can derive a set of four guiding principles about the causes of human social behavior that together reflect the collective wisdom of generations of social psychologists. The principles are useful because they serve as general guides to our thinking and as starting points for our empirical investigations into the causes of social behavior. Together these four principles form the core lessons gleaned from over 100 years of research in social psychology.
Table 1.3
The four fundamental principles of social psychology are that social behavior is (1) purposive; (2) stems from both dispositional and situational influences; (3) is affected by how people construe the social world; and (4) is cultural (see Table 1.3) (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2006). Each of these is described more fully below and is further developed over the course of this text. We will demonstrate their validity again and again as we venture through the exciting terrain of social psychology.
Principle 1: Social Behavior Is Purposive
Social psychologists assume that social behavior is purposive, which is to say that it is intended to achieve specific goals (Fishbach & Ferguson, 2007). We don’t initiate a romantic relationship or insult a competitor or protect our young child from a vicious dog just for the heck of it. Rather, each of these behaviors is goal oriented (Elliot & Fryer, 2008). The potential romantic partner may have qualities that suggest he’ll be a good provider. Derogating a member of the opposing team may make us feel better about ourselves, especially when our team is losing badly. Rescuing our child helps to ensure that our gene pool will persist a little longer. As you can see, none of these behaviors is accidental or random. The assumption that social behavior is purposive is what drives social psychologists to find causes. What would be the point of investigating completely random behavior?
Principle 2: Social Behavior Stems From Both Dispositional and Situational Influences
Why did Adam Lanza kill 26 children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012? Was it because he was a mean nasty young adult with an inborn propensity for violence? Did he have a serious mental disorder? Neglectful parents? Was he bullied by other kids while growing up? Or was it because he had easy access to weapons? What we are asking here is whether Lanza was entirely to blame for his actions or were outside factors the cause of his behavior? Stated differently, was his violent behavior a product of just his internal characteristics—such as his personality—or was it the result of external, situational features—such as violence in the media (Aronson, 2001)? More generally, is social behavior a result of only internal characteristics or only external conditions? The answers are “no” and “no.”
As Lewin argued many years ago, explaining behavior as because of only one or the other is overly simplistic. Social psychologists believe in interactionism—that all social behavior is a result of both the person and the situation (L. Ross & Nisbett, 1991). In the case of the Sandy Hook shooting, if personality were the sole explanation, why didn’t Lanza act violently in other contexts? If situational pressures were the only cause, why don’t we see more mass killings? Clearly, both characteristics of the person—what we call the person’s disposition—and features of the situation together produce social behavior. In other words, social behavior is a product of both dispositional and situational influences. Apply this to one of your behaviors—say going to college—and try to identify the internal and external factors that led you to do so.
Scene from the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, Newtown, Connecticut. A memorial site has been made to remember the victims of the school shooting.
Gordon M. Grant / Splash News/Newscom.
Principle 3: Social Behavior Is Influenced by How People Construe Situations
It almost goes without saying that people differ in how they construe or interpret situations. One student may construe an upcoming oral presentation as terribly threatening, whereas another could view it as a chance to show off her oratorical skills. Our construal of situations affects many aspects of our social experiences, including how we judge others and explain their behavior (Fujita & Carnevale, 2012; L. Ross & Nisbett, 1991; Trope & Liberman, 2012). A study of how football fans perceived the events in a contentious 1951 football game between Princeton University and Dartmouth College nicely illustrates this (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954). Hastorf and Cantril queried both Princeton and Dartmouth fans about their perceptions of how fairly and cleanly the game was played. Not surprisingly, the way the fans interpreted the behavior of the players on the two teams depended on which team they favored. For instance, the Princeton fans claimed that the Dartmouth players committed more than twice as many rule violations as the Dartmouth fans thought they did (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954). According to Hastorf and Cantril, the motivations of the Princeton and Dartmouth fans—with each preferring to see their team as fairer than the opponents—led to divergent interpretations of the game. In fact, these researchers argued that the fans essentially watched different football games! Throughout this text we will examine the myriad ways in which our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are often profoundly influenced by our construal of social situations. Have you and one of your friends ever construed the same situation in very different ways?
Principle 4: Social Behavior Is Cultural
The notion that social behavior is affected by culture may strike you as exceedingly obvious. Yet, for much of the 20th century, as mentioned earlier, psychologists of all stripes believed that human psychology was essentially the same everywhere on the planet. It is now widely recognized that humans are, in fact, a cultural species, and that human behavior cannot be adequately understood without consideration of its sociocultural context (Baumeister, 2005; Heine, 2010a; Segall, Dasen, Berry, & Poortinga, 1999). Earlier we touched on how self-concepts can differ between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. There are countless other ways that culture can affect social behavior. For instance, Robert Levine and his colleagues studied perceptions of time in Brazil and the United States (Levine, 2015; Levine, West, & Reis, 1980). They found that Brazilians tend to view time as continuous and unlimited, whereas Americans see it as separable into discrete units and treat it as if it were quickly running out! One of the consequences of these different time perspectives is that, in Brazil, being “on time” for appointments and completing tasks “on time” are not nearly as important as they are in the United States. What elements of your culture have had major impacts on how you see yourself and the world?
These four fundamental principles—that social behavior is purposive, caused by both dispositional and situational factors, affected by construals, and cultural—provide the grounding from which we launch our social psychological project. They are assumptions upon which we can build our explanatory models, theories, and concepts, and help guide our investigation of social psychological phenomena. These principles will serve as unifying themes in the chapters that follow as we look for the causes of social behavior.
Think Again!
1 What are the four principles of social psychology?
2 Think about the night you graduated from high school. How would each of the principles apply to your feelings and behavior that night?
Science Matters: Social Psychology Is A Science
Each of us has theories about why people (including ourselves) do what
