Chapter 14: Social Psychology

cognitive dissonance

Surprisingly, psychologists have identified an even more efficient strategy than persuasion. The strongest personal change comes when we notice contradictions between our thoughts, feelings, or actions—the three components of all attitudes. Such contradictions typically lead to a state of unpleasant psychological tension, known as cognitive dissonance. According to Leon Festinger's (1957) cognitive disonance theory, we all share a strong need for consistency among our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and when we notice inconsistencies we experience unpleasant dissonance. To relieve this discomfort we are highly motivated to change one or more of the three ABC components of our attitudes. For example, someone who is engaged to be married might notice a feeling of attraction to someone other than their intended spouse, and then might experience unpleasant tension from the contradiction (cognitive dissonance between their feelings of attraction and their belief that you should only feel that way about your spouse). To relieve the discomfort, they could break off the engagement, or, more appropriately, change their belief that feelings of attraction to others is normal and to be expected both before and after getting married. Given that cognitive dissonance is often an effective approach to attitude change in all our lives, it's important to fully understand it. Let's closely examine the classic study by Leon Festinger and J. Merrill Carlsmith (1959). These experimenters asked college students to perform several very boring tasks, such as turning wooden pegs or sorting spools into trays. They were then paid either $1 or $20 to lie to NEW research participants by telling them that the boring tasks were actually very enjoyable and fun. Surprisingly, those who were paid just $1 to lie subsequently changed their minds about the task, and actually reported more positive attitudes toward it, than those who were paid $20 Why was there more attitude change among those who were paid only $1? All participants who lied to other participants presumably recognized the discrepancy between their initial beliefs and feelings (the task was boring) and their behavior (telling others it was enjoyable and fun). However, as you can see in Figure 14.4, the participants who were given insufficient monetary justification for lying (the $1 liars) apparently experienced greater cognitive dissonance. Therefore, to reduce their discomfort, they expressed more liking for the dull task, compared to those who received sufficient monetary justification (the $20 liars). This second group had little or no motivation to change their attitude—they lied for the money! (Note that in 1959, when the experiment was conducted, $20 would have been the economic equivalent of about $200 today.) Why cheap lies hurt more Note how lying for $20 creates less cognitive dissonance and less attitude change than lying for $1. Do you see the potential danger in how easily some participants in this classic study changed their thoughts and feelings about the boring task in order to match their behavior? Have you ever met someone whom you initially didn't like but you had to spend time with him or her and over time you actually began to like that person? Do you recognize how the initial discrepancy between your thoughts and feelings ('I'm an honest person but I'm pretending to like this person') might have led to cognitive dissonance, which in turn led to a change in your feelings?

Attitudes

When we observe and respond to the world around us, we are seldom completely neutral. Rather, our responses toward subjects as diverse as pizza, gun control, and abortion reflect our attitudes, which are learned predispositions to respond positively or negatively to a particular object, person, or event. Social psychologists generally agree that most attitudes have three ABC components: Affect (feelings), Behavior (actions), and Cognitions (thoughts/beliefs) Attitude formation When social psychologists study attitudes, they measure each of the three ABC components: Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive. Tatiana Grozetskaya/Shutterstock

1. Cooperation with Common Goals Research shows that one of the best ways to combat prejudice and discrimination is to encourage cooperation rather than competition (Kuchenbrandt et al., 2013; Price et al., 2013). Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues (1966, 1998) conducted an ingenious study to show the role of competition in promoting prejudice. The researchers artificially created strong feelings of ingroup and outgroup identification in a group of 11- and 12-year-old boys at a summer camp. They did this by physically separating the boys into different cabins and assigning different projects to each group, such as building a diving board or cooking out in the woods. Once each group developed strong feelings of group identity and allegiance, the researchers set up a series of competitive games, including tug-of-war and touch football. They awarded desirable prizes to the winning teams. Because of this treatment, the groups began to pick fights, call each other names, and raid each other's camps. Researchers pointed to these behaviors as evidence of the experimentally produced prejudice. The good news is that after using competition to create prejudice between the two groups, the researchers created 'mini-crises' and tasks that required expertise, labor, and cooperation from both groups. Prizes were awarded to all and prejudice between the groups slowly began to dissipate. By the end of the camp, the earlier hostilities and ingroup favoritism had vanished. Sherif's study showed not only the importance of cooperation as opposed to competition but also the importance of superordinate goals (the 'mini-crises') in reducing prejudice. Modern research agrees with Sherif's findings regarding the value of cooperation and common goals (Rutland & Killen, 2015; Sierksma et al., 2015; Zhang, 2015).

2. Intergroup Contact A second approach to reducing prejudice is to increase contact and positive experiences between groups (Dickter et al., 2015; Masciadrelli, 2014; Tropp & Page-Gould, 2015). However, as you just discovered with Sherif's study of the boys at the summer camp, contact can sometimes increase prejudice. Increasing contact works only under certain conditions that provide for close interaction, interdependence(superordinate goals that require cooperation), and equal status.

