SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social psychology is the “scientific study of how individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by other people” (Breckler, Olson, & Wiggins, 2006, p. 5). Issues of interest to social
psychologists include social perception and cognition, social interactions, social influence, and group
processes.

I. SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND COGNITION

Summary of Key Concepts

A. Self-Knowledge: Theories relevant to self-knowledge include the following:

1. Self-Perception Theory: According to Bem’s self-perception theory, when internal cues are weak or

difficult to interpret, people make inferences about their own attitudes and feelings by observing their
own behavior and the situation in which the behavior takes place. Support for self-perception theory has
been provided by Schachter and Singer’s epinephrine studies and research on the overjustification
hypothesis.

2. Self-Verification Theory: Self-verification theory predicts that people seek confirmation of their

self-concept regardless of whether their self-concept is positive or negative.

B. Impression Management: People use several strategies to manage or control the impressions that
others have of them including self-monitoring, which involves adjusting one’s behavior to fit the
situation.

C. Social Judgments: Research has shown that the accuracy of social judgments may be adversely
affected by cognitive errors and biases and reliance on heuristics.

1. Cognitive Errors and Biases: Common cognitive errors and biases include the confirmation bias and
the illusory correlation. The confirmation bias is the tendency to seek and remember information that is
consistent with one’s existing beliefs. It has been used to explain the Barnum effect, the self-fulfilling
prophecy effect, and the results of Rosenhan’s pseudopatient study. The illusory correlation is the
tendency to overestimate the relationship between variables that are unrelated or only slightly related.

2. Heuristics: Kahneman and Tversy distinguished between four heuristics (mental shortcuts) that are

used to quickly form judgments and make decisions – representativeness, availability, simulation, and
anchoring and adjustment.

D. Causal Attributions: Researchers have identified several biases that affect the attributions that people
make about their own behaviors and the behaviors of others. The fundamental attribution bias occurs
when people overestimate the impact of dispositional factors and underestimate the impact of situational
factors when making attributions about the behavior of others. The actor-observer effect not only
predicts that people tend to attribute the behaviors of others to dispositional factors but also that they
attribute their own behaviors to situational factors. The self-serving bias modifies the predictions of the
actor-observer effect by predicting that people attribute their failures to situational factors but their
successes to dispositional factors.

Key Concepts

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Social perception refers to the ways in which people try to make sense of themselves and others. Included
in this category are theories related to self-knowledge, impression management, social judgment, causal
attribution, and impression formation.

A. Self-Knowledge: From the perspective of social psychology, self-knowledge depends, at least in part,

on interactions with other people. Theories relevant to self-knowledge include the following:

1. Self-Perception Theory: According to Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory, when internal cues are

weak or difficult to interpret, people make inferences about their own attitudes and feelings in the same
way they make inferences about the attitudes and feelings of others – that is, people infer what they think
or feel by observing their own behavior and the situation in which the behavior takes place. Support for
self-perception theory was provided by Schachter and Singer’s (1962) “epinephrine studies.” In one
study, subjects were injected with epinephrine (which produces physiological arousal) and assigned to
one of three groups: Subjects in the informed group were told about the effects of the drug in advance;
subjects in the misinformed group were given wrong information about the drug’s effects; and subjects in
the ignorant group were given no information about the drug’s effects. Following the injection, each
subject was asked to wait in a room with a confederate who acted in either a euphoric or angry manner.
Observation of the subjects through a one-way mirror revealed that misinformed subjects and ignorant
subjects were more likely than informed subjects to adopt the affect of the confederate – i.e., misinformed
and ignorant subjects waiting with the angry confederate acted angry and those waiting with the euphoric
confederate acted euphoric. Schachter and Singer concluded that these results support their cognitive-
arousal theory of emotion which proposes that the experience of emotion depends on a combination of
physiological arousal and a cognitive explanation for that arousal. The results also provided support self-
perception theory by showing that subjects looked to the external environment to explain their own
internal state when the situation was ambiguous (when there was no apparent reason for their arousal).

Additional support for self-perception theory was provided by research on the overjustification

hypothesis, which predicts that providing an external reward to people for performing an intrinsically
rewarding activity reduces their intrinsic interest in that activity. In one study, Lepper, Greene, and
Nisbett (1973) observed that a group of preschool children liked to draw with felt-tip markers and then
assigned the children to one of three groups: Children in all three groups were encouraged to draw
pictures using the markers but children in one group were told they would receive a reward for drawing
with the markers and were subsequently given the reward for doing so; children in another group were not
told they would receive a reward but were given a reward for doing so; and children in the third group
were not told about or given the reward. During a subsequent free-play period, children in the expected
reward condition showed less interest in the markers than children in the unexpected reward or no reward
condition. According to self-perception theory, this result was due to the fact that children in the expected
reward condition attributed their use of the markers to the external reward and, consequently, were no
longer interested in using them when the reward was not available. In other words, children in the
expected reward condition concluded that their interest in using the markers was motivated by the
external reward rather than intrinsic interest.

2. Social Comparison Theory: Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) proposes that people learn
about themselves by comparing themselves to others, especially when objective information is not
available. It also predicts that, in most circumstances, people compare themselves to others who are
similar in relevant ways but, in some situations, they make downward comparisons. For instance, when
self-esteem is at stake, people may compare themselves to others who are less successful or less
fortunate. 

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3. Self-Verification Theory: According to self-verification theory (Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989),
people seek confirmation of their self-concept regardless of whether their self-concept is positive or
negative. For example, studies have found that people typically prefer to interact with others who confirm
their self-concept; are more likely to pay attention to, recall, and believe information that is consistent
with their self-concept; and are more satisfied with self-verifying relationships (Ritts & Stein, 1995;
Schafer, Wickrama, & Keith, 1996; Swann, De La Ronde, & Hixon, 1994). Self-verification theory has
important implications for understanding depression: For instance, according to Joiner (2000), the
tendency to verify negative self-views increases vulnerability to and perpetuation of depression.

B. Impression Management: Strategies that people use to manage or control the impressions that others
have of them include the following:

1. Self-Promotion: Self-promotion involves conveying positive information to others through one’s

actions or statements – e.g., by displaying awards or plaques for others to see or by telling people about
one’s accomplishments

2. Self-Monitoring: Self-monitoring (Snyder, 1987) is the tendency to monitor and adjust one’s

behavior to fit the situation. People who are high in self-monitoring are concerned about what other
people think of them. They are exceptionally good at determining what behaviors and opinions are
socially desirable or expected in a situation and at concealing their true feelings and opinions. In contrast,
people low in self-monitoring are guided by their own beliefs, values, and feelings and, as a result, act
similarly in different situations.

3. Self-Handicapping: Self-handicapping involves purposely sabotaging one’s performance in order to

“save face” – i.e., to provide an excuse for one’s failures. For instance, a student might put off studying
for an important test so that he or she can attribute poor performance to a lack of preparation rather than a
lack of ability.

C. Social Judgments: Social judgments are judgments that people make about themselves and others.
Their accuracy may be affected by cognitive errors and biases and reliance on heuristics.

1. Cognitive Errors and Biases: Researchers have identified a number of cognitive errors and biases that
impact social judgments. 

 Confirmation Bias: The confirmation bias is the tendency to seek, interpret, and

remember information that verifies (and thereby strengthens) one’s existing beliefs. The
results of Rosenhan’s (1973) pseudopatient study can be viewed as an example of the
confirmation bias. In that study, eight confederates admitted themselves to mental hospitals
with the complaint that they were hearing voices. However, once admitted, these
“pseudopatients” acted normally. Many of the actual patients recognized that the
pseudopatients were not mentally ill, but the psychiatrists and staff members did not. For
instance, after observing a pseudopatient take notes for the study, one staff member wrote
that the pseudopatient was engaged in “pathological writing behavior.” Other studies have
shown that the confirmation bias can be so strong that it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy
effect – that is, a person’s expectations about the behavior of others can lead to fulfillment
of those expectations. For example, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) told elementary school
teachers that certain students (who were actually randomly selected) were on the verge of an
intellectual growth spurt. Eight months later, the researchers found that only the
“intellectual bloomers” had significant gains in IQ scores, apparently because their teachers

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had treated them differently. Finally, the confirmation bias has been used to explain
the Barnum effect, which is the tendency to accept vague descriptions of oneself (e.g.,
horoscopes and psychic readings) as accurate. 
 False Consensus Bias: The false consensus bias is the tendency to overestimate the degree
to which others are similar to us in terms of their beliefs and behaviors. This bias was
demonstrated in a study conducted by Ross, Greene, and House (1977) who asked student
participants if they would be willing to walk around campus for 30 minutes wearing a
sandwich board advertising a cafeteria. After getting each student participant’s answer, the
student was asked to estimate how many other students would make the same choice, and
the majority of both groups of students (those who said either yes or no) predicted that other
students would make the same decision they did.
 Illusory Correlation: Illusory correlation is the tendency to overestimate the relationship
between events or other variables that are unrelated or only slightly related. It has been
attributed to the tendency to remember the times when events co-occurred (e.g., to
remember the times when friends called just as we were thinking about them) but to forget
the times when they did not co-occur.
 Gambler’s Fallacy: The gambler’s fallacy is the false belief that the likelihood of a random
event is affected by or can be predicted from previous independent events. Believing that
the probability of landing on black on the roulette wheel is greater than the probability of
landing on red after a long run of red is an example of the gambler’s fallacy. 

