex arguments, whereas videotapes or live presentations are more effective with an audience that already grasps the gist of an argument (Chaiken & Eagly, 1976). Most effective, however, are face-to-face appeals or the lessons of our own experience.
The most critical factors in changing attitudes - and the most difficult to control - have to do with the audience. Attitudes are most resistant to change if (1) the audience has a strong commitment to its present attitudes, (2) those attitudes are shared by others, and (3) the attitudes were instilled during early childhood by a pivotal group such as the family. The discrepancy between the content of the message and the present attitudes of the audience also affects how well the message will be received. Up to a point, the greater the difference between the two, the greater the likelihood of attitude change, as long as the person delivering the message is considered an expert on the topic. If the discrepancy is too great, however, the audience may reject the new information altogether, even though it comes from an expert.
Finally, certain personal characteristics make some people more susceptible to attitude change than others. People with low self-esteem are more easily influenced, especially when the message is complex and hard to understand. Highly intelligent people tend to resist persuasion because they can think of counterarguments more easily.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
One of the more fascinating approaches to understanding the process of attitude change is the theory of cognitive dissonance, developed by Leon Festinger (J. Cooper, Mirabile, & Scher, 2005; Festinger, 1957; B. J. Friedman, 2000). Cognitive dissonance exists whenever a person has two contradictory cognitions, or beliefs, at the same time. "I am a considerate and loyal friend" is one cognition; "Yesterday I repeated some juicy gossip I heard about my friend Chris" is another cognition. These two cognitions are dissonant - each one implies the opposite of the other. According to Festinger, cognitive dissonance creates unpleasant psychological tension, which motivates us to try to resolve the dissonance in some way.
Sometimes changing one's attitude is the easiest way to reduce the discomfort of dissonance. I cannot easily change the fact that I have repeated gossip about a friend; therefore, it is easier to change my attitude toward my friend. If I conclude that Chris is not really a friend but simply an acquaintance, then my new attitude now fits my behavior - spreading gossip about someone who is not a friend does not contradict the fact that I am loyal and considerate to those who are my friends.
Discrepant behavior that contradicts an attitude does not necessarily bring about attitude change, however, because there are other ways a person can reduce cognitive dissonance. One alternative is to increase the number of consonant elements - that is, the thoughts that are consistent with one another. For example, I might recall that many times I defended Chris when others were critical of him. Now my repeating a little bit of gossip seems less at odds with my attitude toward Chris as a friend. Another option is to reduce the importance of one or both dissonant cognitions. For instance, I could tell myself, "The person I repeated the gossip to was Terry, who doesn't really know Chris very well. Terry doesn't care and won't repeat it. It was no big deal, and Chris shouldn't be upset about it." By reducing the significance of my disloyal action, I reduce the dissonance that I experience and so make it less necessary to change my attitude toward Chris.
But why would someone engage in behavior that goes against an attitude in the first place? One answer is that cognitive dissonance is a natural part of everyday life. Simply choosing between two or more desirable alternatives leads inevitably to dissonance. Suppose you are in the market for a computer, but can't decide between a PC and a Macintosh. If you choose one, all of its bad features and all the good aspects of the other contribute to dissonance. After you have bought one of the computers, you can reduce the dissonance by changing your attitude: You might decide that the other keyboard wasn't "quite right" and that some of the "bad" features of the computer you bought aren't so bad after all.
You may also engage in behavior at odds with an attitude because you are enticed to do so. Perhaps someone offers you a small bribe or reward: "I will pay you 25 cents just to try my product." Curiously, the larger the reward, the smaller the change in attitude that is likely to result (J. W. Brehm, 2007). When rewards are large, dissonance is at a minimum, and attitude change is small, if it happens at all. Apparently, when people are convinced that there is a good reason to do something that goes against their beliefs (I'll try almost anything in exchange for a large cash incentive"), they experience little dissonance, and their attitudes are not likely to shift, even though their behavior may change for a time. If the reward is small, however - just barely enough to induce behavior that conflicts with one's attitude - dissonance will be great, maximizing the chances of attitude change: "I only got 25 cents to try this product, so it couldn't have been the money that attracted me. I must really like this product after all." The trick is to induce the behavior that goes against an attitude, while leaving people feeling personally responsible for the dissonant act. In that way, they are now more likely to change their attitudes than if they feel they were blatantly induced to act in a way that contradicted their beliefs.
