In this chapter, we'll consider how groups, culture, and social context influence thoughts, feelings, and behavior. You may wonder about the difference between social psychologysocial psychologyThe scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people. and sociology. Social psychology studies the influence of social context, mostly by examining how this context influences the behavior of individuals. Sociology, on the other hand, tends to focus on the influence of social factors on larger groups of people, such as social or economic classes, genders, or entire ethnic groups.

Social psychological research (and other types of psychological research) can be broadly categorized into basic research, which refers to gaining knowledge simply for increased understanding, and applied research, which refers to research that aims to improve some aspect of human society. As we'll see, social psychology tackles a number of issues with important social implications and hopefully increased knowledge can be used to better the world.

Social psychologists use some research methods that aren't as common in other areas. They may engage in archival studies, which consist of examining past records in order to look for patterns and cultural or historical trends. This may involve studying newspaper accounts, medical records, diaries, or statistics like the number of website hits or search queries over a certain time period.

Another type of study which is common in social psychology is an observational study. This type of research involves observing and recording natural behaviors that occur in the real world. One type is a field experiment, in which researchers control an aspect of the environment and then measure how people respond to different manipulations. It's important to remember, however, that while these situations help to demonstrate actual behaviors in the real world (high external validity), researchers are unable to control many other aspects of the environment and these other variables may influence results. There are also subject variables such as gender, ethnicity, or cultural background, which may influence behavior but which psychologists cannot possibly assign or manipulate.

Globalization has made the world a smaller place, and it's more important than ever to understand differences as cultures collide, compete, and hopefully, cooperate. How does culture shape how we think, feel, and behave?

How can we consider a variable as broad as culture? One way of doing this is to focus on cultural dimensions, which refer to particular ways that cultures can differ. From 1967 to 1973, Geert Hofstede, a Dutch researcher, conducted pioneering work on cultural dimensions by surveying 117,000 IBM employees in more than 50 countries. By surveying people whose cultures differed but who were likely similar in their education levels, income, and job status, Hofstede looked for patterns in how people thought and believed differences between cultures could be seen in 5 cultural dimensions:

individualism/collectivism – how much a culture emphasizes individual efforts versus group ties

masculinity/femininity – high masculinity refers to large differences in gender roles and a focus on competition and material success while high femininity refers to more equal gender roles and a focus on cooperation and quality of life

uncertainty avoidance – tolerance for ambiguity versus clear expectations for behavior

power distance – how close people feel to the power structure of their society

time orientation – focus on the past and tradition (short-term orientation) versus focus on the future and adaptability (long-term orientation)

Hofstede added an indulgence/restraint dimension in 2010 based on how much a culture allows for the gratification of desires and fun. It's important to remember that these dimensions don't predict specific behavior or reflect the views of all individuals within a culture, they refer to overall tendencies and ways of thinking.

In the chapter on personality, we recognized that people have a self-concept and this is partially developed by comparing ourselves to others. This is known as social comparison theory, and it was proposed by Leon Festinger. Festinger suggested that we tend to look to others in order to understand ourselves, particularly when we are in a state of uncertainty. When we aren't sure of our own traits and abilities, we examine the traits and abilities of others in order to figure out where we fit in.

Who are the others that we compare ourselves to? We tend to focus on people who are relevant to us in some way. In other words, we don't necessarily compare ourselves to the best, but instead to those who are around us. So if you want to figure out where you stand in terms of athletic ability, you'll probably start by comparing yourself to the other players in the pick-up basketball games you join, rather than comparing yourself to Michael Jordan. Similarly, you probably assess your intellectual prowess by comparing yourself to your classmates, rather than Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. When it comes to attractiveness, however, media exposure may make us feel that stunningly attractive people are all around us, distorting our sense of comparison and making us feel inadequate.

Our sense of self is also inextricably tied to the groups that we are a part of. We can see ourselves as at least partially defined by our social relationships (i.e. a mother, a sibling, a student leader, or a social organizer). Our self-esteem and pride may be tied to the failures and successes of these groups, known as social identity theory.

This can be seen in what's known as basking in reflected glory. This refers to emphasizing our group membership as part of our identity when a group has been successful. This was demonstrated in an observational study by Robert Cialdini and others at several universities which found that on the Mondays following a weekend football game, students were more likely to wear clothing with the school insignia if the team had won than if they had lost, even though these students were not on the football team. We see the same in devoted sports fans, who proudly grab their share of reflected glory at the end of a game by exclaiming “We won! We won!”, though as Jerry Seinfeld noted; “No, they won. You watched”. While victory can bring reflected glory, this is only half the story, and losses may cause distancing from the losing team or “cutting off reflected failure”.

Just how much we tie ourselves to certain groups brings us back to the cultural dimension of individualist versus collectivist cultures. The United States is considered to be highly individualist, with an emphasis on self-reliance, achieving personal goals, and satisfying personal needs. Other cultures may be more group-oriented, with a focus on the importance of maintaining relationships and achieving group harmony. Perhaps some insight into the individualist nature of American culture can be seen in team sports. Although wins in basketball, baseball, and football are always achieved through group effort, there is still a tendency to glorify individual players (why else have MVP awards?). We might also see this individualist attitudeattitudeA learned tendency to evaluate people, objects, or ideas in a positive or negative way. in the business world, as CEOs are idolized (or condemned) for results that have come from the work of hundreds or thousands of employees.

When it comes to understanding ourselves, we might think that we're aware of all our feelings and beliefs, though hopefully other chapters have encouraged you to be critical of this idea. We're subject to biases and there can be a large disconnect between our attitudes and our behavior.

In the 1930s, while anti-Asian sentiment was high, Richard LaPiere traveled over 10,000 miles throughout the United States with a Chinese-American couple. Along the way, LaPiere and his companions didn't experience much discriminationdiscriminationUnjustifiable negative behavior toward a group of people based on their group membership. in the many restaurants, campgrounds, and hotels they visited, and they were denied service only once. Following the trip, however, LaPiere sent letters to the establishments they had previously visited, asking if they would accept Chinese customers and 90% of respondents indicated they would not. This demonstrates that actual behavior doesn't always match stated attitudes. Of course, this disconnect between expressed attitudes and actual behavior could work in the opposite direction, with many people proclaiming that they are not prejudiced, though their behavior may not always match their expressions of equality.

Another disconnect between attitudes and behavior was famously created in an experiment by Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith in 1959. Participants spent an hour in the lab completing several boring tasks (turning wooden pegs and filling, emptying, then refilling a tray with wooden spools). Following this boredom, however, some participants were asked to lie to the next participant (actually a confederate) in the waiting room, telling her that the experiment was interesting and fun. For this additional help, these participants were given either $1 or $20 (a decent sum in 1959). As they were leaving the building, participants were asked to do a follow-up interview with the psychology department to find out about their experience. Part of this interview included asking how enjoyable the tasks were. Participants who had not been asked to lie admitted that the tasks were boring, but how did the liars feel? Did lying for $1 or $20 influence how participants felt about the experiment?