1. Learning People learn prejudice the same way they learn other attitudes—primarily through classical conditioning and observational learning(Chapter 6). For example, a form of classical conditioning and observational learning occurs after repeated exposure to negative, stereotypical portrayals of people of color and women in movies, magazines, TV, and the Internet. This type of repeated pairing of negative images with particular groups of people builds viewers' prejudice against those groups (Gattino & Tartaglia, 2015; Killen et al., 2015; Sigalow & Fox, 2014). Similarly, hearing parents, friends, and public figures express their prejudices creates and reinforces prejudice (Abolmaali et al., 2014; Brown, 2014; Miklikowska, 2015). Ethnocentrism, believing our own culture represents the norm or is superior to others, is another form of a classically conditioned or observationally learned prejudice. We also develop prejudice through operant conditioning. For example, when people make prejudicial remarks or 'jokes,' they often gain attention and even approval from others. Sadly, denigrating others is also reinforcing because it boosts group cohesion among the initiators, while simultaneously fostering a negative disposition toward the targeted outgroup (Fein & Spencer, 1997; Ford, 2015; Ho & O'Donohoe, 2014). Furthermore, once someone has one or more negative interactions or experiences with members of a specific group, he or she may generalize the resulting bad feelings and prejudice to all members of that group.

2. Limited Resources A second source of prejudice is that in situations of limited resources prejudice pays off! Most of us understand that prejudice and discrimination exact a high price on their victims, but few appreciate the significant economic and political advantages they offer to the dominant group (Bonilla-Silva, 2016; Dreu et al., 2015; Wilkins et al., 2015). For example, the stereotype that people of color are inferior to Whites helps justify and perpetuate a social order in the United States in which White Americans hold disproportionate power and resources.

3. Cognitive Retraining Have you noticed that movies, television, and commercials still tend to emphasize gender differences—young boys are typically portrayed playing sports or computer games, whereas girls are more often shown putting on makeup or playing with dolls? Do you see how these repeated portrayals might increase and perpetuate gender stereotypes? Interestingly, cognitive retraining can help reduce this effect. For example, researchers in one study played specific tones while participants viewed counter-stereotypes, such as the word 'math' being paired with a female face (Hu et al., 2015). Then, while the participants took a 90-minute nap, the researchers played the tones again to remind participants of these new pairings. This simple exercise led to lower rates of racial and sexual prejudice that lasted at least a week. Another unique cognitive retraining approach, known as racial colorblindness, suggests that all people are fundamentally the same and that we should ignore racial and ethnic differences. In other words, just treat everyone as an individual. But others believe avoiding or ignoring racial/ethnic categories discounts serious racial/ethnic inequalities and thereby preserves the status quo (Babbitt et al., 2016; Bonilla-Silva, 2016). What do you think? Which approach do you think would lead to more equality and less prejudice and discrimination? Finally, we can use cognitive retraining to reduce prejudice by encouraging people to selectively pay attention to similarities rather than differencesbetween individuals and groups (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2014; Phillips & Ziller, 1997; West et al., 2014). Can you imagine what might happen if we didn't divide people into groups, such as people of color versus White (colorless?), Christian versus Muslim, or men versus women?

4. Cognitive Dissonance As you may recall from the previous section on attitudes, one of the most efficient methods to change an attitude is with cognitive dissonance, and prejudice is an attitude. Each time we meet someone who does not conform to our prejudiced views, we experience dissonance—'I thought all gay men were effeminate. This guy is a deep-voiced professional athlete. I'm confused.' To resolve the dissonance, we can maintain our stereotypes by saying, 'This gay man is an exception to the rule.' However, if we continue our contact with a large variety of gay men, or when the media includes numerous instances of non-stereotypical gay individuals, this 'exception to the rule' defense eventually breaks down, the need for cognitive consistency rises, and attitude change (prejudice reduction) is likely to happen

3. Displaced Aggression As a child, did you ever feel like hitting a sibling who was tormenting you? Frustration sometimes leads people to attack the perceived cause of that frustration. But, as history has shown, when the source is ambiguous, or too powerful and capable of retaliation, people often redirect their aggression toward an alternate, innocent target, known as a scapegoat (Glick, 2005; James, 2015; Media Matters, 2016). Blacks, Jews, Native Americans, and other less empowered groups have a long and tragic history of being scapegoated. Examples include blaming gay men in the 1980s for the AIDS epidemic or attributing the housing and banking collapse of 2008 to people of color or members of the working class for buying houses they could not afford. Similarly, some politicians campaigning for the U.S. presidential nomination in 2016 used immigrant, ethnic, and religious groups as scapegoats for numerous problems

