Social Psychology
Page 27
Food for thought
Imagine that you are the Secretary General of the United Nations. It has come to your attention that two of your member states are teetering on the brink of all-out conflict. How would you apply the information in this chapter to prevent that from happening. Would your strategy differ if it were two factions within a member state, and if so, why?
Dig deeper
Forsyth, D. R. (2014).Group Dynamics.6th Edition. Wadsworth.
Hogg, M. A. & Abrams, D. (2001). Intergroup Relations: Key Readings in Social Psychology. Routledge.
Turner, R., Crisp, R., Hopthrow, T. & de Moura, R. (2015). Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. Blackwell.
Fact-check
1 The principle researcher involved in the summer camp studies, which studied the roots of intergroup conflict, was:
a Henri Tajfel
b Muzafer Sherif
c Philip Zimbardo
d John Turner
2 The way in which group favouritism could occur simply through mere categorization was studied in the:
a Summer camp studies
b Relative deprivation theory
c Minimal group paradigm
d Realistic group conflict theory
3 One of the criticisms of the minimal group paradigm was:
a Tajfel was not a social psychologist
b The matrices used were invalid
c The effect found could be due to belief similarity and not mere categorization
d They were all valid criticisms
4 The ‘J curve’ is incorporated in which one of the following?
a Relative deprivation theory
b Minimal groups paradigm
c Realistic group conflict theory
d Social identity theory
5 If relative deprivation is experienced compared to a fellow worker, this is referred to as:
a Fraternalistic relative deprivation
b Comparative relative deprivation
c Parallel relative deprivation
d Egoistic relative deprivation
6 Which of the following is more predictive of the occurrence of social unrest?
a Fraternalistic relative deprivation
b Comparative relative deprivation
c Parallel relative deprivation
d Egoistic relative deprivation
7 Which of the following could not be a scarce resource according to realistic group conflict theory?
a Food
b Territory
c Natural resources
d All of the above are, in fact, possible scarce resources
8 Social identity theory suggests that we define ourselves by the groups to which we belong or don’t belong. This is referred to as:
a Self-categorization
b Cross-categorization
c Recategorization
d Decategorization
9 Bringing two groups together to achieve a goal that neither could achieve alone is referred to as:
a Recategorization
b A superordinate goal
c Cross-categorization
d G.R.I.T.
10 The norm of reciprocity plays a key role in which one of the following methods aimed at reducing intergroup conflict?
a Recategorization
b Superordinate goals
c Cross-categorization
d G.R.I.T
15
Social psychology in action
And so we have just about reached the end of our whistle-stop tour through the realms of social psychology. I trust that you have learned lots, and have started to find the subject as fascinating as I have over the past twenty years or so. One message that I have tried to highlight and reiterate throughout the book is that social psychology is a very applied subject: it has the power to impact on the world in very real, and hopefully beneficial, ways. Therefore I just wanted to take a last opportunity to promote this message by taking a very brief look at some additional areas in which social psychology has been shown to have an impact, starting with the legal system.
The legal system
Whilst legal systems may vary across the world, they all have one thing in common – they involve people. And as you know by now, where people are involved, social psychology has much to say. The focus here is on one small aspect of the legal arena, namely the courtroom. In many countries, such as the UK, America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the jury system is used, whereby (usually) twelve good persons and true listen to the facts of a case in court, and then based solely on those facts, they reach a verdict on the guilt or innocence of the defendant – or do they? Well, not according to some social psychological studies.
There has been a lot of research to suggest that when the evidence is weak, many extra-legal factors can bias a jury’s decision. For example, a large body of evidence suggests that there is a real effect (albeit a small one) of the appearance of a defendant on a juror’s decision-making process: the more physically attractive a defendant, the more lenient they are likely to be treated, whether this means being found ‘not guilty’ or being given a shorter sentence. However, it has also been found that this bias might be mitigated by the type of crime committed. For instance, if the crime is one in which the defendant may have used their physical attractiveness to achieve their nefarious ends (such as fraud), then the opposite might happen and they are more likely to be found guilty than innocent, and their punishment will be more severe.
Additionally, the size of the jury has also been found potentially to have an effect on the outcome of a trial. A jury usually comprises twelve people, but in America in the 1970s, it was decided that in order to cut costs, some juries would be reduced to six persons; the assumption was made that twelve- and six-person juries would have functional equivalence (e.g. they would reach the same verdicts). But research suggested that this was not the case: amongst other things, twelve-person juries were found to deliberate longer and were able to recall more of the evidence than six-person juries (which presumably is a good thing), and equally they were more likely to result in a hung jury (which is certainly an important result if you are a defendant). The conclusion drawn by many social psychologists suggested that this cost-cutting exercise was not in the interests of justice.
These two factors alone (interpersonal perception and group dynamics) suggest that social psychology has much to contribute to the functioning of the legal system.