It did, but perhaps not in the way you might expect. Those who had just been paid $20 to say the experiment was fun stated that actually, it wasn't. Those who had been paid only $1 to lie, however, said the experiment had been engaging and worthwhile. This brings us back to an idea from the chapter on motivation, which is insufficient justification. A little white lie in exchange for $20 seems like a deal anyone should take, but lying just to get $1 is a bit unsettling. Rather than admitting they had been easily bought, these participants justified the lie by thinking maybe it wasn't a lie after all.

Based on this research, Festinger and Carlsmith proposed the theory of cognitive dissonancecognitive dissonanceThe discomfort felt when holding contradictory beliefs or when behavior conflicts with attitudes — motivates attitude change., which suggests that when we hold conflicting attitudes or we engage in behavior that doesn't match our attitudes, this creates discomfort that must be resolved, either by changing behavior or changing attitudes. In the case above, lying to a stranger for only $1 created dissonance and this dissonance was resolved by changing an attitude (I didn't lie, because the experiment was actually fun). The $20 group, however, already had enough justification for lying and therefore experienced less dissonance and did not need to change the attitude (I lied, but hey, for $20, who wouldn't?).

In another example of cognitive dissonance, Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter infiltrated a cult which believed that the world was going to end on a certain date (detailed in their book When Prophecy Fails.). The researchers assumed that the world would not end, and wanted to see how members of the cult would deal with this massive amount of cognitive dissonance. After all, these members so firmly believed the end was nigh that they had quit their jobs, given away their possessions and dedicated themselves to the group. As you might guess, the world did not end. How did these members deal with this incredible amount of cognitive dissonance? Did they admit to their foolishness and say “wow, I really shouldn't have done that”?

Of course not. Instead, they reduced dissonance by believing that actually, it was because of their behaviors and because of their beliefs that the world was spared. Rather than weakening their beliefs, the failure of their prophecy strengthened their convictions and rather than fools, they viewed themselves as saviors.

If you're wondering how to use dissonance for your own personal benefit, perhaps you can try what's known as the Benjamin Franklin effect. Franklin wasn't just a brilliant entrepreneur, inventor, and statesman, he was also quite a talented social psychologist, who found a way to use dissonance in his favor. When he felt that someone didn't like him, he would find a way to ask that person for a favor, such as borrowing a book he knew they owned. Franklin found that if the request was accepted, the person in question would be left wondering why he did Franklin a favor if he didn't like him. To eliminate this dissonance and justify the behavior, he might decide that Franklin mustn't be so bad after all. As Franklin wrote, "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged”.

Norman Triplett noticed that bicyclists tended to be faster when they raced against other opponents than when they raced alone, so he had children use reels in pairs or alone to see if this influenced their speed. This idea that the presence of others improves performance is known as social facilitationsocial facilitationThe tendency for the presence of others to enhance performance on simple tasks but impair it on difficult ones.. Though the strength of Triplett's early data (published in 1898) has been questioned by modern statistical methods, other researchers have found supporting evidence for social facilitation.

Sometimes, however, the presence of others can cause us to choke and perform worse. Why does this occur? It seems that it's a matter of practice. When a task is simple or well-learned, the additional arousal of others can boost performance. When a task is complex, however, the presence of others can hinder performance. J.W. Michaels and colleagues (1982) found that skilled pool players performed better with 4 people watching than when alone, while amateurs missed more shots and played more poorly when others were observing. It's not just humans that experience these effects. In fact, Robert Zajonc, Alexander Heingartner, and Edward Herman (1969) found that cockroaches running in a straight line (simple task) ran faster with others than when alone, but when placed in a maze (complex task) they were slower in the presence of others and made more mistakes.

When we work in groups, the presence of others can cause us to reduce effort, a phenomenon known as social loafingsocial loafingThe tendency to exert less effort in a group when individual contributions are not identifiable.. This occurs when individuals work together and individual contributions are difficult to measure. Max Ringelmann found that a group of individuals pulling on a rope generated far less force than the sum of each individual pulling alone would predict. Lone individuals pulled with an average force of about 139 lbs. Groups of 8, however, only generated an average of 546 lbs, meaning that each individual's contribution was about 68 lbs, approximately half of the effort when alone. Alan Ingham and colleagues used confederates pretending to pull a rope and demonstrated that individuals put forth less effort when they believed others were helping. You've probably experienced this first-hand when the work for a group project just doesn't seem to get done. When individual contributions cannot be easily measured and everyone will receive the same grade, there may be an incentive for members to loaf.

Seeing what others are doing or hearing what others think can influence how we think, feel, and behave, and this process may be subtle or it may be glaringly obvious. Our desire to fit in with a group can result in conformityconformityAdjusting behavior or beliefs to match a group norm — studied by Asch.; following an indirect social pressure to go along with a group's attitude or behavior.

Turkish-American psychologist Muzafer Sherif (pronounced sher-reef) used a perceptual illusion to demonstrate the influence of others on our thoughts and behaviors. The illusion, known as the autokinetic effect, occurs when a person looks at a small spot of light in a dark room. In this situation, the spot of light will appear to move, even though it is actually stationary. How much it appears to move, however, is subjective. Some people report it moving only an inch or two, while others may think that it moves as much as one foot. Sherif used this variability to investigate how hearing other people's estimates influenced an individual's perception of the movement. By having people look at the same spot in groups of 3, Sherif found that answers would gradually converge over several trials. In other words, people who thought the light only moved an inch or so increased their estimates (after hearing others give higher answers), while those who initially gave high estimates lowered their answers, causing the group to reach a consensus in the middle. Even though no estimates were said to be “right” or “wrong”, the participants were using information from others to guide their decision-making, and this is known as informational influence.

In 1951, Solomon Asch conducted studies in which participants were asked to match line lengths of a stimulus line to one of three possible answers. Unbeknownst to the participants, however, all five of the others in the room were confederates working for the experimenter. After a few trials, these confederates began to give unanimously incorrect answers. Would these responses influence the participant enough to give the wrong answer too? Would you be swayed?

Asch found that in about one third of the critical trials, individuals went along with the group and gave incorrect responses. In follow-up interviews after the experiment, he found that people went along with the group for one of two reasons. In some cases, people really believed that the group was correct. They thought maybe they were viewing the lines from a strange angle or that the others had better vision. Asch referred to this as private acceptance because the individuals really believed that the group's answer was accurate.