4. Mental Shortcuts The fourth source of prejudice comes from everyday mental shortcuts that we create to simplify our complex social world. Stereotypes allow quick, helpful judgments about others, thereby freeing up mental resources for other activities. However, they also can lead to unforeseen, negative outcomes. For example, people use stereotypes as mental shortcuts when they create ingroups and outgroups. An ingroup is any category to which people see themselves as belonging; an outgroup is any other category. Research finds that ingroup members judge themselves more positively (as being more attractive, having better personalities, and more deserving of resources) compared with outgroup members—a phenomenon known as ingroup favoritism ). Members of the ingroup also tend to judge members of the outgroup as more alike and less diverse than members of their own group, a phenomenon aptly known as the outgroup homogeneity effect . A danger of this erroneous belief is that when members of specific groups are not recognized as varied and complex individuals, it's easier to treat them in discriminatory ways. A sad example of the outgroup homogeneity effect occurs during wars and international conflicts. Viewing people on the other side as simply faceless enemies makes it easier to kill large numbers of soldiers and civilians. This type of dehumanization and facelessness also perpetuates our current high levels of fear and anxiety associated with terrorism (Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014; Haslam, 2015; Lee et al., 2014). Like all attitudes, prejudice can operate even without a person's conscious awareness or control—a process known as automatic bias, or implicit bias. As you recall from Chapter 8, we naturally put things into groups or categories to help us make sense of the world around us. Unfortunately, the prototypes and hierarchies we develop are sometimes based on incorrect stereotypes of various groups that later lead to implicit biases. For example, researchers in one observational study found that bus drivers allowed Whites whose fare card didn't have enough money to ride for free 72% of the time, but allowed Blacks in the same situation to ride only 36% of the time (Mujcic & Frijters, 2013). A 2015 study (Lavy & Sand) found that teachers grade boys higher than girls (when names are known) on math tests, even when the girls outscore the boys on math tests when the tests are graded anonymously. Unfortunately, these teachers are underestimating girls' ability in math and overestimating boys' ability. On the other hand, comparable gender differences aren't seen for tests in other subjects, such as English and foreign language ability. Finally, a study of actual NFL games found that Black quarterbacks are more likely to be benched after making a mistake than White quarterbacks

Breaking the 'Gay barrier Michael Sam (pictured here accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage Award) became the first openly gay National Football League draftee in 2014. In 2015, Sam signed a two-year contract with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League-the first openly gay player in the CFL's history.

5. Empathy Induction We've saved the best for last! Very surprising—and very encouraging—research has shown that we can successfully reduce prejudice by 'simply' taking another's perspective—as demonstrated in the PsychScience. This type of empathy induction is further promoted by televised specials and Hollywood movies, like 42 and Selma, that help us understand and sympathize with the pressures and heroic struggles of Blacks to gain equal rights. Surprisingly, even just reading Harry Potter books appear to make people more tolerant

Relaxed moral guard One common intellectual illusion that hinders critical thinking about obedience is the belief that only evil people do evil things, or that evil announces itself. The experimenter in Milgram's study looked and acted like a reasonable person who was simply carrying out a research project. Because he was not seen as personally corrupt and evil, the participants' normal moral guard was down, which can maximize obedience. As philosopher Hannah Arendt has suggested, the horrifying thing about the Nazis was not that they were so deviant but that they were so 'terrifyingly normal.'

A Model of Civil Disobedience Although the forces underlying obedience can be loud and powerful, even one quiet, courageous, dissenting voice can make a difference. Perhaps the most beautiful and historically important example of just this type of bravery occurred in Alabama in 1955. Rosa Parks boarded a bus and, as expected in those times, obediently sat in the back section marked "Negroes." When the bus became crowded, the driver told her to give up her seat to a White man. Surprisingly for those days, Parks quietly but firmly refused and was eventually forced off the bus by police and arrested. This single act of disobedience was a major catalyst for the civil rights movement and the later repeal of Jim Crow laws in the South. Today, Rosa Parks's courageous stand also inspires the rest of us to carefully consider when it is appropriate and good to obey authorities and when we must resist unethical or dangerous demands.

The foot-in-the-door technique The step-wise actions in many obedience situations may help explain why so many people were willing to give the maximum shocks in Milgram's study. The initial mild level of shocks may have worked as a foot-in-the-door technique, in which a first, small request is used as a setup for later, larger requests. Once Milgram's participants complied with the initial request, they might have felt obligated to continue.

Adherence to ideologies Some film critics and political commentators have suggested that popular movies like American Sniper, with their heavy emphasis on unwavering obedience to authority, might be encouraging a military ideology that justifies the wartime killing of others (e.g., Frangicetto, 2015). In support of this position, archival research on Milgram's original study (Haslam et al., 2015b) found that the 'teachers' were actually happy to participate—in spite of the emotional stress. Why? The participants believed they were contributing to a valuable enterprise with virtuous goals. Do you agree with archival researchers who suggest that the major ethical problem with Milgram's study lies not with the stress generated for the 'teachers,' but with the ideology used to justify harming others?

