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About the Authors
David G. Myers, since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa, has
spent his career at Michigan’s Hope College, where he is a professor of psy-
chology and has taught dozens of social psychology sections. Hope College
students have invited him to be their commencement speaker and named
him “outstanding professor.”
Dr. Myers also communicates psychology science to the general public.
His writings have appeared in four dozen magazines, from Today’s Educa-
tion to Scientific American. His 17 books include The Pursuit of Happiness
and Intuition: Its Powers and Perils.
His research and writings have been recognized for the Gordon Allport
Prize, for an “honored scientist” award from the Federation of Associations
in the Brain and Behavioral Sciences, and for the Award for Distinguished
Service on Behalf of Personality–Social Psychology.
Source: ©David Myers.
Jean Twenge has drawn on her research in her books for a broader audience,
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebel-
lious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—And Completely Unprepared for Adult-
hood (2017) and Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More
Confident, Assertive, Entitled—And More Miserable Than Ever Before
(2nd ed., 2014). An article by Dr. Twenge in The Atlantic was nominated
for a National Magazine Award. She frequently gives talks and seminars
on generational differences to audiences such as college faculty and staff,
parent–teacher groups, military personnel, camp directors, and corporate
executives.
Dr. Twenge grew up in Minnesota and Texas. She holds a BA and MA
from the University of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Michigan.
She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in social psychology at
Case Western Reserve University. She lives in San Diego with her husband
and three daughters.
Source: ©Sandy Huffaker, Jr.

iii
iv About the Authors
Christian H. Jordan is a professor and associate chair of the psychology

department at Wilfrid Laurier University. He teaches lecture courses and
seminars in social psychology and research methods at both the undergrad-
uate and graduate levels.
Dr. Jordan is also an active researcher, studying self-esteem, narcis-
sism, and self-enhancement processes. His work has been published in
a number of scholarly handbooks and journals, including the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Personality, and Journal
of Experimental Psychology. He has also written popular instructional
pieces on how to effectively read journal articles and how to conduct and
report persuasive psychology experiments. He is currently an associate
editor of the Journal of Personality and has served as associate editor of
Self & Identity.
In his spare time, Dr. Jordan spends time with his family and friends,
reads, listens to music, drinks craft beer, and exercises. He enjoys cycling
during the summer months. Christian and Lynne Jordan have two sons,
Grayson and Hayden, and a daughter, Reilly, whom they lost to leukemia.
Source: ©Christian Jordan.
Steven M. Smith is a professor of psychology and the associate vice-

president academic and enrolment management at Saint Mary’s Univer-
sity in Halifax. He completed his BA (honours) at Bishop’s University in
Lennoxville, Quebec, and his MA and PhD in social psychology at Queen’s
University in Kingston, Ontario. Dr. Smith regularly teaches courses in
social behaviour, attitudes and persuasion, and psychology and law. His
lectures are well received, and he been awarded a lifetime service award
for major contributions to students from the Saint Mary’s University
Student Association.
Dr. Smith is an active researcher and is dedicated to applying his theo-
retical work to real-world concerns. His research has been supported by
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Insti-
tutes of Health Research, the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation, the
Nova Scotia Gaming Foundation, and a number of private organizations.
His work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy, Law & Human Behavior, Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Social Psychology and
Source: ©Steven M. Smith. Personality Science, and Psychophysiology.
Dr. Smith has lent his expertise to a number of community organizations, advising on
communication and social marketing issues. He has also served as an expert witness at
criminal trials. His wife, Isabel, is a clinical developmental psychologist, and together they
have two fantastic but heavily analyzed children, Sydney and Dylan.
Table of Contents
Preface xi Part One

CHAPTER 1
Social Thinking 29
Introducing the Science and CHAPTER 2
Methods of Social Psychology 1
The Self in a Social World 30
What Is Social Psychology? 2
Spotlights and Illusions: What Do They
How Much of Our Social World Is Just in Our Heads? 3 Teach Us About Ourselves? 31
If You Were Ordered to Be Cruel, Would
You Comply? 3 Self-Concept: Who Am I? 34
Would You Help Others? Or Help Yourself? 3 At the Centre of Our Worlds: Our Sense of Self 34
Social Comparisons 34
What Are the Major Themes
Self and Culture 37
of Social Psychology? 4
Self-Knowledge 43
We Construct Our Social Reality 4
Our Social Intuitions Are Often What Is the Nature and Motivating
Powerful but Sometimes Perilous 5 Power of Self-Esteem? 46
Social Influences Shape Our Behaviour 6 Self-Esteem Motivation 47
Personal Attitudes and Dispositions Also Shape The Trade-Off of Low vs. High Self-Esteem 50
Behaviour 6 Self-Efficacy 52
Social Behaviour Is Biologically Rooted 7
What Is Self-Serving Bias? 53
Relating to Others Is a Basic Need 7
Explaining Positive and Negative Events 54
Social Psychology’s Principles Are
Can We All Be Better Than Average? 55
Applicable in Everyday Life 8
Unrealistic Optimism 58
How Do Values Affect Social Psychology? 8 False Consensus and Uniqueness 59
Obvious Ways in Which Values Enter Social Psychology 8 Temporal Comparison 60
Not-So-Obvious Ways in Which Values Explaining Self-Serving Bias 61
Enter Social Psychology 9
How Do People Manage Their
Is Social Psychology Merely Common Sense? 11 Self-Presentation? 62
Common Sense, Revisited 13 Self-Handicapping 62
Research Methods: Impression Management 63
How Do We Do Social Psychology? 15 Doubting Our Ability in Social Situations 65
Overpersonalizing Situations 66
Forming and Testing Hypotheses 15
Correlational Research: Detecting Natural Associations 17 What Does It Mean to Have Perceived
Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and Effect 21 Self-Control? 67
Generalizing From Laboratory to Life 26 Learned Helplessness Versus Self-Determination 68
Summing Up 27 Summing Up 70
vi
Table of Contents vii
CHAPTER 3 Why Does Our Behaviour Affect

Our Attitudes? 131
Social Beliefs and Judgments 73
Self-Presentation: Impression Management 131
How Do We Judge Our Social Worlds, Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance 132
Consciously and Unconsciously? 74 Self-Perception 136
Priming 74 Comparing the Theories 141
Intuitive Judgments 76 Summing Up 144
Overconfidence 78
Heuristics: Mental Shortcuts 83
Counterfactual Thinking 86
Part Two
Illusory Thinking 87
Mood and Judgment 89 Social Influence 147
How Do We Perceive Our Social Worlds? 91
CHAPTER 5
Perceiving and Interpreting Events 91
Belief Perseverance 93 Persuasion 148
Constructing Memories of Ourselves and Our Worlds 94
What Paths Lead to Persuasion? 150
How Do We Explain Our Social Worlds? 98 The Central Route and the Peripheral Route 151
Attributing Causality: To the Person or the Situation? 98 Different Routes for Different Purposes 152
The Fundamental Attribution Error 100
What Are the Elements
Why Do We Make the Attribution Error? 102
of Persuasion? 152
Why Do We Study Attribution Errors? 106
Who Says? The Communicator 152
How Do Our Social Beliefs Matter? 106 What Is Said? The Message Content 156
Teacher Expectations and Student Performance 107 How Is It Said? The Channel
Getting From Others What We Expect 108 of Communication 164
To Whom Is It Said? The Audience 169
What Can We Conclude About Social
Beliefs and Judgments? 110 Extreme Persuasion:
How Do Cults Indoctrinate? 173
Summing Up 112
Group Indoctrination Tactics 173
Attitudes Follow Behaviour 174
CHAPTER 4 Persuasive Elements 175
Behaviour and Attitudes 115 Group Effects 176
Persuasion and Climate Change:

How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict
How Do We Address Global Warming? 178
Our Behaviours? 116
Psychology and Climate Change 178
Are We All Hypocrites? 116
New Technologies 181
When Attitudes Predict Behaviour 117
Reducing Consumption 181
When Does Our Behaviour Affect
How Can Persuasion Be Resisted? 183
Our Attitudes? 121
Attitude Strength 183
Role-Playing 122
Information-Processing Biases 183
When Saying Becomes Believing 124
Reactance 185
The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon 125
Strengthening Personal Commitment 185
Low-Ball Technique 126
Inoculation Programs 186
Door-in-the-Face Technique 127
Implications of Attitude Inoculation 189
Immoral and Moral Acts 128
Social Movements 130 Summing Up 190
viii Table of Contents
CHAPTER 6 Deindividuation: When Do People Lose

Their Sense of Self in Groups? 236
Conformity 192
Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone 236
What Is Conformity? 193 Diminished Self-Awareness 241
What Are the Classic Conformity and Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensify
Obedience Studies? 194 Our Opinions? 241
The Case of the “Risky Shift” 242
Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation 194
Impact of Group Discussion on Individuals’ Opinions 243
Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure 197
Explaining Polarization 245
Milgram’s Obedience Studies 199
What Breeds Obedience? 201 Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder
Reflections on the Classic Studies 204 or Assist Good Decisions? 248
Symptoms of Groupthink 249
What Predicts Conformity? 209
Critiquing Groupthink 252
Group Size 209 Preventing Groupthink 252
Unanimity 210 Group Problem Solving 253
Cohesion 210
Leadership: How Do Leaders Shape the
Status 211
Group’s Actions? 256
Public Response 211
Task Leadership and Social Leadership 256
No Prior Commitment 212
Transactional Leadership 257
Why Conform? 213 Transformational Leadership 257
Who Conforms? 215 The Influence of the Minority: How Do

Personality 215 Individuals Influence the Group? 258
Culture 217 Consistency 259
Gender 217 Self-Confidence 259
Social Roles 218 Defections From the Majority 260
Group Influences in Juries 260
Do We Ever Want to Be Different? 219
Summing Up 262
Reactance 219
Asserting Uniqueness 221
Summing Up 222
Part Three
Social Relations 265
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
Group Influence 224
Altruism: Helping Others 266
What Is a Group? 225
Why Do We Help? 269
Social Facilitation: How Are We Affected Social Exchange 269
by the Presence of Others? 226 Social Norms 273
The Mere Presence of Others 226 Evolutionary Psychology 276
Crowding: The Presence of Many Others 229 Comparing and Evaluating Theories of Altruism 278
Why Are We Aroused in the Presence of Others? 230
When Will We Help? 282
Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert Less Number of Bystanders 282
Effort in a Group? 231 Helping When Someone Else Does 289
Many Hands Make Light Work 232 Time Pressures 289
Social Loafing in Everyday Life 233 Similarity to the Victim 290
Table of Contents ix
Who Helps? 291 What Is Love? 365

Personality Traits 291 Passionate Love 366
Gender 291 Companionate Love 369
How Can We Increase Helping? 292 What Enables Close Relationships? 371
Reduce Ambiguity, Increase Responsibility 292 Attachment 371
Guilt and Concern for Self-Image 293 Equity 375
Socializing Prosocial Behaviour 294 Self-Disclosure 376
Postscript: The Kitty Genovese Case Revisited 297
How Do Relationships End? 378
What to Do When You Need Help 298
Divorce 379
Conclusions 298
The Detachment Process 380
Summing Up 299
Summing Up 381
CHAPTER 9
Aggression: Hurting Others 300 CHAPTER 11
Prejudice 383
What Is Aggression? 301
What Is the Nature and Power
What Are Some Theories of Aggression? 303 of Prejudice? 384
Aggression as a Biological Phenomenon 304
Defining Prejudice 384
Aggression as a Response to Frustration 309
Prejudice: Implicit and Explicit 386
Aggression as Learned Social Behaviour 312 Racial Prejudice 387
What Are Some Influences on Aggression? 315 Gender-Based Prejudice 390
Aversive Incidents 315 LGBT Prejudice 392
Arousal 316 What Are the Social Sources
Aggression Cues 318 of Prejudice? 394
Media Influences: Pornography and Sexual Violence 319 Social Inequalities: Unequal Status and Prejudice 394
Media Influences: Socialization 395
Television, Movies, and the Internet 322
Institutional Supports 399
Another Media Influence: Video Games 327
Group Influences 332 What Are the Motivational Sources
of Prejudice? 400
How Can Aggression Be Reduced? 335
Frustration and Aggression: The Scapegoat Theory 400
Catharsis? 335 Social Identity Theory: Feeling Superior to Others 401
A Social Learning Approach 336 Motivation to Avoid Prejudice 405
Culture Change and World Violence 338
What Are the Cognitive Sources
Summing Up 338 of Prejudice? 406
Categorization: Classifying People Into Groups 406
CHAPTER 10 Distinctiveness: Perceiving People Who Stand Out 408
Attraction and Intimacy: Attributions: Is It a Just World? 412
Liking and Loving Others 341 Motivation to See the World as Just 413
What Are the Consequences of Prejudice? 415

What Leads to Friendship and Attraction? 345
Self-Perpetuating Prejudgments 415
Proximity 345
Discrimination’s Impact: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 416
Physical Attractiveness 349
Stereotype Threat 417
Similarity Versus Complementarity 359
Do Stereotypes Bias Judgments of Individuals? 419
Liking Those Who Like Us 362
Relationship Rewards 364 Summing Up 423
x Table of Contents
CHAPTER 12
Conflict and Peacemaking 426
What Creates Conflict? 427
Social Dilemmas 427
Competition 434
Perceived Injustice 436
Misperception 437
How Can Peace Be Achieved? 441

Contact 441
Cooperation 446
Communication 453
Conciliation 458
Summing Up 460
References RE-1
Chapter Sources CS-1
Glossary GL-1
Name Index NI-1
Subject Index SI-1
Preface
Welcome to the Eighth Canadian Edition of Social Psychology. We (Steven Smith and
Christian Jordan) were excited to write this new edition but also knew it would be a chal-
lenge. We are thrilled to be working with David Myers and Jean Twenge. Both are known
for their excellent books, which are solidly scientific and warmly human, factually rigor-
ous, and intellectually provocative. Their texts are simply the best.
We continue to meet the challenge of creating a comprehensive Canadian social psy-
chology text. How does one select the material for inclusion in a “reasonably comprehen-
sive” introduction to one’s discipline—a text long enough to allow rich narrative (to weave
a story) but crisp enough not to overwhelm? Further, what Canadian content will most
capture the imaginations of Canadian students? We have sought to present theories and
findings that are not too esoteric but that capture the fundamental concepts of the field in a
scientifically rigorous manner. In doing so, we have sought to balance classic findings with
significant current Canadian research. We think you will find that as the book emphasizes
the Canadian context, it also has a strong research focus presented in an understandable
and engaging style.
Organization
The book opens with a single chapter that includes our methods of inquiry. The chapter
also warns students about how findings can seem obvious—once you know them—and
how social psychologists’ own values permeate the discipline. The intent is to give stu-
dents just enough background to prepare them for what follows.
The book then unfolds around its definition of social psychology: the scientific study
of how people think about (Part One), influence (Part Two), and relate to (Part Three) one
another.
Part One, on social thinking, examines how we view ourselves and others. It assesses
the accuracy of our impressions, intuitions, and explanations; and it examines the relation
of our behaviour and our attitudes.
Part Two explores social influence. In this edition, we begin by discussing how social
influence can shape attitudes—that is, how persuasion occurs. This structure allows
instructors to focus on attitude formation and change in a unit that covers Chapter 5,
Chapter 6, and Chapter 7. We continue to examine social influence by examining the
nature of persuasion, conformity, and group influence.
Part Three considers the attitudinal and behavioural manifestations of both negative
and positive social relations. It flows from altruism to aggression and attraction to preju-
dice. Notably, in this edition we have condensed the material on prejudice into one chapter,
but still highlight both the causes and consequences of prejudice in Chapter 11. Comple-
menting this focus on relations between different social groups, we have expanded cover-
age of research on conflict and peacemaking so that it has its own, comprehensive coverage
in Chapter 12. Applications of social psychology are interwoven throughout every chapter.
This book also has a multicultural emphasis that we seek to stress in every chapter.
All authors are creatures of their cultures, and we are no exceptions. Yet by reading the
world’s social psychology literature, by corresponding with researchers worldwide, and
by examining Canada’s extensive research on the many cultures represented in this coun-
try, we have sought to present a multicultural text to a Canadian audience. The book’s

xi
xii Preface
focus remains the fundamental principles of social thinking, social influence, and social
relations as revealed by careful empirical research. However, hoping to broaden our
awareness of the human family, we aim to illustrate these principles multiculturally.
To assist readers, we have organized chapters into three to six readable-length sections.
Each begins with a preview and ends with a summary that highlights the organization and
key concepts.
We have sought, paragraph by paragraph, to craft the most engaging and effective book
possible. The definitions of key terms appear both in the text and in the Glossary.
Highlights of the Eighth Canadian Edition