Other participants, however, believed that the group was wrong but didn't want to stand out. By declaring the correct answer, the participant would essentially be telling everyone else in the room they were incorrect and taking a stand didn't seem to be worth it. In this case, participants engaged in public compliance; going along with the group answer, even though they believed it was incorrect. Rather than using other answers as information about the correct answer, these participants used the views of others to establish how they should behave, known as normative influence. This normative influence could easily be disrupted, however, and the presence of just one confederate disagreeing with the others (giving the correct answer) greatly reduced the rate of conformity, even though participants claimed that this “social supporter” had not influenced their answers (though they did rate this person as more likable).

While it might be surprising how readily participants went along with the group, you may still ask, “who cares?”. Who really cares about the length of lines and whether the answer is 1, 2, or 3? Does this tell us about conformity in real life? This is a valid concern for conformity research. We want to know about real life behaviors, and we aren't often asked to judge line lengths in an inconsequential task. What happens when people really care about being right? How much does the desire to be accurate and the importance of the task affect levels of conformity?

In order to investigate this, Robert Baron, Joseph Vandello, and Bethany Brunsman (1996) created a task in which participants were motivated to give the correct answer and were also led to believe that the task was important. The task was to identify a criminal in a lineup after viewing a photo very briefly. Participants who performed best would receive an additional $20 (increasing the desire to be accurate) and participants were also told that the results of the study would be used by law enforcement and judges in considering future eyewitness testimony (increasing importance of the task). Participants could hear the answers given by others (who were confederates) though the order in which they answered was rotated in order to reduce suspicion (only the occasions in which the participant answered last were actually used). So if the confederates all gave a wrong answer, would you expect the participants to conform?

It turns out that the increased desire for accuracy and the perceived importance of the task actually served to increase the rate of conformity from 35% to 51% when the task was made more difficult (participants were given less time to view the images). How could this be? The researchers suggested that because the task was difficult, and because participants wanted to do well, they tended to rely on the informational influence of others. If you really aren't sure of the correct answer and you want to increase your odds of being right, it might make sense to rely on the judgments of others, especially if those judgments seem to be unanimous.

While conformity can be considered an indirect influence on our behavior (we feel a pressure to conform even though no one is specifically asking us to), we are also influenced by more direct attempts to modify our attitudes or behaviors. We can be encouraged to comply with requests or be persuaded to engage in certain behaviors.

One model for thinking about how persuasion works involves two different systems; a central route and a peripheral route. The central route refers to careful consideration of options and conscious effort to weigh the pros and cons, while the peripheral route refers to mostly unconscious processing and snap judgments. So a salesman telling you all about the fuel efficiency and safety ratings of a car is appealing to central route processing, while a salesman showing off the sexy, sleek look of the car would be appealing to peripheral route processing. As you might guess from your knowledge of unconscious influences and the System 1 / System 2 distinction discussed in the chapter on decision-making, the peripheral route to persuasion is the one that most advertisers appeal to. It should come as no surprise that advertisements filled with bikini-clad women aren't trying to convince you that a particular beer is the most rational choice.

One way of encouraging others to comply is to use what we've already learned about cognitive dissonance. This can be done through the foot-in-the-door techniquefoot-in-the-door techniqueA compliance strategy involving a small initial request followed by a larger related one., in which you begin by making a small request that is easily accepted, followed by a larger request, which is now more likely to be accepted than if you had started with it.

In a classic study of this technique, researchers found that more people were willing to erect a “Drive Carefully” sign on their front lawns if they had previously been asked to sign a petition for safe driving, rather than if the sign was the first request. This technique works because people like consistency (to avoid dissonance) so they're more likely to agree with consistent requests. If I've already said that I support safe driving, it becomes harder to say no to the sign because that would be inconsistent with my previous behavior.

Of course, you've likely been using this technique for years when trying to get compliance from your parents. You don't start by suggesting an entire day's worth of fun activities, you start small; “Can I go to a friend's house for a little while?”, then “Can I stay for dinner?”, then “can I stay to watch a movie”, then “can we have a sleepover?”.

In contrast to the foot-in-the-door technique, the door-in-the-face techniquedoor-in-the-face techniqueA compliance strategy involving a large initial request (which is refused) followed by a smaller one. begins with an overly-large request (which is rejected), followed by a much smaller request which is more likely to be accepted (given how trivial it appears compared to the first request). So if I were to ask you to give me $1,000 you would probably scoff, but if I then asked for $10 it wouldn't seem so bad and you just might agree.

Robert Cialdini and colleagues demonstrated the effectiveness of the door-in-the-face technique by approaching strangers on the street and asking them to volunteer their time. Sometimes researchers started with a large request: would you be willing to volunteer to help juvenile delinquents for 2 hours every week for at least the next 2 years? Not surprisingly, the researchers did not get any volunteers. This request was followed with a smaller (though still fairly large) request: would you volunteer to take a group of juveniles to the zoo for a field trip next weekend? Cialdini and colleagues found that if the smaller request (zoo trip) was asked first, only 17% of respondents agreed. But if it came after the much larger request, 50% of respondents were willing to chaperone.

So why does the door-in-the-face technique work? It's related to the reason why the next technique works, so hold tight and see if you can work out the reason for both of these.

While shopping in the grocery store, you've probably found yourself on the receiving end of some free samples. What a lovely person this food corporation is, charitably distributing foodstuffs to hungry shoppers everywhere! Well, not quite. Social psychologists would refer to this as a not-so-free sample, because there is indeed a cost (and not just to the food company). You've experienced this cost yourself, standing there awkwardly as you smile and feel the mounting pressure to purchase.

What's going on here? What's happening is that when someone does something nice for you, you feel that you have an obligation to return the favor, known as the norm of reciprocity. This norm is so deeply ingrained that even when we stop and consider that the worker giving us the sample isn't personally paying for it and probably doesn't care what we put in our grocery cart, the pressure to buy remains.

How does the norm of reciprocity help explain the door-in-the-face technique? Reducing the larger request is a way of doing the other person a favor (by asking for less) and it shows a willingness to compromise. As a result, the person being asked may feel the need to reciprocate by accepting the now smaller request.

This also occurs in the that's-not-all technique, in which you are given an additional bonus or incentive for making a purchase, making it seem as though the seller is doing you a favor. Jerry Burger (1986) tested this at a bake sale by selling a cupcake and a small bag of cookies for $0.75, or selling a cupcake alone for $0.75, but giving the customer a “free” bag of cookies with the purchase, with the second approach resulting in greater sales.