Attitude Change

Although attitudes begin to form in early childhood, they're obviously not permanent, a fact that advertisers and politicians know and exploit. As we've just seen in the study described in the Real World Psychology feature above, we can sometimes change attitudes through experiments. However, a much more common method is to make direct, persuasive appeals, such as in ads that say, 'Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk!'

Attitude Formation

As mentioned, we tend to learn our attitudes, and this learning generally occurs from direct instruction, through personal experiences, or by watching others. In some cases, these sources may differ, depending on our gender. For example, researchers have found that teenage boys are more likely to learn sexual attitudes from media representations of sexual behavior, whereas teenage girls tend to learn their sexual attitudes from their mothers, as long as they feel close to their mothers

Culture and Attributional Biases

Both the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias may depend in part on cultural factors (Cullen et al., 2015; Kastanakis & Voyer, 2014; Khandelwal et al., 2014). In highly individualistic cultures, like the United States, people are defined and understood as individual selves, largely responsible for their own successes and failures. In contrast, people in collectivistic cultures, like China and Japan, are primarily defined as members of their social network, responsible for doing as others expect. Accordingly, they tend to be more aware of situational constraints on behavior, making the FAE less likely (Bond, 2015; Matsumoto & Juang, 2013; Tang et al., 2014). The self-serving bias is also much less common in collectivistic cultures because self- esteem is related not to doing better than others but to fitting in with the group (Anedo, 2014; Berry et al., 2011; Morris, 2015). In Japan, for instance, the ideal person is aware of his or her shortcomings and continually works to overcome them—rather than thinking highly of himself or herself

Attributions Have you ever been in a serious argument with a loved one—perhaps a parent, close friend, or romantic partner? If so, how did you react? Were you overwhelmed with feelings of anger? Did you attribute the fight to the other person's ugly, mean temper and consider ending the relationship? Or did you calm yourself with thoughts of how he or she is normally a rational person and therefore must be unusually upset by something that happened at work or elsewhere?

Can you see how these two alternative explanations, or attributions, for the causes of behavior or events can either destroy or maintain relationships? The study of attributions is a major topic in social cognition and social psychology. Everyone wants to understand and explain why people behave as they do and why events occur as they do. Humans are known to be the only reason-seeking animals! But social psychologists have discovered another explanation: Developing logical attributions for people's behavior makes us feel safer and more in control (Heider, 1958; Lindsay et al., 2015). Unfortunately, our attributions are frequently marred by several attributional biases and errors.

Health and Self-Image

Given the high prevalence of very thin women and lean, 'ripped' men displayed on magazines, TV, and movies, it's easy to see why many people in our Western culture develop a shared preference for a certain, limited body type. Thankfully, research finds that just showing 100 women photographs of plus-size models (with a minimum clothing size of 16 and a BMI between 36 and 42) caused them to change their initial attitudes, which had been to prefer the thin ideal (Boothroyd et al., 2012). Can you see how ads that offer more realistic images, or the devastating effects of anorexia (like the two photos on the right), might improve the overall health and self-image of both men and women? Sadly, the model in the photo on the far right, Isabel Caro, died of anorexia at age 28.

Obedience As we've seen, conformity means going along with the group. A second form of social influence, obedience, involves going along with direct commands, usually from someone in a position of authority. From very early childhood, we're socialized to respect and obey our parents, teachers, and other authority figures. Conformity and obedience aren't always bad (Figure 14.13). In fact, we generally conform and obey most of the time because it's in our own best interests (and everyone else's) to do so. Like most other North Americans, we stand in line at a movie theatre instead of pushing ahead of others. This allows an orderly purchasing of tickets. Conformity and obedience allow social life to proceed with safety, order, and predictability. However, on some occasions, it is important not to conform or obey. We don't want teenagers (or adults) engaging in risky sex or drug use just to be part of the crowd. And we don't want soldiers (or anyone else) mindlessly following orders just because they were told to do so by an authority figure. Recognizing and resisting destructive forms of obedience are particularly important to our society—and to social psychology. Let's start with an examination of a classic series of studies on obedience by Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974). Imagine that you have responded to a newspaper ad seeking volunteers for a study on memory. At the Yale University laboratory, an experimenter explains to you and another participant that he is studying the effects of punishment on learning and memory. You are selected to play the role of the 'teacher.' The experimenter leads you into a room where he straps the other participant—the 'learner'—into a chair. He applies electrode paste to the learner's wrist 'to avoid blisters and burns' and attaches an electrode that is connected to a shock generator. Next, you're led into an adjacent room and told to sit in front of this same shock generator, which is wired through the wall to the chair of the learner. (The setup for the experiment is illustrated in Figure 14.14.) The shock machine consists of 30 switches representing successively higher levels of shock, from 15 volts to 450 volts. Written labels appear below each group of switches, ranging from 'Slight Shock' to 'Danger: Severe Shock,' all the way to 'XXX.' The experimenter explains that it is your job to teach the learner a list of word pairs and to punish any errors by administering a shock. With each wrong answer, you are to increase the shock by one level.

