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Contents

This textbook offers comprehensive coverage of classic, contemporary, and emerging topics in social psychology.

• Preface. How To Use This Book.
• Chapter 1. What is Social Psychology?
  • A Definition of Social Psychology.
  • The Scientific Study of the Effects of Social and Cognitive Processes on the Way Individuals Perceive, Influence, and Relate to Others.
  • Historical Trends and Current Themes in Social Psychology.
  • Social Psychology Becomes an Empirical Science.
  • Social Psychology Splits From General Psychology Over What Causes Behavior.
  • The Rise of Nazism Shapes the Development of Social Psychology.
  • Growth and Integration.
  • How the Approach of This Book Reflects an Integrative Perspective.
  • Two Fundamental Axioms of Social Psychology.
  • Three Motivational Principles.
  • Three Processing Principles.
  • Common Processes, Diverse Behaviors.
  • Plan of the Book.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 2. Asking and Answering Research Questions.
  • A Note to the Student on How to Use This Chapter.
  • Research Questions and the Role of Theory.
  • Origins of Research Questions.
  • What is a Scientific Theory?
  • Testing Theories: From Theory to Research.
  • Construct Validity and Approaches to Measurement.
  • Internal Validity and Types of Research Design.
  • External Validity and Research Populations and Settings.
  • Evaluating Theories: The Bottom Line.
  • The Role of Ethics and Values in Research.
  • Being Fair to Participants.
  • Being Helpful to Society.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 3. Perceiving Individuals.
  • Forming First Impressions: Cues, Interpretations, and Inferences.
  • The Raw Materials of First Impressions.
  • Interpreting Cues.
  • Characterizing the Behaving Person: Correspondent Inferences.
  • When is a Correspondent Inference Justified?
  • Beyond First Impressions: Systematic Processing.
  • Causal Attributions.
  • Using Attributions to Correct First Impressions.
  • Putting It All Together: Forming Complex Impressions.
  • The Accuracy of Considered Impressions.
  • The Impact of Impressions: Using, Defending, and Changing Impressions.
  • Impressions and Judgments.
  • Defending Impressions.
  • Dealing With Inconsistent Information.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 4. The Self.
  • Constructing the Self-Concept: What We Know About Ourselves.
  • Sources of the Self-Concept.
  • Learning About Self and Others: The Same or Different?
  • Multiple Selves.
  • Putting It All Together: Constructing a Coherent Self-Concept.
  • Cultural Differences in the Self-Concept.
  • Constructing Self-Esteem: How We Feel About Ourselves.
  • Balancing Accurate Self-Knowledge and Self-Enhancement.
  • Evaluating Personal Experiences: Some Pain but Mainly Gain.
  • Social Comparisons: Better or Worse Than Others?
  • Why Self-Enhance?
  • Self-Esteem in Cultural Context.
  • Effects of the Self: Processes of Self-Regulation.
  • The Self and Thoughts About Ourselves and Others.
  • The Self and Emotions: For Me or Against Me?
  • The Self in Action: Regulating Behavior.
  • Temptations and Other Threats to Self-Regulation.
  • Taking Accounts of Other People's Standards.
  • Defending the Self: Coping With Stresses, Inconsistencies, and Failures.
  • Threats to the Well-Being of the Self.
  • Defending Against Threat: Emotion-Focused Coping.
  • Attacking Threat Head-On: Problem-Focused Coping.
  • How to Cope?
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 5. Perceiving Groups.
  • Targets of Prejudice: Social Groups.
  • Social Categorization: Dividing the World into Social Groups.
  • Forming Impressions of Groups: Establishing Stereotypes.
  • The Content of Stereotypes.
  • Seeking the Motives behind Stereotyping.
  • Motives for Forming Stereotypes: Mastery through Summarizing Personal Experiences.
  • Motives for Forming Stereotypes: Connectedness to Other.
  • Moving for Forming Stereotypes: Justifying Inequalities.
  • Using Stereotypes: From Preconceptions to Prejudice.
  • Activation of Stereotypes. Measuring Stereotypes and Prejudice.
  • Impact of Stereotypes on Judgments and Actions.
  • Trying to Overcome Stereotype Effects.
  • Beyond Simple Activation: Effects of Stereotypes on Considered Judgments.
  • Changing Stereotypes: Overcoming Bias to Reduce Prejudice.
  • Barriers to Stereotype Change.
  • Overcoming Stereotype Defenses: The Kind of Contact that Works.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 6. Social Identity.
  • Categorizing Oneself as a Group Member.
  • Learning About Our Groups.
  • Accessibility of Group Memberships.
  • Me, You, and Them: Effects of Social Categorization.
  • "I" Becomes "We": Social Categorization and the Self.
  • Others Become "We": Social Categorization and the In-Group.
  • Others Become "They": Social Categorization and the Out-Group.
  • When Group Memberships Are Negative.
  • Effects of Stigmatized Group Memberships.
  • Defending Individual Self-Esteem.
  • Individual Mobility: Escaping Negative Group Membership.
  • Social Creativity: Redefining Group Memberships as Positive.
  • Social Change: Changing the Intergroup Context.
  • One Goal, Many Strategies.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 7. Attitudes and Attitude Change.
  • Attitudes and Their Origins.
  • Measuring Attitudes.Attitude Formation: Why and How?
  • Superficial and Systematic Routes to Persuasion: From Snap Judgments to Considered Opinions.
  • Superficial Processing: Persuasion Shortcuts.
  • Systematic Processing of Persuasive Communications.
  • Superficial and Systematic Processing: Which Strategy, When?
  • Defending Attitudes: Resisting Persuasion.