Perhaps the most famous research in all of psychology is Stanley Milgram's investigation of obedienceobedienceFollowing direct instructions from an authority figure — studied by Milgram. to authority, conducted in the early 1960s at Yale. Each participant came into the lab, where another participant was also waiting. A researcher had them select a slip of paper, assigning one to the role of teacher and the other to the role of learner. The learner was then strapped into a chair and told that he would receive electric shocks in response to incorrect answers. The teacher was taken next door and seated in front of a large shock machine. The teacher's job was to read a series of multiple choice word-pair questions to the learner (via microphone), then administer increasingly powerful electric shocks as punishment for any incorrect responses. With each additional wrong answer, the teacher would move to a new switch on the machine, increasing the strength of the shock by 15 volts. The initial shock was only 15 volts, and the machine had switches leading up to 450 volts, along with labels “moderate”, “danger: severe shock”, and, for the last two switches, “XXX”.

Milgram wanted to find out just how many participants would continue giving the shocks all the way up to 450 volts, despite cries of protest, complaints of heart trouble, and eventual silence from the learner on the other side of the wall. If participants verbally protested, the experimenter would insist that everything was fine, the shocks didn't cause permanent damage, and that the experiment must go on. Milgram surveyed psychiatrists, who estimated that only about 1% of people would continue to obey the experimenter but Milgram found that 67% of participants in the original study went all the way to 450 volts.

While Milgram conducted many variations which manipulated aspects of the situation (proximity to the learner, presence of the experimenter, presence of other teachers, etc.) to observe effects on obedience, note that the “standard” version recounted above isn't actually an experiment (no manipulation of an independent variable) and is a demonstration of how people behave in a particular situation. While there have always been ethical concerns over the intense stress and potential psychological harm to participants (making replication difficult), Gina Perry found evidence that participants were not always properly debriefed after the study (detailed in her book “Behind the Shock Machine”). Milgram's “de-hoaxing” may have sometimes showed the learner smiling and unharmed at the end, without ever revealing that the shocks weren't real.

The standard interpretation of Milgram's study is that most people would be willing to harm or potentially kill a stranger just because a man in a lab coat instructed them to. This fit in well with related theories of the time, such as Hannah Arendt's notion of the “banality of evil”, which suggested that evils and atrocities like the Holocaust were mostly carried out by ordinary people. Monsters and megalomaniacs aren't necessary for evil to occur, just regular people following orders.

This interpretation has been questioned and some researchers have reconsidered the meaning of Milgram's results. Some participants may have known the experiment was a hoax but continued anyway, out of curiosity. Milgram's own data suggested that nearly half of the participants had some doubts about whether the setup was real. Were some participants “obeying” the experimenter like actors following a director, accepting a role and playing along to see where it led? Others may have thought the shocks were real but trusted the experimenter's assurances that they were not dangerous.

We should also remember that the entire experimental environment was orchestrated by Milgram to maximize obedience. Concluding that people are blindly obedient ignores Milgram's carefully-constructed script, his casting of the experimenter and learner, the weeks of rehearsal, and the repeated obstruction of participants' verbal protests. “Obedience” is a broad term, and many participants argued with the experimenter, certainly a form of disobedience. Textbook accounts may also leave out the active role that many participants played in attempting to reduce the shocks to the learner either by accentuating the correct answer while reading the prompts or by tapping the shock button as quickly as possible, both of which could be considered forms of disobedience.

Even if we accept Milgram's interpretation that continuing represents obedience, participants could be considered to be obeying the scientific process, rather than the man in the lab coat. Belief that science is conducted for noble purposes, that those conducting it minimize risks, and that Yale researchers can be trusted could all contribute to participants' behaviors. Don Mixon has suggested that Milgram's results are really measurements of the good faith the general public has in science and those who conduct it. But of course “67% of participants trust Yale researcher” doesn't make for a great headline.

These criticisms and re-interpretations aren't meant to completely discount Milgram's findings. The results were certainly surprising and perhaps show how readily we cede responsibility to others in ambiguous situations. But we should be careful not to oversimplify or draw far-reaching conclusions about human nature on the basis of some bizarre requests in a Yale basement. The comparisons between Milgram's results and the horrors of the Holocaust trivialize real-life atrocities and imply that obedience itself is evil. Thinking of obedience as shocking-a-stranger-to-death ignores its potentially positive role in many situations. While we may sometimes be led astray, it's usually a wise choice to obey parents and teachers, follow the laws of society, and heed the instructions of physicians.

Why are we attracted to some people and not others? Why do you have the friends you have? One rather straightforward answer is proximity: we tend to become friends with people that are near us. So your childhood friends are far more likely to be other kids who attend the same school, rather than kids from a remote village in Peru. This effect continues, and your friends in college are likely to be those who live in the same dorm you do, adult life will have you socializing with neighbors and workmates, and old age will have you befriending the other residents of your retirement community.

Of course, proximity alone isn't really enough, as you could live directly above a neighbor without interacting but frequently see someone who lives 3 apartments away on the same hallway. To clarify this difference from simple proximity, the term propinquity can be used to refer to people that are near you that you actually encounter more often.

If you recall the mere-exposure effect, you'll recall that we tend to like things that we're familiar with or that we've seen more often and this certainly applies to attraction. Seeing a face more often will tend to make you like that face more. In fact, you can even demonstrate this mere-exposure effect by looking at your own face. Compare two identical images of your face, but with one flipped to a mirror image and consider which you think looks better. You're likely to choose the mirrored version, since that's what you see most often. This may explain why you see so many mirror-inverted selfies and Snapchats, as users are likely to consider those versions of themselves more attractive. Ironically, friends would probably prefer the non-mirrored versions, since that's what they are used to seeing.

It's also true that we like people who are more similar to ourselves and we're likely to have a partner with a similar background, known as homogamy. Married couples tend to be similar in many ways, and in fact they tend to grow more and more similar over time. When others share our views it helps to confirm that our views are accurate and correct. While it isn't the case that opposites attract, there is evidence for a Romeo-and-Juliet effect, in which parental opposition to a teenage relationship can serve to intensify it.

Of course, I'd be hard-pressed to write a section on why we are attracted to other people without mentioning the fact that some people are just more physically attractive than others. Being attractive matters, in fact, it matters in ways that it probably shouldn't. It's not just the case that people who are physically attractive attract others, they are also assumed to have a number of other positive traits, known as the halo effect. So we have a tendency to think that physically attractive people are smarter, more capable, more outgoing and social, and have higher self-esteem. Or as Norm MacDonald joked “women say they like guys with a sense of humor, but it turns out they just laugh at handsome guys.” When it comes to persuasion and advertising, the halo effect may explain why attractive celebrities are frequently used to promote unrelated products, as their attractiveness might make us think they are more knowledgeable than they are.