• Current research. The text is updated throughout, with more than 750 new cita-
tions, to include the most cutting-edge research in social psychology. The latest
findings on automatic processing, evolutionary psychology, video games and
aggression, perceptions of media bias, counter-arguments and attitude inoculation,
culture and helping strangers, motivational sources of prejudice, and misperceptions
of out-groups are just some of the examples of updated research in this new edition.
• Application of social psychology. Social psychology is a very applied discipline.
Yet sometimes there is a gap between the research described on the page and how
it might roll out in real life—the connection can be a bit abstract. In this edition of
the text, we have tried hard to bridge that gap. Chapters feature a set of insights or
a hands-on activity that applies the science you are learning to the real world and
teaches you how to apply what you have learned to your everyday life.
• Additional coverage of gender. Research on gender continues to evolve. Gender is
examined by a number of different researchers in a number of different contexts. As
such, it seems that gender is less a subfield of social psychology and more a very
important variable that is studied in many contexts. Given this evolution, gender is
covered throughout the book in many subsections.
• Additional coverage of social cognitive neuroscience. New developments in brain
imaging and recording have provided a number of new insights in the field. These
findings make a substantial contribution to a number of chapters.
• Strong pedagogy. Readers benefit from features designed to engage interest while
encouraging understanding of core concepts. Pedagogical elements include section
previews; numerous photos, figures, and tables; a running glossary; Focus On boxes
highlighting applied concepts; The Inside Story vignettes, written by leading research-
ers; a summary of each major section within the text; the Summing Up sections
moved to the end of each chapter, to become a resource for students reviewing for
exams; and an index that highlights coverage of concepts such as culture, ethics,
gender, law and justice, and sexuality.
• Relevant examples. Drawn from the arts, business, sports, and current events,
the text’s examples appeal to students from a variety of majors and academic
backgrounds.
What’s New in the Eighth Canadian Edition

Highlights of new and updated material in the Eighth Canadian Edition include the
following.
Chapter 1: Introducing the Science and Methods of Social Psychology

• Revised chapter opener
• New discussion of correlation and causation
Preface xiii
• New activity exploring potential causes for correlations

• Updated and recent research incorporated throughout the chapter
Chapter 2: The Self in a Social World

• New studies and examples about social comparison on Facebook
• Studies showing that individualism is on the rise globally
• New studies on how narcissism develops and how it impacts leadership
• New study and example of online “humblebragging” as a self-presentation
strategy
• Self-control research reports on when failures of self-control most likely appear and
when they do not, and how self-control exertion leading to self-control failure may
be a uniquely Western occurrence
Chapter 3: Social Beliefs and Judgments

• Current research on partisanship leading to trust or distrust in news media
• New priming research with a new figure and a subliminal-exposure example
• Example of how embodied cognition can be social and positive
• New overconfidence research on how people can change their opinions
• New confirmation bias research on “ideological echo chambers”
• Updated statistics on transportation safety as related to the availability heuristic
• New example about fake news as related to belief perseverance
Chapter 4: Behaviour and Attitudes

• Updated chapter opening
• Revised Activity box that asks readers to explore how they can understand, use, and
defeat compliance tactics
• Updated coverage of topic
• New research in multiple sections
Chapter 5: Persuasion
• Revised chapter opener
• Activity box that asks readers to deconstruct ads and understand the principles
underlying their construction
• New research and recent studies
• New explanations and current examples for elements of persuasion
Chapter 6: Conformity
• Revised chapter and section openers
• Updates of conformity and obedience examples
• Activity box that asks readers to reflect on personal experiences of conformity
• Enhanced discussion of conformity issues in online contexts
• Discussion on conformity in hazing and “frosh week” situations
Chapter 7: Group Influence

• Enhanced discussion of group polarization on the Internet and in politics
xiv Preface
• Revised Activity asking readers to reflect on their own experience of group

influence
Chapter 8: Altruism: Helping Others

• Revised Activity box that asks readers to consider their definition of altruism as
experienced by them
• Updated discussion of the iconic Kitty Genovese case that launched this line of
research
• Discussion of how the reader can encourage people to help in an emergency
situation
Chapter 9: Aggression: Hurting Others

• Analysis of studies confirming that alcohol consumption is associated with higher
levels of aggression especially among men
• New studies on testosterone and alcohol
• New studies with examples of relative deprivation
• Added examples of aggressive cues related to anger
• Reporting on 130 studies across 10 countries showing laws restricting firearm sales
producing reductions in gun-related crimes
• Research showing the connection between sexually explicit/violent movie watching
and dating sexual violence; how pornography viewing makes people more likely to
be sexually aggressive
• Research showing evidence of the link between violent video games and aggression
and fewer prosocial acts
• Research showing how aggressive behaviour spreads in social groups through
modelling
• New examples of how to reduce aggression
Chapter 10: Attraction and Intimacy: Liking and Loving Others

• Research showing how mere exposure by reading can change attitudes
• Study showing that too much exposure can have a negative effect
• Discussion and research example about online dating sites using similarity as a
basis for matching
• Studies showing how passionate love involves the same brain reward pathways as
addictions to substances
• Research revealing how anxiously attached people can become anxiously attached
to their smartphones
• Research showing that couples report more relationship satisfaction when their
partner understands their perspective in a disagreement
Chapter 11: Prejudice

• Previously separate chapters on the sources and consequences of prejudice have
been combined into a single, comprehensive chapter
• Added examples of prejudice in politics
Preface xv
• Example of how strong beliefs can exaggerate reality

• Added discussion of criticisms of the Implicit Association Test (IAT)
• Updated statistics on racial prejudice, hate crime incidents, and White nationalist views
• Many new examples of favouritism in employment discrimination
• New reporting on implicit-bias training for police and in the political arena
• New reporting on hostile and benevolent sexism
• Discussion and
S
statistics on job discrimination against gay and transgender people
• New discussion on consequences of homophobia and transphobia
• Added research study showing that individuals differ in own-race bias
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“The past is to be respected selves as psychologically closer in time and negative past selves as more
and acknowledged, but not to distant. Students who recall being popular in high school report that high
be worshipped. It is our future school feels more recent (“It seems like yesterday!”) than those who recall
in which we will find our high school as a more socially awkward time (“It’s ancient history”). This
greatness.” tendency extends to our social groups: German but not Canadian students
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canadian Museum felt as though the Holocaust had occurred in the more distant past when
of History Library they read about German atrocities committed at that time (Peetz, Gunn, &
Wilson, 2010).
xvi Preface
The Inside Story

In their own words, prominent social psychologists explain the motives and methods
behind the
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OC AL areas of expertise. These vignettes give students a
REL TIONS
first-hand account of studies cited in the text.
THE INSIDE STORY

I vividly remember the afternoon I began to
appreciate the far-reaching implications of
physical attractiveness. Graduate student Karen
Dion (now a professor at the University of
Toronto) learned that some researchers at our
Institute of Child Development had collected
popularity ratings from nursery school chil-
dren and taken a photo of each child. Although
teachers and caregivers of children had per-
suaded us that “all children are beautiful” and
no physical-attractiveness discriminations could
be made, Dion suggested we instruct some
people to rate each child’s looks and correlate Source: ©andresr/E+/Getty Images.
these with popularity. After doing so, we real- assumed, with a host of implications that investi-
ized our long shot had hit home: Attractive chil- gators are still tracing.
dren were popular children. Indeed, the effect
was far more potent than we and others had Ellen Berscheid, University of Minnesota
Focus On
In these boxes, a 7point–counterpoint
3
approach
l t
to issues encourages students to apply the
concepts of social psychology to their real-world experience.
FOCUS ON
money, Happiness, and Helping

imagine that you won a million dollars in the lot- bill (either $5 or $20) and told them to spend
tery. How would you spend it? Do you think that the money on either a gift for themselves or a
spending the money would make you happy? if gift for someone else or a charitable donation.
you are like most people, you probably thought later that evening, they called the students and
about buying some nice things for yourself with asked them how happy they were. Students who
the money. Recent research by university of Brit- had spent the money on themselves (regard-
ish Columbia researcher elizabeth Dunn and her less of the amount they had spent) were less
colleagues (Dunn, Aknin, & norton, 2008), how- happy than those who had spent money on oth-
ever, suggests that one of the common ways in ers. these experimental findings mirror what is
which we mispredict our future emotional reac- seen in correlational data as well. When people
tions is that we think that spending money on make more money, on average, this only has a
ourselves will make us happy when usually it small effect on their happiness; but if they spend
does not. in contrast, we think that spending money on others—regardless of how much they
money on other people will bring us little joy make—they tend to be a lot happier.
when, in fact, spending money on others usually this line of research is a dramatic example of
makes us quite happy. how the internal rewards for helping others can
to test the impact of spending money on have a larger impact on happiness than even a
oneself versus others, Dunn and her colleagues powerful external reward like money.
gave students an envelope with a fresh new
Applying Social Psychology

As we noted above, most chapters have a hands-on Activity box that applies the science
you are learning
2 to the
CHAP ER 1 real
ntr world
d cInG and
t S teaches
Ie ce a you how to apply
M thodS cIal PS what you have learned to
c loGy
your everyday life.
Activity: Is Common Sense Really That Common?
for each statement, please determine whether you think it is true or false.
1. T F although women’s salaries in 1994 were approximately $14 000 less than
men’s, women’s incomes have gradually increased so that today we are see-
ing women’s salaries at levels comparable to those of their male counterparts.
2. T F due to the high cost of living, the number of full-time workers in a single
household has increased dramatically over the past 10 years.
3. T F canada is known for its attitudes of acceptance of others and its respect
for human rights and freedoms. It is, therefore, not unexpected that we would
have fewer active terrorist groups here than in any other Western democracy.
4. T F there is a positive relationship between how much money we make and
how happy we are. People who are more wealthy are overall happier.
Preface xvii
Summing Up
Found at the end of each major section wh within
ha pens wh aw chapter,
ct con ra y to ethis
rly d feature summarizes key
ss
ned a t ud s: We
f ti
concepts and draws connections
hen, between
xplains attitude c important
ange In itu tions w issues.
d
ere our attit
SUMMING UP
How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behaviours?
• Attitudes do not predict behaviour as well as most people believe.
• Attitudes are better predictors of behaviour, however, when social influences
are minimal, attitudes are specific to behaviours, and attitudes are potent
(strong and on one’s mind).
When Does Our Behaviour Affect Our Attitudes?

• When taking on a role, our actions in that role often shape our attitudes.
• When we state a belief (even if we do not initially believe it), our words often
shape our attitudes.
• When we engage in small actions inconsistent with our attitudes, these small
actions can lead to larger actions that can dramatically shape our attitudes
and behaviour.
xviii Preface
In Appreciation
We would like to thank the many people, past and present, who helped us in writing and
revising this book. The following Canadian scholars provided thoughtful and thorough
reviews, and their suggestions have greatly improved each edition:
Craig Blatz, Grant MacEwan Tara MacDonald, Queen’s University

University Stacey L. MacKinnon, University of
Susan Boon, University of Calgary Prince Edward Island
Rena Borovilo, Humber College Daniel McGrath, University of
David Bourgeois, Saint Mary’s Calgary
University Christopher Motz, Carleton
Delbert A. Brodie, St. Thomas University
University Tom Murphy, Western University
Irene Cheung, Western University Jennifer Ostovich, McMaster
Greg Chung-Yan, University of Windsor University
Ken Cramer, University of Windsor Stephen B. Perrott, Mount Saint
Jill Esmonde, Georgian College Vincent University
Deborah Flynn, Nipissing University Jason Plaks, University of Toronto
Ken Fowler, Memorial University of St. George
Newfoundland Kelley Robinson, University of
James Gibson, University of Victoria Manitoba
Gerald Goldberg, York University Stanley Sadava, Brock University
Naomi Grant, Mount Royal University Saba Safdar, University of Guelph
Stephanie Hancock, University of Rodney Schmaltz, University of
Lethbridge Alberta
Gabriella Ilie, University of Toronto Kelly Schwartz, University of
Scarborough Calgary
Linda Jessup, University of Waterloo Monika Stelzl, St. Thomas
Erika Koch, St. Francis Xavier University
University Mahin Tavakoli, Carleton University
Diane Lachapelle, University of New Warren Thorngate, Carleton
Brunswick University
Stephen Livingstone, University of Susan Weir, University of Regina
Toronto Anne E. Wilson, Wilfrid Laurier
Christine Lomore, St. Francis Xavier University
University
We also want to thank the editorial staff at McGraw Hill for their excellent work. Alex
Campbell followed the vision for the new edition of the text. Veronica Saroli provided edito-
rial feedback and assistance throughout the development of the manuscript. Jack Whelan
provided excellent help in guiding the book through the final changes needed for publication.
Christian Jordan Steven M. Smith

Wilfrid Laurier University Saint Mary’s University
Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Halifax, NS B3H 3C3
Email: cjordan@wlu.ca Email: steven.smith@smu.ca
Preface xix
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CHAPTER 1
Introducing the
Science and
Methods of Social
Psychology
Source: ©denis_pc/iStock/360/Getty Images.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
What Is Social Psychology?
What Are the Major Themes of Social Psychology?
How Do Values Affect Social Psychology?
Is Social Psychology Merely Common Sense?
Research Methods: How Do We Do Social Psychology?
With the number of blended families these days, the following scenario should
be easy to imagine. Indeed, you may have lived it!
2 Chapter 1 Introducing the Science and Methods of Social Psychology
Y our mother has remarried. Your stepfather has a child, a few years younger than you,
who complains about chores, their new room, your pets—everything. Even worse,
your new stepsibling goes to the same school as you and wants to follow you everywhere.
Although you are only reasonably popular, you manage to get invited to the “party of
the year” being thrown by the coolest kid in school, the one you’ve had your eye on for
months. Your new sibling wants to come. “No way,” you respond.
You arrive at the party, things are going great, and just when you are about to make your
move on your crush, an interloper shows up in a borrowed limo, dressed to kill, music blar-
ing. The new arrival grabs all of the attention, including that of your crush, who now has
no time for you. As the two of them leave together in the limo, you suddenly realize that
the intruder is your stepsibling!
Does this story sound even vaguely familiar? If so, it might be because this is simply
a retelling of a classic folk tale (“Cinderella”) but told from the perspective of one of the
wicked stepsisters. Isn’t it interesting that the person you root for changes depending on the
perspective being taken? That is the power of the situation and the power of perspective.
The French philosopher–novelist Jean-Paul Sartre (1946) would have had no problem
accepting the Cinderella premise. We humans are, he believed, “first of all beings in a
situation, we cannot be distinguished from our situations, for they form us and decide our
possibilities” (pp. 59–60).

What are the parameters of social psychology?
Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situa-

social psychology The scientific tions, with special attention to how we view and affect one another. More
study of how people think about, precisely, it is the scientific study of how people think about, influence,
influence, and relate to one another. and relate to one another (Figure 1–1).
Social psychology is the

scientific study of . . .
Social thinking Social influence Social relations

• How we perceive • Culture and biology • Helping
ourselves and others • Pressures to conform • Aggression
• What we believe • Persuasion • Attraction and intimacy
• Judgments we make • Groups of people • Prejudice
• Our attitudes
FIGURE 1–1 Social Psychology is . . .

Chapter 1 Introducing the Science and Methods of Social Psychology 3
Social psychology lies at psychology’s boundaries with sociology. Compared with soci-
ology (the study of people in groups and societies), social psychology focuses more on
individuals, employing methods that more often use experimentation. Compared with per-
sonality psychology, social psychology focuses less on differences among individuals and
more on how individuals, in general, view and affect one another.
Social psychology is still a relatively young science. Indeed, the first social psychology
experiments were performed just over a century ago (1898), and the first social psychology
texts did not appear until around 1900, in France, Italy, and Germany (Smith, 2005). Not
until the 1930s did social psychology assume its current form. And not until the Second
World War did it begin to emerge as the vibrant field it is today.
Social psychology studies our thinking, influence, and relationships by asking
questions that have intrigued us all. Here are some examples.
How Much of Our Social World Is Just in Our Heads? A memorial to Robert
Dziekanski, who died
As we saw with the story that opened this chapter, our social behaviour varies not just with at the Vancouver
the objective situation but with how we construe it. Social beliefs can be self-fulfilling. International Airport
For example, happily married people will attribute their spouse’s grumpy “Can you please after he was tasered
by authorities. He
put that where it belongs?” to something external (“It must have been a frustrating day”).
became confused and
Unhappily married people will attribute the same remark to a mean disposition (“Wow, agitated after a long
that’s rude!”) and may, therefore, respond with a counterattack. Moreover, expecting flight and could not
hostility from their spouse, they may behave resentfully, thereby eliciting the hostility understand authorities
they expect. as they tried to deal
with his behaviour.
Police tasered him,
and, tragically, he died.
If You Were Ordered to Be Cruel, Would You Comply? Social psychologists
Sadly, history is filled with unconscionable acts of genocide: in Nazi Germany, in ask these questions:
Could such an incident
Rwanda, in Sudan, in Syria, and even in Canada, against Indigenous peoples. These have been avoided
unspeakable acts occurred because thousands of people followed orders. In Germany, if rules allowed more
people put the prisoners on trains, people herded them into crowded “showers,” and flexible responses
people poisoned them with gas. How could ordinary people engage in such horrific to altercations with
actions? To investigate this, Stanley Milgram (1974) set up a situation where people authorities? Did
the police officers’
were ordered to administer increasing levels of electric shock to someone who was pre-existing biases
having difficulty learning a series of words. As we will see in Chapter 6, the experimen- influence their actions?
tal results were quite disturbing. Source: The Canadian
Press/Jonathan Hayward.
Would You Help Others?

Or Help Yourself?
As bags of cash tumbled from an armoured
truck on a fall day in 1987, $2 million was
scattered along a Toronto, Ontario, street.
The motorists who stopped to help returned
$100 000. Judging from what disappeared,
however, many more stopped to help them-
selves. When similar incidents occurred in
San Francisco, California, and Columbus,
Ohio, the results were the same: passersby
grabbed most of the money (Bowen, 1988).
Yet several videos of 2020 Black Lives Matter
protests show BLM protesters caring for and
rescuing injured counter-protesters.
What situations trigger people to be helpful or greedy? Do some cultural

Throughout this book, sources contexts—perhaps villages and small towns—breed greater helpfulness?
for information are cited A common thread runs through these questions: They all deal with how
parenthetically and then fully people view and affect one another. And that is what social psychology is
provided in the References all about. Social psychologists study attitudes and beliefs, conformity and
section at the end of the book. independence, love and hate.