2. Heuristics: Heuristics are mental shortcuts that people use to quickly form judgments or make
decisions. Although use of a heuristic often results in accurate judgments and decisions, it can also lead to
errors. Frequently used heuristics include the following (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, 1984):

 Representativeness Heuristic: The representativeness heuristic involves judging the

likelihood of an event based on its resemblance to the typical case rather than on base rate
information. As an example, if you’re told that a woman is timid and withdrawn, is helpful
but not very interested in people, prefers order and structure, and is very detail-oriented,
you’re more likely to conclude that she’s a librarian than a salesperson even though you
have very little information about her and the number of salespeople in the population is
much larger than the number of librarians.
 Availability Heuristic: The availability heuristic involves judging the likelihood of an
event based on how easy it is to recall information about the event. In one study, Tversky
and Kahneman (1973) asked subjects if there are more words that begin with the letter “r”
or words that have “r” as the third letter. The majority of subjects chose the former even
though there are actually more words that have “r” as the third letter. According to these
investigators, the subjects made an incorrect choice because it was easier for them to recall
words that begin with the letter “r.”
 Simulation Heuristic: The simulation heuristic involves judging the likelihood of an event
based on how easy it is to mentally simulate (imagine) the event. The effects of the
simulation heuristic were demonstrated by Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich (1995), who
found that Olympic athletes who had won the silver medal were less happy about their win
than athletes who had won the bronze medal, apparently because it was easier for silver
medalists to imagine they could have won a gold medal.
 Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: The anchoring and adjustment heuristic involves
identifying an initial starting point (the anchor) and then making adjustments up and down
from that point when estimating a frequency or other quantity. The accuracy or usefulness
of this heuristic depends on the validity of the anchor. For instance, Epley and Gilovich

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(2002) asked subjects to identify the temperature at which vodka freezes. Most subjects
chose 32 degrees Fahrenheit (the temperature at which water freezes) as their anchor and
adjusted downward because they knew that alcohol freezes at a lower temperature than
water. The average temperature identified by subjects was 1.75 degrees but the actual
temperature is -20 degrees. In this situation, the subjects’ anchor was considerably above the
actual temperature and, as a result, their estimates were too high.

D. Causal Attributions: Causal attributions are a specific type of social judgment that involves
determining the cause of behavior.

1. Attribution Dimensions: The attributions that people make can be described in terms of three
dimensions – locus (internal or external), stability (stable or unstable), and scope (global or specific). As
an example, Tavris and Aronson (2007) concluded that happy and unhappy couples differ in terms of
their attribution styles: Happy couples tend to make relationship-enhancing attributions – i.e., they
attribute a partner’s positive actions to internal, stable, and global factors (“She got me a great birthday
gift because she’s a considerate person who always remembers that birthdays are important”) but attribute
a partner’s negative actions to external, unstable, and specific factors (“She yelled at me because she’s
had a lot of stress at work lately that has made her irritable”). In contrast, unhappy couples
make relationship-diminishing attributions – i.e., they attribute a partner’s positive actions to external,
stable, and specific factors (“He remembers to buy me gifts for my birthday and Valentine’s Day only
because the kids always remind him to”) but attribute a partner’s negative actions to internal, stable, and
global factors (“He yelled at me because he’s an ornery person who only cares about himself”).

2. Attribution Biases: Social psychologists have identified several biases that affect the attributions that
people make about their own behaviors and the behaviors of others.

 Fundamental Attribution Error: When people attempt to explain or understand the

behavior of others, they often commit the fundamental attribution error – that is, they
underestimate the impact of situational (external) factors and overestimate the role of
dispositional (internal) factors. This error was initially described in a study conducted by
Jones and Harris (1967), who had subjects read a speech that was presumably written by
another student and either favored or opposed Fidel Castro. Some subjects were told that the
writer had freely chosen to take a position for the speech, while others were told the writer
was assigned a position by the instructor. After reading the speech, each subject was asked
about the writer’s true attitude toward Castro. As predicted, the majority of subjects
attributed the content of the speech to the writer’s actual attitude, even when they knew the
writer had no choice about which position to take. 
 Actor-Observer Effect: People are likely to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional
factors but often attribute their own behavior to situational factors. This discrepancy is
known as the actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1972). In one study, Saulnier and
Perlman (1981) asked prison inmates and their counselors to explain why inmates had
committed their crimes. While prisoners often cited transient situational factors (e.g., “I just
lost my job and needed the money”), counselors usually cited enduring personal
characteristics (e.g., “He’s basically dishonest”).
 Self-Serving Bias: There is an exception to the actor-observer effect that applies when
people make attributions about their own behavior. This exception is referred to as the self-
serving bias (Miller & Ross, 1975), which predicts that people tend to attribute their
failures to situational factors but their successes to dispositional factors. For instance, when
a student passes an important exam, he or she is more likely to say “I passed because I

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studied for a long time” than “I passed because the test was easy.” However, when a student
fails an exam, he or she is more likely to say “I failed because that test was really hard and
asked about things the instructor didn’t cover in class” than to say “I failed because I didn’t
study hard enough.” Note that there’s some evidence that the self-serving bias does not
apply to people who are depressed or have low self-esteem: These individuals tend to blame
themselves for failures and attribute their successes to external factors.

E. Impression Formation: Impression formation is the process of integrating information about a person

to form an overall impression. The research has identified the following factors as influences on
impression formation: 

1. Central Traits: Asch (1946) found that some traits have a greater impact than others on impression
formation, and he referred to these influential traits as “central traits.” In one study, Asch had one group
of subjects read a description of an individual that contained seven traits including “cold,” and another
group of subjects read the same description except “warm” was substituted for “cold.” Subjects perceived
the “warm” person more positively than the “cold” person, presumably because “warm” and “cold”
provide unique information about a person and are associated with many other characteristics.

2. Primacy Effect: When evaluating others, information presented first usually has the greatest impact on
impression formation, even when contradictory information is presented later (Asch, 1946; Lord, Ross, &
Lepper, 1979). This is known as the primacy effect. For example, Asch had one group of subjects read a
list that described a person as being “intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious”
and another group read the same list but in reverse order. Subjects who read the first list formed a more
favorable impression of the person than those who read the second list.

3. Trait Negativity Bias: When evaluating others, people often weigh negative information more heavily
than positive information. This bias has been confirmed in studies of American political campaigns that
have found that public opinion is shaped more by negative information about candidates than by positive
information (e.g., Klein, 1991).

II. SOCIAL INTERACTION: AFFILIATION, ATTRACTION, ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS,

AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Summary of Key Concepts

A. Affiliation: Several factors have been found to influence the need to affiliate. Schachter, for instance,
found a relationship between anxiety and affiliation. The results of his research indicated that high levels
of anxiety in research subjects increased their desire to wait for an experiment to begin with another high-
anxiety subject. Based on these results, Schachter concluded that “misery loves miserable company.”

B. Attraction: Attraction to another person is also affected by a number of factors. For example, the
studies have found that physical proximity increases attraction; and, according to the mere exposure
effect, this is because repeated contact with someone leads to a sense of familiarity which, in turn,
increases attraction. We’re also likely to be attracted to people who like us. However, gain-loss
theory predicts that we’re most attracted to people who start off by disliking us but then gradually change
their minds.

C. Romantic Relationships: The results of research on factors that affect romantic relationships include
the following:

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1. Maintenance of Romantic Relationships: Social exchange theory predicts that a romantic
relationship will continue as long as both partners believe the benefits of the relationship exceed its
costs. Equity theory also considers the benefits and costs of a relationship but does so in a different way
and predicts that a person is more likely to maintain a close relationship when the person believes that his
or her input-outcome ratio is similar to the input-outcome ratio of his or her partner.

2. Emotional Experience in Romantic Relationships: According to Berscheid’s emotion-in-

relationships model, a person experiences strong emotions in a close relationship when his or her
partner’s actions violate the person’s expectations and affect progress toward achieving an important
goal.

3. Divorce: Gottman and Levenson identified four types of negativity that are highly predictive of
divorce, which they refer to as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – i.e., criticism, defensiveness,
contempt, and stonewalling.

D. Prosocial Behavior: Some researchers interested in prosocial behavior have investigated factors that
contribute to a bystander’s willingness to help a victim in an emergency situation. Latane and Darley
found that a victim is most likely to receive help when there is only one bystander. They also proposed
that bystander apathy is attributable to three factors – diffusion of responsibility, social comparison, and
evaluation apprehension.

Key Concepts

A. Affiliation: Affiliation refers to the desire to associate with others and is considered to be a

fundamental motive or need. According to evolutionary psychologists, affiliation is an innate tendency
that helps people survive and reproduce by, for instance, providing them with support in times of danger.
The research has found that the need to affiliate is affected by several factors:

1. Anxiety: Schachter (1959) conducted a series of studies to evaluate the relationship between anxiety

and affiliation. In an initial study, student volunteers for an experiment were told they would receive
either painful electric shock as part of the experiment (high-anxiety) or mild shock that would not be
painful (low-anxiety) and were then asked whether they preferred to wait alone for the experiment to
begin or wait with another participant. As predicted, high-anxiety subjects were more likely than low-
anxiety subjects to say they preferred to wait with another subject. In a subsequent study, high-anxiety
subjects were told they could wait either with a subject who was participating in the same experiment or
with a person who was not participating in a study. In this situation, the majority of subjects said they
preferred to wait with another subject. Based on these findings, Schachter concluded that “misery does
not love just any kind of company, it loves only miserable company”(p. 24).

Schachter attributed the desire to affiliate in anxiety-arousing situations to a need for social comparison,
but the results of subsequent research suggest that it may be due to a need for cognitive clarity. Kulik and
Mahler (1989), for example, found that patients about to undergo coronary by-pass surgery said they’d
prefer to share a room with a postoperative patient than a preoperative patient, presumably because the
postoperative patient would help lower their anxiety by providing them with information about the
procedure.

