How does treating a crowd as a physical object help us understand behavior?

In the case of the overcrowding of a pedestrian bridge in Mecca that led to the deaths of 345 religious pilgrims, treating the crowd as fluid helped researchers to identify a nonpsychological factor that could explain the tragedy: a narrowing of the bridge.

How do we know that social norms—and not anonymity—shape crowd behavior?

A summary of 60 experiments on aggression in crowds did not support the view that anonymity causes aggression. The results instead suggested that crowds cause people to tune into social norms to guide their behavior. Another factor in crowd violence, as revealed in qualitative data, is that a few people in the crowd who intend to act violently are often responsible for a large percentage of the damage that a crowd causes.

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How does a crowd’s actual response to disaster square with how the media portrays it?

Contrary to what movies and TV might have us believe, widespread panic during disaster is rare. People often react relatively calmly and adhere to social norms. Many even pitch in to help, owing to the sense of shared identity that develops.

What is the minimum group size necessary for people to cave in to conformity?

Solomon Asch found that individuals were more likely to conform to the opinions of others when the group contained as few as three other people, especially when all the other group members were unanimous in their opinions. The other group members consisted of confederates, described in the Research Toolkit of this chapter.

How can you get someone to comply with a request?

One example is the foot-in-the-door technique, a compliance strategy in which people first make a small request, as a means of later convincing people to comply with a larger request. Another strategy is the disrupt-then-reframe technique, which enhances compliance by disrupting an individual’s ability to think of the costs of complying.

What are the implications of Milgram’s research on obedience to authority?

Milgram’s research showed that people will obey authorities even when ordered to harm others and even when the person giving the orders doesn’t have a lot of authority. This implies that people of greater authority might be able to induce widespread obedience to orders. Numerous instances of genocide bear this out.

Can wearing the uniform of a prison guard cause you to be abusive?

According to the Stanford Prison experiment, yes. In that study, ordinary people were assigned randomly to the role of prisoner or guard. Even though they had never been in prison themselves, all had a sense of what is expected of prisoners and guards. In the case of guards, this caused them to act accordingly, by being abusive.

What force is powerful enough to reduce group rivalry?

As seen in Sherif’s Robber’s Cave study, group rivalry was eliminated when opposing groups were presented with challenges that could only be accomplished if the groups worked together.

When people don’t intervene during an emergency, is it because they are callous and uncaring?

Not typically. As seen in research by Darley and Latané on the bystander effect, group size strongly influences the degree to which people intervene during an emergency. People respond less quickly when lots of people are around because there is a diffusion of responsibility—a sense that someone else is responsible for intervening.

What is the most sure-fire strategy to get someone to like you?

Become their next-door neighbor. Research indicates that physical proximity is a great predictor of friendship.

To attract a mate, should you emphasize your psychological strengths or your physical attractiveness?

You should definitely emphasize your physical attractiveness. Experimental research indicates that physical attractiveness strongly predicts romantic attraction, whereas psychological strengths are less predictive. In the “real world,” however, people tend to strategically look for mates who match them in attractiveness.

Is romantic love anything more than sexual passion? How long does it last?

In one study, participants rated three components of love as being central: passion, intimacy, and commitment. All three components can last a lifetime—even passion, according to both qualitative and quantitative research.

How is love like a drug?

Results of a brain-imaging experiment indicated that, when people were exposed to a hot (painful) stimulus, simply viewing a picture of one’s romantic partner at the same time reduced pain by stimulating reward centers in the brain.

How good are we at figuring out the causes of others’ behavior?

Research indicates that people often make the fundamental attribution error—that is, they mistakenly see an individual’s personal traits and attitudes as causes of behavior when, in reality, situational factors caused people to act as they did. As discussed in This Just In, people explain unintentional behavior in terms of causes and intentional behavior in terms of reasons.

Are strong arguments always more persuasive?

No. Research indicates that stronger arguments have a greater effect when participants are thinking systematically but are no more effective than weak arguments when people are thinking heuristically.

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When do our behaviors change our attitudes?

According to cognitive dissonance theory, when people engage in behavior that is discrepant from their attitudes, they experience discomfort that motivates them to change their attitudes to align with their behavior.

When do our attitudes predict our behavior?

Attitudes predict behavior more strongly when situational influences are weak, when people pause to think about their attitudes and themselves, and when attitudes and behavior are equally specific.

Is it even possible to avoid stereotyping?

Stereotypic thoughts come to mind automatically; however, thanks to controlled thinking processes, one can counteract them.

How can being reminded of your own group’s stereotype interfere with intellectual performance?

Knowledge of one’s own group stereotype can interfere with intellectual performance through stereotype threat processes, in which people worry that they might confirm a negative stereotype about their group. This worry can distract people from the task they are performing and thus interfere with their performance.

How do psychologists measure attitudes that no one wants to admit having?

Psychologists measure such attitudes using implicit measures like the implicit association test (IAT). In the IAT, the speed with which participants respond to information related to different groups of people provides a measure of participants’ attitudes toward those groups, without participants’ knowledge that they are providing such information.

What cognitive, emotional, motivational, and social factors cause prejudice?

These include generalization (treating different members of a group as being essentially the same), hostility (negative emotions toward members of a group), and scapegoating (blaming members of another group for the failures of oneself or one’s own group). A fourth factor is social, involving exploitation by a group in power.

How can prejudice be reduced?

The most promising technique for reducing prejudice is intergroup contact, that is, arranging circumstances in which members of different groups meet and spend a significant amount of time together.

What are some examples of how culture shapes what we think and do?

Many behaviors vary culturally. In some cultures outside the United States, people view property as shared rather than personally owned. In some Southeast Asians cultures, people honor the belief that “only God knows when someone will die naturally” by not asking for prognoses.

What assumption can social psychologists be faulted for making?

Social psychologists can be faulted for assuming their research results generalize to all cultures.

Just how fundamental is the fundamental attribution error?

Not very. Research indicates, for instance, that citizens of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia are more likely to make situational rather than personal attributions for behavior. These differences are explained by the holistic processing that is common among individuals in collectivistic cultures.

As described in This Just In, the question of whether people attribute behavior to situational or personal causes is based on the assumption that the behavior was unintentional. Intentional behaviors are better explained according to personal reasons.

Why do we wince when we see other people in pain?

When we see others in pain, our brain creates a version of their experiences. It does so by activating neurons in the brain’s mirror system, a neural system that simulates the activities and experiences of other people.

Is thinking about what people are experiencing different from thinking about what they are like?

Yes. When people think about what others are experiencing, the mirror system, located in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), is activated. When people think about what people are like, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is active. The mPFC is highly interconnected with other brain regions, a quality that is necessary for the task of integrating different types of information to form an impression of someone.