Good reasons for conforming and obeying These people willingly obey the firefighters who order them to evacuate a building, and many lives are saved. What would happen to our everyday functioning if most people did not go along with the crowd or generally did not obey orders?

Group Processes Although we seldom recognize the power of group membership, social psychologists have identified several important ways that groups affect us.

Group Membership How do the roles that we play within groups affect our behavior? This question fascinated social psychologist Philip Zimbardo. In his famous study at Stanford University, 24 carefully screened, well-adjusted young college men were paid $15 a day for participating in a two-week simulation of prison life (Haney et al., 1978; Zimbardo, 1993). The students were randomly assigned to the role of either prisoner or guard. Prisoners were "arrested," frisked, photographed, fingerprinted, and booked at the police station. They were then blindfolded and driven to the "Stanford Prison." There, they were given ID numbers, deloused, issued prison clothing (tight nylon caps, shapeless gowns, and no underwear), and locked in cells. Participants assigned to be guards were outfitted with official-looking uniforms, official police nightsticks ("billy clubs"), and whistles, and they were given complete control. Not even Zimbardo foresaw how the study would turn out. Although some guards were nicer to the prisoners than others, they all engaged in some abuse of power. The slightest disobedience was punished with degrading tasks or the loss of "privileges" (such as eating, sleeping, and washing). As demands increased and abuses began, the prisoners became passive and depressed. One prisoner fought back with a hunger strike, which ended with a forced feeding by the guards. Four prisoners had to be released within the first four days because of severe psychological reactions. The study was stopped after only six days because of the alarming psychological changes in the participants. Note that this was not a true experiment in that it lacked a control group, an operational definition, and clear measurements of the dependent variable (Chapter 1). However, it did provide valuable insights into the potential effects of roles on individual behavior (Figure 14.16). According to interviews conducted after the study, the students became so absorbed in their roles that they forgot they were participants in a psychology study (Zimbardo et al., 1977).

What can we do to reduce and combat prejudice and discrimination? Five major approaches have been suggested: cooperation with common goals, intergroup contact, cognitive retraining, cognitive dissonance, and empathy induction

How can we reduce prejudice? Do you recognize how the five approaches to combatting prejudice are at work in this simple game of tug-of-war? Similarly, how might large changes in social policy, such as school busing, integrated housing, and increased civil rights legislation, gradually change attitudes and eventually lead to decreased prejudice and discrimination

Group Decision Making We've just seen how group membership affects the way we think about ourselves, but how do groups affect our decisions? Are two heads truly better than one? Most people assume that group decisions are more conservative, cautious, and middle-of-the-road than individual decisions. But is this true? Initial investigations indicated that after discussing an issue, people in groups actually supported riskier decisions than decisions they made as individuals before the discussion (Stoner, 1961). Subsequent research on this risky-shift phenomenon, however, shows that some groups support riskier decisions while others support more conservative decisions (Atanasov & Kunreuther, 2016; Liu & Latané, 1998; McGloin & Thomas, 2016).

How can we tell whether a given group's decision will be risky or conservative? A group's final decision depends primarily on its dominant preexistingtendencies. If the dominant initial position is risky, the final decision will be even riskier, and the reverse is true if the initial position is conservative—a process called group polarization (Davis & Mason, 2016; Keating et al., 2016; Mikulincer et al., 2015b). What causes group polarization? It appears that as individuals interact and share their opinions, they pick up new and more persuasive information that supports their original opinions, which may help explain why American politics have become so polarized in recent years (Gruzd & Roy, 2014; Suhay, 2015; Westfall et al., 2015). In addition, group polarization may explain how if we only interact and work with like-minded people, or only read newspapers and watch news programs that support our preexisting opinions, and talk politics only with those who agree with us, we're likely to become even more polarized. An interesting study in Washington, DC found that interns who worked in a partisan workplace became more polarized in their opinions than those who worked in less partisan environments (Jones, 2013). Group polarization is also important within the legal system. Imagine yourself as a member of a jury (Figure 14.17). In an ideal world, attorneys from both sides would present the essential facts of the case. Then, after careful deliberation, each individual juror would move from his or her initially neutral position toward the defendant to a more extreme position—either conviction or acquittal. In a not-so-ideal world, the quality of legal arguments from opposing sides may not be equal, you and the other members of the jury may not be neutral at the start, and group polarization may cause most jurors to make riskier or more conservative judgments than they would have on their own.