2. Personality: The need for affiliation has been linked to several personality traits including
extroversion/introversion. The studies have found that extroverts are more likely than introverts to seek
affiliation with others and that this may be due to different levels of cortical arousal: Extroverts tend to

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have a low arousal level and seek social interaction to increase their arousal to an optimal level, while
introverts have a high arousal level and avoid social interactions to maintain a comfortable level of
arousal (Johnson et al., 1999).

3. Gender: Some consistent gender differences in affiliation have been identified. For example, among
both children and young adults, females tend to prefer to affiliate in dyads (with one other person), but
males prefer to affiliate in larger groups. One explanation for this difference is that women are more
concerned about intimacy in their relations with others, while men are more interested in power (Reis &
Sprecher, 2009).

B. Attraction: Interpersonal attraction refers to the tendency to evaluate another person in a positive or

negative way. Factors that affect attraction include the following:

1. Physical Proximity: Other things being equal, people tend to like others who are in close physical
proximity. For instance, studies of friendships in college housing units found that friendship patterns were
strongly influenced by the location of apartments or dorm rooms, with students living closer to one
another being more likely to become friends (Newcomb, 1961). According to Zajonc (2001), this is due to
the mere exposure effect, which predicts that repeated contact with someone is sufficient to increase
attraction, perhaps because the contact leads to a sense of familiarity and safety. Note, however, that
repeated contact can lead to dislike and contempt rather than attraction when initial contacts are
unpleasant.

2. Similarity: The commonly held belief that “opposites attract” has not received much research support.
Instead, the studies have more consistently confirmed that “birds of a feather flock together.” In other
words, people generally like others who are similar to themselves in terms of demographic characteristics,
attitudes, and other important characteristics (Brehm & Kassin, 1990).  

3. Competence: Not surprisingly, we tend to be attracted to people who are competent. However, there is
some evidence that we’re most attracted to competent people when they occasionally commit a small
blunder, apparently because doing so “humanizes” them and makes them seem more approachable
(Aronson, Willerman, & Floyd, 1966).

4. Reciprocity: All other things being equal, we tend to like others who like us. However, this effect is
moderated by a number of factors. For instance, we’re more likely to be attracted to people who are
moderately selective rather than nonselective or overly selective in terms of their liking for others.
Also, gain-loss theory (Aronson & Linder, 1965) predicts that evaluations that change over time have a
stronger impact on liking than do evaluations that are consistently positive or negative – e.g., we’re most
attracted to people who start off by disliking us but then gradually change their minds.

5. Physical Attractiveness: People tend to be attracted to and react more favorably to others who are
physically attractive (Berscheid & Walster, 1978) and this tendency begins early. For example, attractive
children are usually more popular with their peers than unattractive children are. The preference for
physically attractive people has been attributed to the “what-is-beautiful-is-good” stereotype – i.e., to the
belief that physically attractive people possess a variety of other desirable characteristics (Dion et al.,
1972).

C. Romantic Relationships: A number of researchers interested in interpersonal attraction have focused

on romantic relationships. The results of some of their studies are summarized below:

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1. Attraction to a Romantic Partner: The research has consistently found differences in the
characteristics that attract males and females to romantic partners. For men, physical attractiveness is a
priority in choosing a mate; while, for women, physical appearance is often less important than status and
resources. From the perspective of evolutionary theory, this difference is attributable to the mechanisms
of natural selection: A woman’s physical attractiveness is a priority for men because it is associated with
youth, health, and fertility. In contrast, sufficient resources are a priority for women because they help
ensure that women and their offspring will be adequately protected and cared for (Buss, 2003; Kenrick et
al., 2001).

2. Maintenance of Romantic Relationships: Social exchange theory and equity theory have been used
to explain the maintenance of romantic and other close relationships:

 Social exchange theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) predicts that a relationship will continue
as long as both partners believe that the benefits of the relationship exceed its costs. Support
for this theory is provided by research finding that dating couples who experience a large
increase in rewards as their relationship progresses are more likely to stay in the relationship
than are couples who experience a small increase or a decrease in rewards (Berg &
McQuinn, 1986). 
 Equity theory also considers the benefits and costs of a relationship but does so in a
different way (e.g., Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978). It predicts that a person is more
likely to be satisfied with a close relationship and to maintain it when the person believes
that his or her input-outcome ratio is similar to the input-outcome ratio of his or her partner.
In other words, equity theory focuses on fairness in relationships as determined by the
relative contributions and outcomes of the partners.

3. Emotional Experience in Romantic Relationships: The strongest emotions that people experience

are often elicited in the context of a close relationship, and the emotion-in-relationships
model (Berscheid, 1983; Berscheid & Ammazzalorso, 2001) proposes that a person experiences strong
emotions within a relationship when his or her partner’s actions violate the person’s expectations and
affect progress toward achieving an important goal. When the partner’s violation facilitates progress
toward a goal, a person experiences positive emotions, but when the violation hinders progress, a person
experiences negative emotions. As an example, learning that one’s partner is having an affair not only
disrupts the current relationship but may also interfere with future plans and, as a result, elicits strong
negative emotions. Berscheid’s model also predicts that strong positive emotions are more likely to occur
in the early stages of a relationship when each partner’s positive actions are still surprising. However,
over time, these same actions become expected and predictable and, therefore, are less likely to elicit a
strong positive response.  

4. Divorce: A number of factors have been identified as risk factors for divorce including a couple’s
interaction patterns. For example, according to Gottman and Levenson (1992, 2000), the ratio of positive
to negative interactions is a good predictor of the stability of a relationship. They found that, during
conflict and problem-solving discussions, couples in a stable relationship have about five positive
interactions for every one negative interaction, while couples in an unstable relationship that is likely to
end in divorce have about an equal number of positive and negative interactions. These investigators also
identified four types of negativity that are highly predictive of divorce, which they refer to as the “Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse”: criticism (statements that attack the partner’s character), defensiveness
(denial of responsibility for problems), contempt (statements that express superiority and communicate
disgust and disrespect), and stonewalling (emotional withdrawal from interactions). Of these, contempt is
the single best predictor of divorce and is rarely expressed by partners in a successful relationship. 

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D. Prosocial Behavior: Prosocial behaviors are “actions intended to benefit one or more people other
than oneself” (Batson, 1998, p. 282) and include helping and cooperation. Several theories provide
explanations for the willingness of people to engage in prosocial behaviors:

 The social norms explanation focuses on norms that motivate helping behaviors. For example, the
reciprocity norm requires people to help others who have helped or are likely to help them in the
future, while the social responsibility norm requires people to help others in need of assistance
even when there’s no expectation that those individuals will ever help them. 
 According to social learning theory, prosocial behaviors (like other behaviors) are learned by
observing the behavior of others. 
 Evolutionary theory attributes prosocial behaviors to natural selection and proposes that “social
behaviors that contribute to the survival of a species are passed on via the genes from one
generation to the next” (Lefton, 2000, p. 477).

1. Helping: Some of the best-known research on helping has identified factors that contribute to
bystander intervention, and much of this research was conducted following the 1964 case of Kitty
Genovese who was brutally attacked and murdered in New York while at least 38 neighbors heard her
screams but did nothing to help. A number of studies were conducted to determine why no one called the
police or took other steps to help. Based on the results of their research, Latane and Darley (1968)
concluded that a victim is most likely to receive help when there is only one bystander and that, the
greater the number of bystanders, the less likely the victim will be helped. These investigators also
attributed bystander apathy to three factors:  

 Diffusion of Responsibility: A bystander may not feel responsible to help because he or she
assumes that other bystanders will do so.
 Social Comparison: When the situation is ambiguous, a bystander may look to others for
cues indicating the proper behavior. If others are not helping, the bystander may conclude
that the situation is not an emergency and that help is not needed.
 Evaluation Apprehension: A bystander may fear that taking action will be embarrassing or
lead to social disapproval if that action is inappropriate.  

Other researchers identified a number of factors that increase the likelihood that a bystander will help a
victim in an emergency situation. Their studies found that a bystander is most likely to help when (a) the
victim is obviously in distress; (b) the bystander believes he or she has the competence to provide help;
(c) another person has already intervened; and (d) the situation occurs in a rural rather than urban
environment. With regard to the latter, Milgram (1970) proposed that this is because urban dwellers
experience “stimulus overload” from being constantly bombarded by sights and sounds and,
consequently, may tune out the environment to prevent themselves from being overwhelmed.

2. Cooperation: Some investigators interested in cooperation have focused on factors that affect

willingness to cooperate in situations that involve a social dilemma – i.e., a situation in which each person
can maximize his or her own positive outcomes by acting selfishly but, if all individuals do the same
thing, positive outcomes are reduced for everyone. Many of their studies have used a non-zero-sum game,
in which one player’s win does not necessarily result in another player’s loss. An example is the
prisoner’s dilemma game, which requires each player to decide whether or not to cooperate with another
player. When playing this game, pairs of players (subjects) role-play being suspects in a crime and are
interrogated separately by a “district attorney” who offers two alternatives – to confess to the crime or to
remain silent. Each player is told that, if both players remain silent, only minor charges will be brought
against them. However, if one player confesses and the other remains silent, the confessor will receive

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immunity from punishment and the silent player will get a severe sentence; or, if both players confess,
they will both get severe sentences. The optimal strategy is for both players to cooperate and remain
silent. Research using the prisoner’s dilemma game has identified several factors that affect the likelihood
that players will cooperate. For example, players are more likely to use a cooperative strategy (to remain
silent) when they’re able to communicate with each other before the game, when the importance of
cooperation is emphasized at the beginning of the game, and when players play the game repeatedly (e.g.,
Sally, 1995; Yao & Darwen, 1994).