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
In social psychology, social influence refers to the process by which others - individually or collectively - affect our perceptions, attitudes, and actions. We already examined one form of social influence: attitude change. Next, we will focus on how the presence or actions of others can control behavior without regard to underlying attitudes.
Cultural Influences
Culture exerts an enormous influence on our attitudes and behavior, and culture is itself a creation of people. As such, a culture is a major form of social influence. Consider for a moment the many aspects of day-to-day living that are derived from culture:
Culture dictates how you dress. A Saudi woman covers her face before venturing outside her home; a North American woman freely displays her face, arms, and legs; and women in some other societies roam completely naked.
Culture specifies what you eat - and what you do not eat. Americans do not eat dog meat, the Chinese eat no cheese, and the Hindus refuse to eat beef. Culture further guides how you eat: with a fork, chopsticks, or your bare hands.
People from different cultures seek different amounts of personal space. Latin Americans, French people, and Arabs get closer to one another in most face-to-face interactions than do Americans, British, or Swedes.
To some extent, culture influences us through formal instruction. For example, your parents might have reminded you from time to time that certain actions are considered "normal" or the "right way" to behave. But more often, we learn cultural lessons through modeling and imitation. One result of such learning is the unquestioning acceptance of cultural truisms - beliefs or values that most members of a society accept as self-evident (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005; Maio & Olson, 1998). We are rewarded (reinforced) for doing as our companions and fellow citizens do in most situations - for going along with the crowd. This social learning process is one of the chief mechanisms by which a culture transmits its central lessons and values.
In the course of comparing and adapting our own behavior to that of others, we learn the norms of our culture. A norm is a culturally shared idea or expectation about how to behave. As in the preceding examples, norms are often steeped in tradition and strengthened by habit. Cultures seem strange to us if their norms are very different from our own. It is tempting to conclude that different means "wrong," simply because unfamiliar patterns of behavior can make us feel uncomfortable. To transcend our differences and get along better with people from other cultures, we must find ways to overcome such discomfort.
One technique for understanding other cultures is the cultural assimilator, a strategy for perceiving the norms and values of another group (Kempt, 2000). This technique teaches by example, asking students to explain why a member of another culture has behaved in a particular way. For example, why do the members of a Japanese grade school class silently follow their teacher single file through a park on a lovely spring day? Are they afraid of being punished for disorderly conduct if they do otherwise? Are they naturally placid and compliant? Once you understand that Japanese children are raised to value the needs and feelings of others over their own selfish concerns, their orderly, obedient behavior seems much less perplexing. Cultural assimilators encourage us to remain open-minded about others' norms and values by challenging such cultural truisms as "Our way is the right way."
Conformity
Accepting cultural norms should not be confused with conformity. For instance, millions of Americans drink coffee in the morning, but not because they are conforming. They drink coffee because they like and desire it. Conformity, in contrast, implies a conflict between an individual and a group that is resolved when individual preferences or beliefs yield to the norms or expectations of the larger group.
Since the early 1950s, when Solomon Asch conducted the first systematic study of the subject, conformity has been a major topic of research in social psychology. Asch demonstrated in a series of experiments that under some circumstances, people will conform to group pressures even if this action forces them to deny obvious physical evidence. He asked people to view cards with several lines of differing lengths, then asked them to choose the card with the line most similar to the line on a comparison card. The lines were deliberately drawn so that the comparison was obvious and the correct choice was clear. All but one of the participants were confederates of the experimenter. On certain trials, these confederates deliberately gave the wrong answer. This procedure put the lone dissenter on the spot: Should he conform to what he knew to be a wrong decision and agree with the group, thereby denying the evidence of his own eyes, or should he disagree with the group, thereby risking the social consequences of nonconformity?