Common Sources of Prejudice

How does prejudice originate? Four commonly cited sources are learning, limited resources, displaced aggression, and mental shortcuts

You begin teaching the word pairs, but the learner's responses are often wrong. Before long, you are inflicting shocks that you can only assume must be extremely painful. After you administer 150 volts, the learner begins to protest: 'Get me out of here ... I refuse to go on.' You hesitate, and the experimenter tells you to continue. He insists that even if the learner refuses to answer, you must keep increasing the shock levels. But the other person is obviously in pain. What will you do? The psychologist who designed this study, Stanley Milgram, was actually investigating not punishment and learning but obedience to authority: Would participants obey the experimenter's prompts and commands to shock another human being? In Milgram's public survey, fewer than 25% thought they would go beyond 150 volts. And no respondents predicted that they would go past the 300-volt level. Yet 65% of the teacher-participants in this series of studies obeyed completely—going all the way to the end of the scale (450 volts), even beyond the point when the 'learner' (Milgram's confederate) stopped responding altogether. Even Milgram was surprised by his results. Before the study began, he polled a group of psychiatrists, and they predicted that most people would refuse to go beyond 150 volts and that fewer than 1% of those tested would 'go all the way.' But, as Milgram discovered, 65% of his participants—men and women of all ages and from all walks of life—administered the highest voltage. The study has been partially replicated many times and in many other countries (Corti & Gillespie, 2015; Graupmann & Frey, 2014; Haslam et al., 2015a). Note however that this research has been heavily criticized and Milgram's full, original setup could never be undertaken today due to ethical and moral considerations (Brannigan et al., 2015; Griggs & Whitehead, 2015). Deception is a necessary part of some research, but the degree of it in Milgram's research and the discomfort of the participants would never be allowed under today's research standards. In addition, recent reviews have revealed that Milgram failed to adequately debrief some participants, or to use a standard procedure for all participants—two research requirements discussed in Chapter 1. These findings raise serious concerns about the validity of Milgram's findings and the ethical treatment of his participants. One final, important reminder: The 'learner' was an accomplice of the experimenter and only pretended to be shocked. Milgram provided specific scripts that they followed at every stage of the experiment. In contrast, the 'teachers' were true volunteers who believed they were administering real shocks. Although they suffered and protested, in the final analysis, most still obeyed. Why did the teachers in Milgram's study obey the orders to shock a fellow participant, despite their moral objections? Are there specific circumstances that increase or decrease obedience? In a series of follow-up studies, Milgram found several important factors that influenced obedience: legitimacy and closeness of the authority figure, remoteness of the victim, assignment of responsibility, and modeling or imitation of others

Milgram's study on obedience Under orders from an experimenter, would you, as 'teacher,' use this shock generator to shock a man (the 'learner') who is screaming and begging to be released? Few people believe they would, but research shows otherwise.

Why are we so likely to conform? To the onlooker, conformity is often difficult to understand. Even the conformer sometimes has a hard time explaining his or her behavior. Let's look at three factors that drive conformity:

Normative social influence Have you ever asked what others are wearing to a party, or copied your neighbor at a dinner party to make sure you picked up the right fork? One of the first reasons we conform is that we want to go along with group norms, which are expected behaviors generally adhered to by members of a group. We usually submit to this type of normative social influence out of our need for approval and acceptance by the group. Furthermore, conforming to group norms makes us feel good and it's often more adaptive to conform

Informational social influence Have you ever bought a specific product simply because of a friend's recommendation? In this case, you probably conformed not to gain your friend's approval, an example of normative social influence, but because you assumed that he or she had more information than you did, a case of informational social influence. Given that participants in Asch's experiment observed all the other participants giving unanimous decisions on the length of the lines, can you see how they may have conformed because they believed the others had more information than they did?

Reference groups The third major factor in conformity is the power of reference groups—people we most admire, like, and want to resemble. Attractive actors and popular sports stars are paid millions of dollars to endorse products because advertisers know that we want to be as cool as LeBron James or as beautiful as Natalie Portman (Arsena et al., 2014; Schulz, 2015). Of course, we also have more important reference groups in our lives—parents, friends, family members, teachers, religious leaders, and classmates—all of whom affect our willingness to conform. Interestingly, research shows that specific people (called 'social referents') can have an outsized influence over others' attitudes and behaviors. For example, one study found that by encouraging a small set of popular high school students to take a public stance against typical forms of conflict, such as bullying, overall levels of conflict were reduced by an estimated 30% (Paluck et al., 2016). Similarly, popular high school students' attitudes about alcohol use (see the photo) have been shown to have a substantial influence on alcohol consumption by other students in their school (Teunissen et al., 2012). Surprisingly, popular peers who had negative attitudes toward alcohol use were even more influential in determining rates of teenage drinking than those with positive attitudes!