While we might like to think personality trumps looks, the truth is that physical appearance is one of the best predictors of why people are attracted to one another. These positive effects of physical attractiveness raise the question, what is attractive? Are there universal laws of attractiveness, or is beauty really in the eye of the beholder?

For both genders, symmetry is important. Symmetry of face (and body) is a sign of good health, indicating that development hasn't been hindered by genetic defect, disease, infection, or a parasite. When it comes to specific facial features, gender differences emerge and attractive female features are often those seen as “cute” (such as large eyes, a small nose, and a pointed chin) while attractive male features are more “dominant” (such as a thick brow, a sharp jaw, and a broad chin).

In women, a body shape that is considered to be universally attractive is a waist-to-hip ratio of about 0.7, meaning that the waist is 70% of the size of the hips. For males, a ratio of about 0.9 relates to attractiveness, though in this case it refers to the hip-to-shoulder ratio, with the shoulders being broader than the hips, creating an inverted triangle shape. Of course, we want our offspring to be healthy, but we also want them to be attractive. This will give them a better chance of passing on their (and our) genes. If we think in terms of our genes, the attractiveness of a potential mate is so compelling because in a way, it signals our chance at immortality.

Outside of physical characteristics, another way of increasing attraction is self-disclosure. Revealing personal details strengthens relationships and draws people together. Revealing more about yourself can actually cause you to feel closer and more attracted to the person to whom you divulge your secrets. So next time you want to draw someone in and cause them to like you more, try to tactfully skip the small talk: the more they reveal about themselves, the more they may end up liking you.

How do we understand the behavior of other people? Rather than focusing on a person's traits (or their disposition) as we did in personality psychology, we'll now include a focus on the situation the person is in. We'll begin with AttributionAttributionThe process of explaining the causes of behavior — our own and others'. Theory, which refers to how we understand the cause of events. So if I watch a person walking down the street and that person suddenly trips and falls down, how might I explain this occurrence?

The Fundamental Attribution ErrorFundamental Attribution ErrorThe tendency to overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes when explaining others' behavior. (FAE) refers to a tendency to attribute the causes of behavior to disposition rather than situation. This means I'm likely to conclude that the person fell because she is clumsy, rather than concluding that a cracked sidewalk was to blame. Similarly, I may conclude that a student hasn't turned in homework because he's lazy, rather than thinking that situational factors outside of his control were the cause.

The FAE was demonstrated in a study by Lee Ross, Teresa Amabile, and Julia Steinmetz which involved a quiz game. In the study, participants observed two others play; one person was the quizmaster and the other was the contestant, and these roles were chosen at random. The quizmaster's job was to think of random trivia questions that the contestant would be unable to answer correctly.

Rather than recognizing that the random assignment of roles and the nature of the task caused one person to appear more knowledgeable than the other, participants concluded that the quizmasters were actually more intelligent than the contestants. Even when we have clear information that should protect us from making the Fundamental Attribution Error, it still has a tendency to occur.

It's not just about seeing game show hosts as more knowledgeable (you think you're pretty smart, don't you Trebek?) this same effect occurs for actors and their roles, explaining why people might feel uneasy meeting Robert Englund or why Leonard Nimoy titled his first autobiography I Am Not Spock. Although we rationally know that actors are not the roles they play, we still have a tendency to fall into this trap, perhaps thinking that they portray a role so well because they are indeed similar to the character.

One reason that the FAE may be common is that it allows us to generate explanations quickly and easily. So when a student doesn't turn in a homework assignment and the teacher wants to know why, the simplest answer is to just blame the student for being lazy and move on. Attempting to understand the situational context requires a great deal more effort and investigation, while focusing on disposition allows the question to be answered right away. Lazy student, case closed.

Even if we try to understand the situation, as an outside observer we don't have access to all of the situational information and this may cause actor-observer biasactor-observer biasThe tendency to attribute our own behavior to the situation but others' behavior to their character.. The student (actor) can easily see all the situational factors which made completing the assignment impossible, while the teacher (observer) just sees an empty-handed student. When explaining behavior, if we are the actor, situation stands out, but if we are the observer, disposition seems to dominate.

Culture may also play a role in the fundamental attribution error and some cultures may be less prone to it. Cultures which emphasize fate over self-reliance or interdependence over independence may be less inclined to think of individuals as solely responsible for what happens to them.

The fundamental attribution error can cause problems when it comes to explaining why bad things happen to people. If we have a tendency to attribute cause to the dispositions of individuals, this also means we may blame them when things go wrong. We do this in part because we like to think that the world is a fair place, known as the just-world bias. We'd like to think that people get what they deserve, that negative actions will be punished and good deeds rewarded. In actuality, however, we must accept that the world is not just. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. It's scary to think that no matter how good of a person you are, you could still be the victim of a horrible crime or accident or suffer from an incurable illness, all through no fault of your own. This idea is so discomforting that we might prefer to put our just-world blinders back on, blaming victims of sexual assaults, assuming carelessness explains all car accidents, or thinking that good karma will ward off cancer.

How do we form impressions of other people? How long does it take to form an impression of someone? As you might guess from your knowledge of heuristics, we tend to form impressions very quickly. “Thin slices” theory suggests that we form impressions in a matter of seconds. In one study by Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal, 10-second silent video clips of professors were rated by participants, and the mean of these ratings was shown to be a reliable predictor of the professors' actual end-of-semester student evaluations. Similar studies have found that people can predict big five personality scores (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) fairly well within a matter of seconds.

One interpretation of this is that we are both fast and surprisingly accurate when it comes to forming impressions. It could be the case, however, that this consistency results because our first impressions shape subsequent impressions and may be resistant to change. We have to remember the possibility of confirmation bias, as once we start thinking someone has a particular trait, we may find ourselves looking for it and ignoring any evidence to the contrary. This was demonstrated in a study by Harold Kelley in which students were given a description of a guest speaker which included either that he was rather “warm” or rather “cold”. This early description then influenced the students' ratings of the speaker, even though they all witnessed the same lecture.

If first impressions are so important, why don't we just throw out all those convoluted course evaluation forms and lengthy personality assessments? Thin slices can be accurate, but they can also be horribly inaccurate, and our level of confidence may not help us figure which is occurring. We can make judgments in the blink of an eye, but that doesn't mean that we should. More information gives us the chance to revise those initial impressions as we attempt to minimize confirmation bias and avoid self-fulfilling prophecies, in which initial expectations cause expected behaviors to occur.

The fact that we rapidly form impressions of others using little information means that we have a tendency to rely on stereotypes, expectations and inferences based on categories. Stereotypes emerge as a result of our mental ability to quickly categorize information and draw conclusions. Stereotyping isn't a big deal for most categories, but when it comes to categorizing people, this process causes problems. It can lead to prejudiceprejudiceAn unjustifiable negative attitude toward a group and its members., when our attitudes and evaluations of others are based on their group membership, and discrimination, when our behavior toward others is influenced by their group membership.