Overall, participants conformed on about 35% of the trials. There were large individual differences, however; and in subsequent research, experimenters discovered that two sets of factors influence the likelihood that a person will conform: characteristics of the situation and characteristics of the person.
The size of the group is one situational factor that has been studied extensively (R. Bond, 2005). Asch (1951) found that the likelihood of conformity increased with group size until four confederates were present. After that point, the number of others made no difference to the frequency of conformity.
Another important situational factor is the degree of unanimity in the group. If just one confederate broke the perfect agreement of the majority by giving the correct answer, conformity among participants in the Asch experiments fell from an average of 35% to about 25% (Asch, 1956). Apparently, having just one "ally" eases the pressure to conform. The ally does not even have to share the person's viewpoint - just breaking the unanimity of the majority is enough to reduce conformity (Walther et al., 2002).
Personal characteristics also influence conforming behavior (Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006). The more a person is attracted to the group, expects to interact with its members in the future, holds a position of relatively low status, and does not feel completely accepted by the group, the more that person tends to conform. The fear of rejection apparently motivates conformity when a person scores high on one or more of these factors.
Using neuroimaging techniques, not available when Asch did his original work, social neuroscientists have provided some additional insight into the underlying processes involved in making or resisting the decision to conform. Using a mental rotation task in a context of peer pressure to conform to an incorrect judgment, researchers found that for participants that conformed, there were no changes in activity in areas of the brain (such as the prefrontal cortex) known to monitor conflict and plan decisions. However, for nonconformers, who went against the group pressure to conform, regions of the brain known to be involved in emotional regulation (such as the amygdala) became increasingly active, suggesting nonconformity, or the willingness to stand alone, comes at an emotional cost (Berns et al., 2005).
Compliance
Conformity is a response to pressure exerted by norms that are generally left unstated. In contrast, compliance is a change of behavior in response to an explicitly stated request. One technique for inducing compliance is the so-called foot-in-the-door effect (Rodafinos, Vucevic, & Sideridis, 2005). Every salesperson knows that the moment a prospect allows the sales pitch to begin, the chances of making a sale improve greatly. The same effect operates in other areas of life: Once people have granted a small request, they are more likely to comply with a larger one.
In the most famous study of this phenomenon, Freedman and Fraser (1966) approached certain residents of Palo Alto, California, posing as members of a committee for safe driving. They asked residents to place a large, ugly sign reading "Drive Carefully" in their front yards. Only 17% agreed to do so. Then other residents were asked to sign a petition calling for more safe-driving laws. When these same people were later asked to place the ugly "Drive Carefully" sign in their yards, an amazing 55% agreed. Compliance with the first small request more than tripled the rate of compliance with the larger request.
Why does the foot-in-the-door technique work so well? One possible explanation is that agreeing to the token act (signing the petition) realigns the person's self-perception with that of someone who more strongly favors the cause. When presented with the larger request, the person then feels obligated to comply (Cialdini & Trost, 1998).
Another strategy commonly used by salespeople is the lowball procedure (Cialdini & Trost, 1998; Gueguen, Pascual, & Dagot, 2002). The first step is to induce a person to agree to do something for a comparatively low cost. The second step is to raise the cost of compliance. Among car dealers, lowballing works like this: The dealer persuades the customer to buy a car by reducing the price well below that offered by competitors. Once the customer has agreed to buy the car, the terms of the sale shift so that, in the end, the car is more costly than it would be at other dealerships. Although the original inducement was the low price (the "lowball" that the salesperson originally pitched), once committed, buyers tend to remain committed to the new pricier car.
Under certain circumstances, a person who has refused to comply with one request may be more likely to comply with a second. This phenomenon has been dubbed the door-in-the-face effect (Ebster & Neumayr, 2008; Rodafinos, Vucevic, & Sideridis, 2005). In one study, researchers approached students and asked them to make an unreasonably large commitment: Would they counsel delinquent youths at a detention center for 2 years? Nearly everyone declined, thus effectively "slamming the door" in the researcher's face. But when later asked to make a much smaller commitment - supervising children during a trip to the zoo - many of the same students quickly agreed. The door-in-the-face effect appears to work because people interpret the smaller request as a concession and feel pressured to comply.