What are social psychology’s big lessons—its overarching themes?
What concepts are on social psychology’s list of central ideas? What themes, or fundamen-
tal principles, will be worth remembering long after you have forgotten most of the details?
At a broad level, the fundamental principles of social psychology can be captured by a
classic statement by one of its founders, Kurt Lewin, who said, “behaviour is a function
of the person and the situation” (1952). From this general principle, we have developed
a short list of “great ideas we ought never to forget,” each of which we will unpack in
chapters to come (Figure 1–2).
We Construct Our Social Reality

We humans have an irresistible urge to explain behaviour, to attribute it to some cause,
and, therefore, to make it seem orderly, predictable, and controllable. You and I may
themes in social psychology

Major
1. We construct our social

5. Social behaviour is also
reality.
3. Social influences shape biological behaviour.
2. Our social intuitions are behaviour. 6. Relating to others is a basic
often powerful, sometimes need.
perilous. 4. Dispositions shape
behaviour.
Socia Socia
l thinking Soc l relations
ial influences
7. Social psychology’s
principles are applicable
to everyday life.
Ap
ply gy
ing s olo
ocial psych
FIGURE 1–2 Major Themes in Social Psychology.

react differently to similar situations because we think differently. Your perception of the
world you live in and the experiences you have depends on whether you are Cinderella or
her stepsister.
In a way, we are all intuitive scientists. We explain people’s behaviour, usually with
enough speed and accuracy to suit our daily needs. When someone’s behaviour is consis-
tent and distinctive, we attribute their behaviour to their personality. For example, if we
observe someone who makes repeated snide comments, we may infer that that person has
a nasty disposition and then we might try to avoid the person.
Our beliefs about ourselves also matter. Do we have an optimistic outlook? Do we
see ourselves as in control of things? Do we view ourselves as relatively superior or
inferior? Our answers influence our emotions and actions. How we construe the world,
and ourselves, matters.
Our Social Intuitions Are Often

Powerful but Sometimes Perilous
Our intuitions shape our fears (Is flying dangerous?), impressions (Can I trust them?), and
relationships (Do they like me?). Intuitions influence leaders in times of crisis; gamblers
at the table; eyewitnesses in front of a lineup of suspects; jurors in their assessments of
guilt; and human resources professionals when assessing applicants. Such intuitions are
commonplace.
Indeed, psychological science reveals a fascinating nonconscious mind—an intuitive
backstage mind—that we often don’t realize is guiding our thoughts and behaviour. As we
will see, studies of automatic processing, implicit memory, heuristics, spontaneous trait
inference, instant emotions, and nonverbal communication unveil our intuitive capacities.
Thinking, memory, and attitudes all operate on two levels—one conscious and deliberate,
the other nonconscious and automatic—which today’s researchers call “dual processing.”
We know more than we know we know.
Intuitions are powerful, but they are also perilous. We misperceive others, and we often
fail to appreciate how our expectations shape our evaluations. Even our intuitions about
ourselves often err. We intuitively trust our memories more than we should. We misread
our own minds: In experiments, subjects have denied being affected by things that did
influence them. We mispredict our own feelings: how bad we’ll feel a year from now if we
lose our job, our relationship, or even a hand! Similarly, we are bad at predicting how good
we’ll feel a year from now if we win the lottery or get that job we want. And we often mis-
predict our own future: When buying clothes, people approaching middle age will still buy
snug clothing, claiming, “I can lose this weight”; rarely does anyone say, more realistically,
“I’d better buy a relatively loose fit.”
Our social intuitions, then, are noteworthy for both their power and their perils. For exam-
ple, during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many people liked Donald Trump because
his off-the-cuff responses and snap decisions made him seem more “authentic.” But people
mistake authenticity for truthfulness and competence when, in fact, the opposite is often
true (Leary, 2016). Trump’s presidency, constantly peppered by scandal, protests, and more
recently the widespread death and economic issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, has
shown the impact of this flawed logic. Indeed, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote almost 500 years
ago in his famous work The Prince (1532) that people’s tendency toward uncritically believ-
ing what they are told, their instinct for self-preservation, and their desire to be part of a group
could be used by a leader (or aspiring leader) to manipulate the populace to support them.
By reminding us of intuition’s gifts and alerting us to its pitfalls, social psychologists
aim to fortify our thinking. In most situations, “fast and frugal” snap judgments serve us
well enough. But in others, where accuracy matters—as when needing to fear the right
things and spend our resources accordingly—we had best restrain our impulsive intuitions
with critical thinking.
Social Influences Shape Our Behaviour

We are, as Aristotle long ago observed, social animals. We speak and think in words we
learned from others. We long to connect, to belong, to live in a society, and to be well
thought of. For example, Matthias Mehl and James Pennebaker (2003) quantified their stu-
dents’ social behaviour by inviting them to wear recording devices. Once every 12 minutes
during their waking hours, the device would record for 30 seconds. Although the observa-
tion period covered only weekdays (including class time), almost 30 percent of their time
was spent talking. Relationships are a large part of being human.
As social creatures, we respond to our immediate contexts. Sometimes, the power of
a social situation leads us to act in ways that depart from our espoused attitudes. Indeed,
powerful situations sometimes overwhelm good intentions, inducing people to unspeakable
cruelty: Under Nazi influence, many otherwise decent people became instruments of the
Holocaust; over a period of hundreds of years across the Americas, governments implic-
itly and explicitly condoned colonization of the continent and the genocide of countless
Indigenous peoples. Other situations may elicit great generosity and compassion: The 2010
earthquake in Haiti, the 2011 tsunami in Japan, the 2016 fires in Fort McMurray, Alberta,
the 2018 hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic inspired
unprecedented generosity from Canadians across the country (and indeed around the world).
Your culture helps define your situation; your standards regarding promptness,
frankness, and clothing vary with your culture. Here are some examples:
Whether you prefer a slimmer or larger body type depends on when and where in the
world you live.
Whether you define social justice as equality (all receive the same) or as equity
(those who earn more receive more) depends on whether your ideology has been
shaped more by socialism or by capitalism.
Whether you tend to be expressive or reserved, casual or formal, hinges partly on
your culture and your ethnicity.
Whether you focus primarily on yourself—your personal needs, desires, and
morality—or on your family, clan, and communal groups depends on how much you
are a product of modern Western individualism.
How you perceive your social situation can depend on your social networks—the
more time you spend on Facebook and other social networking sites can increase
envy and depression (Tandoc et al., 2015).
In some countries, whether or not you wear a mask during a respiratory virus
pandemic depends on your political orientation.
Social psychologist Hazel Markus (2005) summed it up: “People are, above all, mallea-
ble.” Said differently, we adapt to our social context. Our behaviour, then, is shaped by
external forces.
Personal Attitudes and Dispositions Also Shape Behaviour

Internal forces also matter. We are not passive tumbleweeds, blown this way and that by
the social winds. Our inner attitudes affect our behaviour. Our political attitudes influ-
ence our voting behaviour. Our attitudes toward smoking influence our susceptibility
to peer pressure to smoke. Our attitudes toward poor people influence our willingness
to support them. (As we will see, attitudes also follow behaviour, which leads us to
believe strongly in those things for which we have committed ourselves or for which we
have suffered.)
Personality dispositions also affect behaviour. Facing the same situation, different
people may react differently. Emerging from years of political imprisonment, one person
exudes bitterness and seeks revenge. Another, such as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela,
seeks reconciliation and unity with former enemies.
Social Behaviour Is Biologically Rooted

Twenty-first-century social psychology is providing us with ever-growing insights into our
behaviour’s biological foundations. Many of our social behaviours reflect a deep biological
wisdom.
Nature and nurture together form who we are. Biology and experience together create
us. As evolutionary psychologists remind us, our inherited human nature predisposes us
to behave in ways that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. We carry the genes of
those whose traits enabled them and their children to survive and reproduce. Thus, evo-
lutionary psychologists ask how natural selection might predispose our actions and reac-
tions when we are dating and mating, hating and hurting, caring and sharing. Nature also
endows us with an enormous capacity to learn and to adapt to varied environments. We are
sensitive and responsive to our social context.
If every psychological event (every thought, every emotion, every
behaviour) is simultaneously a biological event, then we can also examine
the neurobiology that underlies social behaviour. What brain areas enable social neuroscience An integration
our experiences of love and contempt, of helping and aggression, of per- of biological and social perspectives
ception and belief? How do mind and behaviour function together as one that explores the neural and
psychological bases of social and
coordinated system? What does the timing of brain events reveal about
emotional behaviours.
how we process information? Such questions are asked by those in social
neuroscience (Cacioppo et al., 2010; Klein et al., 2010).
Social neuroscientists do not reduce complex social behaviours, such
as helping and hurting, to simple neural or molecular mechanisms. Their point is this:
To understand social behaviour, we must consider both under-the-skin (biological) and
between-skins (social) influences. Mind and body are one grand system. Stress hormones
affect how we feel and act. Social ostracism elevates blood pressure. Social support
strengthens the disease-fighting immune system.
We are bio-psycho-social organisms: We reflect the interplay of our biological, psycho-
logical, and social influences. And that is why today’s psychologists study behaviour from
these different levels of analysis.
Relating to Others Is a Basic Need

We want to fit in with others, and our relationship with others can be an important source
of stress and pain as well as joy and comfort. Kip Williams and his colleagues (Williams,
2002; Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000; Williams & Zadro, 2001) have shown that feeling
left out can have dramatic effects on how people feel about themselves. They had univer-
sity students play a simple computer game in which each player was represented by a car-
toon figure on the screen and the figures passed a ball to one another. When confederates
of the experimenter passed the ball to one another and left the real participants out of the
action, the participants felt miserable and reported steep drops in their self-esteem. Appar-
ently, even university students can feel the pain that many schoolchildren experience when
they are not included. Acts of aggression and prejudice inflict this sort of pain.
For some, this type of seclusion and ostracism plays out constantly in our everyday lives.
For example, Indigenous students who leave their home to go to university often feel ostra-
cized by the system due to the fundamental differences of living in solitary versus commu-
nity settings. There are misconceptions that all Indigenous students have funded university
education, creating a divide between not only their own communities but their university
peers (Hardes, 2006). Similarly, due to government regulations about how an Indigenous
person obtains “status” (which can differ wildly from what a band defines as someone being
a “member” of that band), many Indigenous people in Canada have their status denied by the
government (Council of Ontario Universities, 2013). They are denied their identity.
Of course, relating to others is not all pain. When others help, when we form r omantic
relationships, and when we promote harmony between groups, interpersonal relations can
be an important source of joy and comfort. In fact, according to Mark Leary and Roy
Baumeister (2000), our relationships with others form the basis of our self-esteem. They
argue that our self-esteem is nothing more than a reading of how accepted we feel by
others. In this view, relating to others is a basic need that shapes all of our social actions.
“You can never foretell what any

Social Psychology’s Principles Are
[person] will do, but you can say Applicable in Everyday Life
with precision what an average Social psychology has the potential to illuminate our lives, to make visible
number will be up to. Individuals the subtle forces that guide our thinking and acting. It also offers many
may vary, but percentages ideas about how to know ourselves better, how to win friends and influence
remain constant.” people, how to transform closed fists into open arms.
Sherlock Holmes, in Sir Arthur Conan Scholars are also applying social psychological insights to other disci-
Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, 1887 plines. Principles of social thinking, social influence, and social relations
have implications for human health and well-being, for judicial procedures
and juror decisions in courtrooms, and for the encouragement of behaviours that will
enable an environmentally sustainable human future.
As but one perspective on human existence, psychological science does not seek to
engage life’s ultimate questions: What is the meaning of human life? What should be
our purpose? What is our ultimate destiny? But social psychology does give us a method
for asking and answering some exceedingly interesting and important questions. Social
psychology is all about life—your life: your beliefs, your attitudes, your relationships.

Social psychologists’ values penetrate their work in ways both obvious and subtle.
What are these ways?
Social psychology is less a collection of findings than a set of strategies for answering
questions. In science, as in courts of law, personal opinions are inadmissible. When ideas
are put on trial, evidence determines the verdict. But are social psychologists really this
objective? Because they are human beings, don’t their values—their personal convictions
about what is desirable and about how people ought to behave—seep into their work? And,
if so, can social psychology really be scientific?
Obvious Ways in Which Values Enter Social Psychology

Values enter the picture with our choice of research topics. These choices typically reflect
social history (Kagan, 2009). It was no accident that the study of prejudice flourished during
the 1940s as fascism raged in Europe; that the 1950s, a time of look-alike fashions and rows
of identical suburban homes, gave us studies of conformity; that the 1960s saw interest in
aggression increase with riots and rising crime rates; that the 1970s feminist movement
helped stimulate a wave of research on gender and sexism; that the 1980s offered a resurgence
of attention to psychological aspects of the arms race; that the 1990s were marked by height-
ened interest in how people respond to cultural diversity; and that the 2000s saw substantial
research on extremism and terrorism. Undoubtedly, as social media’s impact on society, the
widespread acceptance of conspiracy theories (such as the anti-vaccination movement), and
political polarization continue to grow in Western democracies, those will become topics of
significant focus in the field. Social psychology reflects social history (Kagan, 2009).
Values differ not only across time but also across cultures. In Europe, people take pride in
their nationalities. The Scots are self-consciously distinct from the English; and the Austrians
from the Germans. Consequently, Europe has given us a major theory of “social identity,”
whereas North American social psychologists have focused more on individuals—how one
person thinks about others, is influenced by them, and relates to them (Fiske, 2004; Tajfel,
1981; Turner, 1987). Australian social psychologists have drawn theories and methods from
both Europe and North America (Feather, 2005). Values also influence the types of people
attracted to various disciplines (Campbell, 1975a; Moynihan, 1979). Have you noticed dif-
ferences in students attracted to the humanities, the natural sciences, or the social sciences?
Finally, values obviously enter the picture as the object of social–psychological analy-
sis. Social psychologists investigate how values form, why they change, and how they
influence attitudes and actions. None of this, however, tells us which values are “right.”
Not-So-Obvious Ways in Which Values

Enter Social Psychology
We less often recognize the subtler ways in which value commitments masquerade as
objective truth. Consider these not-so-obvious ways in which values enter social psychol-
ogy and related areas.
The subjective aspects of science

Scientists and philosophers now agree: Science is not purely objective.
Scientists do not simply read the book of nature. Rather, they interpret “Science does not simply
nature, using their own mental categories. In our daily lives, too, we view describe and explain nature;
the world through the lens of our preconceptions. it is part of the interplay
While reading these words, if you have normal sight, you have been between nature and ourselves;
unaware that you are also looking at your nose. Your mind blocks from it describes nature as exposed to
awareness something that is there, if only you were predisposed to perceive our method of questioning.”
it. This tendency to prejudge reality based on our expectations is a basic Werner Heisenberg,
fact about the human mind. Physics and Philosophy, 1958
Because scholars at work in any given area often share a common
viewpoint or come from the same culture, their assumptions may go
unchallenged. What we take for granted—the shared beliefs that European culture The enduring behaviours,
social psychologists call our social representations (Augoustinos & Innes, ideas, attitudes, traditions, products,
1990; Moscovici, 1988, 2001)—are our most important but often most and institutions shared by a large
unexamined convictions. Sometimes, however, someone from outside the group of people and transmitted from
camp will also call attention to these assumptions. one generation to the next.
During the 1980s, feminists exposed some of social psychology’s unex- social representations Socially
amined assumptions, criticizing the ideas of scientists who favoured a shared beliefs; widely held ideas and
biological interpretation of gender differences in social behaviour (Unger, values, including our assumptions
1985). Socialist thinkers called attention to the inherent support for the and cultural ideologies. Our social
benefit of competition and individualism—for example, the assumptions representations help us make sense of
that conformity is bad and that individual rewards are good. These groups, our world.
of course, make their own assumptions, as critics of “political correctness”
are fond of noting. Social psychologist Lee Jussim (2005), for example,
argues that progressive social psychologists sometimes feel compelled to deny group dif-
ferences and to assume that stereotypes of group difference are never rooted in actual group
differences but that perceived differences are just the result of racism.
In Chapter 3, we will see more ways in which our preconceptions guide our inter-
pretations. What’s crucial for our behaviour is less the situation-as-it-is than the
situation-as-we-construe-it.
The hidden values in psychological concepts