In addition to the four factors that Milgram identified, researchers have discovered other important factors in obedience, including the following:

Socialization Can you see how socialization might help explain many instances of mindless and sometimes destructive obedience? From an early age, we're all taught to listen to and respect people in positions of authority. In this case, participants in Milgram's study came into the research lab with a lifetime of socialization toward the value of scientific research and respect for the experimenter's authority. They couldn't suddenly step outside themselves and question the morality of this particular experimenter and his orders.

Conformity Imagine that you have volunteered for a psychology experiment on visual perception. All participants are shown two cards. The first card has only a single vertical line on it, while the second card has three vertical lines of varying lengths. Your task is to determine which of the three lines on the second card (marked A, B, or C) is the same length as the single line on the first card (marked X). You are seated around a table with six other people, and everyone is called on in order. Because you are seated to the left of the seventh participant, you are always next to last to provide your answers. On the first two trials, everyone agrees on the correct line. However, on the third trial, your group is shown two cards like those in Figure 14.12. The first participant chooses line A as the closest in length to line X, an obvious wrong answer! When the second, third, fourth, and fifth participants also say line A, you really start to wonder: 'What's going on here? Are they wrong, or am I?' What do you think you would do at this point in the experiment? Would you stick with your convictions and say line B, regardless of what the others have answered? Or would you go along with the group? What you don't know is that the other six participants are actually confederates of the experimenter (that is, they're working with the experimenter and purposely giving wrong answers). Their incorrect responses were designed to test you and the other true participant's degree of conformity, which is defined as a change in thoughts, feelings, or actions because of real or imagined group pressure. In the original version of this experiment, conducted by Solomon Asch, more than one-third of the participants conformed and agreed with the group's obviously incorrect choice (Asch, 1951). (Participants in a control group experienced no group pressure and almost always chose correctly.) Asch's study has been conducted in at least 17 countries, and the amount of conformity has varied depending upon factors such as age and personality (Mori et al., 2014; Tennen et al., 2013; Trautmann-Lengsfeld & Hermann 2014). Using a similar Asch research set up, researchers found that some participants were even willing to adjust their moral decisions when faced with social pressure

Solomon Asch's study of conformity Which line (A, B, or C) is most like line X? Could anyone convince you otherwise?

Culture and Cognitive Dissonance

The experience of cognitive dissonance may depend on a distinctly Western way of thinking about and evaluating the self. As we mentioned earlier, people in Eastern cultures tend not to define themselves in terms of their individual accomplishments. For this reason, making a bad decision may not pose the same threat to self-esteem that it would in more individualistic cultures, such as the United States

Reducing Prejudice As you can see in Figure 14.8, prejudice has a long, sad global history. The atrocities committed against the Jews and other groups during the Holocaust, as well as the current crises in the Middle East and Africa, offer stark reminders of the cost of human hatred. Within the United States, our history of slavery, current racial and gender disparities in employment, wealth, education, and healthcare, the current immigration controversy, and the stigma against mental illness (Chapters 12 and 13) all provide further troubling evidence of the ongoing costs of prejudice

The high price of prejudice If pictures truly are 'worth a thousand words,' these photos speak volumes about the atrocities associated with prejudice: (a) the Holocaust, when millions of Jews, and other groups, were exterminated by the Nazis, (b) slavery in the United States, where millions of Africans were bought and sold as slaves, and (c) the 2016 nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 people dead and 53 wounded, was a painful reminder of the ongoing dangers members of the LGBT community still face in modern America.

Reducing Attributional Biases

The key to making more accurate attributions begins with determining whether a given action stems mainly from personality factors, or from the external situation. Unfortunately, we too often focus on internal, dispositional (personality) factors. Why? We all naturally take cognitive shortcuts (Chapter 8), and we each tend to have unique and enduring personality traits (Chapter 11). To offset this often misguided preference for internal attributions, we can ask ourselves these four questions: 1.Is the behavior unique or shared by others? If a large, or increasing, number of people are engaging in the same behavior, such as rioting or homelessness, it's most likely the result of external, situational factors. 2.Is the behavior stable or unstable? If someone's behavior is relatively enduring and permanent, it may be correct to make a stable, personality attribution. However, before giving up on a friend who is often quick-tempered and volatile, we may want to consider his or her entire body of personality traits. If he or she is also generous, kind, and incredibly devoted, we could overlook these imperfections. 3.Was the cause of the behavior controllable or uncontrollable? Innocent victims of crime, like rape or robbery, are too often blamed for their misfortune because they shouldn't have 'been in that part of town,' 'walking alone,' and/or 'dressed in expensive clothes.' Obviously, these are inaccurate and unfair personality attributions, as well as examples of 'blaming the victim.' 4.What would I do in the same situation? Given our natural tendency toward self-serving biases and the actor-observer effect, if we conclude that we would behave in the same way, the behavior is most likely the result of external, situational factors. In sum, given our natural tendency to make internal, personality attributions, we can improve our judgments of others by erring in the opposite direction—looking first for external causes. Furthermore, 'giving others the benefit of the doubt' will not only help us avoid attributional errors, it may even save, or at least improve, our relationships.