Obedience
Compliance is agreement to change behavior in response to a request. Obedience is compliance with a direct order, generally from a person in authority, such as a police officer, principal, or parent. Several of the studies by Stanley Milgram showed how far some people will go to obey someone in authority (Blass, 2009; Milgram, 1963; Zimbardo, 2007).
What factors influence the degree to which people will do what they are told? Studies in which people were asked to put a dime in a parking meter by people wearing uniforms show that one important factor is the amount of power vested in the person giving the orders. People obeyed a guard whose uniform looked like that of a police officer more often than they obeyed a man dressed either as a milkman or as a civilian. Another factor is surveillance. If we are ordered to do something and then left alone, we are less likely to obey than if we are being watched, especially if the act seems unethical to us. Milgram, for instance, found that his "teachers" were less willing to give severe shocks when the experimenter was out of the room.
Milgram's experiments revealed other factors that influence a person's willingness to follow orders. When the victim was in the same room as the "teacher," obedience dropped sharply. When another "teacher" was present, who refused to give shocks, obedience also dropped. But when responsibility for an act was shared, so that the person was only one of many doing it, the degree of obedience was much greater.
Why do people willingly obey an authority figure, even if doing so means violating their own principles? Milgram (1974) suggested that people come to see themselves as the agents of another person's wishes and therefore as not responsible themselves for the obedient actions or their consequences. Once this shift in self-perception has occurred, obedience follows, because in their own minds, they have relinquished control of their actions. For example, you may recall that in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the enlisted personnel who were photographed abusing prisoners insisted that they did so only on orders from higher authorities.
On a brighter note, some recent studies indicate that the high levels of obedience reported in Milgram's original experiment have declined in recent years. In fact, among males, disobedience has more than doubled since Milgram's original article was published in 1963 (Twenge, 2009). The reasons for this decline, and whether it will continue, remain to be determined.
Finally, perhaps one of the most convincing demonstrations of how a situation can affect obedience was demonstrated in the Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973; also see Haney, Zimbardo, & Lykken, 2007). In this study, 21 participants were divided into two groups; 10 played the role of prisoner, the remaining 11 the role of guards. Placed in an environment to simulate a real prison, the guards worked 8-hour shifts (going home between shifts) while the prisoners remained in the mock prison 24 hours a day. Although the prisoners and guards were permitted to interact any way they chose, as long as they remained in their respective roles, the behavior of the guards quickly became hostile, abusive and dehumanizing toward the prisoners. In contrast, the prisoners placed in a situation where they had little control rapidly began to display symptoms of severe stress and emotional disturbance, becoming anxious, passive and depressed. Though slated to run for 14 days, the experiment had to be stopped after just six days because of the strong adverse reactions of the participants. In this study, the powerful influence a situation may exert on human behavior was evident for both those in power and those without power.
SOCIAL ACTION
The various kinds of social influence may take place when no one else is physically present. We refrain from playing music at full volume when our neighbors are sleeping, comply with jury notices received in the mail, and obey traffic signals even when no one is on the road to enforce them. We now turn to processes that do depend on the presence of others. Specifically, we examine processes that occur when people interact one-on-one and in groups. One of these social actions is called deindividuation.
Deindividuation
We have seen several cases of social influence in which people act differently in the presence of others from the way they would if they were alone. The most striking and frightening instance of this phenomenon is mob behavior. Some well-known violent examples of mob behavior are the looting that sometimes accompanies urban rioting and the wanton destruction of property that mars otherwise peaceful protests and demonstrations. One reason for mob behavior is that people can lose their personal sense of responsibility in a group, especially in a group subjected to intense pressures and anxiety. This process is called deindividuation because people respond not as individuals, but as anonymous parts of a larger group. In general, the more anonymous that people feel in a group, the less responsible they feel as individuals (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005; Zimbardo, 2007). But deindividuation only partly explains mob behavior. Another contributing factor is that, in a group, one dominant and persuasive person can convince people to act through a snowball effect: If the persuader convinces just a few people, those few will convince others, who will convince still others, and the group becomes an unthinking mob.