Implicit in our understanding that psychology is not objective is the realization that
psychologists’ own values play an important part in the theories and judgments they sup-
port. Psychologists refer to people as mature or immature, as well-adjusted or poorly
adjusted, as mentally healthy or mentally ill. They talk as if they were stating facts, when
really they are making value judgments. Here are some examples:
Forming concepts. Hidden values even seep into psychology’s research-based con-
cepts. Pretend you have taken a personality test and the psychologist, after scoring
your answers, announces, “You scored high in self-esteem. You are low in anxiety.
And you have exceptional ego-strength.” “Ah,” you think, “I suspected as much, but
it feels good to know that.” Now another psychologist gives you a similar test. For
some peculiar reason, this test asks some of the same questions. Afterwards, the psy-
chologist informs you that you seem defensive, for you scored high in “repressive-
ness.” You wonder, “How could this be? The other psychologist said such nice things
about me.” It could be because all these labels describe the same set of responses (a
tendency to say nice things about oneself and not to acknowledge problems). Shall
we call it high self-esteem or defensiveness? The label reflects a value judgment.
Labelling. Value judgments are often hidden within our social–psychological
language—but that is also true of everyday language. Here are some examples:
Whether we label someone engaged in guerrilla warfare a “terrorist” or a
“freedom fighter” depends on our view of the cause.
Edward Cornwallis was (and still is) a “hero” to many descendants of British set-
tlers in Canada for his work establishing the British colonies. But he is seen as a
murderer for his actions to eliminate Indigenous peoples.
Whether we view wartime civilian deaths as “war crimes” or as “collateral
damage” affects our acceptance of the deaths.
Whether we call public assistance “welfare” or “aid to the needy”
naturalistic fallacy The error of
defining what is good in terms of reflects our political views.
what is observable: For example, When “they” exalt their country and people, it is nationalism; when
what’s typical is normal; what’s “we” do it, it is patriotism.
normal is good.
Whether Donald Trump is a “racist misogynist” or an “authentic
straight-shooter” depends on your place on the political spectrum (as
does whether or not you will wear a mask to slow disease spread).
Hidden (and not-
so-hidden) values seep “Brainwashing” is bad but “social influence” is good.
into psychological advice. Whether wearing hijab is “oppression of women” or “expression of religious
They permeate popular
devotion” depends on your interpretation of the Islamic faith.
psychology books that
offer guidance on living Naturalistic fallacy. A seductive error for those who work in the social sciences
and loving. is sliding from a description of what is into a prescription of what ought to be.
Source: ©Rawpixel.com Philosophers call this the naturalistic fallacy. The gulf between “is” and “ought to
/Shutterstock.
be,” between scientific description and ethical prescription, remains as
wide today as when philosopher David Hume pointed it out 200 years
ago. No survey of human behaviour—say, of sexual practices—
logically dictates what is “right” behaviour. If most people don’t
do something, that does not make it wrong. If most people do it,
that does not make it right. We inject our values whenever we move
from objective statements of fact to prescriptive statements of what
ought to be.
As these examples indicate, values lie hidden within our cultural

definitions of mental health, our psychological advice for living, our
concepts, and our psychological labels. Throughout this book, we will call your attention
to additional examples of hidden values. The point is never that the implicit values are
necessarily bad. The point is that scientific interpretation, even at the level of labelling a
phenomenon, is a human activity. It is, therefore, natural and inevitable that prior beliefs
and values will influence what social psychologists think and write.
Should we dismiss science because it has its subjective side? Quite the contrary: The
realization that human thinking always involves interpretation is precisely why we need
researchers with varying biases to undertake scientific analysis. By constantly checking our
beliefs against the facts, as best we know them, we check and retrain our biases. Systematic
observation and experimentation help us clean the lens through which we see reality.

Is social psychology simply common sense? Do social psychology’s theories provide
new insight into the human condition? Or do they only describe the obvious?
Many of the conclusions presented in this book will probably have already occurred to
you, for social psychology is all around you. We constantly observe people thinking about,
influencing, and relating to one another. Much of our thinking aims to discern and explain
relationships among social events. It pays to discern what that facial expression predicts,
how to get someone to do something, or whether to regard another person as friend or foe.
For centuries, philosophers, novelists, and poets have observed and commented on social
behaviour, often with keen insight.
Does this mean that social psychology is only common sense but using fancy words? We
wouldn’t have written this book if we thought so. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged
that social psychology faces two contradictory criticisms: first, that it is trivial because it
documents the obvious; second, that it is dangerous because its findings could be used to
manipulate people.
We will explore the second criticism in Chapter 5. For the moment, let’s examine the
first objection. Pause your reading here, and complete the activity on the
next page before coming back here to read further.
Do social psychology and the other social sciences simply formalize “A first-rate theory predicts; a
what any amateur already knows intuitively? Writer Cullen Murphy (1990) second-rate theory forbids; and
thought so: “Day after day social scientists go out into the world. Day after a third-rate theory explains after
day they discover that people’s behaviour is pretty much what you’d expect.” the event.”
But why did you give the answers you did to the questions above? For Aleksander Isaakovich
example, let’s look at number 4. Does this make sense to you? Does money Kitaigorodskii, 1975
buy happiness? When we ask our classes this question, the opinions split.
Some say “no” but many say “yes.” But ask a different question—“Would
a little more money make you a little happier?”—and most of us will say “yes.” There is, we
believe, a connection between wealth and well-being. That belief feeds what Juliet Schor
(1998) has called the “cycle of work and spend”—working more to buy more. According
to a 1990 Gallup poll, one in two women, two in three men, and four in five people earning
more than $75 000 a year in the United States would like to be rich—although, to that half
of the world’s population who live on less than $2 a day, an income of $75 000 means they
are already fabulously wealthy (Shah, 2005).
Materialism surged during the 1970s and 1980s. The most dramatic evidence came
from a large-scale annual survey of nearly a quarter million students entering university.
The proportion considering it either highly desirable or crucial that they become economi-
cally affluent rose from 39 percent in 1970 to 74 percent in 2005. Those proportions virtu-
ally flipped with those who considered cultivating a significant belief system to be very
Activity: Is Common Sense Really That Common?
For each statement, please determine whether you think it is true or false.
1. T F Although women’s salaries in 1994 were approximately $14 000 less than
men’s, women’s incomes have gradually increased so that today we are see-
ing women’s salaries at levels comparable to those of their male counterparts.
2. T F Due to the high cost of living, the number of full-time workers in a single
household has increased dramatically over the past 10 years.
3. T F Canada is known for its attitudes of acceptance of others and its respect
for human rights and freedoms. It is, therefore, not unexpected that we would
have fewer active terrorist groups here than in any other Western democracy.
4. T F There is a positive relationship between how much money we make and
how happy we are. People who are more wealthy are overall happier.
5. T F Manitobans are likely to say they have more in common with people in
Nova Scotia than with Americans just south of them in North Dakota.
6. T F Nine out of every ten Canadians strongly or somewhat support “having
more women in elected office to achieve a well-functioning political system.”
7. T F Most of us have quite accurate insight into the factors that influence
our moods.
8. T
F Most people rate themselves as worse than average on socially desir-
able characteristics.
9. T F Memory is like a storage chest in the brain into which we deposit mate-
rial and from which we can withdraw it later if needed. Occasionally, some-
thing gets lost from the chest, and then we say we have forgotten it.
10. T F The greater the reward promised for an activity, the more we will come
to enjoy the activity.
How did you do? Go to the end of the chapter to find out.
important. More recently, a survey of over 25 000 Canadian university students found
that they expected a starting salary of over $50 000, and that most expected their salary to
increase by 70 percent in the first five years (Schweitzer & Lyons, 2019).
Does consumption, indeed, enable “the good life”? Does being well-
“Whoever said money can’t off produce—or at least correlate with—psychological well-being? Would
buy happiness isn’t spending it people be happier if they could exchange a simple lifestyle for one with
right.” palatial surroundings, Alpine ski vacations, and executive-class travel?
Would they be happier if they won the lottery and could choose any indul-
Lexus advertisement, quoted by
Booth (2019)
gence? Social psychological theory and evidence offer some answers.
We can observe the traffic between wealth and well-being by asking,
first, if rich nations are happier. There is, indeed, some correlation between
national wealth and well-being (measured as self-reported happiness and life satisfaction).
Scandinavians have been mostly prosperous and satisfied; Bulgarians are neither. But
1990s data revealed that once nations reached about $10 000 GNP per person, which was
roughly the economic level of Ireland before 1990, higher levels of national wealth were
not predictive of increased well-being. Better to be Irish than Bulgarian. But happiness
was about the same for an average Irish person, or an average Belgian, Canadian, or
Norwegian—with more than double the Irish purchasing power (Inglehart, 1990).
We can ask, second, whether within any given nation rich people are happier. In poor
countries—where low income more often threatens basic human needs—being relatively
well-off does predict greater well-being (Howell & Howell, 2008). In affluent countries,
where most can afford life’s necessities, affluence still matters—partly because people
with more money perceive more control in their lives (Johnson & Krueger, 2006). But
compared with poor countries, income matters little. Once a comfortable income level
is reached, more and more money provides diminishing long-term returns. World values
researcher Ronald Inglehart (1990, p. 242) found the income–happiness correlation to be
“surprisingly weak.”
Even the super-rich—for example, those on the Forbes 100 list—have reported only
slightly greater happiness than average (Diener, Horwitz, & Emmons, 1985). And winning
a major lottery seems not to elevate well-being enduringly (Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-
Bulman, 1978). Such jolts of joy have “a short half-life,” noted Richard Ryan (1999).
It is further striking that individuals who strive most for wealth tend to live with lower
well-being, a finding that “comes through very strongly in every culture I’ve looked at,”
reported Richard Ryan (1999). Seek extrinsic goals—wealth, beauty, popularity—and
you may find anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic ills (Eckersley, 2005; Sheldon et al.,
2004). Those who instead strive for intrinsic goals, such as “intimacy, personal growth,
and contribution to the community,” experience a higher quality of life, concluded Tim
Kasser (2000; Kasser & Ahuvia, 2002; see also Chen et al., 2014).
Common Sense, Revisited

One problem with common sense is that we invoke it after we know the facts. Events are
far more “obvious” and predictable in hindsight than beforehand. Experiments reveal that
when people learn the outcome of an experiment, that outcome suddenly seems unsurpris-
ing—certainly less surprising than it is to people who are simply told about the experimen-
tal procedure and the possible outcomes (Slovic & Fischhoff, 1977). Likewise, in everyday
life, we often do not expect something to happen until it does. We then suddenly see clearly
the forces that brought it about, and we feel unsurprised.
On June 23, 2012, a section of the roof parking lot at the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot
Lake, Ontario, collapsed onto shoppers and employees, killing two people and injur-
ing more than 20 more. The media and residents of Elliot Lake strongly criticized the
mall’s owners as well as the structural engineer who had inspected the structure prior
to its collapse. Couldn’t more have been done to avoid the death and destruction in this
case? Maybe. However, given what we know about the hindsight bias, is the extent
of the criticism fair? We often think we knew what we actually did not. As the
philosopher–theologian Søren Kierkegaard put it, “Life is lived forwards, but under-
stood backwards.”
If this hindsight bias (also called the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) hindsight bias The tendency
is pervasive, you may now be feeling that you already knew about it. to exaggerate, after learning an
Indeed, almost any conceivable result of a psychological experiment can outcome, one’s ability to have
seem like common sense—after you know the result. foreseen how something turned out;
You can demonstrate this phenomenon yourself (e.g., see Hom & Van also known as the I-knew-it-all-along
Nuland, 2019). Take a group of people and tell half of them one psycho- phenomenon.
logical finding; tell the other half the opposite result. For example, tell half
the group this:
Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in

love, we are most attracted to people whose traits are different from our own.
There seems to be wisdom in the old saying, “Opposites attract.”
Tell the other half this:
Social psychologists have found that, whether choosing friends or falling in

love, we are most attracted to people whose traits are similar to our own. There
seems to be wisdom in the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
Ask each group of people to explain the result given to that group. Then ask each group
to indicate whether the finding is “surprising” or “not surprising.” Virtually everyone will
find whichever result they were given “not surprising.”
Indeed, we can draw upon our stockpile of proverbs to make almost any result seem to
make sense. If a social psychologist reports that separation intensifies romantic attraction,
Joe Public responds, “You get paid for this? Everybody knows that ‘absence makes the
heart grow fonder.’” If, however, it turns out that separation weakens attraction, Judy
Public may say, “My grandmother could have told you ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”
The hindsight bias creates a problem for many psychology students. Sometimes, results
are genuinely surprising (for example, that Olympic bronze medallists take more joy in
their achievement than do silver medallists, something you might notice when watching
Canadian athletes at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 [postponed to the summer of 2021
because of COVID-19] as they win their many bronze medals).
Consider the last time you failed a test (or had a car accident, or experienced some other
negative outcome). Why did it happen? Is there something you could have done to avoid
it? Considering what you now know about the hindsight bias, and counterfactual thinking,
how accurate do you think your judgments are in terms of how you could have changed
the outcome?
But trained professionals are not immune to this either—mental health professionals
said they were more likely to predict a specific outcome for a patient (e.g., likelihood of
self-harm; likelihood of harming others) if they knew the outcome in advance, than when
they did not; and these are people who have been trained to understand the role of hind-
sight bias in decision making (Beltrani et al., 2018). Even with knowledge, these biases can
be difficult to overcome.
Fundamentally, people are not very good at identifying the causes of
“It is easy to be wise after their failure, and when they try to (and make mistakes) it can actually inhibit
the event.” later performance (Petrocelli, Seta, & Seta, 2013; Petrocelli et al., 2011).
Sherlock Holmes, in Sir Arthur
For example, you might think you failed your test because you were out
Conan Doyle’s “The Problem of Thor drinking, but if the real cause was that you did not read the material, simply
Bridge,” 1922 not drinking the night before the next test will not solve your problem.
We sometimes blame ourselves for “stupid mistakes”—perhaps for not
having handled a person or a situation better. Looking back on the event,
we see how we should have handled it. “I should have known how busy I would be at the
end of the semester and started that paper earlier.” But sometimes we are too hard on our-
selves. We forget that what is obvious to us now was not nearly as obvious at the time. Phy-
sicians who are told both a patient’s symptoms and the cause of death (as determined by an
autopsy) sometimes wonder how an incorrect diagnosis could have been made. Other phy-
sicians, given only the symptoms, don’t find the diagnosis nearly as obvious (Dawson et
al., 1988). Indeed, this even extends to judgments of defendants in criminal trials—jurors
who know that a crime victim died were more likely to say the defendant should have
foreseen the outcome (Evelo & Greene, 2013).
So what do we conclude—that common sense is usually wrong? Sometimes it is. Until
science dethroned the common-sense view, centuries of daily experience assured people
that the sun revolved around the earth. Medical experience assured doctors that bleeding
was an effective treatment for typhoid fever, until someone in the middle of the last century
bothered to experiment by dividing patients into two groups: one group was bled while the
other was given mere bed rest.
Other times, conventional wisdom is right, or it falls on both sides of an issue: Does
happiness come from knowing the truth or from preserving illusions? From being with
others or from living in peaceful solitude? No matter what we find, there will be someone
who foresaw it. But which of the many competing ideas best fits reality?
The point is not that common sense is predictably wrong. Rather, common sense usu-
ally is right after the fact. We, therefore, easily deceive ourselves into thinking that we
know and knew more than we do and did. And this is precisely why we need science—to
help us sift reality from illusion and genuine predictions from easy hindsight.

How does social psychology try to accomplish its goals?
We have considered some of the intriguing questions that social psychology seeks to
answer. We have also seen the ways in which subjective, often unconscious, processes
influence the work that social psychologists do. Now let’s consider the
scientific methods that make social psychology a science.
We are all amateur social psychologists. People-watching is a universal “Nothing has such power to
hobby: in parks, on the street, at school. As we observe people, we form broaden the mind as the ability
ideas about how humans think about, influence, and relate to one another. to investigate systematically and
Professional social psychologists do the same, only more systematically truly all that comes under thy
(by forming theories) and painstakingly (often with experiments that create observation in life.”
miniature social dramas to pin down cause and effect). Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
In their quest for insight, social psychologists propose theories that
organize their observations and imply testable hypotheses and practical
predictions. To test a hypothesis, social psychologists may do research that predicts behav-
iour using correlational studies, often conducted in natural settings. Or they may seek to
explain behaviour by conducting experiments that manipulate one or more factors under
controlled conditions. Once they have conducted a research study, they explore ways to
apply their findings to people’s everyday lives.
Forming and Testing Hypotheses

Social psychologists have a hard time thinking of anything more fascinating than human
existence. As we wrestle with human nature to pin down its secrets, we organize our ideas
and findings into theories. A theory is an integrated set of principles that explain and pre-
dict observed events. Theories are a scientific shorthand.
In everyday conversation, “theory” often means “less than fact”—a middle rung on
a confidence ladder from guess to theory to fact. Thus, people may, for example, dis-
miss Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as “just a theory.” Indeed, noted Alan Leshner
(2005), “Evolution is only a theory, but so is gravity.” People often respond that gravity
is a fact—but the fact is that your keys fall to the ground when dropped.
Gravity is the theoretical explanation that accounts for this observed fact.
To a scientist, facts and theories are apples and oranges. Facts are theory An integrated set of
agreed-upon statements that we observe. Theories are ideas that summa- principles that explain and predict
rize and explain facts. “Science is built up with facts, as a house is with observed events.
stones,” wrote French scientist Jules Henri Poincaré (1905), “but a collec- hypotheses Testable propositions
tion of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” that describe relationships that may
Theories not only summarize; they also imply testable predictions, exist between events.
called hypotheses. Hypotheses serve several purposes. First, they allow us
to test the theory on which they are based. By making specific predictions, a theory puts
its money where its mouth is. Second, predictions give direction to research. Any scien-
tific field will mature more rapidly if its researchers have a sense of direction. Theoretical
predictions suggest new areas for research; they send investigators looking for things they
might never have thought of. Third, the predictive feature of good theories can also make
them practical. What, for example, would be of greater practical value today than a theory
of aggression that would predict when to expect aggression and how to control it?
When testing our theories with specific hypotheses, however, we must always translate
variables that are described at the theoretical level into the specific variables that we are
going to observe. This process, called operationalization, is often as much an art as a science.
Consider how this works. Say we observe that people who loot, taunt, or attack others
(i.e., exhibit extreme violence) often do so in crowds. We might, therefore, theorize that
the presence of others in a crowd leads to extreme violence. Let’s play with this idea for a
moment. In order to test this hypothesis, we need to translate our theoretical variable crowd
into a meaningful example of it that we will observe. In this case, maybe we would opera-
tionalize this variable as 20 strangers together in a relatively small room, even though this
definition of crowd would probably be different from the crowds we originally observed.
The crucial question for this study would be this: Does our operational variable of crowd
represent what we mean theoretically by a crowd? The answer to that question determines
whether our operational variable is a valid measure of our theoretical variable. If we can
accept it as valid, then we can go on to test our hypothesis. If we can’t accept it as valid,
then the proposed research will not tell us much about our theory, and we should develop a
new operationalization. What do you think of this operationalization of crowd? Could you
do better? Good social psychology requires both following the principles of science and
developing tests of theories that creatively capture the essence of the theory being tested.
If we are going to test our hypothesis, however, we also need to operationalize extreme
violence. What if we asked individuals in “crowds” to administer punishing shocks to a
hapless victim without knowing which one of the group was actually shocking the victim?
Would these individuals administer stronger shocks than individuals acting alone, as our
theory predicts? In this example, administering punishing shocks would be the operational
variable of our concept of extreme violence. To be a good operationalization, we would
need to believe that it is a valid measure of violence; we would also need to believe that by
using this measure, differences in violence could emerge and we would get basically the
same results if we did the study over again. That is, we would need to believe that it is a
reliable measure. If this measure of violence sometimes showed violence and other times
didn’t, we might very well miss our effect.
When we test our theories, we necessarily must make observations; and when we make
observations, we have to decide what we are going to observe. This process of deciding
on our observations, called operationalization (as mentioned above) is how science puts its
theories to the test. A good operationalization captures the essence of the theoretical con-
cept—that is, it is valid—and it does so sensitively and consistently—that is, reliably—so
that tests of the theory can be observed.
You will note throughout the text, however, that quite regularly more than one theory
can explain what we know about a given phenomenon. Not only must we test our own
theory, but science often proceeds by testing between two theories. How do we conclude
that one theory is better than another? A good theory accomplishes the following:
It effectively summarizes many observations.

