Social Psychology

It is important that a distinction be made between psychosomatic disorders and three other conditions listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR (rev. 4th ed., 2000), which is the official classification system for mental disorders published ... [full story]

Researchers approach the question of which therapy is best in the context of specific disorders. No one therapy is recommended for every disorder. For instance, behavior therapy has proven to be highly successful with phobias, cognitive therapy shows good results ... [full story]

Somatic therapy is the domain of physicians (psychiatrists) because this form of treatment requires medical training. By far the most common example of somatic therapy is the use of psychotropic medications, medicine that will relieve psychological symptoms. Less common examples ... [full story]

As its name suggests, the biopsychosocial approach seeks to understand psychopathology by examining the interactive influences of biology, cognitive processes, and learning. This is the most popular model of psychopathology and, in its most basic form, is also referred to ... [full story]

The biological (biogenic) approach assumes that many forms of psychopathology are caused by abnormalities of the body, usually the brain. These abnormalities can be inherited or can occur for other reasons. What these “other reasons” are is unclear, but they ... [full story]

This model, sometimes called the cognitive approach, holds that many forms of psychopathology are best understood by studying the mind. Some psychologists within this tradition believe that the most important aspect of the mind is the unconscious. The Austrian psychoanalyst ... [full story]

THE NATURE OF SELF-PRESENTATION When we prepare for a date, particularly a first date, we strive to “put our best foot forward.” We brush our hair and teeth, choose flattering clothes, and try to arrive on time. We steer the conversation toward our ... [full story]

WHEN DO PEOPLE SELF-PRESENT? People are more likely to present to others when they perceive themselves to be in the “public eye.” When you pose for a photograph, dine in front of a mirror, or meet your lover’s parents for the first time, ... [full story]

WHY DO PEOPLE SELF-PRESENT? The sociologist Erving Goffman (1959) noted that the English word person derives from the Latin persona, meaning “mask.” Apparently, the wordsmiths of ages gone by understood that self-presentation is an integral part of human nature. But why should people be ... [full story]

The Contrary Portraits of Richard Nixon e began this chapter with six widely diverging views of Richard Nixon, all written or spoken soon after his death. Can the lessons of this chapter help us understand how it was that one man was viewed ... [full story]

SOCIAL INTERDEPENDENCE We think carefully about others when our outcomes depend on them—when their actions have important implications for us (Berscheid, Graziano, Monson, & Dermer, 1976; Jones & Thibaut, 1958). This is the case when we are accountable to others, as we mentioned ... [full story]

UNEXPECTED EVENTS Unexpected events typically lead us to think in more complex ways (e.g., Clary & Tesser, 1983; Sanna & Turley, 1996; Wong & Weiner, 1981). Subjects in one study read about a student who had done either well or poorly in high ... [full story]

NEED FOR COGNITION People who are sad and who desire control are more likely to seek accurate understanding of their social world. People who are high in the need for cognition—who enjoy solving life’s puzzles, view thinking as fun, and appreciate discovering the ... [full story]

SADNESS As we saw earlier in this chapter, and in Chapter 2, positive feelings can signal that “all is well”—that the world is safe and rewarding. As a consequence, we have a lessened need to be vigilant and careful when happy. In ... [full story]

DESIRE FOR CONTROL Do you like making your own decisions? Would you prefer a job in which you have lots of control over what you do and when you do it? People who answer yes to such questions have a strong desire ... [full story]

EXTENDING THE ANALYSIS: THE COVARIATION MODEL Our examination to this point, then, suggests that something internal to the North Korean leadership led to the attack. Kelley’s Covariation Model proposes that the effective detective might extend the analysis even farther by considering available information ... [full story]

ANALYZING THE BEHAVIOR IN ITS SOCIAL CONTEXT A good detective might begin by analyzing the circumstances immediately surrounding the behavior of interest. This was the focus of Correspondent Inference Theory. First, then, we should ask whether the behavior was intended and its consequences ... [full story]

THE STRATEGY OF ATTRIBUTIONAL LOGIC People may also increase the accuracy of their judgments by working to understand the causes of others’ actions. For Nixon, understanding why the North Koreans had shot down the U.S. reconnaissance plane ... [full story]

UNBIASED INFORMATION GATHERING AND ASSESSMENT Confronted with the attack on the U.S. reconnaissance plane, Nixon began to search for accurate information, mobilizing his own intelligence services and seeking information from friendly countries. Moreover, he solicited a breadth of perspectives from his own circle of ... [full story]

THREATS TO PERSONAL SELF-ESTEEM Threatened self-esteem spurs people to enhance and protect their self-images (Steele, 1988; Tesser, 1988). As part of a study assessing student impressions of standardized IQ tests, subjects attempted a set of problems depicted as being basic to creativity and intelligence ... [full story]

BELIEVING WE HAVE CONTROL Often, enhancing or protecting our self-images involves believing we have control over certain situations and events in our lives. In the spring of 1995, the payout for the multistate Powerball lottery had reached $110 million. One of the authors ... [full story]

EXAGGERATING OUR STRENGTHS, DIMINISHING OUR WEAKNESSES Let’s try an exercise (you can also try this on your friends): Rank the six traits below in the order of their importance. If you think it most important that people be intelligent, you should rank intelligence first; ... [full story]

SELF-SERVING ATTRIBUTIONS People also enhance their self-images through self-serving attributions. Richard Nixon’s attributions for his political successes and failures illustrate this nicely. In his first political campaign, Nixon defeated a long-time incumbent and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Nixon attributed this ... [full story]

SOCIAL COMPARISON How smart are you? How do you know? Are your political opinions reasonable? Again, how do you know? In his landmark 1954 paper, Leon Festinger argued that people have a fundamental drive to evaluate their abilities and opinions and often do so ... [full story]

TIME PRESSURE We are also more likely to rely on cognitive shortcuts when we are under time pressure (Bechtold, Naccarato, & Zanna, 1986). Indeed, imagine if two of the finals and the term paper were due the following day and you had ... [full story]

SITUATIONAL COMPLEXITY It’s finals week, and chaos reigns! You have four finals, a term paper, and you need to move out of your apartment. On top of it all, your boss at the restaurant wants you to interview 18 people for two ... [full story]

NEED FOR STRUCTURE It would be a mistake to think that simplifying the world is something that only other—perhaps less intelligent?—folks do. In general, when people are aroused or in a good mood, they are more likely to simplify—and, of course, all of ... [full story]

POSITIVE FEELINGS We are also more likely to use simplifying strategies when we are in a good mood. Imagine that a college dean is trying to decide whether a varsity football player is guilty of starting a fight with a librarian. Does ... [full story]

AROUSAL AND CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS Jogging, riding a bicycle, and watching a horror movie all increase physiological arousal. You might be surprised to discover, however, that these activities also change the way we think. Specifically, arousal prompts us to rely on simplifying cognitive strategies. ... [full story]

USING FEELINGS AS INFORMATION People also use their current feelings as a way of simplifying some judgments. In the spring of 1982, 84 randomly selected students from the University of Illinois answered their phones to discover a survey researcher on the line. After ... [full story]

ANCHORING AND ADJUSTMENT HEURISTIC Richard Nixon was surprised by the unpopularity of his decision to fire Archibald Cox. “After all,” he must have thought, “if I know it’s the right thing to do, other people are likely to agree with me.” In this case, it ... [full story]

Using Experiments to Test Alternative Hypotheses Once researchers identify an interesting phenomenon, such as the tendency for people to overestimate the frequency of impactful events (e.g., homicide) and to underestimate the frequency of nonnewsworthy events (e.g., death by diabetes), they seek to learn why ... [full story]