III. SOCIAL INTERACTION: AGGRESSION AND PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

Summary of Key Concepts

A. Theories of Aggression: The original frustration-aggression hypothesis predicts that frustration

always leads to aggression and aggression is always preceded by frustration, but a revised version
proposes that frustration leads to aggression only in the presence of aggressive cues. According to social
learning theory, people acquire aggressive behaviors through observational learning.

B. Factors That Affect Aggression: Deindividuation and assigned roles are two factors that have been
linked to aggressive behavior. Deindividuation occurs when people can act anonymously because they
are part of a crowd or are wearing a disguise. The impact of social roles on behavior was demonstrated in
Zimbardo’s prison study in which subjects assigned the role of prison guard quickly became aggressive
and hostile toward prisoners while those assigned the role of prisoner became submissive. 

C. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination: Theories of prejudice and discrimination include social

identity theory, which views prejudice as a means of maintaining self-esteem through favoritism toward
in-groups and derogation of out-groups, and realistic group conflict theory, which views prejudice as the
result of competition between groups for scarce resources. Sherif’s Robber’s Cave study provided
empirical support for realistic group conflict theory and for the effectiveness of superordinate goals for
reducing conflict. 

D. Racism and Sexism: The research has found that “old-fashioned” (blatant) racism has been largely
replaced by contemporary (more subtle) forms. Contemporary forms of racism include aversive racism,
symbolic racism, and ambivalent racism. Sexism, like racism, takes several forms. For example, Swim et
al. distinguish between old-fashioned and modern sexism, and Glick and Fiske have found that many men
exhibit ambivalent sexism, which combines hostile and benevolent forms of sexism.

E. Methods for Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination: The contact hypothesis predicts that

prejudice is reduced when contact between members of hostile groups occurs under optimal conditions
(e.g., when members of the two groups have equal status and are provided with opportunities to work
together to achieve mutual goals). The effectiveness of superordinate goals for reducing prejudice was
demonstrated by research evaluating the effects of the jigsaw classroom.

Key Concepts

A. Theories of Aggression: Aggression refers to “physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm”

(Myers, 2008, p. 345). The frustration-aggression hypothesis and social learning theory are commonly
cited theories of aggression:

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1. Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: Dollard et al. (1939) defined frustration as the result of
interference with attainment of an important goal and proposed that frustration always leads to aggression
and that aggression is always preceded by frustration. Their original frustration-aggression
hypothesis has been modified several times. Miller (1941) proposed that frustration may lead to a number
of responses, only one of which is aggression; and Berkowitz (1971) concluded that frustration creates a
readiness to act aggressively by eliciting feelings of anger or hostility but that aggression occurs only in
the presence of an aggressive cue. For example, Berkowitz and LePage (1967) found that frustrated
research subjects delivered more electric shocks to a confederate in the presence of an aggressive cue
(firearm) than in the presence of a neutral cue (badminton racket) or no cue.

2. Social Learning Theory: Social learning theory predicts that people acquire aggressive behaviors in
the same way they acquire other behaviors – i.e., through observational learning. Bandura’s “Bobo doll”
studies (Bandura et al., 1963) were among the first investigations of the effects of observational learning
on aggression. In one study, three groups of children watched one of three films: In the reward film, an
adult model acted aggressively toward the doll and was rewarded for doing so; in the punishment film, the
model acted aggressively and was punished for doing so; and in the no consequence film, the model acted
aggressively but was neither rewarded nor punished. After watching the film, each child was observed
while alone in a room with the Bobo doll. Bandura and his colleagues found that children who watched
the reward or no consequence film were more likely to imitate the aggressive behavior of the model than
were children who watched the punishment film. However, when children were subsequently offered a
reward for acting aggressively, children in all three groups exhibited aggressive behaviors similar to those
of the model, suggesting that a reward is more important for performing a behavior than it is for learning
the behavior. Other studies have found that children are more likely to imitate an adult model when the
model is the same gender as the child and when the child likes or respects the model (e.g., Bandura, Ross,
& Ross, 1961).

The link between observational learning and aggression has been supported by research on the effects of
exposure to movie, television, and video game violence and has been confirmed by both short-term
laboratory studies and longitudinal studies that followed individuals from childhood to adolescence or
early adulthood (Anderson et al., 2004; Bartholow, Sestir, & Davis, 2005; Huesmann et al., 2003).
According to Anderson and Bushman (2002), repeated exposure to media violence creates a hostile
expectation bias (an expectation that others are likely to act aggressively), which causes viewers to act
more aggressively themselves. There is also evidence that exposure to violent pornography increases
acceptance of negative myths about rape by both male and female viewers and may increase the
willingness of male viewers to act aggressively toward women (Malamuth & Brown, 1994; Malamuth &
Check, 1985). 

B. Factors That Affect Aggression: Researchers have identified a number of factors that increase or
decrease aggressive behavior.

1. Deindividuation: People are more likely to act in uncharacteristic ways (including more aggressively)
when they can act anonymously because they’re part of a crowd or are wearing a mask or disguise. The
research suggests that this is due to deindividuation, which involves a loss of a sense of self-awareness
that leads to decreased ability to monitor and regulate one’s own behavior, reduced ability to think
rationally, and loosening of constraints against acting in deviant ways (Diener, 1980; Zimbardo, 1970).

2. Social Roles: Zimbardo’s prison study (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973) demonstrated that social
roles can have a powerful effect on aggressive behavior. In that study, 21 emotionally stable male
volunteers, ages 17 to 32, were randomly assigned to play the role of prisoner or prison guard. The
prisoners were “arrested” by local police and taken to a “prison” in the basement of Stanford University’s

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psychology building. Prison guards were on eight-hour shifts, while prisoners remained in the prison
throughout the experiment. Guards quickly became cruel and abusive toward the prisoners, and prisoners
were initially rebellious but soon became helpless and submissive. The behaviors of the guards and
prisoners became so extreme that Zimbardo decided to terminate the planned 14-day experiment after
only six days.

3. Gender: A consistent finding of the research is that males are more aggressive than females, with the
gender difference being greater for physical aggression than verbal aggression (e.g., Eagly & Steffan,
1986). However, females often exhibit more indirect forms of aggression. For instance, females are more
likely than males to engage in relational aggression, which involves harming a person’s relationships by,
for example, saying negative things about the person or excluding the person from desired activities
(Crick & Rose, 2000; Huesmann et al., 2003). 

4. Catharsis: According to the catharsis hypothesis, performing or witnessing an aggressive act can

reduce a person’s inclination to engage in future aggressive acts. This theory has not been supported by
research, however, which has found that engaging in, watching, or reading about aggressive acts is more
likely to increase aggressiveness than reduce it (Bushman, 2002).

5. Temperature: A number of studies have confirmed that there is a relationship between temperature
and aggression, with higher temperatures being linked to increased rates of assaults, murders, rapes, and
domestic violence (Anderson & Anderson, 1984; Cohn, 1993; Harries & Stadler, 1983). However, this
relationship does not necessarily apply to extremely high temperatures: Rotton and Cohn (2000), for
example, found a curvilinear relationship between temperature and assaults, with increasing temperature
being associated with an increasing number of assaults up to a temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit but
with decreasing assaults at higher temperatures. 

C. Theories of Prejudice and Discrimination: Prejudice refers to negative attitudes and feelings toward

people based solely on their membership in a particular group, while discrimination refers to negative
actions directed toward people due to their group membership. Prejudice and discrimination are often
supported by stereotypes, which are beliefs about members of a group that are overgeneralized,
inaccurate, and/or resistant to change. Theories about the origins of prejudice and discrimination include
the following:

1. The Authoritarian Personality: After World War II, Adorno and his colleagues (1950) studied
individuals who were anti-Semitic and prone to other forms prejudice and identified the authoritarian
personality, which is characterized by a high degree of conventionality, rigidity in thinking,
submissiveness to authority, and intolerance of difference. These investigators also developed the F
(Fascism) Scale to measure characteristics associated with the authoritarian personality, and research has
confirmed that F-Scale scores correlate with ethnic and racial prejudice. 

2. Social Identity Theory: Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982) is based on the premise that people seek
to maintain and enhance their self-esteem, which is affected not only by their personal identity but also
their social identities. Social identities are based on the groups that people belong to (in-groups); and,
according to this theory, people enhance their self-esteem by viewing in-groups in positive ways and
relevant out-groups in negative ways, which can lead to prejudice and discrimination against members of
the out-groups.

3. Realistic Group Conflict Theory: Realistic group conflict theory (Levine & Campbell, 1972)
describes prejudice as the result of competition between groups for scarce resources that group members

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need or desire. One of the first studies to provide empirical support for this theory was Sherif’s
(1966) Robber’s Cave study. In that study, 11- and 12-year-old boys attending a summer camp were
divided into two groups and assigned to cabins in different areas of the park, and members of each group
were given tasks designed to increase group cohesiveness. The two groups then met and competed for
valued prizes in a number of activities and quickly became very competitive and hostile. Sherif and his
colleagues used a number of techniques to attempt to reduce the conflict between the groups, and the
technique that worked best was the introduction of superordinate goals that could be accomplished only
when the groups worked together cooperatively. 

D. Racism and Sexism: The terms racism, sexism, and other “isms” are used to describe a combination
of prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviors toward members of specific groups.

