Master Introductory Psychology Volume 4: Master Introductory Psychology, #4

By Michael Corayer

Looking to expand your knowledge of psychology?

This comprehensive 4-volume series breaks down all the key concepts in psychology so you can learn faster, ace your exams, and improve your knowledge of this fascinating field.

• Each of the units provides a step-by-step guide to the major approaches, key terms, and leading figures of each area of psychology. Clear explanations, engaging stories, and memorization strategies will help you to learn the content while discussion of criticisms will help you to understand how views differ and why these differences matter. 

• Each unit also includes a concise chapter summary for review, a list of key terms, and extensive references and recommendations to guide your future studies. 

• Leave behind all the distracting images, irrelevant cartoons, and useless trivia cluttering your textbook so you can learn the most important ideas more efficiently. Whether you're studying for AP psychology, IB psychology, a college course, or exploring psychology on your own, this guide will help you to master introductory psychology. 

Volume 4 of this series covers social psychology, stress & health, psychological disorders, and treatment. 

A complete edition containing volumes 1-4 of this series is also available in print format. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Corayer
• Release date: Jul 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536549713

Book preview

Chapter 1: Social Psychology

Social Context

In this chapter, we'll consider how groups, culture, and social context influence thoughts, feelings, and behavior. You may wonder about the difference between social psychology and sociology. Social psychology studies the influence of social context, mostly by examining how this context influences the behavior of individuals. Sociology, on the other hand, tends to focus on the influence of social factors on larger groups of people, such as social or economic classes, genders, or entire ethnic groups.

Social psychological research (and other types of psychological research) can be broadly categorized into basic research, which refers to gaining knowledge simply for increased understanding, and applied research, which refers to research that aims to improve some aspect of human society. As we'll see, social psychology tackles a number of issues with important social implications and hopefully increased knowledge can be used to better the world.

Social psychologists use some research methods that aren't as common in other areas. They may engage in archival studies, which consist of examining past records in order to look for patterns and cultural or historical trends. This may involve studying newspaper accounts, medical records, diaries, or statistics like the number of website hits or search queries over a certain time period.

Another type of study which is common in social psychology is an observational study. This type of research involves observing and recording natural behaviors that occur in the real world. One type is a field experiment, in which researchers control an aspect of the environment and then measure how people respond to different manipulations. It's important to remember, however, that while these situations help to demonstrate actual behaviors in the real world (high external validity), researchers are unable to control many other aspects of the environment and these other variables may influence results. There are also subject variables such as gender, ethnicity, or cultural background, which may influence behavior but which psychologists cannot possibly assign or manipulate.

The Role of Culture

Globalization has made the world a smaller place, and it's more important than ever to understand differences as cultures collide, compete, and hopefully, cooperate. How does culture shape how we think, feel, and behave?

How can we consider a variable as broad as culture? One way of doing this is to focus on cultural dimensions, which refer to particular ways that cultures can differ. From 1967 to 1973, Geert Hofstede, a Dutch researcher, conducted pioneering work on cultural dimensions by surveying 117,000 IBM employees in more than 50 countries. By surveying people whose cultures differed but who were likely similar in their education levels, income, and job status, Hofstede looked for patterns in how people thought and believed differences between cultures could be seen in 5 cultural dimensions:

individualism/collectivism – how much a culture emphasizes individual efforts versus group ties

masculinity/femininity – high masculinity refers to large differences in gender roles and a focus on competition and material success while high femininity refers to more equal gender roles and a focus on cooperation and quality of life

uncertainty avoidance – tolerance for ambiguity versus clear expectations for behavior

power distance – how close people feel to the power structure of their society

time orientation – focus on the past and tradition (short-term orientation) versus focus on the future and adaptability (long-term orientation)

Hofstede added an indulgence/restraint dimension in 2010 based on how much a culture allows for the gratification of desires and fun. It's important to remember that these dimensions don't predict specific behavior or reflect the views of all individuals within a culture, they refer to overall tendencies and ways of thinking.

The Self and Others

In the chapter on personality, we recognized that people have a self-concept and this is partially developed by comparing ourselves to others. This is known as social comparison theory, and it was proposed by Leon Festinger. Festinger suggested that we tend to look to others in order to understand ourselves, particularly when we are in a state of uncertainty. When we aren't sure of our own traits and abilities, we examine the traits and abilities of others in order to figure out where we fit in.

Who are the others that we compare ourselves to? We tend to focus on people who are relevant to us in some way. In other words, we don't necessarily compare ourselves to the best, but instead to those who are around us. So if you want to figure out where you stand in terms of athletic ability, you'll probably start by comparing yourself to the other players in the pick-up basketball games you join, rather than comparing yourself to Michael Jordan. Similarly, you probably assess your intellectual prowess by comparing yourself to your classmates, rather than Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. When it comes to attractiveness, however, media exposure may make us feel that stunningly attractive people are all around us, distorting our sense of comparison and making us feel inadequate.

Our sense of self is also inextricably tied to the groups that we are a part of. We can see ourselves as at least partially defined by our social relationships (i.e. a mother, a sibling, a student leader, or a social organizer). Our self-esteem and pride may be tied to the failures and successes of these groups, known as social identity theory.