Surprisingly, a clever experiment found that taking a simple pain killer, like the one in the photo, versus a placebo, can significantly reduce the amount of attitude change (DeWall et al., 2015). The acetaminophen reduced the individual's overall pain, including the discomfort created from cognitive dissonance, so the person was less motivated to change his or her attitude! One of our equally clever college students suggested that this experiment and cognitive dissonance theory might explain why everyone likes parties with lots of alcohol—it removes their sexual inhibitions! What do you think? Do you agree? On a larger, national and international scale, consider how cognitive dissonance might help explain why military leaders keep sending troops to a seemingly endless war zone. They obviously can't change the actions that led to the initial loss of lives, so they may reduce their cognitive dissonance by replacing their previous cognitions (thoughts) that the loss of military lives is untenable, with a new cognition that the loss of military lives is justifiable because we're ultimately saving lives at home and/or in war-torn areas.

Understanding Cognitive Dissonance We've all noticed that people often say one thing, but do another. For example, why do some health professionals, who obviously know the dangers of smoking, continue to smoke?

self-serving bias

Unlike the FAE, which commonly occurs when we're explaining others' behaviors, the self-serving bias refers to attributions (explanations) we make for our own behavior. In this case, we tend to favor internal (personality) attributions for our successes and external (situational) attributions for our failures. This bias is motivated by our desire to maintain positive self-esteem and a good public image (Sharma & Shakeel, 2015; Wiggin & Yalch, 2015). For example, students often take personal credit for doing well on an exam. If they fail a test, however, they tend to blame the instructor, the textbook, or the 'tricky' questions. Similarly, elite Olympic athletes more often attribute their wins to internal (personal) causes, such as their skill and effort, while attributing their losses to external (situational) causes, such as bad equipment or poor officiating—see the photo pt 2 How do we explain the discrepancy between the attributions we make for ourselves and those we make for others? According to the actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1971), when examining our own behaviors, we are the actors in the situation and know more about our own intentions and behaviors and naturally look to the environment for explanations: 'I didn't tip the waiter because I got really bad service.' In contrast, when explaining the behavior of others, we are observing the actors and therefore tend to blame the person, using a personality attribution: 'She didn't tip the waiter because she's cheap We tend to explain our own behavior in terms of external factors (situational attributions) and others' behavior in terms of their internal characteristics (dispositional attributions).

Power corrupts Zimbardo's prison study showed how the demands of roles and situations could produce dramatic changes in behavior in just a few days. Can you imagine what happens to prisoners during life imprisonment, six-year sentences, or even a few nights in jail?

Zimbardo's study also demonstrates deindividuation. To be deindividuated means that we feel less self-conscious, less inhibited, and less personally responsible as a member of a group than when we're alone. This is particularly true when we feel anonymous (see the following Psychology and You). Groups sometimes actively promote deindividuation by requiring members to wear uniforms, for example, as a way to increase allegiance and conformity.

Attributional Errors and Biases Think back to the example above. Do you recognize that attributing the fight to the bad character of the other person without considering possible situational factors, like pressures at work, may be the result of your own misguided biases in thinking? Suppose a new student joins your class and seems distant, cold, and uninterested in interaction. It's easy to conclude that she's unfriendly, and maybe even 'stuck-up'—a dispositional (personality) attribution. If you later saw her in a one-to-one interaction with close friends, you might be surprised to find that she is very warm and friendly. In other words, her behavior apparently depends on the situation.

fundamental attribution error (FAE) This bias toward personal, dispositional factors rather than situational factors in our explanations for others' behavior is so common that it is called the""" One reason for the FAE is that human personalities and behaviors are more salient or noticeable than situational factors. The saliency bias helps explain why people sometimes suggest that homeless people begging for money 'should just go out and get a job'—a phenomenon also called 'blaming the victim.

Social psychology

one of the largest branches in the field of psychology, focuses on how other people influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions. In turn, one of its largest and most important subfields, social cognition, examines the way we think about and interpret ourselves and others (Mikulincer et al., 2015a; Smith et al., 2015). In this section, we will look at three of the most important topics in social cognition—attributions, attitudes, and prejudice.

Prejudice

which literally means prejudgment, is a learned, unjustified negative attitude toward members of a particular group. Like all other attitudes, it's composed of three ABC elements: Affective (emotions about the group), Behavioral (discrimination—an unjustifiable, negative action directed toward members of a group), and Cognitive (stereotypes— overgeneralized beliefs about members of a group). When we use the term prejudice here, we are referring to all three of these components. Note, though, that in everyday usage, prejudice often refers primarily to thoughts and feelings, while discrimination is used to describe actions. When the terms are used in this way, they do not overlap completely, as shown in Figure 14.5.