1. Racism: Opinion polls, social psychology research, and legislation suggest that racism in the United
States has been declining for several decades. However, a number of investigators have pointed out that,
while “old-fashioned” blatant forms of racism have declined, racism continues in contemporary, more
subtle forms. Contemporary forms of racism have been described in various ways, including the
following:

 Aversive racism (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986) is characterized by a combination of a belief in

egalitarianism and unacknowledged negative feelings toward members of minority groups.
People exhibiting aversive racism deny being prejudiced but avoid interacting with minority
group members.
 Symbolic racism (Sears, 1988) combines negative racial affect with the belief that members
of racial minority groups (especially African Americans) violate traditional conservative
values such as individual responsibility and self-reliance. People exhibiting symbolic racism
reject overt forms of discrimination but do not support such policies as affirmative action
and welfare.
 Individuals exhibiting ambivalent racism (Hass et al., 1991) are not overtly prejudiced and
recognize that there are racial inequalities. However, they also believe in meritocracy and,
consequently, are willing to accept different outcomes for members of majority and
minority groups because they believe that outcomes are due to differences in taking
advantage of available opportunities.

2. Sexism: The research suggests that sexism, like racism, takes several forms. Swim and her colleagues
(2001) distinguish between old-fashioned sexism and modern sexism: Individuals exhibiting old-
fashioned sexism believe that women are inherently inferior to men and support traditional gender roles,
while those exhibiting modern sexism believe that women are no longer discriminated against and resent
women’s demands for special treatment. Also, Glick and Fiske (2001) propose that many men
exhibit ambivalent sexism which combines hostile and benevolent sexism. Both types help maintain
gender inequality, but hostile sexism is characterized by a negative view and resentment of women as
opponents who try to deceive and control men while benevolent sexism is characterized by a more
positive but patronizing view of women as being in need of protection and deserving of adoration.
Although these two types of sexism appear to present dissimilar views of women, they are positively
correlated – i.e., strong endorsement of one type is often associated with strong endorsement of the other
type.

Sexism is supported by gender stereotypes, and the research has confirmed that these stereotypes begin
being applied very early in children’s lives. For example, Rubin et al. (1974) interviewed the parents of
15 girls and 15 boys within 24 hours after their birth. Although female and male newborns had been

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matched in terms of size, weight, and level of activity, the parents of girls used terms like small, delicate,
quiet, and soft to describe their children, while the parents of boys used terms like large, strong, active,
and alert. Other research investigating the effects of gender stereotypes has found the following: 

 Men are generally viewed as more competent by both men and women. In one study
(Goldberg, 1968), female college students were asked to evaluate the content and writing
style of professional articles. When the material was supposedly written by “John McKay,”
it received higher overall ratings than when it was supposedly written by “Joan McKay.” 
 Males and females both tend to devalue the performance of women who engage in tasks
usually performed by men and attribute the achievement of women on those tasks to luck
rather than ability (Deaux & Emswiller, 1974).
 Male and female mental health professionals use similar adjectives when asked to describe
“a healthy adult” and “a healthy male” but use different and less positive adjectives to
describe “a healthy female” (Broverman et al., 1970).

A number of studies have been conducted to investigate the veracity of gender stereotypes, and the
generally accepted conclusion is that there are some consistent gender differences in behavior (e.g.,
Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Spence, 1985). For instance, men are somewhat more aggressive, competitive,
and task-focused than women, while women are somewhat more sensitive, cooperative, and people-
focused. However, many gender stereotypes are exaggerations of differences between men and women or
do not reflect actual differences.

E. Methods for Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination: Intergroup contact and superordinate goals
have been identified as useful strategies for reducing prejudice and discrimination.

1. Intergroup Contact: The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew, 1971) proposes that direct

contact between members of hostile groups can reduce prejudice and discrimination as long as the contact
occurs under the following conditions: (a) Contact includes interactions between individual members of
the groups; (b) members of the groups have equal status; (c) opportunities are provided for the groups to
work together to achieve mutual goals; and (d) cooperation and equality are supported by social norms
and/or authority figures. 

2. Superordinate Goals: Superordinate goals were identified as an effective way to reduce intergroup
conflict in the Robber’s Cave study and were subsequently applied to other situations. For example,
Aronson (1978) developed a cooperative learning strategy (the jigsaw classroom) that required students
in newly desegregated schools to work together on an assignment by dividing students in each classroom
into groups, dividing the material to be learned into subtopics, and having each student in each group be
responsible for learning one subtopic and teaching it to the other students. Aronson found that, compared
to students in traditional classrooms, students in jigsaw classrooms were less prejudiced, liked school
more, and had higher self-esteem. In addition, the academic achievement test scores of minority students
improved in the jigsaw classroom while the scores of White students remained about the same.

IV. SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Summary of Key Concepts

A. Conformity and Compliance: Researchers interested in social influence distinguish between

conformity and compliance.

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1. Conformity to Group Norms: Two of the earliest studies on conformity to group norms were those
conducted by Sherif and Asch. Sherif used an optical illusion (the autokinetic effect) to study
conformity, while Asch used a nonambiguous task.

2. Conformity to a Minority: Minority influence over a majority was addressed by Moscovici, who

concluded that a minority (one or a few dissenters) can influence the majority when it presents its position
in a consistent manner without appearing to be close-minded. An alternative approach was suggested by
Hollander, who proposed that a person can influence other group members by accumulating idiosyncrasy
credits.

3. Compliance: Methods for gaining compliance include the foot-in-the-door and  door-in-the-face

techniques. The former involves following a small request that a person is likely to agree to with a larger
request, while the latter involves following a large request that a person is likely to refuse with a smaller
request.

B. Obedience to Authority: Milgram’s controversial obedience to authority studies found that subjects

were willing to obey the demands of an authority even when doing so seemed to harm another person.

C. Bases of Social Power: French and Raven identified six bases of social power that enable a person to
control or influence others – reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, expert, and informational.

D. Response to Social Influence: Psychological reactance is a potential response to an attempt at social

influence and involves acting in a way that is opposite to what has been requested.

Key Concepts

Social influence occurs when “one person’s attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors are changed as a result of
interaction with another individual or with a group” (Barnett, 2011, p. 788).

A. Conformity and Compliance: Researchers interested in social influence distinguish between

conformity and compliance. Conformity refers to a change in attitude, belief, or behavior that is caused by
social pressure, while compliance refers to a change in behavior that occurs at the request of another
person or group of people.

1. Conformity to Group Norms: Studies conducted by Sherif (1936) and Asch (1951) were among the
earliest studies on conformity.

 Sherif: In his research, Sherif used the autokinetic effect, which is an optical illusion that
occurs when a stationary point of light appears to move in a darkened room. During the first
session of the study, each subject estimated the distance the light had moved while alone in
the room. Then, in three subsequent sessions, subjects stated their estimates one at a time in
groups of three. Estimates varied considerably during the individual sessions but converged
toward a similar estimate quickly (often within three trials) when participants stated their
estimates in a group. In other words, each group established and conformed to a group
norm.
 Asch: Asch used a nonambiguous task that required subjects to identify which of three
vertical lines on one card matched the line on another card in terms of length. Groups of
seven “subjects” (actually one subject and six confederates) took turns giving their answers
aloud, with the actual subject giving his answer after five of the confederates. The

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confederates initially gave the correct answer but, after several trials, they all gave the same
wrong answer. Despite the obvious inaccuracy of the confederates’ answers, actual subjects
gave the same answers 37% of the time.

Based on the results of studies like those conducted by Sherif and Asch, Deutsch and Gerard (1955)
concluded that people conform to group norms for two reasons – informational and
normative. Informational influence is most likely to occur when people use others as a source of
information because the task is ambiguous or very difficult. Sherif’s research illustrates this kind of
influence. Normative influence is most likely to occur when people “go along” because of group pressure
– i.e., because they want to be accepted by the group and avoid criticism. Asch’s research demonstrates
the impact of normative influence. 

2. Factors That Affect Conformity to a Majority: Factors that affect a person’s willingness to conform
to group norms include the following:

 Group Size: Up to a point, conformity increases as group size increases. In his research,
Asch found that increasing the number of confederates from one to three or four increased
conformity but, thereafter, increasing the number of confederates had a negligible additional
effect on conformity.
 Unaimity: In Asch’s original experiment, all confederates gave the same wrong answer.
However, in a subsequent study, Asch had one confederate give the correct answer and, in
that situation, subjects was less likely to conform.
 Ambiguity: Conformity is greatest when the task is ambiguous. For example, Asch found
that conformity increased when the differences between the three comparison lines were
reduced.
 Cohesiveness: The greater the group cohesiveness, the greater the conformity to group
norms.
 Personality Characteristics: Personality characteristics associated with greater conformity
include low self-esteem, low intelligence, a high need for approval, and authoritarianism.

3. Factors that Affect Conformity to a Minority: Minority influence over a majority has been

addressed by Moscovici (1976, 1980) and Hollander (1958). According to Moscovici, a majority exerts
its influence through its sheer numbers, but a minority (one or a few dissenters) must rely on behavioral
style: He concluded that, to influence the majority, minorities must present their position in a consistent
manner without appearing to be inflexible and close-minded. Moscovici also proposed that minority
influence is more likely than majority influence to cause others to reassess their position and, as a result,
lead to an actual change in their underlying beliefs. An alternative approach was recommended by
Hollander who argued that, to influence the majority, a person must have accumulated “idiosyncrasy
credits” by having a history of conforming to group norms, contributing something special to the group,
or being the group leader.

4. Strategies for Gaining Compliance: Methods for gaining compliance include the foot-in-the-door

and door-in-the-face techniques:

 The foot-in-the-door technique involves gaining compliance by starting with a small request

and, after the person agrees with that request, making a larger request. As an example,
Freedman and Fraser (1966) found that people were more willing to put a large “Drive
Carefully” sign in their front yards when they had already agreed to sign a “safe driving”
petition or put a smaller sign in their car window.