It makes clear predictions that we can use to do the following:
Confirm or modify the theory.
Generate new exploration.
Suggest practical applications.
When we discard theories, usually it’s not

because they have been proven false. Rather, like
old cars, they get replaced by newer, better models.
Correlational Research:
Detecting Natural Associations
Let’s go backstage now and take a brief look at
how social psychology is done. This glimpse
behind the scenes will be just enough, we trust,
for you to appreciate findings discussed later and
to think critically about everyday social events.
Social–psychological research varies by loca-
tion. It can take place in the laboratory (a con-
trolled situation) or it can be field research
Source: ©Sheila Fitzgerald/
(everyday situations). And it varies by method: Shutterstock.com.
correlational research (asking whether two or more factors are naturally
associated) or experimental research (manipulating some factor to see
its effect on another). If you want to be a critical reader of psychological field research Research done
research reported in newspapers and magazines, you need to understand in natural, real-life settings outside
the difference between correlational and experimental research. the laboratory.
Today’s psychologists often relate personal and social factors to human correlational research The study of
health. Soft drink companies have long argued that weight-conscious con- the naturally occurring relationships
sumers could help control their weight by drinking diet soft drinks. Sharon among variables.
Fowler and her colleagues (see Fowler et al., 2005) found that consuming experimental research Studies
regular soft drinks was correlated with obesity—the more you drink, the that seek clues to cause–effect
more likely you are to be obese. Given soft drinks’ high sugar content, per- relationships by manipulating one or
haps this finding was not surprising. However, what surprised the research- more factors (independent variables)
ers even more was that consuming diet soft drinks was even more strongly while controlling others (holding
related to obesity rates. them constant).
As shown in Figure 1–3, the risk of becoming obese is higher in every
consumption category for diet soda drinkers over regular soda drinkers.
60
Up to .5 0.5 to 1
1 to 2 More than 2
50
40
30
20
10
0
Regular Diet
FIGURE 1–3 Percentage risk of becoming overweight by type and

amount of pop Cans consumed.
Source: Myers/Smith, Exploring Social Psychology, Fourth Canadian Edition, Fig. 2.1, from p. 3 of Ch. 2.
Why? Could it be that drinking diet soda causes weight to increase? Should obese people
who drink diet soft drinks switch to regular soft drinks to lose weight? What are some of the
alternative explanations for this effect?
Correlation versus causation

The diet cola–weight gain question illustrates the most irresistible thinking error made
by both amateur and professional social psychologists: When two things go together, it is
very tempting to conclude that one is causing the other. Correlational research, therefore,
allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes
in another.
Below are a number of potential reasons that drinking diet soft drinks is related to weight
gain. Now, for each of the explanations below, evaluate the extent to which you believe this
explanation is true (i.e., correct) and also why you think the way you do.
1. There is a direct and causal relationship because there is an as yet unknown property
of artificial sweeteners that triggers hunger and causes people to eat more.
2. Drinking diet sodas is causally related to weight gain but reversed: People who are
overweight drink diet soft drinks in an attempt to lose weight, but it is too late. Thus
the effect is causal, but in the reverse direction (i.e., being overweight causes the
drinking of diet soft drinks).
3. There is a third variable involved; thus, there is no causal relationship. People who
drink diet colas are less likely to consume good drinks (e.g., milk, green tea) and good
foods (e.g., fruits, vegetables) that can help control weight gain.
Now that you have thought this through, ask your friends what they think. Do they
agree or disagree with you? Why?
The correlation–causation confusion is behind much muddled thinking in popular
psychology. Consider another very real correlation: between self-esteem and academic
achievement. Children with high self-esteem tend also to have high academic achievement.
(As with any correlation, we can also state this the other way around: High achievers tend
to have high self-esteem.) Why do you suppose this is? (See Figure 1–4 for a representa-
tion of three possible scenarios.)
Correlation
X Y
Social status Health
Academic
Self-esteem
achievement
Possible explanations
X Y
X Y X Y
Z
(1) (2) (3)
FIGURE 1–4 Correlation and Causation.

When two variables correlate, any combination of three explanations is possible.
Some people believe a “healthy self-concept” contributes to achievement. Thus, boost-

ing a child’s self-image may also boost school achievement. But others, including psy-
chologists William Damon (1995), Robyn Dawes (1994), Mark Leary (1998), and Martin
Seligman (1994), doubt that self-esteem is really “the armor that protects kids” from under-
achievement (or drug abuse and delinquency). Perhaps it’s the other way around: Perhaps
problems and failures cause low self-esteem. Perhaps self-esteem often reflects the reality
of how things are going for us. Perhaps self-esteem grows from hard-won achievements.
Do well, and you will feel good about yourself; goof off and fail, and you will feel like a
dolt. A study of 635 Norwegian schoolchildren suggests that a string of gold stars beside
one’s name on the spelling chart and constant praise from an admiring teacher can boost a
child’s self-esteem (Skaalvik & Hagtvet, 1990). Or, perhaps, as in a study of nearly 6000
German Grade 7 students, the traffic between self-esteem and academic achievement runs
both ways (Trautwein & Lüdtke, 2006).
It’s also possible that self-esteem and achievement correlate because both are linked to
underlying intelligence and family social status. That possibility was raised in two stud-
ies: one, of 1600 young men; another, of 715 teenagers (Bachman & O’Malley, 1977;
Maruyama, Rubin, & Kingbury, 1981). When the researchers statistically removed the
effect of intelligence and family status, the correlation between self-esteem and achieve-
ment evaporated.
Correlations quantify, with a coefficient known as r, the degree of relationship between
two factors: from −1.0 (as one factor score goes up, the other goes down), through 0, to
+1.0 (the two factors’ scores rise and fall together). Scores on self-esteem and depression
tests correlate negatively (r is about −0.6). The intelligence scores of identical twins cor-
relate positively (r is about +0.08). The strength of correlational research is that it tends
to occur in real-world settings in which we can examine factors such as race, gender, and
social status (factors that we cannot manipulate in the laboratory). Its great disadvantage
lies in the ambiguity of the results. The point is so important that even if it fails to impress
people the first 25 times they hear it, it is worth repeating: Knowing that two variables
change together (correlate) enables us to predict one when we know the other, but correla-
tion does not specify cause and effect.
The correlation does not equal causation issue is why we see so many competing health
claims in the media. We hear one day that flax seeds are “linked” to increased lifespan but
we hear the next day that flax is “linked” to cancer. Both can be true because of any one of
the reasons cited above (for fun, go through the soft drink example again, but replace “diet
soft drinks” with “flax seed”). Always be dubious of what you hear in the media. Think
critically in order to understand what conclusions you can and should draw.
When correlational research is extended over time, it is called longitudinal research.
Longitudinal research can begin to sort out cause and effect because we know that some
things happen before others. Causes always happen before effects, so if we know that
children almost always have a healthy positive self-image before they start to show more
achievement than their peers, then we can rule out that it is achievement that causes a
healthy positive self-image. Advanced correlational techniques can suggest cause–effect
relations. Time-lagged correlations reveal the sequence of events (for example, by indicat-
ing whether changed achievement more often precedes or follows changed self-esteem).
Researchers can also use statistical techniques that extract the influence of “confounded”
variables, as when the correlation between self-esteem and achievement disappeared after
extracting intelligence and family status.
Survey research
random sample Survey procedure
How do we measure such variables in the population? One way is by sur- in which every person in the
veying representative samples of people. Survey researchers obtain a rep- population being studied has an equal
resentative group by taking a random sample—one in which every person chance of inclusion.
in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion. With this
procedure, any subgroup of people—red-haired people, for example—will tend to be rep-

resented in the survey to the extent that they are represented in the total population.
It is an amazing fact that whether we survey people in a city or in a whole country, 1200
randomly selected participants will enable us to be 95 percent confident of describing the
entire population with an error margin of 3 percentage points or less. Imagine a huge jar
filled with beans, 50 percent red and 50 percent white. Randomly sample 1200 of these,
and you will be 95 percent certain to draw out between 47 percent and 53 percent red
beans—regardless of whether the jar contains 10 000 beans or 100 million beans. If we
think of the red beans as supporters of one political party and the white beans as supporters
of the other party, we can understand why polls taken just before national elections have
diverged from election results by an average of less than 2 percent. As a few drops of blood
can speak for the whole body, so can a random sample speak for a population.
Bear in mind that polls do not literally predict voting; they only describe public opinion
and voting intentions as of the moment they are taken. Both can shift. For example, in the
2011 Canadian federal election, surveys just two days before the election (LISPOP, 2011)
suggested that the Liberal Party would get as many seats as the New Democratic Party
(NDP); but clearly the NDP was gaining momentum and ended up capturing many more
seats than the Liberals. In the 2015 and 2019 Canadian federal elections, despite being
“too close to call” just prior to the election, the Liberals won both (albeit with a minority
in 2019) (CBC, 2015a, 2019). Similarly, in the 2016 U.S. election, polls consistently had
Hillary Clinton in the lead, but Donald Trump won a significant majority of the needed
electoral college votes (despite that Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million
votes). At the time of this writing, Joe Biden has a commanding lead over Donald Trump
in the 2020 presidential race. Did it hold?
To evaluate surveys, we must also bear in mind four potentially biasing influences:
unrepresentative samples, the order and timing of the questions, the response options, and
the wording of the questions.
Unrepresentative samples
How closely the sample represents the population under study matters greatly. In 1984,
columnist Ann Landers accepted a letter writer’s challenge to poll her readers on the
question of whether women find affection more important than sex. Her question was this:
“Would you be content to be held close and treated tenderly and forget about ‘the act’?”
Of the more than 100 000 women who replied, 72 percent said “yes.” An avalanche of
worldwide publicity followed. In response to critics, Landers (1985, p. 45) granted that
“the sampling may not be representative of all American women. But it does provide
honest—valuable—insights from a cross-section of the public. This is because my column
is read by people from every walk of life, approximately 70 million of them.” Still, one
wonders, are the 70 million readers representative of the entire population? And are the
1 in 700 readers who participated representative of the 699 in 700 who did not?
Order and timing of questions

Given a representative sample, we must also contend with other sources of bias, such as
the order in which we ask questions. Emily Grise and her colleagues at McGill University
found results that all travel groups should be aware of—depending on when and how ques-
tions are asked, and the season in which they are asked, travellers reported more positive
or more negative travel experiences. When prompted to consider their own commutes on
a “warm and sunny” day, responses about their travels were much more positive than if
prompted to consider “cold and snowy” conditions (Grise et al., 2019).
Response bias and social desirability

Consider, too, the dramatic effects of the response options. When Joop van der Plight
and his colleagues (1987) asked English voters what percentage of Britain’s energy they
wished came from nuclear power, the average preference was 41 percent. They asked oth-
ers what percentage they wished came from (1) nuclear, (2) coal, and (3) other sources.
Their average preference for nuclear power was 21 percent.
It is not just the response options, however, that can bias people’s responses. Some-
times people don’t want to admit their true actions and beliefs either to the experimenter
or sometimes even to themselves. Questions about prejudice often show very low lev-
els of reported prejudice by the respondents. Yet systematic experiments demonstrate
that prejudice is all too common. Why the difference in findings? People may not want
to admit on a survey or even to themselves that they harbour some feelings of preju-
dice. This tendency for people to say what they want others to hear or what they want to
believe about themselves is called social desirability. Social psychologists have devel-
oped new methods of measuring people’s beliefs without their knowing that their beliefs
are being measured. These implicit measures are often used when concerns about social
desirability arise.
Wording of the questions

Given a representative sample, we must also contend with other sources of bias, such as
the wording of questions. For example, one poll found that people favoured cutting “for-
eign aid” yet opposed cutting funding “to help hungry people in other nations” (Simon,
1996). Even subtle changes in the tone of a question can have large effects (Schuman
& Kalton, 1985). Thus, it is not surprising that politicians in Ottawa and Quebec have
fought bitterly about the wording of referendum questions about Quebec sovereignty.
Federalists have long charged that the Parti Québécois purposely has devised questions
that are unclear and designed to elicit a “yes” vote in favour of sovereignty. In the 1995
election, Quebec residents voted on this question (Gall, Millette, & Lambert, 2015): “Do
you agree that Quebec should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to
Canada for a new economic and political partnership, within the scope of the Bill respect-
ing the future of Quebec and the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?” Did this question
affect the outcome of the election? It certainly might have, because even when people say
they feel strongly about an issue, a question’s form and wording may affect their answer
(Krosnick & Schuman, 1988). Survey researchers must be sensitive to subtle—and not so
subtle—biases.
Knowledge of the issues, however, can sometimes interact with the wording of the ques-
tion to influence responses. Consider a study conducted by Darin Lehman of the Univer-
sity of British Columbia and his colleagues (Lehman et al., 1992). They had students read
a number of newspaper clippings preceding a provincial election. Some of the articles
sided with the New Democratic Party (NDP), while others sided with the Social Credit
Party (SCP)—the two main rivals in the election. After the students had read the articles,
Lehman and his colleagues asked the students in one condition to respond to a series of
questions about how fair the articles were to the NDP. The students in the other condition
were asked to respond to nearly the same questions, except that they rated how fair the
articles were to the SCP. The questions tended to lead students to see bias against one party
over the other. Did the wording of the question affect all students equally? No. It primar-
ily affected students who were less knowledgeable about the issues in the election. These
students saw more bias against the NDP when the questions were about the NDP and
more bias against the SCP when the questions were about the SCP. More knowledgeable
students, on the other hand, were unaffected by the wording of the question.
Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and Effect

The difficulty of discerning cause and effect among naturally correlated events prompts
most social psychologists to create laboratory simulations of everyday processes whenever
this is feasible and ethical.
Control: Manipulating variables

independent variables
Social psychologists experiment by constructing social situations that sim-
Experimental factors that a
researcher manipulates.
ulate important features of our daily lives. By varying just one or two fac-
tors at a time—called independent variables—the experimenter pinpoints
how changes in the one or two things affect us. The experiment enables the
social psychologist to discover principles of social thinking, social influence, and social
relations. Social psychologists experiment to understand and predict human behaviour.
It is important that we understand the distinction between correlation and experimental
research (see Figure 1–5). Historically, social psychologists have used the experimental
method in about three-quarters of their research studies (Higbee, Millard, & Folkman,
1982), and in two out of three studies, the setting has been a research laboratory (Adair,
Dushenko, & Lindsay, 1985). To illustrate the laboratory experiment, consider two
experiments that typify research from upcoming chapters on prejudice and aggression.
Each suggests possible cause–effect explanations of correlational findings.
Correlational and experimental studies of prejudice against the obese

The first experiment concerns prejudice against people who are obese. People often per-
ceive the obese as slow, lazy, and sloppy (Ryckman et al., 1989). Do such attitudes spawn
discrimination? In hopes of finding out, Steven Gortmaker and his colleagues (1993) studied
370 obese 16- to 24-year-olds. When they restudied them seven years later, two-thirds of the
women were still obese, and these women were less likely to be married and earning high
salaries than a comparison group of some 5000 other women. Even after correcting for any
differences in aptitude test scores, race, and parental income, the obese women’s incomes
were $7000 a year below average. Note: Obesity correlated with marital status and income.
Correcting for certain other factors makes it look as though discrimination might
explain the correlation between obesity and lower status, but we can’t be sure. (Can you
think of other possibilities?) Enter social psychologists Mark Snyder and Julie Haugen
(1994, 1995). They asked 76 University of Minnesota male students to have a getting-
acquainted phone conversation with one of 76 women students. Each man was shown a
photo said to picture his conversational partner. Half were shown an obese woman (not the
actual partner); the other half were shown a normal-weight woman. Whom the men were
shown—a normal-weight or an overweight woman—was the independent variable.
In one part of the experiment, the men were asked to form an impression of the wom-
en’s traits. Later analysis of just the women’s side of the conversation revealed that when
Research methods
Correlational Experimental
Advantage Disadvantage Advantage Disadvantage