Not to be outdone by the name of the Fundamental Attribution Error, the Ultimate Attribution Error (UAE) suggests that not only do we assume disposition as an explanation for an individual's behavior, we also tend to apply that disposition to all members of that individual's group. So if I see a Korean person helping someone, not only might I assume that this individual is kind (the FAE), I might also assume that all Koreans are kind (the UAE). A stereotypestereotypeA generalized belief about a group of people. has been formed.

This error might be more pronounced when it comes to groups we don't have much information about. So if this is the only Korean person I've ever seen, it's more likely I'll think this way. On the other hand, if I've personally met hundreds of Koreans in the past, then I might not be as likely to jump to this conclusion (because I have lots of other information to go on). You may want to keep this in mind if you're a traveler, particularly if your ethnicity or nationality is rare in the area you're visiting. Like it or not, you really do become a representative of where you are from. If you're the only American locals have ever met, your behaviors may exert undue influence on their perceptions of all Americans.

We're all members of many different groups, but how easily do these groups form? Henri Tajfel proposed minimal group theory; that groups can form rapidly on the basis of trivial classifications. This was demonstrated by having teenage boys view artwork from either Paul Klee or Wassily Kandinsky (two artists with similar styles). After rating the paintings, boys were placed into either the Klee group or the Kandinsky group, supposedly on the basis of their preferences but they were actually randomly assigned.

Next, individuals were asked to choose how points (which were worth money) were distributed to other members of the two groups. Rather than maximizing points for everyone (getting the most money out of the experimenters) or maximizing total points for their own group, boys preferred arrangements maximizing difference between the groups, so their own group got more points relative to the other group, demonstrating an in-groupin-groupThe group to which a person belongs and identifies. bias.

If these group biases occur in minimal groups which are easy to join, what happens when groups are difficult to join? Based on what we've learned already about cognitive dissonance, social pressures, and group formation, we may be able to better understand how barriers to entry can actually make a group seem more appealing and can increase group solidarity among members.

One way groups increase solidarity is through hazing or harsh initiation rites. If you could just walk up to any fraternity or sorority house and instantly become a member, you might check out one or two parties, make small talk with a few members, then move along with your social life and never really look back. If, however, you were forced to endure rituals, rites, and ridicule in order to earn your membership, those same parties might be imbued with greater camaraderie, excitement, and fun. When you find yourself thinking “I went through all that for this?”, insufficient justification and cognitive dissonance may just make you feel that this is actually the best party in town.

Not only do we show a preferential bias for members of our own groups, we are better able to recognize in-group members as individuals who vary from one another. When it comes to outsiders we tend to suffer from a bias known as out-groupout-groupA group to which a person does not belong. homogeneity, which refers to the tendency to see them as all being the same and having similar preferences, behaviors, and thoughts.

So while an American might think that “all Germans are alike”, it's quite unlikely that a German would think this way. You may recognize that individuals at your own school are quite varied in their tastes, preferences, and thoughts, but you might consider members of another school to be more uniform. Our detailed knowledge of our in-group helps us to see that it is composed of individuals, while our limited knowledge of out-group members causes us to ignore their differences.

This reduction of identity and seeing others as more alike also relates to dehumanization, in which we stop seeing members of an out-group as people. Unfortunately, history is filled with examples of people being likened to rats, dogs, apes, cockroaches, pigs, snakes, locusts, or worse. While insulting to the recipients of these slurs, the greater damage comes in thinking of them as less than human.

This dehumanization can reduce feelings of empathy, making it easier to inflict harm upon them and reducing the stress of doing so. With this in mind, it's not surprising that opponents and victims of war are frequent targets of dehumanization. Those fighting for the opposition are frequently viewed as cold, interchangeable machines devoid of human sentiment and emotional experience. Dehumanization may also lead to greater mutilation of enemies and the macabre collection of “war trophies”, including skulls, scalps, teeth, or ears.

What can we do to improve group relations? In the real world, group conflicts may have decades, centuries, or millennia of events contributing to them, and this means that even experts may not know where to begin. But what about creating a simple form of group conflict and then testing strategies for reducing it? This is precisely what Muzafer Sherif and colleagues did at a boys' summer camp in 1954. Upon arriving at the camp in Oklahoma's Robber's Cave State Park, each of the 22 boys found out he was part of a group, the Eagles or the Rattlers.

While the Eagles and Rattlers were initially focused on bonding with group members through activities like hiking and swimming, the two groups were soon put into competition. This was to see if hostilities between the groups increased when they competed for scarce resources, known as realistic conflict theory. As the Eagles and Rattlers competed for prizes in tug-of-war, baseball, football, and other activities, hostilities quickly escalated, from name-calling and flag-burning to cabin-raiding, theft, and even fist-fights between the boys. Within a matter of days these groups of boys had come to despise one other.

Now that the researchers had created prejudice, what could be done to reduce it? One early theory, known as contact theory, suggested that groups just need to interact more and spend more time together. This contact would allow everyone to get to know each other better, ending stereotypes and building bonds that transcend group alliances. For the Eagles and Rattlers, however, contact alone was not enough. They maintained strict segregation when forced together and engaged in several food fights when group meals were attempted.

Researchers turned to another approach, creating superordinate goals, goals which could only be achieved if members of both groups worked together. The two groups of boys were forced to work together on tasks such as repairing the water supply and pulling a “broken-down” food truck. Following these tasks, hostilities lessened, and the boys began intermingling and forming new friendships. By the final night of camp a few days later, they were all singing, roasting marshmallows, and looking forward to sharing a bus back to Oklahoma City (during which the Rattlers even used a $5 prize they had previously won to buy malted milks for everyone).

While the boys in Sherif's study openly expressed their dislike for Eagles or Rattlers (like sports fans yelling “Yankees Suck!”), negative attitudes and prejudices for race or gender are not always so obvious. Most people, whether they are racist or not, know that appearing racist is generally a bad thing, so they don't openly express negative attitudes they hold, making these attitudes difficult to study.

One way of getting around this is to measure negative associations in a way that participants can't control or hide. The implicit association test (IAT) does this by measuring how quickly participants are able to associate certain items. To assess racial associations, participants are instructed to press a key with one hand when they see either a positive word (like “love”) or a white face, and to press a key with the other hand when they see either a negative word (like “terrible”) or a black face. The participant is repeatedly timed completing this task and a version of the task with the opposite pairings (one key for black faces and positive words, the other key for negative words and white faces).

