Chapter 14
Integrating Social
Psychology
This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law:
Any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network;
Preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part, of any images;
1
Any rental, lease, or lending of the program
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
What are the major theoretical
perspectives of social psychology?
What are the common themes found
across those perspectives?
In what different ways do the person
and the situation interact?
What is the main lesson learned from
studying social dysfunction?
2
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
What are the important take-home
messages for consumers of social
psychological research?
How does social psychology fit with:
Other areas of psychology?
Other basic sciences?
Applied disciplines such as law, business,
and education?
Where is social psychology headed in the
future?
3
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Chapter Outline
What Ground Have We Covered?
Major Theoretical Perspectives
Combining Different Perspectives
Why Research Methods Matter
How Does Social Psychology Fit into
the Network of Knowledge?
The Future of Social Psychology
4
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
What Ground Have We Covered?
Social psychology findings range from:
Canadian students view males from racial
outgroups as more dangerous if they make
their ratings in a dark room
The majority of North Americans view
themselves in top few percent of leadership
People will obey authority figures who order
them to hurt another person.
5
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Findings and Theories
Different research findings make little
sense considered in isolation from
one another.
But diverse findings fit together when
considered in light of broader
theoretical perspectives.
6
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Major Theoretical Perspectives
Proximate explanation –
a focus on relatively immediate
causes (domain-specific)
Ultimate explanation –
a focus on background or historical
causes (domain-general)
7
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Major Theoretical Perspectives
The major theoretical perspectives
include:
Sociocultural
Evolutionary
Social Learning
Social Cognitive
8
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Sociocultural Perspective
What drives social behavior?
Forces in larger social groups such as:
Norms within cultural groups
Social class differences
Nationality/ethnicity
Fads

9
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Sociocultural Perspective
Social norms –
rules and expectations for
appropriate social behavior
Example: Tattoos and earrings are
appropriate for rock musicians, but
not for corporate finance executives
10
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Sociocultural Perspective
Culture –
beliefs, customs, habits, and
language shared by the people living
in a particular time and place
Example: Chinese society is more
tradition-oriented, collectivist, and
authority-oriented than North
American society.
11
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Evolutionary Perspective
What drives social behavior?
Genetic predispositions inherited from
our ancestors, such as
The tendency to feel fear on seeing an
angry face
The tendency for mothers to feel
protective of their children

12
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Seeing Our Commonality
Through the Many Societal
Differences
Social norms regarding marriage,
friendship, family, and other aspects
of social life vary considerably from
culture to culture.
13
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Seeing Our Commonality
Through the Many Societal
Differences
But there are also many similarities.
Males commit over 80% of homicides
worldwide.
All human cultures have some form of
marriage.
14
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Culture and Evolution Interacting
Just as the human mind is designed to
learn a particular language, modern
cultural psychologists argue it is
designed to learn some set of norms
(Fiske et al., 1998).
15
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Culture and Evolution Interacting
Culture develops within potentialities
and limits set by human evolution.
Human evolution develops within
possibilities and limits set by
culture.
16
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Affect how
cultures are
designed
Humanpredispositions
predispositions
Human
influence
which
cultural
influence
which
norms are likely to be
cultural
norms are
adopted
likely to be adopted
Evolutionary
Factors
Sociocultural
Factors
Social norms can
influence the success of
different survival and
reproductive strategies
17
Affect
evolution in
human groups
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Social Learning Perspective
What drives social behavior?
Classically conditioned preferences
People come to feel positively towards
new people they meet while eating tasty
food.
18
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Social Learning Perspective
What drives social behavior?
Habits rewarded by other people
A boy who acts violently after his friends
praise him for winning a violent video
game.
19
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Social Learning Perspective
What drives social behavior?
Imitating the rewarded behavior of
others
Buying a gun after seeing a movie in
which the hero wins true love after
shooting half the people in town.
20
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Social Learning Perspective
Links to other perspectives
We learn sociocultural norms from
years of learning experiences.
Learning follows tracks laid down by
evolutionary history (example: people
raised like family members in kibbutz
do not fall in love even though norms
do not oppose it).
21
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Social Cognitive Perspective
What drives social behavior?
What we pay attention to.
How we interpret and judge social situations.
What we retrieve from memory.
For example, people using simple heuristics
(trust an authority/go with the majority)
may be persuaded by weak messages.
22
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Affects
Cognitive
Processes
Past experience with
rewards influences
current schemas,
cognitive structures,
and attributions
Social Learning
Social
Learning
Social Cognition
Learning anything
new requires
attention, encoding,
and memory
23
Affects
Learning
Processes
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Are Gender Differences in Our
Genes, in Our Cultural
Experiences, or All in Our Minds?
People interpret boys’ and girls’
behavior in line with cultural
stereotypes.
The stereotypes are partly based on
some universal gender differences in
sex roles.
24
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Are Gender Differences in Our
Genes, in Our Cultural
Experiences, or All in Our Minds?