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 The door-in-the-face technique involves first making a large request that is likely to be
refused and following it with a smaller, more reasonable request. In one study, Cialdini et
al., 1975) asked college students if they would be willing to volunteer at a counseling
program for juvenile offenders for two hours a week for the next two years. After the
students refused, they were asked if they would take a group of offenders on a two-hour trip
to the zoo. Fifty percent of students complied with the second request, compared to 17%
who complied when that request was presented alone.

B. Obedience to Authority: Milgram’s (1965, 1974) controversial obedience to authority studies

involved telling subjects they would be participating in a learning experiment that would require
administering electric shock to a learner (actually a confederate) whenever the learner gave a wrong
answer. The experimenter and subject were in the same room, but the learner was in another room so that
the subject could hear but not see the learner. As the experiment progressed, the experimenter instructed
the subject to increase the intensity of the shock when the learner made a mistake. At higher levels of
intensity, the learner feigned pain by yelling and pounding on the wall and, when the shock reached the
“near-fatal” level, the learner became silent and did not answer questions or respond to the shock. Prior to
beginning the study, most of the 40 psychiatrists questioned by Milgram predicted that less than 1% of
subjects would be willing to increase shock to the near-fatal level, but 65% of subjects actually did so. In
subsequent studies, Milgram varied the situation. For example, in one study, he relocated the laboratory
from a building on the Yale campus to a run-down office building in town and, in that location, 48% of
subjects delivered shock at the near-fatal level. The willingness of subjects to deliver high intensity shock
also decreased when the experimenter gave instructions to the learner by telephone, the learner was in
close proximity to the subject, or another confederate who was playing the role of co-teacher refused to
obey the experimenter. Finally, Milgram sent a follow-up survey to subjects one year after their
participation, and 84% of subjects who responded said they were glad they participated while only 1%
said they regretted having done so.  

C. Bases of Social Power: French and Raven (1959; Raven, 1993) identified six bases of social
power that enable a person to control or influence others:

 Reward power is based on the person’s ability to provide desired outcomes.

 Coercive power derives from the person’s ability to provide unwanted outcomes.  
 Legitimate power is based on the person’s role or status as a legitimate authority.
 Referent power arises from the desire of others to identify with the person and their respect and
attraction to him or her.
 Expert power is based on the person’s special knowledge or experience.
 Informational power derives from the person’s access to information that is needed by others.

The effectiveness of the different bases of power depends on the situation. However, there is evidence
that supervisors who combine expert and referent power usually have the best outcomes in terms of
employee performance and satisfaction with supervision (e.g., Yukl, 1994).  

D. Responses to Social Influence: The research has shown that people react to social influence in several
ways.

1. Types of Reactions: Kelman (1958) distinguished between three reactions to social

influence: Compliance occurs when people change their overt behaviors (but not their underlying
attitudes) often for the purpose of gaining a reward or avoiding a punishment. Identification occurs when
people change their behaviors because they’re attracted to the source of the influence and believe the

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change will help them establish or maintain a relationship with the source. In contrast to compliance,
identification includes a change in attitude, but that change lasts for only as long as the relationship
continues to be desirable. Finally, internalization occurs when people change their behaviors and attitudes
because doing so is consistent with their basic beliefs and values.  

2. Psychological Reactance: An attempt at social influence may produce the opposite of conformity or
compliance when a person perceives that his or her freedom-of-choice is being threatened. In this
situation, the person will attempt to re-establish his or her freedom by acting in a way that is opposite to
what has been requested. This is referred to as psychological reactance (Brehm, 1966).

V. ATTITUDES AND ATTITUDE CHANGE

Summary of Key Concepts

A. Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior: The research has confirmed that attitudes are not
always good predictors of behavior. According to the theory of planned behavior, this is because a
person’s behavioral intention is influenced not only by his or her attitude toward the behavior but also by
subjective norms related to the behavior and perceived behavioral control.

B. Theories of Attitude Change: Theories of attitude change include the following:

1. Cognitive Dissonance Theory: According to cognitive dissonance theory, when a person

experiences an inconsistency between two or more attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior, the
person feels dissonance, which he or she attempts to reduce by changing the attitude or behavior,
acquiring new information, or reducing the importance of the inconsistency.

2. Social Judgment Theory: Social judgment theory predicts that people are more likely to be
persuaded by a message that is in their latitude of acceptance than when it is in their latitude of
noncommitment or latitude of rejection and that the size of each latitude is affected by a person’s personal
involvement in the issue addressed by the message – i.e., the greater the personal involvement, the
smaller the latitudes of acceptance and noncommitment and the larger the latitude of rejection. 

3. Elaboration Likelihood Model: The elaboration likelihood model predicts that a persuasive message

can change a person’s attitude through either the central route or peripheral route and that the central
route involves careful processing of information and is more likely to produce long-lasting attitude
change.

C. Factors That Affect Attitude Change: The effectiveness of a persuasive message depends on certain
characteristics of the communicator, communication, and audience. For example, communicator
credibility is an important contributor to a communication’s persuasiveness and depends on the
communicator’s competence and trustworthiness. The impact of communicator credibility is short-term,
however, because of the sleeper effect, which is the tendency to remember a message but to forget its
source. With regard to the communication, the way in which two sides of an argument are presented can
affect the message’s impact on attitude change. In some situations, the side presented first has a greater
impact; in others, the side presented last has a greater impact. The former is referred to as the primacy
effect and the latter is referred to as the recency effect. Finally, inoculation theory predicts that people
are less likely to be persuaded by an argument if they are provided with a weak version of the argument
and counterarguments prior to hearing the persuasive message.

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Key Concepts

Attitudes are defined as relatively stable and enduring predispositions to act, think, or feel in a certain
way toward a particular idea, person, object, or situation.

A. Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior: It is generally believed that attitudes are good
predictors of behavior, but research has found that this is not always true. One of the first studies to
identify the inconsistency between attitudes and behavior was conducted by LaPiere (1934) who took a
Chinese couple on a 10,000 mile automobile trip throughout the U.S., visiting 250 restaurants, hotels, and
motels. Prejudice against Asians was pervasive at the time, but the couple was refused service only once.
However, when LaPiere subsequently wrote to the managers of the establishments they had visited to ask
if they would accept Chinese customers, more than 90% of those who responded said they would not.

Subsequent research confirmed a weak association between attitudes and behaviors but also found that
the strength of the association is affected by several factors. For example, attitudes are fairly good
predictors when measures of attitudes and behaviors are specific rather than general, when attitudes are
based on strong beliefs or personal experience with the attitude object, and when the attitude is readily
accessible to awareness. Also, according to the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen &
Fishbein, 1980), behavior is preceded by a behavioral intention which, in turn, is affected by three factors
— the person’s attitude toward the behavior (whether the person thinks the behavior will have positive or
negative consequences), the person’s subjective norms related to the behavior (whether the person
believes that others approve or disapprove of it), and the person’s perceived behavioral control (whether
or not the person believes that he or she has the ability to perform the behavior). In other words, to
accurately predict a person’s behavior, it’s necessary to consider all three components of his or her
behavioral intention rather than just the person’s attitude toward the behavior. 

B. Theories of Attitude Change: Commonly cited theories of attitude change include the following:

1. Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory is based on the

assumption that people strive for cognitive consistency, or a state of consistency between two or more
attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior. According to this theory, when there is inconsistency, a
person experiences a state of dissonance (an unpleasant state of tension) and, to eliminate dissonance, the
person changes his or her attitude or behavior, acquires new information that eliminates the inconsistency,
or reduces the importance of the inconsistency. In one of the first studies on cognitive dissonance,
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) had subjects work on a boring, repetitive task and then asked the subjects
to help recruit additional participants by telling them that the task was interesting and fun. Half the
subjects were paid $1.00 for lying to potential participants, while the other half were paid $20.00. As
predicted, when the original subjects were subsequently asked to evaluate the experiment, those who were
paid $1.00 expressed a more positive opinion than did those who were paid $20.00. According to
cognitive dissonance theory, this was because the $1.00 subjects had insufficient justification for lying to
potential participants and resolved their dissonance by changing their evaluation of the experiment. In
contrast, the $20.00 subjects did not experience dissonance because they could attribute the lie to the
money they received and, consequently, were not motivated to change their negative evaluation of the
experiment. 

2. Balance Theory: Like cognitive dissonance theory, balance theory (Heider, 1958) proposes that
people desire consistency, but it focuses on consistency between three entities, which can be either three
people or two people and an issue, object, or event. As an example, it predicts that the situation is
unbalanced (inconsistent) when Allen likes Carmen, Allen is pro-choice with regard to abortion, and
Carmen is pro-life. In this situation, Allen will experience a state of tension and will attempt to restore

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balance by changing his feelings for Carmen or his attitude toward abortion. In contrast, the situation is
balanced when Allen likes Ann, Allen supports the environmental movement, and Ann also supports the
environmental movement. In this situation, Allen will not be motivated to change his feelings for Ann or
his attitude toward the environmental movement.

3. Social Judgment Theory: Social judgment theory (Sherif & Hovland, 1961) predicts that people are
more likely to be persuaded by a message when the position it advocates is in their latitude of acceptance
than when it is in their latitude of rejection or latitude of noncommitment: The latitude of
acceptance consists of all positions a person considers acceptable; the latitude of rejection consists of all
positions the person considers unacceptable; and the latitude of noncommitment consists of all positions
the person neither accepts nor rejects but is willing to consider. The theory also predicts that the size of
the three latitudes is affected by a person’s level of personal involvement in the issue addressed by the
message: The more personally involved he or she is, the smaller the latitudes of acceptance and
noncommitment and the larger the latitude of rejection.

