interrelationships between social psychological phenomena—thoughts, feelings, and behavior—and the human nervous system (Ochsner, 2007). Chapter 2 provides a detailed explication of the logic and methods of social neuroscience, and we will discuss it throughout the text to show how it can complement existing approaches to a wide variety of topics.
Figure 1.4 Social Neuroscience: Connecting Brain and Social Behavior
Sometimes called social cognitive neuroscience—social neuroscience uses advanced technology to examine the interrelationships among the brain and social experiences, including thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Natural Selection: Genes that tend to increase the chances of survival of their carrier are more likely to be passed on to a new generation
Contextual Influences
This second level of analysis focuses on group-level explanations for social behavior and compliments insights gleaned from the evolutionary approach. Here we focus on broad influences such as culture, social class, race, and religion. For example, Leon Mann (1981) adopted this approach when he investigated how crowd size impacts the likelihood that onlookers encourage—or bait—a would-be suicide jumper into actually leaping from a bridge or building. Interestingly, he found that baiting was more prevalent in larger groups! We discuss additional ways in which group size affects social behavior in the chapters on social influence, persuasion, and group processes (Chapters 6, 7, and 12, respectively).
For much of the 20th century, psychologists mostly studied wealthy white North American male college students and assumed that the findings were universal and therefore as valid in Cairo or Rio de Janeiro as in Boston (Heine, 2010a). In other words, culture’s effects on social behavior were not widely recognized by psychologists. However, in recent years there has been an increasing recognition of the profound effects of culture on our social behavior, including phenomena as varied as self-concept, self-esteem, perceptions of time, attitudes toward marriage, and beliefs about mental illness (Gelfand, Chiu, & Hong, 2011; Valsiner, 2012; Vauclair et al., 2015). Culture can be defined as a system of enduring meanings, perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and practices shared by a large group of people. It is important to note that, although nations may be dominated by a particular culture, cultures are not necessarily nations. For instance, scholars have described cross-cultural differences that extend across nations, such as those between Western and Eastern cultures (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010; Triandis, 1993), as well as within-culture differences, like those distinguishing the American South from the North (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996).
The most widely studied cross-cultural variable is individualism-collectivism (IC), which was initially conceptualized as broadly distinguishing the Western cultures of North America and parts of Europe from Eastern ones in South and East Asia, including China and Japan (Hofstede, 1986; Triandis, 1993; van Hoorn, 2015). However, more recently researchers have discovered that the IC dimension is more complex, varying within cultures and extending to cultures on other continents, including South America. Succinctly put, individualists are self-focused: They define themselves as containing stable, internal traits not tied to particular groups, value individual choice, and place their personal preferences and goals above those of the group.
In contrast, collectivists tend to be other-focused: Their self-concept is intimately tied to and defined by their group memberships, individual choice is not highly valued, and personal preferences and goals are subordinated to those of the group (Triandis, 1993). It is important to note that, although we often talk about individualist and collectivistic cultures as if they were completely different, there is in fact considerable overlap: People in one type of culture can and do exhibit characteristics common in people from the other type (Cialdini, Wosinska, Barrett, Butner, & Gornik-Durose, 1999; Hofstede, de Hilal, Malvezzi, Tanure, & Vinken, 2010; Triandis & Gelfand, 2012; Triandis & Singelis, 1998). We will return again and again to culture’s prominent role in explaining elements of social behavior throughout this text.
Culture: System of enduring meanings, perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and practices shared by a large group of people
Individual Factors
The third level of analysis seeks to explain social behavior by examining a particular person’s experiences, learning history, and mental processes. What have you learned and how does that affect your social experiences? Psychologists speak of three learning processes (that you undoubtedly were exposed to in your introductory psychology course): classical, instrumental, and social. Classical conditioning was accidentally discovered by the Russian physiologist Pavlov (1906) during his famous dog salivation research. As you may recall, Pavlov observed that dogs associated a neutral stimulus—the sound of a tone—with meat powder and began salivating in anticipation of receiving it. The dogs learned that the tone signalled the impending release of the meat powder. Thereafter, a sound that had nothing to do with food became a proxy for food and created the salivation response. Okay, so that is all fine and good when it comes to dogs, but how does that apply to people? Well, let’s say that McDonald’s is your favorite fast food restaurant. You are driving down Main Street and spot a McDonald’s. You may begin feeling hungry, and perhaps you will salivate a little. Why? Because McDonald’s golden arches act like the tone for the dogs and signals to you that food may be on the way (it is unlikely that you were born with this association already in mind!).
Instrumental conditioning was pioneered by John Watson and B. F. Skinner and occurs when a person becomes more likely to engage in a behavior after being rewarded for doing it (reinforcement) or less likely after being penalized for it (punishment) (Watson, 1925/1998; Weiss, 2014). Instrumental conditioning helps to explain why people bring coupons to the grocery store (reward: saving money) and students try to get their papers in on time (punishment for failing to do so: F). A final type of learning that gained prominence in the latter half of the 20th century, social learning, takes place when a person observes or hears that someone else was reinforced or punished for engaging in a particular behavior (like robbing a bank) and then behaves accordingly either to gain a reward (free money) or avoid a penalty (going to prison) (Bandura, 2012; Bandura & Walters, 1963). The contemporary debate about whether exposure to violence on TV and in films leads to real-world aggression centers around whether these media exhibit a social learning effect on viewers (Anderson et al., 2004).
One major type of individual-level explanation focuses on the social cognitive processes occurring in the individual just prior to or during the phenomenon under study. In the 1970s, social psychology experienced a “cognitive revolution” (North & Fiske, 2012). Psychologists rejected simplistic behavioral and psychoanalytic explanations and discovered the role of conscious mental processes, such as a person’s stated attitudes and beliefs, in generating social behavior. Social psychologists acknowledged how individual interpretations—called construals—of social situations affect social behavior (Kruglanski, 1989; L. Ross, 1977). For instance, whether failing your first exam in social psychology leads you to work harder or simply give up on the class can depend upon how you interpret that failure. If, on the one hand, you believe that your poor grade was a result of not studying and that if you study for the next one you will do better, then you are more likely to increase your effort. If, on the other hand, you think that the professor is unfair, her tests are too difficult, and that no amount of studying will pay off, then you may withdraw from the class.
Pavlov