Often uses real- Causation often Can explore cause and Some important
world settings ambiguous effect by controlling variables cannot
variables and by be studied with
random assignment experiments
FIGURE 1–5 Two Methods of doing research: correlational and experimental.

women were being evaluated, the men

spoke less warmly and happily if the
women were presumed to be obese.
Clearly, the men’s beliefs induced the
men to behave in a way that led their
supposedly obese partners to confirm
the idea that such women are undesir-
able. Prejudice and discrimination were
having an effect.
Correlational and experimental

studies of TV violence viewing
As a second example of how an experi-
ment can clarify causation, consider the
correlation between television viewing
and children’s behaviour. Children who
watch many violent television programs tend to be more aggressive than those who watch Does viewing violence
few. This suggests that children might be learning from what they see on the screen. But, on TV or in other media
lead to imitation?
as we hope you now recognize, this is a correlational finding. There are at least two other Experiments suggest
cause–effect interpretations that do not implicate television as the cause of the children’s that it does, especially
aggression. (What are they?) among children.
Social psychologists have, therefore, brought television viewing into the laboratory, Source: ©Peter Byron/
Science Source.
where they control the amount of violence the children see. By exposing children to
violent and nonviolent programs, researchers can observe how the amount of violence
affects behaviour. Chris Boyatzis and his colleagues (1995) showed some elementary
schoolchildren, but not others, an episode of the 1990s’ most popular—and violent—
children’s television program, Power Rangers. Immediately after viewing the episode, the
viewers committed seven times as many aggressive acts per two-minute
interval as the nonviewers. We call the observed aggressive acts the
dependent variable. Such experiments indicate that television can be one dependent variable The variable
cause of children’s aggressive behaviour. being measured, so called because it
So far we have seen that the logic of experimentation is simple: By cre- may depend on manipulations of the
ating and controlling a miniature reality, we can vary one factor and then independent variable.
another and discover how these factors, separately or in combination, affect random assignment The process
people. Now let’s go a little deeper and see how an experiment is done. of assigning participants to the
Every social–psychological experiment has two essential ingredients. conditions of an experiment such that
We have just considered one: control. We manipulate one or two inde- all persons have the same chance of
pendent variables while trying to hold everything else constant. The other being in a given condition.
ingredient is random assignment.
Random assignment: The great equalizer

Recall that we were reluctant, on the basis of a correlation, to assume that obesity caused
lower status (via discrimination) or that viewing violence caused aggressiveness (see
Table 1–1 for more examples). A survey researcher might measure and statistically extract
other possibly pertinent factors and see if the correlations survive. But researchers can
never control for all of the factors that might distinguish obese from non-obese, and vio-
lence viewers from nonviewers. Maybe violence viewers differ in education, culture, or
intelligence, or in dozens of ways the researcher hasn’t considered.
In one fell swoop, random assignment eliminates all such extraneous factors. With
random assignment, each person has an equal chance of viewing the violence or the non-
violence. Thus, the people in both groups would, in every conceivable way—family status,
intelligence, education, initial aggressiveness—average about the same. Highly intelli-
gent people, for example, are equally likely to appear in both groups. Because random
TABLE 1-1 Recognizing Correlations and Experimental Research.

Can participants be randomly
assigned to condition? Independent variable Dependent variable
Are early maturing children No → Correlational
more confident?
Do students learn more in Yes → Experimental Take class online or in Learning
online or classroom courses? classroom
Do school grades predict No → Correlational
vocational success?
Does playing violent video Yes → Experimental Play violent or nonviolent Aggressiveness
games increase aggressiveness? game
Do people find comedy funnier (you answer)
when alone or with others?
Do higher-income people have (you answer)
higher self-esteem?
assignment creates equivalent groups, any later aggression difference between the two
groups must have something to do with the only way they differ—whether or not they
viewed violence (Figure 1–6).
Note the distinction between random assignment in experiments and random sampling
in surveys. Random assignment helps us infer cause and effect. Random sampling helps us
generalize to a population.
Unfortunately, true experimental manipulation is not always possible.
Some situations (such as cases of child welfare) do not allow for random
observational research
assignment or for direct manipulations of independent variables. For exam-
methods Where individuals are
ple, one cannot randomly assign children to be brought up by “alcoholic”
observed in natural settings, often
without awareness, in order to versus “not alcoholic” parents to see what impact a substance-abusing
provide the opportunity for objective parent has on a child’s welfare (Foster & McCombs-Thornton, 2013).
analysis of behaviour. That would be unethical (see below). So, some researchers need to try to
make causal inferences using observational research methods where
Condition Treatment Measure
Experimental Violent Aggression

TV
People
Control Non-violent Aggression

TV
FIGURE 1–6 Random Assignment.

Experiments randomly assign people either to a condition that receives the
experimental treatment or to a control condition that does not. This gives the
researcher confidence that any later difference is somehow caused by the treatment.
individuals are observed in natural settings, often without awareness, in order to provide
the opportunity for objective analysis of behaviour. Observational researchers use sophisti-
cated statistical analysis techniques to make inferences about cause and effect where a true
experiment is not possible.
The ethics of experimentation

Our television example illustrates why some experiments are ethically sensitive. Social
psychologists would not, over long time periods, expose one group of children to
brutal violence. Rather, they briefly alter people’s social experience and note the effects.
Sometimes, the experimental treatment is a harmless, perhaps even enjoyable, experience
to which people give their knowing consent. Sometimes, however, researchers find
themselves operating in a grey area between the harmless and the risky.
Social psychologists often venture into that ethical grey area when they
design experiments that engage intense thoughts and emotions. Experi-
ments need not have what Elliot Aronson, Marilynn Brewer, and Merrill mundane realism Degree to which
Carlsmith (1985) called mundane realism. That is, laboratory behav- an experiment is superficially similar
iour (for example, delivering electric shocks as part of an experiment to everyday situations.
on aggression) need not be literally the same as everyday behaviour. For experimental realism Degree to
many researchers, that sort of realism is, indeed, mundane—not important. which an experiment absorbs and
But the experiment should have experimental realism—it should absorb involves its participants.
and involve the participants. Experimenters do not want their people con- demand characteristics Cues in an
sciously play-acting; they want to engage real psychological processes. experiment that tell the participant
Forcing people to choose whether to give intense or mild electric shock what behaviour is expected.
to someone else can, for example, be a realistic measure of aggression.
It functionally simulates real aggression.
Achieving experimental realism sometimes requires deceiving people with a plausible
cover story. If the person in the next room actually is not receiving the shocks, the experi- What influences
menter does not want the participants to know this. That would destroy the experimen- occasionally trigger
tal realism. Thus, about one-third of social–psychological studies (though a decreasing post-game violence
number) have required deception (Korn & Nicks, 1993; Vitelli, 1988). among sports fans?
Social psychologists
Experimenters also seek to hide their predictions lest the participants, in their eagerness have proposed
to be “good subjects,” merely do what’s expected or, in an ornery mood, do the opposite. hypotheses that have
In subtle ways, the experimenter’s words, tone of voice, and gestures may call forth desired been tested with
responses. To minimize such demand characteristics—cues that seem to “demand” groups behaving under
certain behaviour—experimenters typically standardize their instructions or even use a controlled conditions.
Source: The Canadian
computer to present them. Press/Ryan Remiorz.
Researchers often walk a tightrope
in designing experiments that will be
involving yet ethical. To believe that
you are hurting someone or to be sub-
jected to strong social pressure to see
if it will change your opinion or behav-
iour may be temporarily uncomfort-
able. Such experiments raise the age-old
question of whether ends justify means.
Do the insights gained justify deceiving
and sometimes distressing people?
University ethics committees now
review social–psychological research
to ensure that it will treat people
humanely. Ethical principles developed
by major psychological organizations
and government organizations (such as
Canada’s Tri-Council, which funds natural science, social science, humani-

informed consent An ethical ties, and health research) urge investigators to follow these practices:
principle requiring that research
participants be told enough to enable ell potential participants enough about the experiment to enable their
T
them to choose whether they wish to informed consent.
participate. Be truthful. Use deception only if essential and justified by a significant
purpose and if there is no alternative.
Protect people from harm and significant discomfort.
Treat information about the individual participants confidentially.
Debrief participants. Fully explain the experiment afterward, including any decep-
tion. The only exception to this rule is when the feedback would be distressing, such
as by making participants realize they have been stupid or cruel.
The experimenter should be sufficiently informative and considerate to leave subjects
feeling at least as good about themselves as when they came in. Better yet, the partici-
pants should be repaid by having learned something (Sharpe & Faye, 2009). When treated
respectfully, few participants mind being deceived (Epley & Huff, 1998; Kimmel, 1998).
Indeed, say social psychology’s defenders, professors provoke far greater anxiety and dis-
tress by giving and returning course exams than researchers now do in their experiments.
Increasingly, social psychologists have recognized that research ethics go beyond how
participants in their studies are treated. Part of this realization occurred when three estab-
lished social psychologists were exposed for making up all or part of their data in several
experiments (Funder et al., 2014).
The shock from these cases of fraud caused most social psychologists to do a lot of
soul searching about how this could happen in the field. How could someone work in the
field for 20 years, make up the data in all or most of their papers, and by all appearances
be successful? Why didn’t colleagues, editors, reviewers, and students notice? The answers
to these questions have not been simple and have caused social psychologists to rethink the
standards for conducting, reporting, and reviewing research (John, Loewenstein, & Prelec,
2012).
Researchers now have become more vigilant, not only in trying to detect and eliminate
fraud but also in conducting and reviewing research to eliminate subtle biases, such as the
tendency to confirm hypotheses, as much as possible. Among the practices that are gaining
wider adoption are making the data from one’s experiments publicly available, providing
fuller reports of the methods used in experiments, and carefully describing the statistical
tests used to test hypotheses. It remains to be seen whether these practices will make fraud
more difficult, but they do reflect a trend among researchers to hold one another to a higher
standard and to reduce bias in conducting research.
Generalizing From Laboratory to Life

As the research on children, television, and violence illustrates, social psychology mixes
everyday experience and laboratory analysis. Throughout this book, we will do the same
by drawing our data mostly from the laboratory and our illustrations mostly from life.
Social psychology displays a healthy interplay between laboratory research and everyday
life. Hunches gained from everyday experience often inspire laboratory research, which
deepens our understanding of our experience.
This interplay appears in the children’s television experiment. What people saw in
everyday life suggested experimental research. Network and government policymak-
ers, those with the power to make changes, are now aware of the results. This consis-
tency of findings on television’s effects—in the lab and in the field—is true of research
in many other areas, including studies of helping, of leadership style, of depression, and
of achievement. The effects found in the lab have been mirrored by effects in the field.
“The psychology laboratory has generally produced psychological truths rather than
trivialities,” noted Craig Anderson and his colleagues (1999).
We need to be cautious, however, in generalizing from the laboratory to life. Although
the laboratory uncovers basic dynamics of human existence, it is still a simplified, con-
trolled reality. It tells us what effect to expect of variable X, all other things being equal—
which, in real life, they never are. Moreover, as you will see, the participants in many
experiments are university students. Although this may help you identify with them, uni-
versity students are hardly a random sample of all humanity. Would we get similar results
with people of different ages, educational levels, and cultures? This is always an open
question.
Summing Up
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence,
and relate to one another. Its central themes are listed below.

We construct our social reality.
Our social intuitions are often powerful but sometimes perilous.
Social influences shape our behaviour.
Personal attitudes and dispositions also shape behaviour.
Social behaviour is biologically rooted.
Relating to others is a basic need.
Social psychology’s principles are applicable in everyday life.

Social psychologists’ values penetrate their work in obvious ways, such as
their choice of research topics and the types of people who are attracted to
various fields of study.
They also do this in subtler ways, such as their hidden assumptions when
forming concepts, choosing labels, and giving advice.
This penetration of values into science is not a reason to fault social psychol-
ogy or any other science. That human thinking is seldom dispassionate is
precisely why we need systematic observation and experimentation if we
are to check our cherished ideas against reality.

Social psychology is criticized for being trivial because it documents things
that seem obvious.
Experiments, however, reveal that outcomes are more “obvious” after the
facts are known.
This hindsight bias (the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) often makes
people overconfident about the validity of their judgments and
predictions.

Social psychologists organize their ideas and findings into theories. A good
theory will distill an array of facts into a much shorter list of predictive prin-
ciples. We can use those predictions to confirm or modify the theory, to
generate new research, and to suggest practical application.
Most social–psychological research is either correlational or experimental.
Correlational studies, sometimes conducted with systematic survey methods,
discern the relationship between variables, such as between amount of edu-
cation and amount of income. Knowing that two things are naturally related
is valuable information, but it is not a reliable indicator of what is causing
what—or whether a third variable is involved.
When possible, social psychologists prefer to conduct experiments that
explore cause and effect. By constructing a miniature reality that is under
their control, experimenters can vary one thing and then another and dis-
cover how those things, separately or in combination, affect behaviour. We
randomly assign (Figure 1−6) participants to an experimental condition, which
receives the experimental treatment, or to a control condition, which does
not. We can then attribute any resulting difference between the two condi-
tions to the independent variable.
In creating experiments, social psychologists sometimes stage situations that
engage people’s emotions. In doing so, they are obliged to follow professional
ethical guidelines, such as obtaining people’s informed consent, protecting
them from harm, and, afterward, fully disclosing any temporary deceptions.
Laboratory experiments enable social psychologists to test ideas gleaned from
life experience and then apply the principles and findings to the real world.
Key Terms
correlational research informed consent

culture mundane realism
demand characteristics naturalistic fallacy
dependent variable observational research methods
experimental realism random assignment
experimental research random sample
field research social neuroscience
hindsight bias social psychology
hypotheses social representations
independent variables theory
Answers to Common Sense Questions

Answers to Activity:
1. F 2. F 3. F 4. F 5. T 6. F 7. F 8. F 9. F 10. F
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The royal household was sometimes disturbed by family
dissensions; thus in 1787 the Prince of Wales would not attend the
birthday drawing-room of the Queen, but he sent her written
congratulations on the return of the day. The coldness existing
between mother and son kept the latter from court. ‘I fear it was
severely felt by his royal mother,’ says Miss Burney, ‘though she
appeared composed and content.’ Of party-spirit at this time, when
party-spirit ran so high and was so fierce and bitter in quality, the
Diarist last named asserts that the Queen had but little. She declares
her Majesty to have been liberal and nobly-minded, ‘beyond what I
had conceived her rank and limited connections could have left her,
even with the fairest advancements from her early nature; and many
things dropped from her, in relation to parties and their
consequences, that showed a feeling so deep upon the subject,
joined to a lenity so noble towards the individuals composing it, that
she drew tears from my eyes in several instances.’
This year saw the reconciliation of the Prince with his parents,
and a public manifestation of this reconciliation of the heir-apparent
with his family took place on the terrace at Windsor Castle. The
Prince appeared there, chiefly that by his presence he might do
honour to a particular incident—the presentation of the Duchesse de
Polignac and her daughter, the Duchesse de Guiche, to the King and
Queen. The noble visitors themselves, to do honour to the occasion,
repaired to the terrace, attired, as they thought, in full English
costume—‘plain undress gowns, with close ordinary black silk
bonnets.’ They were startled at finding the Queen and the
Princesses dressed with elaborate splendour. For the spectators,
however, the most interesting sight was that of the heir-apparent
conversing cordially with his illustrious parents. The lookers-on
fancied that all, henceforth, would be serene, and that ‘Lovely Peace’
would reign undisturbedly.
But a pleasanter scene even than this was witnessed shortly
after in the Queen’s dressing-room. Her Majesty was under the
hands of her hair-dresser, and in the room, during the ceremony,
were Mr. de Luc, Mr. Turbulent (a pseudonym), and Miss Burney.
The Queen conversed with all three. But the sacrilegious and well-
named Turbulent, instead of fixing there his sole attention, contrived,
‘by standing behind her chair and facing me, to address a language
of signs to me the whole time, casting up his eyes, clasping his
hands, and placing himself in various fine attitudes, and all with a
humour so burlesque that it was impossible to take it either ill or
seriously.... How much should I have been discountenanced had her
Majesty turned about and perceived him, yet by no means so much
disconcerted as by a similar Cerberic situation; since the Queen,
who, when in spirits, is gay and sportive herself, would be much
4
farther removed from any hazard of misconstruction.’ Nor was this
the only ‘pleasant’ incident of the year. It was not long after the
above that Lady Effingham, at Windsor, exclaimed to the Queen,
‘Oh, ma’am, I had the greatest fright this morning. I saw a huge
something on Sir George’s throat. “Why, Sir George,” says I, “what’s
that? a wen?” “Yes,” says he, “countess, I’ve had it three-and-twenty
years.” However, I hear it’s now going about—so I hope your Majesty
will be careful!’
One more court incident of this year will afford us a specimen of
playfulness as understood by the Prince of Wales. The latter was at
Windsor with the Duke of York, who had just returned from the
Continent, after an absence from England of seven years. His return
caused great joy both to the King and Queen; but it was not a joy of
long enduring.
‘At near one o’clock in the morning, while the wardrobe-woman
was pinning up the Queen’s hair, there was a sudden rap-tap at the
dressing-room door. Extremely surprised, I looked at the Queen, to
see what should be done; she did not speak. I had never heard such
a sound before, for at the royal doors there is always a particular
kind of scratch used, instead of tapping. I heard it, however, again,
and the Queen called out, “What is that?” I was really startled, not
conceiving who could take so strange a liberty as to come to the
Queen’s apartment without the announcing of a page; and no page, I
was very sure, would make such a noise. Again the sound was
repeated, and more smartly. I grew quite alarmed, imagining some
serious evil at hand, either regarding the King or some of the
Princesses. The Queen, however, bid me open the door. I did; and
what was my surprise to see there a large man, in an immense
wrapping great-coat, buttoned up round his chin, so that he was
almost hid between cape and hat. I stood quite motionless for a
moment; but he, as if also surprised, drew back. I felt quite sick with
sudden terror—I really thought some ruffian had broken into the
house, or a madman. “Who is it?” cried the Queen. “I do not know,
ma’am,” I answered. “Who is it?” she called aloud; and then, taking
off his hat, entered the Prince of Wales. The Queen laughed very
much, and so did I too, happy in this unexpected explanation. He
told her eagerly that he only came to inform her there were the most
beautiful northern lights to be seen that could possibly be imagined,
5
and begged her to come to the gallery windows.’
CHAPTER VII.
SHADOWS IN THE SUNSHINE.
The Princess Amelia—Her connection with the Duke of Grafton—Beau Nash