Helping Behavior
Research on deindividuation seems to support the unfortunate - and inaccurate - notion that when people get together, they are likely to become more destructive and irresponsible than they would be individually. But instances of cooperation and mutual assistance are just as abundant as examples of human conflict and hostility. We need only to recall the behavior of people all over the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to find hundreds of examples of people working together and helping each other.
What are some of the social forces that can promote helping behavior? One is perceived self-interest. We may offer our boss a ride home from the office because we know that our next promotion depends on how much she likes us. We may volunteer to feed a neighbor's cat while he is away because we want him to do the same for us. But when helpful actions are not linked to such personal gain, they are considered altruistic behavior (Batson, 2011). A person who acts in an altruistic way does not expect any recognition or reward in return, except perhaps the good feeling that comes from helping someone in need. For example, many altruistic acts are directed toward strangers in the form of anonymous charitable donations, as is often demonstrated in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Interestingly, altruism probably played an important role in the early evolution of humans (Marshall, 2011). Moreover, altruism is not unique to humans since it is frequently observed in other primates (de Waal, 2007).
Under what conditions is helping behavior most likely to occur? Like other things that social psychologists study, helping is influenced by two sets of factors: those in the situation and those in the individual.
The most important situational variable is the presence of other people. In a phenomenon called the bystander effect, the likelihood that a person will help someone else in trouble decreases as the number of bystanders present increases (Chekroun & Brauer, 2002; A. M. Rosenthal, 2008).
In fact, any factors that make it harder for others to recognize a genuine emergency reduce the probability of altruistic actions (Jex, Adams, & Bachrach, 2003). Increasing the amount of personal responsibility that one person feels for another boosts the likelihood that help will be extended (Moriarty, 1975; Ting & Piliavin, 2000). The amount of empathy that we feel toward another person also affects our willingness to help (Batson, 2006; Batson, Ahmad, Lishner, & Tsang, 2002). Mood also makes a difference: A person in a good mood is more likely to help another in need than is someone who is in a neutral or bad mood (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005; Salovey, Mayer, & Rosenhan, 1991). In general older adults are more likely to be altruistic than younger adults (Freund & Blanchard-Fields, 2014). In addition, just witnessing another person performing a selfless act or good deed can stimulate altruism in an observer (Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010). Finally, helping behavior is more likely to come from people who are not shy or fear negative evaluation for helping (Karakashian, Walter, Christopher, & Lucas, 2006).
Groups and Decision Making
There is a tendency in American society to turn important decisions over to groups. In the business world, key decisions are often made around a conference table rather than behind one person's desk. In politics, major policy decisions are seldom vested in just one person. In the courts, a defendant may request a trial by jury, and for some serious crimes, jury trial is required by law. The nine-member U.S. Supreme Court renders group decisions on legal issues affecting the entire nation.
Many people trust these group decisions more than decisions made by individuals. Yet, the dynamics of social interaction within groups sometimes conspire to make group decisions less sound than those made by someone acting alone. Social psychologists are intrigued by how this outcome happens.
Polarization in Group Decision Making
People often assume that an individual acting alone is more likely to take risks than a group considering the same issue. This assumption remained unchallenged until the early 1960s. At that time, James Stoner (1961) designed an experiment to test the idea. He asked participants individually to counsel imaginary people who had to choose between a risky, but potentially rewarding course of action and a conservative, but less rewarding alternative. Next, the participants met in small groups to discuss each decision until they reached unanimous agreement. Surprisingly, the groups consistently recommended a riskier course of action than the people working alone did. This phenomenon is known as the risky shift.