Health
A vast amount of money is spent each year to promote healthy behaviour, whether this involves attempting to get people to stop smoking, increase their condom usage, or to take more exercise. However, trying to change the attitudes and behaviour of the masses is a tricky undertaking and it would be useful to know the most effective form that such a campaign should take. Some recent research, tackling smoking behaviour, pitted a number of different message types against one another in an attempt to answer this question: for example, the researchers used two types of messages that told participants ‘Why’ they should quit (one used emotional testimonies from those who had lost loved ones to smoking-related diseases, and the other used graphic images of what smoking could do to various body parts); one type of message that told participants ‘How’ to quit (including messages about how difficult it was to quit, and examples of people who had quit successfully); and combinations of the two types. Their results suggested that the ‘Why’ to quit advertisements were much more effective in predicting positive attitudes and intention to quit smoking than the ‘How’ to quit message.
Another area which has been investigated is the way in which a social network can have an effect on the health of an individual. There is certainly evidence to suggest that people with larger social networks live longer than those with smaller networks. Similarly, some research has found that getting support from others can have a very real positive effect on our response to disease and illness. For example, women who felt that they were socially connected with others were likely to respond more r
obustly to diagnoses of breast cancer than those who weren’t. In one study, participants with breast cancer were assigned randomly to one of two conditions: those who participated in weekly sessions in therapy groups (comprising other breast cancer patients) which gave emotional support (along with teaching a self-hypnosis strategy for the pain) and those who didn’t. The results showed that women in the support group condition survived on average 18 months longer than those who were not members of a support group.
These two factors (persuasive messages and group membership) also show what social psychology can contribute to the health arena.
Everyday life
Imagine you are opening a new cheese shop – if you were looking to maximize your profits, what would be your best strategy: offering a large range of cheeses or a small range of cheeses? Not sure? Well, turn the problem on its head – imagine you are a shopper, you have a penchant for cheese and you’ve heard that a new cheese shop has opened in town. Do you think you would be more likely to buy from a shop which has a wide selection of cheeses, given that conventional wisdom suggests that having more choice is better, or from a shop which has a narrow selection? Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that social psychologists have investigated this area (well, not cheese specifically) and have an answer for you.
Two researchers conducted an experiment in an existing shop that sold a variety of luxury goods (over 300 types of jam, about 250 mustards, and a wide variety olive oil). They set up a display of jams in front of the shop and allowed customers to taste them: the crucial factor was whether there was a selection of six or 24 jams on display. Anyone taking part in the tasting session was given a money-off voucher that could be used to make jam purchases in the shop (the vouchers were coded to allow the researchers to know in which of the two tasting conditions the participants were involved). Interestingly, they found that, whilst having 24 jams as part of the session drew in more potential tasters, it was the six-jam session that produced more customers in the long-run (about 30 per cent of these customers went on to make a purchase, compared to only 3 per cent of customers in the 24-jam condition). It seems that people can suffer from ‘decision paralysis’ when they have too much of a choice, thus refuting the idea that to have more choice is necessarily better. Social psychologists studying areas such as the self and social cognition have shown that individuals don’t always make rational or optimal decisions, and certainly individuals are not always aware of the basis for the decisions that they make.
There are certainly many, many other studies that could have been included here to illustrate the way in which social psychology impacts on our daily lives. However, the hope is that you have now had your appetite well and truly whetted, and that you will be driven to find these multitude of studies on your own. And who knows, one day you may well be conducting the research that will be used as illustrations of ‘social psychology in action’ in books such as this one.
Dig deeper
Duke, J. C., Nonnemaker, J. M., Davis, K. C., Watson, K. A. & Farrelly, M. C. (2014). ‘The impact of cessation media messages on cessation-related outcomes: Results from a national experiment of smokers’. American Journal of Health Promotion, 28(4), 242–250.
Iyengar, S. S. & Lepper, M. R. (2000). ‘When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 995–1006.
Mazzella, R. & Feingold, A. (1994). ‘The effects of physical attractiveness, race, socio-economic status, and gender of defendants and victims on judgments of mock jurors: A meta-analysis’. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24(15), 1315–1344.
Saks, M. J. & Marti, M. W. (1997). ‘A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Jury Size. Law & Human Behavior, 21(5), 451–467.
Spiegel, D., Bloom, J. R., Kraemer, H. C. & Gottheil, E. (1989). Effects of psychosocial treatment on survival of patients with metastatic breast cancer. Lancet, 2, 888–891.
References
Introduction:
Allport, G. W. (1954a). ‘The historical background of modern social psychology’. In Lindzey, G. (Ed.) Handbook of Social Psychology. 2nd Edition. (Vol. I, pp. 3-56). Addison-Wesley.