and the Princess—Her despotism as Ranger of Richmond Park—Checked
by Mr. Bird—A Scene at her Loo-table—Her fondness for stables—Her
eccentric Costume—Inordinate love of Snuff—Her Death—Conduct of the
Princes—The King’s Illness—Graphic picture of the state of affairs—Lord
Thurlow’s treachery—Heartlessness of the Prince—Deplorable condition
of the Queen—The King delirious—Particulars of his Illness—Dr. Warren
—Melancholy scene—The King wheedled away to Kew—Placed under
Dr. Willis—The Prince and Lord Lothian eavesdroppers—The King’s
Recovery—The King unexpectedly encounters Miss Burney.
One event of this year brings us back to the persons and memories
of the age of Caroline. Three-quarters of a century had passed away
since the day when the then little Princess Amelia Sophia, who was
born in Hanover, arrived in London, some three years old, at the
period when her parents ascended the throne of England. She was
an accomplished and a high-spirited girl, and grew into an attractive
and ‘lovable’ woman. No prince, however, ever came to the feet of
Amelia Sophia. She did not, nevertheless, want for lovers of a lower
dignity. Walpole, in allusion to this, states of her that she was ‘as
disposed to meddle’ in State matters as her elder sister Anne; and
that ‘she was confined to receiving court from the Duke of
Newcastle, who affected to be in love with her; and from the Duke of
Grafton, in whose connection with her there was more reality.’
The latter connection is said to have been more romantic than
platonic. The Princess and the Duke were given to riding out in
company, conversing together in the recesses of windows, keeping
together when out hunting, and occasionally losing themselves
together in Windsor Forest and other places convenient for lovers to
lose themselves in. This last incident in the love passages of the
Princess’s life afforded great opportunity for good-natured gossips to
indulge in joking, and for ill-natured gossips to indulge in affectedly
indignant reproof. The Princess troubled herself very little with the
remarks of others on her conduct. It was only when Queen Caroline
was worked upon by the ill-natured gossips to notice and to censure
the intimacy which existed between the Princess and the Duke that
Amelia took the matter somewhat to heart, and wept as a young lady
in such circumstances was likely to do at finding a violent end put to
her violent delights. The Queen indeed threatened to lay the matter
before the King, and it is said that it was only through the good and
urgent offices of Sir Robert Walpole that so extreme a course was
not taken.
Like her sister Anne, Amelia was rather imperious in disposition,
and she never found but one man who openly withstood her. That
man was Beau Nash. The Beau had fixed eleven o’clock at which
dancing should cease in the rooms at Bath, where he was despotic
Master of the Ceremonies. On one occasion, when the Princess was
present, the hour had struck, and Nash had raised his jewelled
finger, in token that the music was to stop, and the ladies were to ‘sit
down and cool,’ as the Beau delicately expressed it. The imperious
daughter of Caroline was not disposed to end the evening so early,
and intimated to the Master her gracious pleasure that there should
be another country dance. Nash looked at her with surprise. He
laughed an agitated laugh, shook all the powder out of his wig in
signifying his decided refusal, and, muttering something about the
laws of the Medes and Persians, set down the Princess as a rather
ill-bred person.
In her way she was as imperious as Nash; and as Ranger of
Richmond Park she was as despotic as the Beau within his more
artificial territory at Bath. She kept the park closed, sacred to the
pleasure and retirement of royalty and the favoured few. There were,
however, some dreadfully democratic persons at Richmond, who
had a most obstinate conviction that the public had a right of
passage through the park, and they demanded that the right should
be allowed them. The royal Ranger peremptorily refused.
Democratic cobblers immediately went to law with her, and proved
that the right was with them. The Princess yielded to the counsel of
her own legal advisers, and, allowing the right of passage, made a
very notable concession; she planted rickety ladders against the
walls, and bade the ladies and gentlemen of the vicinity pass through
the park as they best could by such means. But the persevering
people maintained that if they had right of passage the right must be
construed in a common-sense way, and that passage implied a pass
or gate by which such passage might be made. The royal lady
thought the world was coming to an end when the vulgar dared thus
to ‘keep standing on their rights’ in presence of a princess. She was
in some measure correct; for the age of feudal royalty was coming to
a close, and that great shaking-up of equality was beginning from
which royalty has never perfectly recovered. The troublesome
people, accordingly, kept most vexatiously to the point, and after a
fierce struggle they compelled their Ranger to set open a gate
whereby they might have free and constant access to their own park.
Had this daughter of Caroline been a wise woman, she would have
cheerfully gone through this gate with the people, and so, sharing in
their triumph, would have won their love. But ‘Emily,’ as she was
often called, was of quite another metal, and was so disgusted at the
victory achieved by the vulgar that she threw up her office in disgust,
and declared that the downfall of England commenced with the
opening of Richmond Park.
The Princess offended more persons than the mere democracy
by her arrogance as Ranger. The evidence of Walpole is conclusive
on this subject, and is worth citing, often as I have had to quote from
his lively pages. In 1752, he writes: ‘Princess Emily, who succeeded
my brother in the Rangership of Richmond Park, has imitated her
brother William’s unpopularity, and disobliged the whole country, by
refusal of tickets and liberties that had always been allowed. They
are at law with her, and have printed in the ‘Evening Post’ a strong
memorial, which she had refused to receive. The high-sheriff of
Surrey, to whom she had denied a ticket, but on better thought had
sent one, refused it, and said he had taken his part. Lord Brooke,
who had applied for one, was told he couldn’t have one; and, to add
to the affront, it was signified that the Princess had refused one to
my Lord Chancellor. Your old nobility don’t understand such
comparisons. But the most remarkable event happened to her about
three weeks ago. One Mr. Bird, a rich gentleman near the palace,
was applied to by the late Queen for a piece of ground that lay
convenient for a walk she was making. He replied that it was not
proper for him to pretend to make a queen a present, but if she
would do what she pleased with the ground he would be content with
the acknowledgment of a key and two bucks a year. This was
religiously observed till the era of her Royal Highness’s reign. The
bucks were denied, and he himself once shut out, on pretence it was
fence month (the breeding-time, when tickets used to be excluded,
keys never). The Princess was soon after going through his grounds
to town. She found a padlock on his gate. She ordered it to be
broken open. Mr. Shaw, her deputy, begged a respite till he could go
for the key. He found Mr. Bird at home. “Lord, sir, here is a strange
mistake! The Princess is at the gate, and it is padlocked.” “Mistake!
no mistake at all. I made the road; the ground is my own property.
Her Royal Highness has thought fit to break the agreement which
her royal mother made with me; nobody goes through my grounds
but those I choose should.” Translate this to your Florentines,’ adds
Walpole to our legate in Tuscany; ‘try if you can make them conceive
how pleasant it is to treat blood royal thus.’
George II., who was more liberal, in many respects, than any of
his children, save when these affected liberality for political
purposes, finally anticipated the award of law by ordering the park to
be thrown open to the public in the month of December 1752. But he
could not have kept it closed.
Walpole speaks of the Princess Amelia as if he had never
forgotten or forgiven this, or any other of her faults. According to his
description, she was for ever prying impertinently into the affairs of
other people; silly, garrulous, and importantly communicative of
trifles not worth the telling. He paints her as arrogant and insolent;
inexcusable, it would seem, in these last respects, simply because
she no longer possessed either power or beauty. But these were
only eccentricities; there was much of sterling goodness beneath
them. She was nobly generous and royally charitable. She was a
steady friend and an admirable mistress. In face of such virtues,
mere human failings may be forgiven.
Walpole graphically and dramatically describes a scene at her
loo-table. The year is 1762, the month December. ‘On Thursday,’ he
says, ‘I was summoned to the Princess Emily’s loo. Loo she called it;
politics it was. The second thing she said to me was: “How were you
the two long days?” “Madam, I was only there the first.” “And how did
you vote?” “Madam, I went away.” “Upon my word, that was carving
well!” Not a very pleasant apostrophe to one who certainly never was
a time-server. Well, we sat down. She said: “I hear Wilkinson is
turned out, and that Sir Edward Winnington is to have his place. Who
is he?” addressing herself to me, who sat over against her. “He is the
late Mr. Winnington’s heir, madam.” “Did you like that Winnington?” “I
can’t but say I did, madam.” She shrugged up her shoulders, and
continued: “Winnington was originally a great Tory. What do you
think he was when he died?” “Madam, I believe what all people are
in place.” “Pray, Mr. Montague, do you perceive anything rude or
offensive in this?” Here then she flew into the most outrageous
passion, coloured like scarlet, and said: “None of your wit. I don’t
understand joking on these subjects. What do you think your father
would have said if he had heard you say so? He would have
murdered you, and you would have deserved it.” I was quite
confounded and amazed. It was impossible to explain myself across
a loo-table, as she is so deaf. There was no making a reply to a
woman and a princess, and particularly for me, who have made it a
rule, when I must converse with royalties, to treat them with the
greatest respect, since it is all the court they will ever have from me.
I said to those on each side of me: “What can I do? I cannot explain
myself now.” Well, I held my peace; and so did she, for a quarter of
an hour. Then she began with me again, examined me upon the
whole debate, and at last asked me directly which I thought the best
speaker, my father or Mr. Pitt? If possible, this was more distressing
than her anger. I replied, it was impossible to compare two men so
different; that I believed my father was more a man of business than
Mr. Pitt. “Well, but Mr. Pitt’s language?” “Madam, I have always been
remarkable for admiring Mr. Pitt’s language.” At last the unpleasant
scene ended; but as we were going away I went close to her and
said: “Madam, I must beg leave to explain myself. Your Royal
Highness has seemed to be very angry with me, and I am sure I did
not mean to offend you; all that I intended to say was, that I
supposed Tories were Whigs when they got places.” “Oh!” said she;
“I am very much obliged to you. Indeed, I was very angry.” Why she
was angry, or what she thought I meant, I do not know to this
moment, unless she supposed that I would have hinted that the
Duke of Newcastle and the Opposition were not men of consummate
virtue, and had not lost their places out of principle. The very reverse
was at that time in my head, for I meant that the Tories would be just
as loyal as the Whigs when they got anything by it.’
The Princess was not ladylike in her habits. She had a fondness
for loitering about her stables, and would spend hours there in
attendance upon her sick horses. She of course acquired the ways
of those whose lives pass in stables and stable matters. She was
manly, too, in her dress. Calamette would have liked to have painted
her, as that artist has painted the frock-coat portrait of Madame
Dudevant (George Sand). He would have picturesquely portrayed
her in the round hat and German riding-habit, ‘standing about’ at her
breakfast, sipping her chocolate, or taking spoonsful of snuff. Of this
she was inordinately fond, but she accounted her box sacred. A Noli
me tangere was engraven on it, but the injunction was not always
held sacred. Once, on one of the card-tables in the Assembly Rooms
at Bath, her box lay open, and an old general officer standing near
inconsiderately took a pinch from it. The indignant Princess
immediately called an attendant, who, by her directions, flung the
remainder of the contents of the box into the fire.
In June 1786, Walpole, then nearly a septuagenarian, borrowed
a dress-coat and sword, in order to dine at Gunnersbury with the
Princess. The company comprised the Prince of Wales, the Prince of
Mecklenburgh, the Duke of Portland, Lord Clanbrassil, Lord and
Lady Clermont, Lord and Lady Southampton, Lord Pelham, and Mrs.
Howe. Some of the party retired early. Others, more dissipated, sat
up playing commerce till ten. ‘I am afraid I was tired,’ says Horace.
The lively old Princess asked him for some verses on Gunnersbury.
‘I pleaded being superannuated. She would not excuse me. I
promised she should have an ode on her next birthday, which
diverted the Prince; but all would not do. So, as I came home, I
made some stanzas not worth quoting, and sent them to her by
breakfast next morning.’
In the October following, the daughter of Caroline and George II.
died at her house in Cavendish Square, at the east corner of Harley
Street. Card-playing and charity were the beloved pursuits of her old
age. Her death took place on the last day of October 1786, in the
76th year of her age. Her remains lie in Henry VII.’s chapel in
Westminster Abbey.
But the decease of this aged princess appeared a minor calamity
compared with the illness which now threatened the King. In
presence of this the Queen forgot Mrs. Trimmer and her Sunday
Schools; Gainsborough, whom she patronised; public theatricals,
and private readings. The illness had been long threatening.
In the ‘Memoirs of the Court and Cabinet of George III.,’ by the
Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the elder sons of Queen
Charlotte are spoken of, and particularly with reference to this period
immediately previous to the King’s illness, in a most unfavourable
light. The Prince of Wales, we are told, like his two predecessors in
the same title, was active in his opposition to the measures of the
cabinet and crown. The same spirit, with as little prudence to
moderate and more ill-feeling to embitter it, was as lively in the man
as in the boy. The Prince was, however, at least consistent in his
opposition. ‘The Duke of York,’ says Lord Bulkeley, writing to the
Marquis of Buckingham, ‘talks both ways, and I think will end in
opposition. His conduct is as bad as possible. He plays very deep
and loses, and his company is thought mauvais ton. I am told that
the King and Queen begin now to feel “how much sharper than a
serpent’s tooth it is to have an ingrate child.” When the Duke of York
is completely done up in the public opinion, I should not be surprised
if the Prince of Wales assume a different style of behaviour. Indeed, I
am told, he already affects to see that his brother’s style is too bad.’
Public business, as far as its transaction through ministers was
concerned, became greatly impeded through the illness which had
attacked the King. It had been brought on by his imprudence in
remaining a whole day in wet stockings, and it exhibited itself not
merely in spasmodic attacks of the stomach, but in an agitation and
flurry of spirits which caused great uneasiness to the Queen, and
which, both for domestic and political reasons, it was desirous
should not be known.
The very attempt at concealment gave rise to various alarming
reports. The best answer that could be devised for the latter was to
allow the King to appear at the levée at the end of October. The
Queen suffered much when this plan was resolved upon; and it had
the result, which she expected, of over-fatiguing the King and
rendering him worse. At the close of the levée, the King remarked to
the Duke of Leeds and Lord Thurlow, the latter of whom had advised
him to take care of himself and return to Windsor: ‘You then, too, my
Lord Thurlow, forsake me, and suppose me ill beyond recovery; but
whatever you or Mr. Pitt may think or feel, I, that am born a
gentleman, shall never lay my head on my last pillow in peace and
quiet as long as I remember the loss of my American Colonies.’ This
loss appears to have weighed heavily on his mind, and to have been
one of the great causes by which it was ultimately overthrown.
Early in November he became delirious, but the medical men,
Warren, Heberden, and Sir G. Baker, could not tell whether the
malady would turn, at a critical point, for life or death; or whether, if
for the former, the patient would be afflicted or not with permanent
loss of reason. The disease was now settled in the brain, with high
fever. The Princes of the Blood were all assembled at Windsor, in the
room next to that occupied by the sufferer, and a regency bestowing
kingly power on the Prince of Wales was already talked of.
When the fact of the King’s illness could no longer be with
propriety concealed, the alarm without the royal residence was great,
and the disorder scarcely less within. The most graphic picture of the
state of affairs is drawn by Lord Bulkeley. ‘The Queen,’ he says,
‘sees nobody but Lady Constance, Lady Charlotte Finch, Miss
Burney, and her two sons, who, I am afraid, do not announce the
state of the King’s health with that caution and delicacy which should
be observed to the wife and the mother, and it is to them only that
she looks up. I understand her behaviour is very feeling, decent, and
proper. The Prince has taken the command at Windsor, in
consequence of which there is no command whatsoever; and it was
not till yesterday that orders were given to two grooms of the
bedchamber to wait for the future, and receive the inquiries of the
numbers who inquire; nor would this have been done if Pitt and Lord
Sydney had not come down in person to beg that such orders might
be given. Unless it was done yesterday, no orders were given for
prayers in the churches, nor for the observance of other forms, such
as stopping the playhouses, &c., highly proper (?) at such a juncture.
What the consequence of this heavy misfortune will be to
government, you are more likely to know than I am; but I cannot help
thinking that the Prince will find a greater difficulty in making a sweep
of the present ministry in his character of Fiduciary Regent than in
that of King. The stocks are already fallen two per cent., and the
alarms of the people of London are very little flattering to the Prince.
I am told that message after message has been sent to Fox, who is
touring with Mrs. Armistead on the continent; but I have not heard
that the Prince has sent for him, or has given any orders to Fox’s
friends to that effect. The system of favouritism is much changed
since Lord Bute’s and the Princess Dowager’s time; for Jack Payne,
Master Leigh, an Eton schoolboy, and Master Barry, brother to Lord
Barrymore, and Mrs. Fitz, form the cabinet at Carlton House.’
The afflicted King, for a time, grew worse, then the Opposition
affected to believe that his case was by no means desperate. Their
insincerity was proved as symptoms of amelioration began to show
themselves. Then they not only denied the fact of the King’s
improved health, but they detailed all the incidents they could pick up
of his period of imbecility, short madness, or longer delirium. But, in
justice to the Opposition, it must be remarked that the greatest traitor
was not on that side, but on the King’s. The Lord Chancellor Thurlow
was intriguing with the Opposition when he was affecting to be a
faithful servant of the crown. His treachery, however, was well known
to both parties; but Pitt kept it from the knowledge of George III., lest
it should too deeply pain or too dangerously excite him. When
Thurlow had, subsequently, the effrontery to exclaim in the House of
Lords, ‘When I forget my King, may my God forget me!’ a voice from
one behind him is said to have murmured, ‘Forget you! He will see
you d—d first.’
There was assuredly no decency in the conduct of the heir-
apparent or of his next brother. They were gaily flying from club to
club, party to party, and did not take the trouble even to assume the
sentiment which they could not feel. ‘If we were together,’ says Lord
Grenville, in a letter inserted in the ‘Memoirs,’ ‘I would tell you some
particulars of the Prince of Wales’s behaviour towards the King and
Queen, within these few days, that would make your blood run cold,
but I dare not admit them to paper because of my informant.’ It was
said that if the King could only recover sufficiently to learn and
comprehend what had been said and done during his illness, he
would hear enough to drive him again into insanity. The conduct of
his elder sons was marked, not only by its savage inhumanity, but by
an indifference to public and private opinion which distinguishes
those fools who are not only without wits, but who are also without
hearts. When the Parliament was divided by fierce party strife, as to
whose hands should be confided the power and responsibilities of
the regency, the occasion should have disposed those likely to be
endowed with that supreme power to seek a decent, if temporary,
retirement from the gaze of the world. Not so the Prince of Wales
and the Duke of York. They kept open houses, and gaily welcomed
every new ally. They were constant guests at epicurean clubs and
convivial meetings. They both took to deep play, and both were as
fully plucked as they deserved. There was in them neither propriety
of feeling nor affectation of it.
The condition of the Queen was deplorable, and a succession of
fits almost prostrated her as low as her royal husband. The Prince of
Wales himself ‘seemed frightened,’ says Mr. Neville to the Marquis of
Buckingham, ‘and was blooded yesterday,’ November 6, the second
day of the King’s delirious condition; but as phlebotomy was a
practice of this princely person when in love, one cannot well
determine whether his pallor arose from filial or some less
respectable affection.
Up to this time the King had grown worse, chiefly through total,
or nearly total, loss of sleep. He bewailed this with a hoarse, rapid,
yet kindly tone of voice; maintaining that he was well, or that to be so
he needed but the blessing of sleep. The Queen paced her
apartment with a painful demonstration of impatient despair in her
manner; and if, by way of solace, she attempted to read aloud to her
children or ladies, any passage that reminded her of her condition
and prospects made her burst into tears.
Previous to the first night of the King’s delirium he conducted, as
he had always been accustomed to do, the Queen to her dressing-
room, and there, a hundred times over, requested her not to disturb
him if she should find him asleep. The urgent repetition showed a
mind nearly overthrown, but the King calmly and affectionately
remarked that he needed not physicians, for the Queen was the best
physician he could have. ‘She is my best friend,’ said he; ‘where
could I find a better?’
The alarm became greater when the fever left the King, after he
had three times taken James’s powders, but without producing any
relief to the brain. The Queen secluded herself from all persons save
her ladies and the two eldest Princes. These, as Lord Bulkeley said,
did not announce to her the state of the King’s health with the
caution and delicacy due to the wife and mother who now depended
on them. This dependence was so complete that the Prince of
Wales, as before said, took the command of everything at Windsor,
one result of which was a disappearance of everything like order.
The Queen’s dependence on such a son was rather compulsory
than voluntary. When he first came down to Windsor, from Brighton,
the meeting was the very coldest possible, and when he had stated
whence he came her first question was when he meant to return.
However, it is said that when the King broke out, at dinner, into his
first fit of positive delirium, the Prince burst into tears.
The sufferer was occasionally better, but the relapses were
frequent. The Queen now slept in a bed-room adjoining that
occupied by the King. He once became possessed with the idea that
she had been forcibly removed from the bed, and in the middle of the
night he came into the Queen’s room with a candle in his hand, to
satisfy himself that she was still near him. He remained half-an-hour,
talking incoherently, hoarsely, but good-naturedly, and then went
away. The Queen’s nights were nights of sleeplessness and tears.
In the Queen’s room could be heard every expression uttered by
the King, and they were only such as could give pain to the listener.
His state was at length so bad that the Queen was counselled to
change her apartments, both for her sake and the King’s. She
obeyed, reluctantly and despairingly, and confined herself to a single
and distant room. In the meanwhile, Dr. Warren was sent for, but the
King resolutely refused to see him. He hated all physicians, declared
that he himself was only nervous, and that otherwise he was not ill.
Dr. Warren, however, contrived to be near enough to be able to give
an opinion, and the Queen waited impatiently in her apartment to
hear what that opinion might be. When she was told, after long
waiting, that Dr. Warren had left the castle, after communicating his
opinion to the Prince of Wales, she felt the full force of her altered
position, and that she was nor longer first in the castle next to the
King.
The Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, some of the medical
men, and other gentlemen kept a sort of watch in the room adjacent
to that in which the King lay, and listened attentively to all he uttered.
He surprised them, one night, by suddenly appearing among them,
and roughly demanding what they were there for. They endeavoured
to pacify him, but in vain. He treated them all as enemies; but not
happening to see his second son, who had discreetly kept out of
sight, but was present, he said, touchingly, ‘Freddy is my friend; yes,
he is my friend!’ Sir George Baker timidly persuaded the poor King to
return to his bed-room; but the latter forced the doctor into a corner,
and told him that he was an old woman, who could not distinguish
between a mere nervous malady and any other. The Prince, by sign
and whispers, endeavoured to induce the other gentlemen to lead
his father away. All were reluctant, and the King remained a
considerable time, till at last a ‘Mr. Fairly’ took him boldly by the arm,
addressed him respectfully but firmly, declaring that his life was in
peril if he did not go again to bed, and at length subdued the King,
who gave himself up like a wearied child. These details were eagerly
made known to the Queen by the Prince with ‘energetic violence.’
Her Majesty’s condition was indeed melancholy, but at its worst she
never forgot to perform little acts of kindness to her daughters and
others. The conduct of the Princesses was such as became their
situation. They, with their mother, had fallen from their first greatness,
and the Prince of Wales was supreme master. Nothing was done but
by his orders. The Queen ceased to have any authority beyond the
reach of her own ladies. ‘She spent the whole day,’ says Miss
Burney, ‘in patient sorrow and retirement with her daughters!’
The King expressed a very natural desire to see these
daughters, but he was not indulged. Indeed, the practice observed
towards him appears, if the accounts may be trusted, extremely
injudicious. The public seem to have thought so; for, on stopping Sir
George Baker’s carriage, and hearing from him that the King’s
condition was very bad, they exclaimed, ‘More shame for you!’
The Prince of Wales was extremely desirous to remove the King
from Windsor to Kew. The King was violently averse from such
removal, and the Queen opposed it until she was informed that it had
the sanction of the physicians. Kew was said to be quieter and more
adapted for an invalid. The difficulty was, how he was to get there.
Of his own will he would never go. The Prince and physicians
contrived a plan. The Queen and Princesses were to leave Windsor
early, and, as soon as the King should be told of their departure, his
uneasiness would be calmed by an assurance that he would find
them at Kew. The Queen yielded reluctantly, on being told that it
would be for her consort’s advantage; and she and her daughters
proceeded, without state and in profound grief, to Kew. Small
accommodation did they find there; for half the apartments were
locked up, by the Prince’s orders, while on the doors of the few
allotted to the Queen and her slender retinue, some illustrious groom
of the chambers had scratched in chalk the names of those by whom
they were to be occupied! Night had set in before the King arrived.
He had been wheedled away from Windsor, on promise of being
allowed to see the Queen and their daughters at Kew. He performed
the journey in silent content; and, when he arrived—the promise was
broken! The Queen and children were again told that it was all for
the best; but a night, passed by the King in violence and raving,
showed how deeply he felt the cruel insult to which he had been
subjected. In the meantime, preparations to name the Prince regent
were going on, the King’s friends being extremely cautious that due
reserve should be made for their master’s rights, in case of what
they did not yet despair of—his recovery. His physicians were
divided in opinion upon the point; but they all agreed that the malady,
which had begun with a natural discharge of humour from the legs,
had, by the King’s imprudence, been driven to the bowels, and that
thence it had been repelled upon the brain. They endeavoured,
without too sanguinely hoping, to bring the malady again down to the
legs.
Their efforts were fruitless. Addington and Sir Lucas Pepys were
more sanguine than their colleagues, of a recovery; but the condition
of the patient grew daily more serious, yet with intervals of calm
lucidity. It was at this juncture that Dr. Willis, of Lincoln, was called in.
This measure gave great relief to the Queen; for she knew that
cases of lunacy formed Dr. Willis’s specialité, and she entertained
great hopes from the treatment he should adopt. The doctor was
accompanied by his two sons. They were (and the father especially)
fine men, full of cheerfulness, firm in manner, entertaining respect for
the personal character of the King, but caring not a jot for his rank.
They at once took the royal patient into their care, and with such
good success—never unnecessarily opposing him, but winning,
rather than compelling, him to follow the course best suited for his
health—that, on the 10th of December, the Queen had the
gratification to see him, from the window of her apartment, walking in
the garden alone, the Willises being in attendance at a little distance
from him.
There was a party who desired least of all things the recovery of
the monarch. The Prince of Wales, during his father’s malady, took
Lord Lothian into a darkened room, adjacent to that of the King, in
order that the obsequious lord might hear the ravings of the
sovereign, and depose to the fact, if such deposition should be
necessary!
The year 1789 opened propitiously. On its very first morning the
poor King was heard praying, aloud and fervently, for his own
recovery. A report of how he had passed the night was made to the
Queen every morning, and generally by Miss Burney. The state of
the King varied so much, and there was so much of painful detail
that it was desirable should be concealed, that the task allotted to
Miss Burney was sometimes one of great delicacy. On the worst
occasions she appears to have spared her royal mistress’s feelings
with much tact and judgment, and her face was the index of her
message whenever she was the bearer of favourable intelligence.
The highest gratification experienced by the Queen at the period
when hopes revived of the King’s recovery, was when she heard that
her husband had remembered on the 18th of January that it was her
birthday, and had expressed a desire to see her. This joy, however,
was forbidden him for a time, and apparently not without reason. A
short period only had elapsed after the birthday when the King
suddenly encountered Miss Burney in Kew Gardens, where she had
ventured to take exercise, under the impression that the sick
monarch had been taken to Richmond. As it was the Queen’s desire,
derived from the physicians, that no one should attempt to come in
the King’s way, or address him if they did, Miss Burney no sooner
became aware of whom she had thus unexpectedly encountered,
than she turned round and fairly took to her heels. The King, calling
to her by name, and enraptured to see again the face of one whom
he knew and esteemed, pursued as swiftly as she fled. The Willises
followed hard upon the King, not without some alarm. Miss Burney
kept the lead in breathless affright. In vain was she called upon to
stop: she ran on until a peremptory order from Dr. Willis, and a brief
assurance that the agitation would be most injurious to the King,
brought her at once to a stand-still. She then turned and advanced to
meet the King, as if she had not before been aware of his presence.
He manifested his intense delight by opening wide his arms, closing
them around her, and kissing her warmly on each cheek. Poor Miss
Burney was overwhelmed, and the Willises were delighted. They
imagined that the King was doing nothing unusual with him in the
days of his ordinary health, and were pleased to see him fulfilling, as
they thought, an old observance.
The King would not relax his hold of his young friend. He entered
eagerly into conversation, if that may be deemed conversation in
which he alone spoke, or was only answered by words sparingly
used and soothingly intoned. He talked rapidly, hoarsely, but only
occasionally incoherently. His subjects of conversation took a wide
range. Family affairs, political business, Miss Burney’s domestic
interests, foreign matters, music,—these and many other topics
made up the staple of his discourse. He was at least rational on the
subject of music, for then he commenced singing from his favourite
Handel, but with voice so hoarse and ill-attuned that he frightened
his audience. Dr. Willis suggested that the interview should close;
but this the King energetically opposed, and his medical adviser
thought it best to let him have his way. He went on, then, wildly as
before, but manifesting much shrewdness; showed that he was
aware of his condition, and expressed more than suspicion of
assaults made upon his authority during his own incapacity. He
talked of whom he would promote when he was fully restored to
health, and whom he would dismiss—made allusion to a thousand
projects which he intended to realise, and attained a climax of
threatening, with a serio-comic expression, that when he should
again be King he would rule with a rod of iron.
After various attempts at interruption, the Willises at length
succeeded in obtaining his consent to return to the house, and Miss
Burney hastened to the Queen’s apartment to inform her of all that
had passed. The Queen listened to her tale with breathless interest;
made her repeat every incident; and augured so well from all she
heard, that she readily forgave Miss Burney her involuntary infraction
of a very peremptory law. That the Queen’s augury was well founded
may be seen in the fact that, on the 12th of February following, King
and Queen together walked in Kew Gardens—he, happy and
nervous; she, in much the same condition; and both, as grateful as
mortals could be for inestimable blessings vouchsafed to them.
During the progress of the King’s illness, while all was sombre
and silent at Kew, political intrigue was loud and active elsewhere.
The voice of the Queen herself was not altogether mute in this
intrigue. She had rights to defend, she had spirit to assert them, and
she had friends to afford her aid in enabling her to establish them.