The risky shift is simply one aspect of a more general group phenomenon called polarization - the tendency for people to become more extreme in their attitudes as a result of group discussion. Polarization begins when group members discover during discussion that they share views to a greater degree than they realized. Then, in an effort to be seen in a positive light by the others, at least some group members become strong advocates for what is potentially the dominant sentiment in the group. Arguments leaning toward one extreme or the other not only reassure people that their initial attitudes are correct, but they also intensify those attitudes so that the group as a whole becomes more extreme in its position (J. H. Liu & Latane, 1998). So, if you want a group decision to be made in a cautious, conservative direction, you should be certain that the members of the group hold cautious and conservative views in the first place. Otherwise, the group decision may polarize in the opposite direction (Jerry Palmer & Loveland, 2008).
The Effectiveness of Groups
"Two heads are better than one" reflects the common assumption that members of a group will pool their abilities and arrive at a better decision than will individuals working alone. In fact, groups are more effective than individuals only under certain circumstances. For one thing, their success depends on the task they face. If the requirements of the task match the skills of the group members, the group is likely to be more effective than any single individual. However, even if task and personnel are perfectly matched, the ways in which group members interact may reduce the group's efficiency. For example, high-status individuals tend to exert more influence in groups, so if they do not possess the best problem-solving skills, group decisions may suffer (Lovaglia, Mannix, Samuelson, Sell, & Wilson, 2005). Another factor affecting group interaction and effectiveness is group size. The larger the group, the more likely it is to include someone who has the skills needed to solve a difficult problem. On the other hand, it is much harder to coordinate the activities of a large group. In addition, large groups may be more likely to encourage social loafing, the tendency of group members to exert less individual effort on the assumption that others in the group will do the work (J. A. Miller, 2002). Finally, the quality of group decision making also depends on the cohesiveness of a group. When the people in a group like one another and feel committed to the goals of the group, cohesiveness is high. Under these conditions, members may work hard for the group, spurred by high morale. But cohesiveness can undermine the quality of group decision making. If the group succumbs to groupthink, according to Irving Janis (1982, 1989), strong pressure to conform prevents its members from criticizing the merging group consensus (Henningsen, Henningsen, & Eden, 2006). This is especially likely to happen if a cohesive group is isolated from outside opinion and does not have clear rules defining how to make decisions. The result may be disastrous decisions - such as the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, the ill-fated Columbia and Challenger space flights, and more recently the decision to invade Iraq in 2004 based on the presumed existence of weapons of mass destruction (Raven, 1998; U.S. Senate, 2004; Vaughn, 1996).
Leadership
Leaders are important to the effectiveness of a group or organization (Kaiser, Hogan, & Craig, 2008). But what makes a good leader? For many years, the predominant answer was the great-person theory, which states that leaders are extraordinary people who assume positions of influence and then shape events around them. In this view, people like George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Nelson Mandela were "born leaders" - who would have led any nation at any time in history.
Most historians and psychologists now regard this theory as naïve, because it ignores social and economic factors. An alternative theory holds that leadership emerges when the right person is in the right place at the right time. For instance, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., rose to the head of the civil rights movement. Dr. King was clearly a "great person" - intelligent, dynamic, eloquent, and highly motivated. Yet, had the times not been right (for instance, had he lived 30 years earlier), it is doubtful that he would have been as successful as he was.
Many social scientists have argued that there is more to leadership than either the great-person theory or the right-place-at-the-right-time theory implies. Rather, the leader's traits, certain aspects of the situation in which the group finds itself, and the response of the group and the leader to each other are all important considerations (Brodbeck, 2008). Fred Fiedler's contingency theory of leader effectiveness is based on such a transactional view of leadership (F. E. Fiedler, 1993, 2002).
According to Fielder's theory, personal characteristics are important to the success of a leader. One kind of leader is task oriented, concerned with doing the task well - even at the expense of worsening relationships among group members. Other leaders are relationship oriented, concerned with maintaining group cohesiveness and harmony. Which style is most effective depends on three sets of situational factors. One is the nature of the task (whether it is clearly structured or ambiguous). The second consideration is the relationship between leader and group (whether the leader has good or bad personal relations with the group members). The third consideration is the leader's ability to exercise great or little power over the group.