Brewer, M. B. & Brown, R. J. (1998). ‘Intergroup relations’. In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) The Handbook of Social Psychology. 4th Edition. (Volume II, pp. 554–594). McGraw-Hill.
Chapter 1
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D. & Brewer, M. B. (1998). ‘Experimentation in social psychology’. In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) The Handbook of Social Psychology. 4th Edition. (Volume I, pp. 94–142). McGraw-Hill.
Chapter 2
Tesser, A. (2001). ‘Self esteem’. In Tesser, A. & Schwarz, N. (Eds.) Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Intraindividual Processes. Blackwell Publishing.
Cortes, K., Kammrath, L. K., Scholer, A. A. & Peetz, J. (2014). ‘Self-regulating the effortful “Social Dos”’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(3), 380–397.
Chapter 3
Choi, I., Nisbett, R. E. & Norenzayan, A. (1999). ‘Causal attribution across cultures. Variation and universality’. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 47–63.
Jones, E. E. & Harris, V. A. (1967). ‘The attribution of attitudes’. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3, 1–24.
Chapter 4
Hamilton, D. l. & Gifford, R. K. (1976). ‘Illusory correlation in interpersonal perception: A cognitive basis of stereotypic judgments’. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 392–407.
Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1972). ‘Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness’. Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430-454.
Chapter 5
Baumeister, R. F. & Leary, M. R. (1995). ‘The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachment as a fundamental human motivation’. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.
Rubin, Z. (1970). ‘Measurement of romantic love’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16(2), 265–273. Sternberg, R. J. (1986). ‘A triangular theory of love’. Psychological Review, 93(2), 119-135.
Chapter 6
Asch, S. E. (1955). ‘Opinions and social pressure’. Scientific American, 193, 31–35.
Milgram, S. (1963). ‘Behavioral study of obedience’. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.
Milgram, S. (1974) Obedience to Authority. Tavistock.
Chapter 7
Eagly, A. H. & Chaiken, S. (1993). The Psychology of Attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Maio, G. R. & Haddock, G. (2010). The Psychology of Attitudes and Attitude Change. Sage.
Smith, M. B., Bruner, J. S. & White, R. W. (1956). Opinions and Personality. Wiley.
Levine, R. (2006). The Power of Persuasion. How We’re Bought and Sold. Oneworld.
Gass, R. H. & Seiter, J. S. (2011). Persuasion: Social Influence and Compliance Gaining. Fourth Edition. Pearson.
Chapter 8
Batson, C. D. (1998). ‘Altruism and prosocial behavior’. In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) The Handbook of Social Psychology. 4th Edition. (Volume II, pp. 282–316). McGraw-Hill.
Eagly, A. H. (2009) ‘The his and hers of prosocial behavior: An examination of the social psychology of gender’. American Psychologist, 64(8), 644–658.
Chapter 9
Baron, R. A. (1977). Human Aggression. Plenum.
Krahe, B. (2013). The Social Psychology of Aggression. Second edition. Psychology Press.
Bushman, B. J. (2002). ‘Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding’. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 724–731.
Chapter 10
Levine, J. M. & Moreland, R. L. (1998). ‘Small Groups’. In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) The Handbook of Social Psychology. 4th Edition. (Volume II, pp. 415–469). McGraw-Hill.
Brown, R. (1999). Group Processes: Dynamics Within and Between Groups. 2nd Edition. Blackwell publishing.
Joh
nson, D. W. & Johnson, F. P. (1987). Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills. 3rd Edition. Prentice Hall.
Miller, D. (2003). ‘The stages of group development. A retrospective study of dynamic team processes’. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 20(2), 121–143.
Chapter 11
Levine, J. M. & Moreland, R. L. (1998). ‘Small Groups’. In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) The Handbook of Social Psychology. 4th Edition. (Volume II, pp. 415–469). McGraw-Hill.
Janis, I. (1982) Groupthink. Houghton Mifflin
Chapter 12
Chemers, M. M. (2001). ‘Leadership effectiveness: An intergrative review’. In Hogg, M. A. & Tindale, R. S. (Eds.) Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Group Processes. Blackwell.
Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D. & Platow, M. J. (2011). The New Psychology of Leadership. Identity, Influence and Power. Psychology Press.
Bass, B. M. (1990). ‘From transactional to transformational leadership: learning to share the vision’. Organizational Dynamics, 18(3), 19–31. Fiedler, F. E. (1964). ‘A contingency model of leadership effectiveness’. In Berkowitz, L. (Ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. I, pp. 149–190). Academic Press.
Chapter 13
Allport, G. W. (1954b). The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley.
Brown, R. (2010). Prejudice: Its Social Psychology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Brewer, M. B. & Brown, R. J. (1998). ‘Intergroup relations’. In Gilbert, D. T., Fiske, S. T. & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) The Handbook of Social Psychology. 4th Edition. (Volume II, pp. 554–594). McGraw-Hill.