Researchers using this type of task have revealed that many participants perform slightly slower when black faces are paired with positive words, suggesting an implicit association between black faces and negative words. The IAT has also been used to assess attitudes for a number of other possible negative associations for age, sexual orientation, gender, and other groups. You can try the implicit association test yourself at www.implicit.harvard.edu.

Results from this test don't indicate active prejudice or discrimination, just possible unconscious associations. These associations may occur as a result of exposure to stereotypes, even if we don't actually believe the stereotypes. We should hesitate to judge anyone (or ourselves) based on IAT results alone, as having these associations doesn't mean that a person acts on them. Nevertheless, they suggest subtle, unconscious influence that might be shaping thought and behavior.

Evidence of implicit associations doesn't tell us what we can do to reduce them. How can we overcome societal stereotypes and associations that may not even be conscious? We may even end up worrying that we have some negative implicit associations that could “leak out” and cause us to be seen as prejudiced. Despite holding what I believe to be egalitarian views, as a white male I might feel hesitant to join a group discussion on race or gender, out of fear that I may inadvertently say something that could be interpreted as racist or sexist. This kind of fear might cause me to avoid these situations, and this avoidance means I'll have less experience and feel less comfortable if I do try to participate. Is this why it's so hard to discuss these issues?

How can we overcome this tendency? Claude Steele and colleagues uncovered one way by asking college undergraduates to prepare for a discussion group on racial profiling. After seeing photos of the two other students they were going to meet with, participants were asked to arrange the chairs in the meeting room while the researcher went to get the other members for the discussion. When white participants believed they were going to meet with black students to discuss racial profiling, they placed the chairs farther apart than if they believed they were meeting with other white students, a physical representation of their discomfort.

One intervention, based on Carol Dweck's work on mindset, was to tell participants beforehand that feeling uncomfortable was natural, encouraging them to view the discussion as an opportunity for growth and learning how to discuss controversial issues with people who may have different viewpoints. For participants given this growth-mindset approach to the discussion, the race gap in chair placement disappeared.

How do group opinions differ from individual opinions? In other words, if a group of people get together to express an opinion, will that opinion be the same as the average of each of the group members?

What tends to happen in group decision-making is that the opinion of the group starts to shift away from the average of the group members' opinions and move toward extremes, known as group polarization. To illustrate how this happens, imagine that students are going to evaluate a teacher, whom they all feel slightly positive about. Before submitting their individual evaluations, they have a discussion, and all of these slightly-positive messages strengthen the idea that this teacher is actually quite good. One student mentions that homework isn't excessive, another that lectures are at least mildly entertaining, and another that grading is fair. These aren't glowing reviews but these multiple positive messages may be enough to push each individual's evaluation a bit higher. Of course, this can also work in the other direction, causing a group to become more negative than members were initially. Groups may also take larger risks than the individuals would, a kind of group polarization known as risky shift.

What happens when evidence is mixed? Charles Lord, Lee Ross, and Michael Lepper found that rather than moderating opinions, mixed results or inconclusive findings may actually strengthen views. Groups of people either for or against capital punishment were exposed to evidence that adoption of the death penalty was associated with an increase in the murder rate in some states, in addition to evidence showing a decrease in the murder rate in other states. People on each side viewed the research supporting their own view as better conducted and more convincing, meaning that the same mixed results served to strengthen the views of both groups.

Why do groups sometimes make terrible decisions? Why didn't the US military predict the attack on Pearl Harbor? How is it that John F. Kennedy's administration approved an invasion of Cuba so far-fetched it should have been obvious it would fail? These aren't examples of hindsight bias, as early warnings and criticisms were present at the time, but were largely ignored. Irving Janis investigated a number of catastrophic group decisions and proposed they resulted from groupthinkgroupthinkThe tendency for a cohesive group to make poor decisions by suppressing dissent and valuing consensus., a term he coined based on the newspeak and doublethink of George Orwell's 1984.

Janis outlined a number of factors that increased the risk of groupthink, which included having a strong or charismatic leader members want to impress, members of the group believing that they are highly intelligent or talented, and dissenting opinions being minimized, disregarded, or suppressed. These factors result in greater conformity, an illusion of invulnerability, and stereotyped views of outsiders or the opposition. Since Janis's first description, the role of groupthink has been considered in other fiascoes, from NASA's failed Challenger launch in 1986 to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

What about when larger groups of people make bad decisions? When crowds of fans overturn cars, looters rob local shops, and rioters destroy property? What causes the apparent madness of crowds?

Just being part of a crowd can have physiological effects on your body, stimulating the sympathetic nervous system and raising heart rate and blood pressure. Ask your average pedestrian if they would ever encourage a stranger to commit suicide, and chances are very few people will say yes. Leon Mann's archival research found, however, that crowds of people frequently chant “jump!” to those contemplating suicide on buildings and bridges. What causes this callous disregard for a life? Mann noted that this phenomenon tended to occur when it was dark, the crowd was large, and the “jumper” was far away.

What these factors accomplish is increased deindividuationdeindividuationLoss of self-awareness and personal responsibility in a group or crowd., a feeling that one is no longer an individual but a part of a group. One factor that increases feelings of deindividuation is physical anonymity. When people feel that their identity is unknown, they feel less like individuals and feel less responsible for their actions.

You may have experienced this feeling yourself when wearing a costume that conceals your identity. In fact, research by Ed Diener and colleagues considered how anonymity and group size might influence children's behavior on Halloween. With the help of 27 homes in the Seattle area, these researchers were able to manipulate the level of anonymity that children experienced by either having the host ask children who they were (or not) and where they lived (or not). Children then had an opportunity to violate the stated “one candy” rule and take extra. Deindividuation was lowest, and so was theft (7.5%), when a child had provided a name and address and was trick-or-treating alone. When children remained anonymous and were in a group, however, 57% stole candy.

Another one of the most famous studies in psychology is the Stanford Prison Study. Philip Zimbardo and colleagues randomly assigned healthy college-aged volunteers to play the roles of prisoners or guards in a mock prison created in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford University. Mock arrests were conducted by real police and prisoners were handcuffed, fingerprinted, given short robe-like uniforms and small ankle chains on one leg, and placed in shared “cells”. Guards were given mirrored sunglasses, uniforms, and batons, and they worked 8-hour shifts at the prison but were otherwise free to go. Zimbardo himself acted as the prison superintendent, instructing guards to break the will of the prisoners and maintain authority.

While the study was scheduled to last for 2 weeks, it was discontinued after 6 days because several prisoners experienced emotional breakdowns and guards were mistreating prisoners. Zimbardo has argued that this demonstrates the power of the situation in shaping behavior, causing otherwise normal people to act as sadistic guards or powerless prisoners.

