Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology 01 27 2011 Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology Mass Suicide Involved Sedatives Vodka and Careful Plannin The mass suicide likely took place over three days and involved three groups proceeding in a calm ritualistic fashion The last two victims to die were found with plastic bags over their heads the victims each carried identification It seemed to be a group decision Dr Blackbourne Blackbourne said 21 of the victims were women and 18 were men The drugs were taken for a very specific purpose and that was to take their own lives All the victims wore black pants and black Nike athletic shoes their face and chests covered with purple shrouds What we re finding is that each and every one of the members of the organization prior to their death gave a brief statement The essence of those statements were that they were going to a better place Lipscomb said Most of the victims were in their 40s but their ages ranged from 26 to 72 Blackbourne said the victims mixed the sedative phenobarbital in apple sauce washed it down with a drink of vodka and then were smothered with plastic bags over their heads Social psychology is the scientific study of how we feel about think about and behave toward the other people around us and how our feelings thoughts and behaviors are influenced by those others Defining Social Psychology History and Principles Newspaper articles websites and other media frequently report the findings of social psychologists and the results of social psychological research are influencing decisions in a wide variety of areas The History of Social Psychology The science of social psychology began when scientists first began to systematically and formally measure the thoughts feelings and behaviors of human beings The first social psychology textbooks were written by William McDougal and Edward Ross and were published in 1908 Kurt Lewin is sometimes known as the father of social psychology because he initially developed many of the important ideas of social psychology including a focus on the dynamic interactions among people Social psychology was energized by researchers who attempted to understand how the German dictator Adolph Hitler could have produced such extreme obedience and such horrendous behaviors in his followers during the Second World War The studies on conformity conducted by Muzafir Sherif 1936 and Solomon Asch 1952 as well as those on obedience by Stanley Milgram 1974 showed the importance of conformity pressures in social groups and how people in authority could create obedience even to the extent of leading people to cause severe harm to others this research demonstrated the power of the social setting John Darley and Bibb Latan 1968 developed a model that helped explain when people do and do not help others in need and Leonard Berkowitz 1974 pioneered the study of human aggression other social psychologists including Irving Janis 1972 9 focused on group behavior studying why intelligent groups of people sometimes made decisions that led to disastrous results when they worked together Still other social psychologists including Gordon Allport and Muzafir Sherif focused on intergroup relations with the goal of understanding and potentially reducing the occurrence of stereotyping prejudice and discrimination Social psychologists gave their opinions in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court case which helped end racial segregation in the public schools and social psychologists still frequently serve as expert witnesses on these and other topics The latter part of the 20th Century saw an expansion of social psychology into the field of attitudes with a particular emphasis on cognitive processes During this time social psychologists developed the first formal models of persuasion with the goal of understanding how advertisers and other people could present their messages to make them most effective Cognitive dissonance theory These approaches to attitudes focused on the cognitive processes that people use when evaluating messages and on the relationship between attitudes and behavior In the 1970s and 80s social psychology became even more cognitive in orientation as social psychologists used advances in cognitive psychology social cognition an understanding of knowledge about our social worlds develops and the influence of these knowledge structures on memory information processing attitudes and judgment Today in the 21st century the field of social psychology is expanding into still other areas examples an interest in how social situations influence our health and happiness the important role of culture on our behavior and the study of social neuroscience social neuroscience how our social behavior both influences and is influenced by the activities of our brain The Person and the Social Situation 2 basic principles of social psychology The first principle concerns the dynamic relationship between individual people and the other people around them Each of us is different and our individual characteristics including our personality traits desires motivations and emotions have an important impact on our social behavior behavior is also influenced by the social situation social situation the other people with whom we interact every day social situation includes our friends and family our fraternity or sorority brothers and sisters our religious groups the people we see on TV and read about or interact with on the web as well as people we think about remember or even imagine Our social situations create social influence the processes through which other people change our own thoughts feelings and behaviors and through which we change theirs One of the most influential of all social psychologists Kurt Lewin formalized this relationship known as the person situation interaction Behavior f Person Social situation Lewin s equation indicates that the behavior of a given person at any given time is a function of depends on both the characteristics of the person and the influence of the social situation The person in Lewin s equation refers to the characteristics of the individual human being People are born equipped with skills that allow them to successfully interact with their social worlds Newborn infants are able to recognize faces and to respond to human voices young children learn language and develop friendships with other children adolescents become in interested in sex and are destined to fall in love most
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