1.2
Do You Think You Have Free Will? (Part 2)
Add up your answers for all 7 items and then divide by 7 to get your average or mean score. Paulhus and Carey (2011) found that the average female college student scored a 3.31 and the average male college student 3.47. How do you compare? If your total is less than these, then your belief in free will is weaker than average; If it is greater, then your belief is stronger than average. Fun fact: According to one study, students who have stronger beliefs in free will were less likely to cheat on an experimental math task than those who have weaker beliefs (Vohs & Schooler, 2008). It seems that when people feel less responsible for their behavior, their behavior becomes less moral (Carey & Paulhus, 2013).
Individualistic Culture: Type of society in which people’s self-concepts tend to be stable, not tied to particular groups, and people place their personal preferences and goals above those of the group and value individual choice
Collectivistic Culture: Type of society in which people’s self-concepts tend to be intimately tied to and defined by their group memberships, people subordinate personal preferences and goals to the group’s, and where individual choice is not highly valued
The Self
Virtually all of us, at one time or another, have asked “Who am I?” The answer to this question is called our self-concept or identity: It is the set of beliefs we have about the characteristics we possess. The self-concept is at the core of everything we think, feel, or do. It is our anchor and the filter through which we perceive ourselves and the world. Because the self lies at the center of our being, social psychologists have exerted tremendous effort to better understand how social experiences affect and are affected by it (Baumeister, 2010; Leary & Toner, 2015; Sedikides & Spencer, 2007).
One of the key influences on the self-concept is the culture that we grow up in. For instance, persons from individualistic cultures tend to define themselves as separate from other people, whereas those from collectivistic cultures are more likely to define themselves in terms of their relationships to others (Chua, Carbonneau, Milyavskaya, & Koestner, 2015; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Our conception of the self is closely connected to the culture in which we reside. We will have much more to say about the cultural dimension of social behavior later. For now, be aware that whether we think of ourselves as fundamentally separate from or connected to others has implications for many other aspects of our lives, such as our motivations to perform well and the kinds of choices that we make. What is your self-concept, and how do you think it is affected by culture?
Sociality
One of the most fascinating and complex aspects of human nature is our sociality, which is our tendency to develop and maintain relationships with others (Crosier, Webster, & Dillon, 2012; Gifford, 2013; Leary, 2010; Semin & Echterhoff, 2011). Humans, like other primates, are fundamentally social creatures (Gamble, Gowlett, & Dunbar, 2014). In this text, we’ll examine why our relationships are so important and what sorts of goals they help us meet. Why do you think we need friends or lovers? Each semester I ask my students to think about one of their stronger platonic (nonromantic) friendships and to write down the reasons the friendship developed and why they maintained it. Students frequently mention similarity of attitudes and interests, that they can have fun together, or the ability to depend on each other in times of need, which are all of course important. However, one factor that they often neglect is physical proximity—who they live near, work with, or sit next to in class. As we will discuss in Chapter 11, proximity is one of the strongest influences on who we befriend. In fact, a study of police cadets—who were both seated in class and assigned rooms in a residence hall alphabetically—showed that last name was a strong predictor of who became friends with whom (Segal, 1974). Cadets with last names that begin with the same or nearby letter were more likely to become friends than other pairs of cadets. Why do you think that you have the romantic and nonromantic relationships that you have? What role might proximity have played?
People are inherently social creatures.
Will & Deni McIntyre / Science Source.
Morality
One of the questions that my students love to discuss (but have a difficult time resolving) is whether or not pure altruism exists. Pure altruism occurs when a person helps another in a completely selfless way and derives absolutely no benefit from helping (Batson, Ahmad, & Stocks, 2011; Newman & Cain, 2014). Students offer compelling arguments on both sides of the issue. One student may say, for instance, that altruism must exist, because how else can we explain the actions of a firefighter who loses her life while heroically trying to save an unknown child? Typically, another responds that the firefighter did not expect to die and, had she lived, would have benefited, because helping makes us feel good. At the same time, still others wonder how we can even speak of human goodness when there have been so many instances of mass killing and senseless violence in our history. Some people argue that not only are humans selfish, but we can be downright evil (Miller, 2004a)!
Social psychologists have extensively studied moral behavior in order to understand the factors that lead people to engage in helpful, prosocial behavior versus undesirable, antisocial behavior. In one study, researchers gave young children a chance to “steal” extra candy during Halloween trick-or-treating. How they behaved depended on whether or not they could be personally identified (Diener, Fraser, Beaman, & Kelem, 1976). The kids were much more likely to steal when they thought they were anonymous. As you will see, whether or not a person behaves morally depends on a number of personal and situational factors. Think about a time when you helped someone else. What motivated you? Did you gain some benefit, even a small one?
These six topics—free will, independence, rationality, the self, sociality, and morality—together get at the essence of human nature. Each has served as a launching pad for some of the most exciting and thought-provoking research in social psychology. Although the questions have spurred separate research streams, it is critical to note that these seemingly disparate topics are interconnected in important ways. For instance, the extent to which we believe we have free will is closely tied to our identity or self-concept. Identity, in turn, is connected to our sociality through the groups to which we belong and the people with whom we associate. Furthermore, the types of groups that we join and the strength of our bonds with those groups impact the extent to which we are independent or conforming. Moreover, our ability to develop and maintain friendships is partially dependent on how we treat others, either morally or immorally. These examples illustrate the myriad of interrelationships among the six questions. It is easy to see, then, how social psychological science is grounded in fundamental questions about human nature. Let’s turn our attention to the historical development of social psychology.
Think Again!
1 What are the six enduring questions about human nature?
2 Which one(s) do you find most interesting? Which do you find most difficult to wrap your head around?
3 Can you think of examples in your own life or the lives of people around you that illustrate each of them?
The Evolving Nature Of Social Psychology: Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow
Early Social Psychological Studies