Some division of labor follows from
evolved sex differences.
Thus, genes, culture, and mind
interact.
25
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Are Gender Differences in Our
Genes, in Our Cultural
Experiences, or All in Our Minds?
Similarities and differences between
men and women can be considered
from each of the different theoretical
perspectives.
Doing so helps us see the connections
between the perspectives.
26
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Perspective
Gender Differences
Evolutionary
Some sex roles naturally fall to one sex (e.g.
bearing children)
Sociocultural
Some social roles (e.g., nurse) assigned to
women; others to men (e.g., soldier)
Social Learning
Boys are punished for playing with
dolls; Girls are rewarded for playing
“house”
Social Cognitive
People remember a man’s behavior
as “aggressive,” a woman’s as
“nurturing”
27
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Combining Different Perspectives
Two general principles link the
perspectives.
Social behavior is goal-oriented.
Social behavior represents a continual
interaction between the person and the
situation.
28
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Social Behavior is Goal-Oriented
At the surface level, we have many
day-to-day goals
Go shopping
Study for a test
Get a date for Saturday night
Etc.

29
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Social Behavior is Goal-Oriented
At the broadest level, we can categorize
social goals into fundamental motives –
To establish social ties
To understand ourselves and others
To gain and maintain status
To defend ourselves and those we value
To attract and retain mates.
30
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Are there other basic motives
underlying social behavior?
On a moment to moment basis, our social
behaviors are not directly concerned
with fundamental motives.
We often focus our thoughts on narrower
goals (such as making a good
impression on the boss).
Narrow everyday goals serve one or more
fundamental motives.
31
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Focus on Dysfunction:
The Thin Line Between Normal
and Abnormal Functioning
Take-home message of studying social
dysfunction:
Disordered social behavior often
reveals normal psychological
mechanisms in bold relief (as in
Hoover’s paranoia).
32
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Perspective
Evolutionary
Sociocultural
Social Learning
Social Cognition
Person
Situation
• Genetic
Predispositions
• Human Nature
• Features in ancestral
environment linked to survival
and reproduction
• Internal Social
Standards
• Societal Norms
• Habits
• Conditioned
Preferences
• Rewards
• Punishments
• Schemas
• Remembered
Episodes
• Attention-grabbing
features of social
environment
33
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Interaction Between the
Person and the Situation
1. Different persons respond
differently to the same situation.
Example: Some people avoid threats;
Others are stimulated to fight harder.

34
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Interaction Between the
Person and the Situation
2. Situations Choose the Person.
Not everyone gets to enter every
situation they would like.
Example: We are sometimes chosen,
and sometimes rejected by potential
friends, dates, athletic teams, colleges,
and jobs.
35
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Interaction Between the
Person and the Situation
3. Persons Choose Their Situations.
Example: Violence-prone people
choose to watch violent films; Less
violent people do not.
36
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Interaction Between the
Person and the Situation
4. Different Situations Prime Different
Parts of the Person.
Example: Situations with important
consequences lead us to search
thoroughly for accurate information;
less important situations lead us to use
simplifying heuristics.
37
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Interaction Between the
Person and the Situation
5. Persons Change The Situation.
Example: Director J. Edgar Hoover
turned the F.B.I. into a more powerful,
and more paranoid, organization than
it was before.
38
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Interaction Between the
Person and the Situation
6. Situations Change the Person.
Example: At the end of several years in
a liberal college, students are
themselves more liberal.
39
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Why Research Methods Matter
Research on self-presentation and social
cognition teaches us that our eyes and
ears don’t always take in the full picture.
Other people try to hide their motives in
very skillful ways.
Our own minds often distort, oversimplify, or deny what we see and hear.
40
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Focus on Method:
Some Conclusions for Consumers
of Social Science Information
1. Look for good descriptions to
accompany explanations.
Experiments uncover cause-effect
relationships,
But descriptive methods give a more
complete picture of what actually
happens out in the real world.
41
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Focus on Method:
Some Conclusions for Consumers
of Social Science Information
2. Don’t trust everything people say.
People can’t (or sometimes won’t)
report well on all their own
motivations or prejudices.
Covert measures (such as implicit
measures of prejudice) can be helpful.
42
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Focus on Method:
Some Conclusions for Consumers
of Social Science Information
3. Beware of confounds.
In experiments, confounding variables are
accidentally varied along with the
manipulation.
Confounds often plague data from
descriptive studies (example: a correlation
between race and property crime may be
due to social class).
43
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Focus on Method:
Some Conclusions for Consumers
of Social Science Information
4. Ask for converging evidence.
Meta-analyses analyze data across
multiple studies of same question.
Triangulation examines the same
problem using different methods, each
having different biases.
44
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
How Does Social Psychology Fit
into the Network of Knowledge?
What you have learned about social
psychology is closely connected to:
other sub-disciplines of psychology
other basic sciences
applied sciences.