  • Gathering Defenses: Forewarning, Forearming, and Arguing Back.
  • Subliminal Persuasion.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 8. Attitudes and Behavior.
  • Changing Attitudes with Actions.
  • From Action to Attitude via Superficial Processing.
  • Cognitive Dissonance: Changing Attitudes to Justify Behavior.
  • Guiding Actions with Attitudes.
  • How Attitudes Guide Behavior.
  • When Do Attitudes Influence Action?
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 9. Groups, Norms, and Conformity.
  • Conformity to Social Norms.
  • The Formation of Social Norms.
  • Public Versus Private Conformity.
  • The Dual Functions of Conformity to Norms: Mastery and Connectedness.
  • Expecting Consensus.
  • The Dual Functions of Conformity to Norms.
  • Whose Consensus?
  • The Impact of Reference Groups.
  • How Groups Form Norms: Processes of Social Influence.
  • Group Compromise: Taking the Middle Ground.
  • Group Polarization: Going to Normative Extremes.
  • Explaining Polarized Norm Formation.
  • Conformity Pressure: Undermining True Consensus.
  • When Consensus Seeking Goes Awry.
  • Consensus Seeking at Its Worst: Groupthink.
  • Minority Influence: The Value of Dissent. Successful Minority Influence.
  • Processes of Minority and Majority Influence.
  • Beyond Minority Influence: Using Norms to Strengthen Consensus.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 10. Norms and Behavior.
  • Norms: Effective Guides for Social Behavior.
  • How Norms Guide Behavior.
  • Why Norms Guide Behavior So Effectively.
  • Deindividuation: Making Group Norms More Salient.
  • The Norm of Reciprocity: Treating Others as They Treat You.
  • Returning Favors.
  • The Norm of Reciprocity for Concessions.
  • The Norm of Commitment: Keeping Your Promises.
  • The Low-Ball Technique.
  • Long-Term Consequences of Commitment.
  • The Norm of Obedience: Submitting to Authority.
  • Milgram’s Studies of Obedience.
  • Attempting to Explain Obedience: Was it the Time, the Place, the People?
  • The Norm of Obedience to Authority.
  • Normative Trade-Offs: The Pluses and Minuses of Obedience.
  • Rebellion and Resistance: Fighting Back.
  • Reactance: Enough is Enough.
  • Systematic Processing: Thinking Things Through. Using Norms Against Norms.
  • Putting It All Together: Multiple Guides for Behavior.
  • Both Attitudes and Norms Influence Behavior.
  • When Attitudes and Norms Conflict: Accessibility Determines Influence.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 11. Liking and Loving.
  • Initial Attraction.
  • Physical Attractiveness.
  • Positive Interaction.
  • Liking, Similarity, and Interaction: Mutually Reinforcing Processes.
  • From Acquaintance to Friend: Relationship Development.
  • Exchanges of Rewards: What’s In It for Me?
  • Self-Disclosure.
  • Close Relationships.
  • Research on Close Relationships.
  • Cognitive Interdependence: The Partner Becomes Part of the Self.
  • Behavioral Interdependence: Transformations in Exchange.
  • Affective Interdependence: Intimacy and Commitment.
  • Types of People, Types of Relationships.
  • Effects of Relationships.
  • Romantic Love and Sexuality.
  • Passionate Feelings. Sexual Attitudes and Behavior.
  • Sex in the Context of a Relationship.
  • When Relationships Go Wrong.
  • Interdependence and Conflicts: Seeds of Trouble.
  • Resources for Handling Conflict: Relationship.
  • Maintenance.
  • Conflict Processes.
  • Break-Up and Aftermath.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 12. Interaction in Groups.
  • The Mere Presence of Others: Effects of Minimal Interdependence.
  • Social Facilitation: Improvement and Impairment.
  • Crowding: The Presence of Lots of Others.
  • Performance in Face-to-Face Groups: Interaction and Interdependence.
  • How Groups Change: Stages of Group Development.
  • Getting the Job Done: Group Performance.
  • Leadership.
  • Group Communication.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 13. Aggression and Conflict.
  • Aggression, Conflict, and Human Nature.
  • Defining Conflict and Aggression.
  • Origins of Aggression.
  • Interpersonal Aggression.
  • Studying Aggression.
  • What Triggers Aggression?
  • Norms Promoting and Restraining Aggression.
  • To Hurt or Not to Hurt: Putting It All Together.
  • Intergroup Conflict.
  • Sources of Intergroup Conflict: The Battle for Riches and Respect.
  • Escalating Conflict: Communication and Interaction that Make Things Worse.
  • Perceptions in Conflict: What Else Could You Expect From Them?
  • "Final Solutions": Eliminating the Out-Group.
  • Resolving Conflict and Reducing Aggression.
  • Altering Perceptions and Reactions.
  • Resolving Conflict Through Negotiation.
  • Intergroup Cooperation: Changing Social Identity.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Chapter 14. Helping and Cooperation.
  • When Do People Help?
  • Is Help Needed and Deserved?
  • Should I Help?
  • Why Do People Help? Helping for Mastery and Connectedness.
  • Biologically Driven Helping: Is Helping in Our Genes?
  • Helping for Mastery: The Personal Rewards and Costs of Helping.
  • Helping for Connectedness: Empathy and Altruism.
  • Helping for Connectedness: Social Identification and Cooperation.
  • Role of Superficial or Systematic Processing in Helping and Cooperation.
  • The Impact of Processing.
  • Personality Differences in Helping.
  • Prosocial Behavior in Society.
  • Help that Helps; Help that Hurts.
  • Increasing Prosocial Behavior in Society.
  • Concluding Comments.
  • Summary.
• Epilogue.
• Core Principles of Social Psychology.
• How the Principles Interrelate.
• An Invitation to Social Psychology .
• Glossary .
• References.
• Author Index .
• Subject Index

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