The contingency view of leadership, which has received a great deal of support from research conducted in the laboratory as well as in real-life settings, clearly indicates that there is no such thing as an ideal leader for all situations (Ayman, Chemers, & Fiedler, 2007; DeYoung, 2005). "Except perhaps for the unusual case," Fiedler states, "it is simply not meaningful to speak of an effective or of an ineffective leader; we can only speak of a leader who tends to be effective in one situation and ineffective in another" (F. E. Fiedler, 1967, p. 261).
Recently, Robert J. Sternberg has proposed a systems approach to understanding leadership (Sternberg, 2008, 2013). Known as WICS, Sternberg's theory of effective leadership stresses certain essential traits necessary for effective leadership: wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized. According to Sternberg, creativity is necessary to devise new ideas, intelligence to evaluate and implement ideas, and wisdom to balance the interests of everyone involved (Sternberg, 2007). Sternberg stresses that efforts to train new leaders should focus on ways to produce individuals who embody these traits and learn effective ways to synthesize them.
Leadership Across Cultures
An emphasis on the importance of individual leaders seems to apply well to most informal and work groups in the United States. Yet, it is not the only approach to leadership. In a collectivist culture that values cooperation and interdependence among group members, although one member may be named "the manager," it is less likely that individuals will have clearly defined roles as "this type of leader" or "that type of leader." All members see themselves as working together to accomplish the group's goals.
Interestingly, leadership in American businesses has shifted somewhat over the past two decades toward a management style that has proven successful in Japan and other Eastern collectivist cultures (Dean & Evans, 1994; McFarland, Senn, & Childress, 1993; Muczyk & Holt, 2008). This approach emphasizes decision-making input from all group members, small work teams that promote close cooperation, and a leadership style in which managers receive much the same treatment as any other employee. In the West, it is not uncommon for executives to have their own parking spaces, dining facilities, and fitness and social clubs, as well as separate offices and independent schedules. Most Japanese executives consider this privileged style of management very strange. In many Eastern cultures, managers and executives share the same facilities as their workers, hunt for parking spaces like everyone else, and eat and work side by side with their employees. It is interesting that the Japanese model has effectively combined the two leadership approaches - task oriented and relationship oriented - into a single overall style. By being a part of the group, the leader can simultaneously work toward and direct the group's goals, while also contributing to the group's morale and social climate.
Recognition of the diverse styles that effective leadership can take across cultures, ethnicities, gender, and even sexual orientation was the focus of a recent special issue of The American Psychologist (Chin, 2010). Perhaps the most important point expressed by the many experts who contributed to this issue is the idea that future leaders must begin to embrace diverse leadership styles and diversity among leaders, if they are to remain competitive in a global workforce that is becoming increasingly diverse.
Women in Leadership Positions
Just as leadership styles differ across cultures, research has shown that the leadership styles of men and women can also vary considerably. In one 5-year study of 2,482 managers in more than 400 organizations, female and male coworkers said that women make better managers than men (Kass, 1999). The reason seems to be that many female managers have effectively combined such traditionally "masculine" task-oriented traits as decisiveness, planning, and setting standards with such "feminine" relationship-oriented assets as communication, feedback, and empowering other employees; most male managers have not been as successful at combining those two styles (Chin, 2008; Eagly, 2003). For example, one review concluded that, in contrast to the directive and task-oriented leadership style common among men, women tend to have a more democratic, collaborative, and interpersonally oriented style of managing employees (V. E. O' Leary & Flanagan, 2001). Moreover, at least one study found that regardless of gender, leaders are viewed more favorably and considered more competent and efficient when they adopt a traditionally feminine leadership style (Cuadrado, Morales, Recio, & howard, 2008).
A large-scale review of 45 studies of gender and leadership found women's leadership styles are generally more effective than traditional male leadership styles (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van-Engen, 2003). This review also found that female leaders are generally more effective than male leaders and winning acceptance for their ideas and instilling self-confidence in their employees. Results like these have prompted some experts to call for specialized women-only leadership training programs, to assist women in developing their full feminine leadership potential independent of male influence (Vinnicombe & Singh, 2003).