45
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Psychology
Example of Common Question
Developmental
Personality
Environmental
Clinical
Cognitive
Physiological
46
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Psychology
Example of Common Question
Developmental
Does early exposure to
televised violence lead to
increased aggressiveness in
later years?
Personality
Environmental
Clinical
Cognitive
Physiological
47
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Psychology
Example of Common Question
Developmental
Personality
What individual differences
predict success in marital
relationships?
Environmental
Clinical
Cognitive
Physiological
48
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Psychology
Example of Common Question
Developmental
Personality
Environmental
Clinical
How do social dilemmas
contribute to overpopulation
and environmental
destruction?
Cognitive
Physiological
49
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Psychology
Example of Common Question
Developmental
Personality
Environmental
Clinical
How do normal feelings of
attachment go awry in
obsessive love relationships?
Cognitive
Physiological
50
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Psychology
Example of Common Question
Developmental
Personality
Environmental
Clinical
Cognitive
Physiological
How do attention-demanding
distractions contribute to our
ability to resist persuasive
messages?
51
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Psychology
Example of Common Question
Developmental
Personality
Environmental
Clinical
Cognitive
Physiological
How do hormones like
adrenaline and testosterone
contribute to aggression?
52
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Basic Research Area
Example of Common Question
Genetics
Anthropology
Economics
Political Science
Ethology
Ecology
53
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Basic Research Area
Example of Common Question
Genetics
Is prosocial or aggressive
behavior linked to genes
shared within families?
Anthropology
Economics
Political Science
Ethology
Ecology
54
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Basic Research Area
Genetics
Anthropology
Example of Common Question
Which features of family
relationships are common
across cultures, and which are
unique?
Economics
Political Science
Ethology
Ecology
55
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Basic Research Area
Example of Common Question
Genetics
Anthropology
Economics
Do people exchange resources
according to different rules
between friends, relatives,
and strangers?
Political Science
Ethology
Ecology
56
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Basic Research Area
Example of Common Question
Genetics
Anthropology
Economics
Political Science
Ethology
How do international leaders
make decisions when they are
involved in tense negotiations
with outgroup members?
Ecology
57
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Basic Research Area
Example of Common Question
Genetics
Anthropology
Economics
Political Science
Ethnology
Are there common features of
dominance hierarchies in
humans and chimpanzees?
Ecology
58
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Basic Research Area
Example of Common Question
Genetics
Anthropology
Economics
Political Science
Ethology
Ecology
Can the dynamic balance
between wolves and rabbits in
a forest shed light on human
overpopulation?
59
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Application
Example of Common Question
Law
Medicine
Management
Marketing
Education
Engineering
60
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Application
Example of Common Question
Law
How does testimony from an
unreliable eyewitness
influence a jury’s decision
processes?
Medicine
Management
Marketing
Education
Engineering
61
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Application
Example of Common Question
Law
Medicine
How does an intact marriage
relationship influence
survival after a heart attack?
Management
Marketing
Education
Engineering
62
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Application
Example of Common Question
Law
Medicine
Management
Marketing
How can a team leader
promote creative problem
solving and harmonious
relationships among team
members?
Education
Engineering
63
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Application
Example of Common Question
Law
Medicine
Management
Marketing
Education
How could a sales team best
advertise the new features of
an energy-efficient
automobile?
Engineering
64
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Application
Example of Common Question
Law
Medicine
Management
Marketing
Education
How can a teacher encourage
children to make healthy
attributions after failure?
Engineering
65
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
Area of Application
Example of Common Question
Law
Medicine
Management
Marketing
Education
Engineering
How does new
communication technology
(cell phones, e-mail) affect
social relationships?
66
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Future of Social Psychology
Social psychologists have only begun to
understand how interactions between
person and situation contribute to:
loving relationships
charitable behavior
racial prejudice
family violence
behavior in organizations, etc.
67
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Future of Social Psychology
In exploring these complex questions,
social psychologists are joining forces
with new integrative disciplines such as:
Cognitive science – which connects work on
social cognition to research on the human
brain, human problem-solving and artificial
intelligence by cognitive neuroscientists,
computer scientists, philosophers, and
others.
68
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Future of Social Psychology
In exploring these complex questions,
social psychologists are joining forces
with new integrative disciplines such as:
Evolutionary psychology – which connects
experimental work on human behavior
with findings from anthropological
research on other cultures, and biological
research on other animal species.
69
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Future of Social Psychology
In exploring these complex questions,
social psychologists are joining forces
with new integrative disciplines such as:
Dynamical systems theory – which connects
work on behavior in human social groups
with work on complex emergent patterns in
systems ranging from microscopic
molecules to global weather systems.
70
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
The Future of Social Psychology
Understanding social behavior may be the
only key to solving the world’s most
pressing problems, including:
overpopulation
pollution
warfare
Perhaps YOU will go on to contribute to
the scientific solutions to these
problems.
71
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005
72
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2005