4. Elaboration Likelihood Model: According to the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo,

1986), a persuasive message can change a person’s attitude through one of two routes – a peripheral route
or a central route. The peripheral route involves focusing on cues unrelated to the message (e.g., the
attractiveness of the communicator) and relying on mental shortcuts. It is most likely to be activated when
the listener thinks the message is unimportant, is uninformed about the topic, is distracted, and/or is in a
positive mood. In contrast, the central route involves careful processing of the message and is most likely
to be activated when the listener thinks the message is important, is well-informed about the topic, is not
distracted, and/or is in a negative or neutral mood. The central route is more likely than the peripheral
route to produce long-lasting attitude change.

C. Factors That Affect Attitude Change: Attitude change in response to a persuasive communication is

affected by certain characteristics of the communicator (source), communication (message), and audience
(target).

1. Communicator Characteristics: The communicator’s credibility is an important contributor to the

persuasiveness of a communication, with credibility depending on the communicator’s competence and
trustworthiness. Competence is determined by the communicator’s intelligence, knowledge, credentials,
etc., while trustworthiness is affected by the communicator’s motivation for delivering the persuasive
message. Trustworthiness is increased when the communicator is arguing against his or her self-interests
and has nothing to gain by being persuasive or when the communicator’s message was not intentionally
directed to the audience (e.g., when the message was accidentally overheard). The impact of a
communicator’s credibility is often short-term, however. For instance, Hovland and Weiss (1951) found
that, over a period of several weeks, the attitude change initially produced by a high-credible
communicator decreased while the change produced by a low-credible communicator increased so that
the amount of attitude change produced by the two communicators was about the same. These
investigators concluded that this “sleeper effect” was due to the fact that, over time, people tend to
remember a message but forget its source.

2. Communication Characteristics: Characteristics of a communication that affect its persuasiveness

include the following:

 One- versus Two-Sided Messages: A one-sided message (a message that presents only the
side of the argument favored by the communicator) is usually most effective when the
audience initially favors the communicator’s position, is relatively uninformed about the
issue, and is unlikely to hear the other side of the argument. In contrast, a two-sided

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message (a message that presents both sides of an argument) is most effective when the
audience initially disagrees with the communicator’s position and is relatively well-
informed about the issue.
 Discrepancy: In general, a greater amount of attitude change is produced by a message that
presents a position that is moderately discrepant from the audience’s initial position than by
a message that is very high or very low in terms of discrepancy. This is because, when there
is too much discrepancy, the audience is likely to reject the message without giving it much
thought and, when there is too little discrepancy, the message is already close to the
audience’s current position. However, the effects of message discrepancy are affected by the
communicator’s credibility with a high-credible communicator producing more attitude
change than a low-credible communicator even at high levels of discrepancy (Aronson,
Turner, & Carlsmith, 1963). 
 Method of Presentation: When both sides of an argument are presented, the side presented
first has a greater impact on attitude change when the other side immediately follows and
the attitude measure is administered after a period of time. This is referred to as the primacy
effect. In contrast, when a period of time elapses between presentation of the first and
second messages and the attitude measure is administered immediately after the second
message, the second message has a greater impact. This is referred to as the recency effect.
(A primacy or recency effect does not occur when the second message immediately follows
the first message and the attitude assessment occurs immediately after the second message
or when a period of time elapses between the two messages and between the second
message and the attitude assessment.)
 Appeal to Fear: Messages that elicit a high level of fear are generally not effective unless
they include information that indicates how to avoid the danger addressed by the message
and/or increase the audience’s sense of vulnerability to the danger (Freimuth et al., 1990;
Keller, 1999; Rogers, 1983).

3. Audience Characteristics: The following audience characteristics have been found to influence the
effectiveness of a persuasive communication:

 Personality: Personality characteristics that have been linked to increased susceptibility to

persuasion include low self-esteem, high self-monitoring, and a low need for cognition
(Cacioppo, Petty, & Morris, 1983; Rhodes & Woods, 1992; Snyder, 1974).
 Mood: People tend to be more easily persuaded by a message when they are in a good mood,
apparently because they want to maintain their positive feelings and, as a result, are less likely to
carefully process the information contained in the message (Schwarz, Bless, & Bohner, 1991).
However, the effects of mood depend on several factors including the strength of the argument: A
weak argument is more likely to persuade a person who is in a good mood, but a strong argument
is more likely to persuade a person who is in a neutral or bad mood (Bless, Bohner, Schwarz, &
Strack, 1990).
 Forewarning: When people are told in advance that they will be hearing a persuasive message,
they are less likely to be persuaded by it, especially when the issue addressed by the message is
personally important (e.g., Wood & Quinn, 2003). The effectiveness of forewarning is supported
by McGuire’s (1969) research on inoculation theory, which is based on the medical model of
immunization. It predicts that a person’s resistance to persuasion is increased when he or she is
provided with a weak version of the persuasive argument and counterarguments (refutations of
the argument) before hearing the persuasive message.

VI. GROUP PROCESSES

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Summary of Key Concepts

A. Stages of Group Development: Tuckman and Jensen distinguished between five stages of group

development – forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

B. Types of Group Tasks: The various types of group tasks can be categorized as additive,

complementary, conjunctive, disjunctive, and compensatory.

C. Effects of Group Performance: A person’s performance is often altered when he or she is working in
the presence of others or as a member of a group. Social facilitation and social inhibition result from the
mere presence of others and, according to Zajonc, are due to an increase in drive that increases the
likelihood that the person will perform the dominant response. Social loafing is the tendency of people to
exert less effort when they’re working as a member of a group than when working alone.

D. Problems with Group Decision-Making: Group decisions can be adversely affected by group

polarization or groupthink. Group polarization occurs when group members shift their initial positions
to a more extreme view as the result of a group discussion. Groupthink is a suspension of independent,
critical thought that occurs under certain conditions – e.g., when there is a high level of group cohesion
and the leader is highly directive.

E. Strategies for Improving Group Performance: Brainstorming was developed as a way for

improving creative group problem-solving, but the research suggests that individuals working alone
produce more good ideas than the same number of individuals working together.

Key Concepts

A. Stages of Group Development: Research on group processes has shown that the interactions between
group members change in predictable ways over time. According to Tuckman and Jensen (1977), these
changes can be described in terms of five stages of group development:

 During the forming stage, group members are not committed to the group, are uncertain about the
group’s purpose and goals, and rely on the leader to provide guidance.
 During the storming stage, power struggles and conflicts develop as members disagree about the
best way to accomplish the group’s goals and about their roles and responsibilities, and members
may split into subgroups and some may drop out of the group.
 During the norming stage, group cohesion begins to develop and members establish group norms
and begin to work together to accomplish the group’s goals.
 During the perfomring stage , members focus their effort on accomplishing the group’s goals and
are able to successfully work through any problems that arise.
 During the adjourning stage, the group concludes its activities and members may express mixed
feelings about ending the group.

B. Types of Group Tasks: Group tasks can be described in terms of five types (Steiner, 1966):  

 When performing an additive task, members work on the task individually and the group product
is the sum of the contributions of all group members. Family members are working on an additive
task when they spend the afternoon painting their house.

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 When working on a complementary task, members contribute different abilities or knowledge to
the task and the final product is more than any one member could have produced alone. Members
of an orchestra playing a symphony are performing a complementary task.
 When the task is a conjunctive task, the group product or performance is determined by the least
competent member. A mountain climbing team is performing a conjunctive task because the
performance of the team is limited by the least skilled member. 
 When working on a disjunctive task, the group product or performance is determined by the most
skilled or knowledgeable member. A group of advertising professionals is performing a
disjunctive task when their new ad campaign for a client will be the best campaign suggested by
one member of the group.
 When the task is a compensatory task, group members average their input to derive a final
judgment or solution. A group of four raters is performing a compensatory task when each rater
rates an employee’s overall job performance and the employee’s final performance rating is the
average of the ratings assigned by the four raters.  

C. Effects of Groups on Performance: A person’s performance is often altered when he or she is

working in the presence of others or as a member of a group or team.

1. Social Facilitation and Social Inhibition: Research has found that the mere presence of others can
change an individual’s performance. When the presence of others improves performance, this is referred
to as social facilitation. Conversely, when the presence of others causes a decrement in performance, this
is referred to as social inhibition. One explanation for social facilitation and social inhibition is that the
presence of others increases a person’s drive (physiological arousal that energizes performance) which, in
turn, increases the likelihood that the person will perform the dominant response (Zajonc, 1965).
Consequently, when working on a routine or easy task, social facilitation is likely because the dominant
response is usually the correct one. However, when working on a new or difficult task, social inhibition is
likely because the dominant response is ordinarily an incorrect one.

2. Social Loafing: Social loafing is the tendency of people to exert less effort when working on a task as
part of a group than when working on the task alone. One of the first studies on social loafing was
conducted by Ringelmann (1913) who compared the effort that people exerted when pushing a cart alone
or with others. He found that, the greater number of people pushing the cart, the less effort each person
exerted. Subsequent research confirmed these results for other types of physical tasks as well as cognitive
tasks and found that social loafing is reduced or eliminated when group members believe their individual
contributions to the group are identifiable (Williams, Harkins, & Latane, 1981) or when they view group
membership as important or the group task as intrinsically interesting or meaningful (Karau & Williams,
1993).