This can be seen in what's known as basking in reflected glory. This refers to emphasizing our group membership as part of our identity when a group has been successful. This was demonstrated in an observational study by Robert Cialdini and others at several universities which found that on the Mondays following a weekend football game, students were more likely to wear clothing with the school insignia if the team had won than if they had lost, even though these students were not on the football team. We see the same in devoted sports fans, who proudly grab their share of reflected glory at the end of a game by exclaiming We won! We won!, though as Jerry Seinfeld noted; "No, they won. You watched. While victory can bring reflected glory, this is only half the story, and losses may cause distancing from the losing team or cutting off reflected failure".

Just how much we tie ourselves to certain groups brings us back to the cultural dimension of individualist versus collectivist cultures. The United States is considered to be highly individualist, with an emphasis on self-reliance, achieving personal goals, and satisfying personal needs. Other cultures may be more group-oriented, with a focus on the importance of maintaining relationships and achieving group harmony. Perhaps some insight into the individualist nature of American culture can be seen in team sports. Although wins in basketball, baseball, and football are always achieved through group effort, there is still a tendency to glorify individual players (why else have MVP awards?). We might also see this individualist attitude in the business world, as CEOs are idolized (or condemned) for results that have come from the work of hundreds or thousands of employees.

How Do We Know Our Attitudes?

When it comes to understanding ourselves, we might think that we're aware of all our feelings and beliefs, though hopefully other chapters have encouraged you to be critical of this idea. We're subject to biases and there can be a large disconnect between our attitudes and our behavior.

In the 1930s, while anti-Asian sentiment was high, Richard LaPiere traveled over 10,000 miles throughout the United States with a Chinese-American couple. Along the way, LaPiere and his companions didn't experience much discrimination in the many restaurants, campgrounds, and hotels they visited, and they were denied service only once. Following the trip, however, LaPiere sent letters to the establishments they had previously visited, asking if they would accept Chinese customers and 90% of respondents indicated they would not. This demonstrates that actual behavior doesn't always match stated attitudes. Of course, this disconnect between expressed attitudes and actual behavior could work in the opposite direction, with many people proclaiming that they are not prejudiced, though their behavior may not always match their expressions of equality.

Another disconnect between attitudes and behavior was famously created in an experiment by Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith in 1959. Participants spent an hour in the lab completing several boring tasks (turning wooden pegs and filling, emptying, then refilling a tray with wooden spools). Following this boredom, however, some participants were asked to lie to the next participant (actually a confederate) in the waiting room, telling her that the experiment was interesting and fun. For this additional help, these participants were given either $1 or $20 (a decent sum in 1959). As they were leaving the building, participants were asked to do a follow-up interview with the psychology department to find out about their experience. Part of this interview included asking how enjoyable the tasks were. Participants who had not been asked to lie admitted that the tasks were boring, but how did the liars feel?  Did lying for $1 or $20 influence how participants felt about the experiment?

It did, but perhaps not in the way you might expect. Those who had just been paid $20 to say the experiment was fun stated that actually, it wasn't. Those who had been paid only $1 to lie, however, said the experiment had been engaging and worthwhile. This brings us back to an idea from the chapter on motivation, which is insufficient justification. A little white lie in exchange for $20 seems like a deal anyone should take, but lying just to get $1 is a bit unsettling. Rather than admitting they had been easily bought, these participants justified the lie by thinking maybe it wasn't a lie after all.

Based on this research, Festinger and Carlsmith proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance, which suggests that when we hold conflicting attitudes or we engage in behavior that doesn't match our attitudes, this creates discomfort that must be resolved, either by changing behavior or changing attitudes. In the case above, lying to a stranger for only $1 created dissonance and this dissonance was resolved by changing an attitude (I didn't lie, because the experiment was actually fun). The $20 group, however, already had enough justification for lying and therefore experienced less dissonance and did not need to change the attitude (I lied, but hey, for $20, who wouldn't?).

In another example of cognitive dissonance, Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter infiltrated a cult which believed that the world was going to end on a certain date (detailed in their book When Prophecy Fails). The researchers assumed that the world would not end, and wanted to see how members of the cult would deal with this massive amount of cognitive dissonance. After all, these members so firmly believed the end was nigh that they had quit their jobs, given away their possessions and dedicated themselves to the group. As you might guess, the world did not end. How did these members deal with this incredible amount of cognitive dissonance? Did they admit to their foolishness and say wow, I really shouldn't have done that?

Of course not. Instead, they reduced dissonance by believing that actually, it was because of their behaviors and because of their beliefs that the world was spared. Rather than weakening their beliefs, the failure of their prophecy strengthened their convictions and rather than fools, they viewed themselves as saviors.

If you're wondering how to use dissonance for your own personal benefit, perhaps you can try what's known as the Benjamin Franklin effect. Franklin wasn't just a brilliant entrepreneur, inventor, and statesman, he was also quite a talented social psychologist, who found a way to use dissonance in his favor. When he felt that someone didn't like him, he would find a way to ask that person for a favor, such as borrowing a book he knew they owned. Franklin found that if the request was accepted, the person in question would be left wondering why he did Franklin a favor if he didn't like him. To eliminate this dissonance and justify the behavior, he might decide that Franklin mustn't be so bad after all. As Franklin wrote, He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

The Presence of Others

Norman Triplett noticed that bicyclists tended to be faster when they raced against other opponents than when they raced alone, so he had children use reels in pairs or alone to see if this influenced their speed. This idea that the presence of others improves performance is known as social facilitation. Though the strength of Triplett's early data (published in 1898) has been questioned by modern statistical methods, other researchers have found supporting evidence for social facilitation.

Sometimes, however, the presence of others can cause us to choke and perform