So what should we make of these “results”? While Zimbardo has claimed that this study reveals how the environment exerts a powerful influence on individuals and their behavior, it doesn't really help us to understand why some guards were more sadistic than others, or why some chose to help and support prisoners rather than dominate them. While it may be true that environment can exert a powerful influence on individuals and their behaviors, in this case it might be nothing more than demand characteristics. As Peter Gray wrote, “This is a study of prisoners and guards, so their job clearly is to act like prisoners and guards—or, more accurately, to act out their stereotyped views of what prisoners and guards do. Surely, Professor Zimbardo, who is right there watching them (as the Prison Superintendent) would be disappointed if, instead, they had just sat around chatting pleasantly and having tea.”

This brings up a broader issue in social psychology. Many “classic” studies are flawed ethically and methodologically, and yet they remain required readings and must-know theories of human behavior. Their power comes from their ability to present stories we can latch onto, though these stories often leave out the inaccuracies, the alternate explanations, and the conflicting evidence. These are the studies that make for great lecture introductions, and capture attention by asking if you would shock a stranger or abuse a prisoner. While it is certainly easier to focus on studies that sum behavior up into neat bullet points, I encourage you to think more deeply about the complexity of social, psychological, and cultural issues. Ask questions, and don't settle for simplified answers.

Another famous example in social psychology is the case of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered in 1964. According to newspaper accounts at the time, dozens of witnesses saw the attack from their windows and heard her pleas for help, though none came to her assistance or even called the police, and this indifference became known as the bystander effectbystander effectThe tendency for individuals to be less likely to help in an emergency when others are present.. Questions have arisen about the initial reports of the crime, suggesting that many neighbors could not have actually seen Genovese and that several who heard her cries did in fact contact the police.

Evidence for the bystander effect doesn't come solely from Genovese's murder, however, and other examples of bystander apathy can be found, both in real-life situations as well as laboratory demonstrations. In a study by John Darley and Bibb Latané (1968), students participating in a discussion with others via intercom heard a student have a seizure. When participants believed they were the only ones hearing the student in distress, 85% rushed out to find help. When they believed that four others also heard the seizure, only 31% went for help and they waited longer before doing so. In another study by Latané and Darley (1968), participants were completing forms in a conference room when smoke began to enter the room from a vent. When alone, 75% of participants left the room to report the smoke, but when in a roomful of passive others (confederates), only 10% got up to report the smoke. This suggests that the bystander effect isn't just about failing to help others, it can even include failing to help oneself.

Unfortunately real life provides other examples of the bystander effect, such as when 2 year-old Wang Yue was run over by 2 different vehicles in Foshan, China in 2011. She lay in the street for seven minutes while over a dozen pedestrians walked by before someone finally called for help. Seeing situations like this, we may feel the truth in Elie Wiesel's assertion that “the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference”.

One reason people don't act is that there are costs to getting involved. These costs can be great (harm or even death) and may discourage people from acting. In China, many blame the Peng Yu incident for discouraging bystander intervention, making it financially costly to help. In 2006, 26-year old Peng Yu assisted a 65-year old woman to the hospital after she fell and broke her hip while boarding a bus. In recognition, Peng Yu was accused of causing her injuries and ordered by a judge in Nanjing to pay the woman over $6000. In the studies by Darley and Latané, however, seeking help isn't particularly risky, so what is holding people back?

One thing that holds people back is that situations are often ambiguous and it's unclear what people should do. People may look to other bystanders, who are also doing nothing, and decide that nothing must be the appropriate response. This is referred to as pluralistic ignorance, as each person assumes others know more about the situation, so if they know more and aren't acting then there's no need to act.

The number of bystanders also plays a role, and the larger the crowd, the less likely an individual will help. This is known as the diffusion of responsibilitydiffusion of responsibilityThe tendency for each person in a group to feel less responsible for acting when others are also present.. If you were the only person to witness someone being injured, you would feel the full force of responsibility to help, because you know that as the only bystander, if you don't help, no one will. In a crowd, however, this feeling of responsibility is dispersed among all of the bystanders, who each wait for someone else (perhaps someone more knowledgeable) to step in.

While the previous section may have you feeling a bit down about human nature, it's not all doom and gloom. There's also a good deal of prosocial behavior going on, and every day people help one another. When bad things happen, people come together and offer physical, financial, and emotional support. What causes this altruismaltruismSelfless behavior carried out to benefit others without expectation of personal gain., in which people help others without regard for their own welfare?

You may have heard attempts to explain altruism which claim that animals sometimes act for the “good of the species”. This sounds nice, but it seems instead that individuals act for the good of their genes. And remember that those genes don't just belong to the individual. Families share genes, so helping family helps an individual's genes survive too, and this is known as kin selectionkin selectionThe evolutionary tendency to favor helping genetic relatives, increasing the spread of shared genes.. Saving yourself ensures the survival of 100% of your genes, but saving a sibling is equivalent to 50% of your genes surviving (while a cousin shares 12.5% of “your” genes). We could think of the decision to make the ultimate sacrifice as simple math, which is why J.B.S. Haldane joked that he would lay down his life for 2 brothers or 8 cousins.

This isn't just about laying down your life, kin selection applies to producing the next generation of genes as well; help your brother find that special someone and you're passing on some of your own genes by proxy (though you may later be asked to babysit). Of course, most people don't consciously calculate their genetic relationships in deciding whether or not to help someone. Rather than just genes, this system relies on who feels like family (known as nurture kinship). So you could have adopted siblings or close friends you'd make sacrifices for long before you'd help those cousins from Kansas you met once.

While kin selection may explain some altruism, people often help those who aren't kin and who they've never met before. What's going on here? We could be cynical and assume that people help because they want something in return; a reward, social approval, or others returning a favor in the future (known as reciprocal altruismreciprocal altruismHelping others with the expectation that they will return the favor in the future.). Or maybe they want that “warm glow” of helping. This “warm glow” could be argued to be selfish, but if it helps helping happen, maybe it's not a bad thing.

Considering what we've learned about social pressures in this chapter, we could also argue that people help because of a social-responsibility norm, in which societal expectations for generosity and helping behavior encourage altruism. Empathy may also play a role, and the empathy-altruism hypothesis suggests that people are more likely to help when they empathize with people in need.

Despite aggression and daily violence inflicted by humans on one another around the world, our ability to work together remains the greatest strength of our species. We need one another and groups accomplish far more than any individual could achieve alone. Each day, people unite to help one another and to share resources, time, and stories. For all the potential prejudice and conflict groups can create, we wouldn't be here today if it weren't for our natural desire to join with others. We evolved in a world of small tribes, but now the globe feels smaller while the number of people we can connect with is larger than ever. The more we can identify with one another and put aside minor differences, the greater the problems we can overcome and the accomplishments we can achieve.