D. Problems with Group Decision-Making: It is generally believed that group decision-making has
benefits over individual decision-making in terms of decision quality and accuracy, but the research has
shown that group decisions can be adversely affected by group polarization or groupthink: 

1. Group Polarization: Group polarization occurs when each group member shifts his or her position
toward a more extreme view (more cautious or more risky) as the result of the group discussion. As an
example, Myers and Bishop (1970) categorized a sample of students as high or low in terms of racial
prejudice based on their answers to survey questions. Students with similar levels of prejudice met to
discuss racial issues, with their attitudes toward those issues being measured before and after the
discussion. As predicted, students low in prejudice expressed even less prejudice after the discussion
while those high in prejudice expressed higher levels of prejudice. Note that the initial research on group

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decision-making found that groups were more likely than individuals to make risky decisions and this was
referred to as the risky shift (Kogan & Wallach, 1964). However, subsequent studies indicated that the
type of extreme decision (cautious or risky) depended on the initial positions of group members.

2. Groupthink: Janis (1982) analyzed the decision-making processes that led to the Bay of Pigs invasion,
the escalation of the Vietnam war, the Watergate cover-up, and other military and political failures and
concluded they were characterized by groupthink, or a suspension of independent, critical thought. He
described groupthink in terms of its antecedents, symptoms, and outcomes: 

 Antecedents include the presence of external stressors, high group cohesion, and problems

related to group structure (e.g., group member homogeneity and isolation, highly directive
leadership).
 Symptoms include a sense of invulnerability, a belief in the inherent morality of the group,
self-appointed “mindguards” who discourage dissent, self-censorship, and an illusion of
unanimity.  
 Outcomes include a failure to identify alternatives, a failure to consider the risks of the
chosen alternative, and biases in information processing.

Janis also identified a number of strategies for preventing groupthink. For example, he concluded that
groupthink is less likely to occur when group members are encouraged to be skeptical and critical, at least
one member is asked to play “devil’s advocate” at each meeting, group members are encouraged to
consult with outside experts before making a final decision, and the leader refrains from stating his/her
preferences at the beginning of the decision-making process.

E. Strategies for Improving Group Performance: Several strategies have been developed to improve
group performance. One of the best known is brainstorming, which was developed as a method for
stimulating creativity during group problem-solving (Osborn, 1953). When using this technique, group
members are instructed to express as many ideas as possible (even when they seem crazy), to avoid
criticizing the ideas of other members, and to build on each other’s ideas. Brainstorming quickly became
very popular but, unfortunately, research found that individuals working alone produced a greater number
of good ideas than the same number of individuals working together (e.g., Mullen, Johnson, & Salas,
1991). However, subsequent studies found that the effectiveness of brainstorming is improved when
people are trained in the use of brainstorming, a trained facilitator leads the brainstorming session, and/or
group members brainstorm electronically (via computer) rather than face-to-face (e.g., DeRosa, Smith, &
Hantula, 2007; Paulus & Brown, 2003).

VII. APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Summary of Key Concepts

A. Environmental Psychology: Lewin’s field theory provides a framework for understanding how

individual and environmental factors influence behavior. Lewin and Miller applied field theory
to intrapersonal conflict and distinguished between four types: approach-approach, avoidance-
avoidance, approach-avoidance, and double approach-avoidance. A number of environmental
psychologists have investigated specific aspects of the environment that affect mood and behavior. For
example, research on the effects of crowding have found that the effects depend on the person’s pre-
existing mood – that is, when people are in a good mood, crowding increases positive feelings but, when
people are in a bad mood, crowding increases negative feelings.

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B. Health Psychology: The health belief model predicts that the likelihood that a person will engage in a
health-related behavior depends on the person’s perception of his or her susceptibility to the illness, the
severity of the illness, the benefits of engaging in the behavior, and the barriers to performing the
behavior. Research suggests that hardiness and social support help reduce the negative effects of stress on
health: Hardiness is a personality style that is characterized by personal control, commitment, and
challenge. The stress-buffering hypothesis predicts that social support provides protection against
stress. 

Key Concepts

A. Environmental Psychology: Environmental psychology is the study of the effects of the physical and
social environment on perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors.

1. Field Theory: Lewin’s field theory (1936) was one of the first theories to provide a framework for
understanding how individual and environmental factors influence behavior in a variety of circumstances.
It proposes that a person’s behavior is a function of interactions between the person and his or her
perception of the physical and social environment and that these interactions occur within the person’s
“life space.” Lewin applied field theory to several issues including intrapersonal conflict. He proposed
that this type of conflict occurs within a person’s life space when forces directing the person toward or
away from one or more goals are about equal in desirability or attractiveness. Lewin identified three types
of intrapersonal conflict and a fourth was added later by Miller (1944):

 An approach-approach conflict occurs when a person must choose between two equally

desirable goals. A recently licensed psychologist who has received two good job offers is
faced with an approach-approach conflict. This conflict is usually the easiest to resolve.
 An avoidance-avoidance conflict occurs when a person must choose between two equally
undesirable goals. An employee who has to choose between quitting her job or taking a pay
cut is faced with an avoidance-avoidance conflict. This conflict is difficult to resolve and
can cause a person to freeze or escape the situation.
 An approach-avoidance conflict occurs when there is only one goal but it has both desirable
and undesirable qualities. A psychologist studying for the licensing exam is faced with an
approach-avoidance conflict – i.e., he doesn’t want to study but, if he does, he increases the
likelihood that he’ll pass the exam. This conflict is difficult to resolve because, when the
person moves closer to the goal, the avoidance force becomes stronger and, when a person
moves away from the goal, the approach force becomes stronger.
 A double approach-avoidance conflict occurs when there are two goals and both have
desirable and undesirable qualities. A person is faced with a double approach-avoidance
conflict when she’s deciding whether to buy a house in the country where it’s quiet and
housing is cheaper but doing so will require a long commute to work or to buy a condo in
the city which will be noisier and more expensive but will allow her to walk to work. The
double approach-avoidance conflict is the hardest to resolve and often results in vacillation
between the two goals.

Lewin and others have applied field theory to organizational change, communication, prejudice,
adolescent development, and group therapy. In addition, the Zeigarnik effect is based on field theory and
predicts that people tend to remember uncompleted tasks better than completed ones.

2. Crowding: Crowding refers to “a subjective, or perceived, state that may arise under conditions of
high population density” (Baron & Richardson, 1994, p. 181), and the research has shown that the effects

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of crowding depend on the circumstances. For instance, the impact of crowding is affected by the
person’s pre-existing mood: When a person is already in a good mood, crowding is likely to increase his
or her positive feelings but, when a person is already in a bad mood, crowding will increase his or her
negative feelings (Freedman, 1975). The effects also depend on whether or not the person is distracted. In
one study, subjects seated close together in a movie theater were less likely to say they felt crowded when
watching an attention-grabbing violent, sexual, or humorous film than when watching a documentary
film. This was apparently because subjects who watched the attention-grabbing film attributed their
arousal to the film while those who watched the documentary film attributed it to the crowded conditions
(Worchel & Brown, 1984). Finally, there is evidence that crowding adversely affects performance on
complex tasks but not on simple tasks (Sinha & Sinha, 1991).  

3. Personal Space: The studies have identified individual, situational, and cultural differences in the need
for personal space, which refers to the physical distance people prefer to maintain between themselves
and others. For instance, North Americans, the British, and Scandinavians require more personal space
than Arabs, Latin Americans, and the French do (Sommer, 1969). Also, some studies suggest that men
prefer more personal space than women in most social situations, but the research results are inconsistent.
For example, research comparing same- and opposite-sex dyads have found that males interacting with
another male require the greatest interpersonal distance, followed by females interacting with another
female and then males interacting with a female (Gifford, 1987).

4. Noise: Exposure to high-intensity noise can negatively affect performance on cognitive tasks. For
example, several studies have found that children who are exposed to airport noise at school have lower
scores on measures of reading comprehension and long-term memory (e.g., Hygge, Evans, & Bullinger,
2002). There is evidence, however, that noise has the most adverse impact on performance when it is
unpredictable and uncontrollable (Glass & Singer, 1972). 

B. Health Psychology: Health psychologists are interested in psychological influences on health-related

behaviors and processes. 

1. Health Related Behaviors: The health belief model (Stretcher & Rosenstock, 1997) is used to predict
the likelihood that a person will engage in a health related behavior and is based on the assumption that
behavior is determined by the following:

 Perceived susceptibility refers to the person’s estimate of his or her risk of contracting an

illness.  
 Perceived severity refers to the person’s beliefs regarding the seriousness of the illness.
 Perceived benefits refer to the person’s appraisal of the of the positive consequences of
engaging in the behavior.
 Perceived barriers refer to the person’s beliefs about the difficulties of performing the
behavior (e.g., expense, inconvenience, side effects).

Interventions based on the health belief model focus on providing accurate information about
susceptibility, severity, benefits, and barriers, improving self-efficacy, and providing cues to action
(strategies that activate the behavior such as mailing reminder cards and making follow-up calls).

2. Stress: Hardiness and social support are two factors that have been found to reduce the negative effects
of stress on health.

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 Hardiness: As defined by Kobasa (1979), hardiness is a personality style that is
characterized by three traits: personal control (the belief that one can influence events in
one’s life), commitment (a sense of purpose and involvement in one’s activities, events,
etc.), and challenge (a tendency to view life as a series of challenges that can make one
stronger). Of these traits, personal control seems to be most important: The research
suggests that a sense of control is most associated with an increased ability to cope with
illness and other life stressors and with higher levels of overall psychological and social
adjustment (Brehm & Kassin, 1990).
 Stress-Buffering Hypothesis: According to the stress-buffering hypothesis, a high level of
perceived social support can protect a person against the harmful effects of stress on his or
her physical and psychological health.

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