relationships; define experiment, independent variable, dependent variable, experimental group, control group, and confound, and discuss what is meant by experimental control and why it is important.
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The Mystery of Romantic Attraction
On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which had denied federal medical and other job-related benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages. This decision, along with recent related efforts in many states to allow same-sex couples to marry, form civil unions, and obtain other privileges accorded to heterosexual couples across the nation, reignited longstanding debates in the United States about same-sex attraction. President Barack Obama extended health and other benefits to gay partners of federal employees one year later, in June 2014. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges issued on June 26, 2015, gay marriage is now allowed throughout the United States. People in the United States and around the globe—including both those who embrace and those who object to same-sex relations—have struggled to understand it. Is same-sex attraction “normal”? Or is it deviant, perhaps the product of character, spiritual, or genetic defects? The way a given culture explains the origins of social behavior impacts how it is handled in the media, by its government, and by its religious institutions. Are same-sex relations encouraged, tolerated, or outlawed? Are homosexuals persecuted, prosecuted, institutionalized, or just left alone? If it is a mental illness, can it be cured?
Like many laypeople, social psychologists have wondered about the nature and origins of sexual attraction, including between individuals of the same sex. However, social psychologists are different than laypeople because we examine such social behaviors more systematically and bring to the table a wealth of theories and research in our efforts to explain them. For instance, we may ask whether the principles underlying opposite-sex attraction and relationships apply to all people, regardless of their sexual preferences. In addition, social psychologists would consider a wide range of possible explanatory factors, including variation across cultures, social influences, genetic factors, and a person’s learning history. In fact, these types of factors are the same ones that we’ll look to when we try to understand other social behavior. We will return more specifically to the topic of sexual attraction later in this chapter and again in Chapter 11 on affiliation and love.
More broadly, social psychologists utilize a multilevel approach that incorporates several types of explanatory mechanisms as we try to understand human social behavior. This book provides a wide-ranging survey of the most important social psychological theories, approaches, and research findings in an effort to show you, the reader, how social psychologists have sought and continue to seek answers to fundamental questions of human existence, such as free will, human sociality, independence, and moral behavior. Rather than provide an overly detailed and exhaustive coverage of social psychology, I focus on the core of our field: delivering only the most important and useful concepts, theories, and research. I do not want readers to get lost in the forest by focusing too much on the trees! Along our path to achieving that goal, we’ll touch on many fascinating topics and themes, including how we think about ourselves and other people, the roles of biology and culture in shaping human thought and behavior, attitudes and attitude change, aggression, romantic love, and prejudice, among others. Hold on for an exciting tour of the social psychology of human behavior!
Think Ahead!
1 What is social psychology and why should you study it?
2 How can social psychology help to understand human nature?
3 What makes social psychology unique among the other sciences?
Social Psychology Matters: Defining The Field
What is social psychology? Before offering a definition, let’s briefly discuss the nature of definitions. Definitions can be tricky, because they are immensely important yet at the same time exceedingly trivial. They are important because they provide a mini snapshot of the field, a first exposure for the new student. Definitions matter because we need to be able to agree on what we are talking about—we need a common language so that we can understand each other. Yet definitions are trivial as well (this is heresy coming from an academic), because there are often many ways to define a single word, concept, or scientific discipline. Definitions are not set in stone but instead evolve over time. Moreover, definitions are somewhat independent from actual work in a field: The science, teaching, and practice of social psychology will continue to take place in thousands of laboratories, classrooms, and applied settings around the globe regardless of how a particular person or book defines social psychology. In the end to be useful, definitions must provide clarity, be generally agreed upon, and serve as a launching point for further investigation. Now let’s move onto our definition of social psychology.
The person in the crowd In the modern world, it can be difficult to develop a sense of individuality and self-determination in the midst of social pressures to conform.
Geoff Tompkinson / Science Source.
Social psychologists seek to understand how other people affect the behavior, thoughts, and feelings of individuals. We might examine, for instance, how a person’s Facebook friends affect what she posts online or how being the lone minority member of a group affects that member’s thoughts about himself. In both of these cases we ask about social aspects of human existence: people influencing individuals. The emphasis on social distinguishes our discipline from other domains of psychology, and social is of course the core concept in our field: Social psychology is the scientific study of the social experiences and behaviors of individuals. Let’s examine each element of this definition.
First, social psychology is a science: It relies on the rigorous application of scientific methods in the same way that physics or biology does. Like these other sciences, social psychology is not a collection of commonsense, simple observations and intuitive ideas. Rather, it is a systematic examination of social phenomena that utilizes both traditional and novel scientific methods involving careful experimentation, advanced technology, and sophisticated statistical analyses (and sometimes develops new ones). For example, we investigate the sexual orientation of many people using rigorous research, as opposed to merely asking opinions from a few individuals.
Second, social psychology focuses on individuals rather than groups. For instance, we are interested in how a crowd affects its members but not in how one crowd influences another crowd. Third, we’d like to understand the ways in which individual social behavior is affected by others. Social behaviors are observable actions that stem from the direct or indirect influence of others. With regards to sexual attraction, one question social psychologists would try to answer is how other people impact who we are attracted to.
Finally, social psychologists study the individual’s social experiences. The term experience encompasses conscious thoughts and feelings as well as nonconscious processes, brain activation, and hormone regulation. Thus, neurophysiological changes that are neither self-reportable