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Social Psychology 8th Edition David G.

Social Psychology 12th Edition David G. Myers

Psychology 13th Edition David G Myers

Psychology, 13th Edition David G. Myers

Social Psychology (Complete table of contents) 14th

Exploring Psychology In Modules 12th Edition David G.

Psicología social, 13a Ed 13th Edition David G. Myers

(eTextbook PDF) for Social Psychology 13th Edition by

Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach 8th

Source: ©David Myers.

Christian H. Jordan is a professor and associate chair of the psychology

Steven M. Smith is a professor of psychology and the associate vice-

Preface xi Part One

CHAPTER 3 Why Does Our Behaviour Affect

Persuasion and Climate Change:

CHAPTER 6 Deindividuation: When Do People Lose

Who Conforms? 215 The Influence of the Minority: How Do

Who Helps? 291 What Is Love? 365

What Are the Consequences of Prejudice? 415

How Can Peace Be Achieved? 441

Highlights of the Eighth Canadian Edition

What’s New in the Eighth Canadian Edition

Chapter 1: Introducing the Science and Methods of Social Psychology

• New activity exploring potential causes for correlations

Chapter 2: The Self in a Social World

Chapter 3: Social Beliefs and Judgments

Chapter 4: Behaviour and Attitudes

Chapter 7: Group Influence

• Revised Activity asking readers to reflect on their own experience of group

Chapter 8: Altruism: Helping Others

Chapter 9: Aggression: Hurting Others

Chapter 10: Attraction and Intimacy: Liking and Loving Others

Chapter 11: Prejudice

• Example of how strong beliefs can exaggerate reality

How WellT Do OurC Attitudes

how social psychological concepts

The Inside Story

THE INSIDE STORY

money, Happiness, and Helping

Applying Social Psychology

Activity: Is Common Sense Really That Common?

When Does Our Behaviour Affect Our Attitudes?

Craig Blatz, Grant MacEwan Tara MacDonald, Queen’s University

Christian Jordan Steven M. Smith

Instructor Resources for Myers, Social Psychology,

Test Builder allows you to:

• pin questions to a specific location within a test

• choose the layout and spacing

• add instructions and configure default settings

Remote Proctoring & Browser-Locking Capabilities

What Are the Major Themes of Social Psychology?

How Do Values Affect Social Psychology?

Is Social Psychology Merely Common Sense?

Research Methods: How Do We Do Social Psychology?

What Is Social Psychology?

Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situa-

Social psychology is the

Social thinking Social influence Social relations

FIGURE 1–1 Social Psychology is . . .

Would You Help Others?

What situations trigger people to be helpful or greedy? Do some cultural

What Are the Major Themes of Social Psychology?

We Construct Our Social Reality

FIGURE 1–1 Social Psychology is . . .

FIGURE 1–2 Major Themes in Social Psychology.

FIGURE 1–3 Percentage risk of becoming overweight by type and

FIGURE 1–4 Correlation and Causation.

FIGURE 1–5 Two Methods of doing research: correlational and experimental.

FIGURE 1–6 Random Assignment.