Social psychology / David Myers, Jackie Abell and Fabio Sani.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This edition has been revised to introduce a more flexible structure for the teaching and studying of social psychology and includes up-to-date, international research in the area.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Introducing Social Psychology (p. 3)
• What is Social Psychology? (p. 4)
• A Brief History of Social Psychology (p. 5)
• 1908: A Crucial Year? (p. 8)
• The 'Crisis' in Social Psychology (p. 9)
• Social Psychology and Human Values (p. 11)
• Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology (p. 12)
• Not-So-Obvious Ways Values Enter Psychology (p. 12)
• The Subjective Aspects of Science (p. 12)
• Psychological Concepts Contain Hidden Values (p. 13)
• Social Psychology's Key Ideas (p. 15)
• We Construct Our Social Reality (p. 15)
• Social Intuitions Are Powerful but Can Be Perilous! (p. 17)
• Social Influences Shape Our Behaviour (p. 17)
• Genetic Heritage and Individual Dispositions Influence Behaviour (p. 18)
• Behaviour is Shaped by Intragroup and Intergroup Relations (p. 19)
• Social Psychological Processes are Biologically Rooted (p. 19)
• Social Psychology's Principles are Applicable in Everyday Life (p. 20)
• Summing Up: Introducing Social Psychology (p. 20)
• Critical Questions (p. 21)
• Recommended Reading (p. 21)
• 2 Research Methods in Social Psychology (p. 23)
• I Knew It All Along: Is Social Psychology Simply Common Sense? (p. 24)
• Approaches to Doing Research (p. 26)
• Quantitative Social Psychology (p. 26)
• Qualitative Social Psychology (p. 27)
• Some General Observations on the Two Approaches (p. 28)
• Quantitative Research (p. 29)
• Correlational Research: Exploring Associations (p. 30)
• Experimental Research: Searching for Cause and Effect (p. 36)
• Qualitative Research (p. 39)
• Collecting Data in Qualitative Research (p. 40)
• Qualitative Data Analysis (p. 41)
• Research Ethics (p. 44)
• Ethics in Online Research (p. 45)
• Focus On: The Importance of Replication (p. 46)
• Summing Up: Research Methods in Social Psychology (p. 47)
• Critical Questions (p. 49)
• Recommended Reading (p. 49)
• 3 The Self (p. 51)
• Spotlights and Illusions (p. 52)
• Research Close-Up: On Being Nervous about Looking Nervous (p. 53)
• Self-concept: Who Am I? (p. 55)
• Our Sense of Self (p. 55)
• Development of the Social Self (p. 58)
• Self and Culture (p. 60)
• Self-knowledge (p. 64)
• Research Close-Up: An Illusion of Conscious Will (p. 66)
• Self esteem (p. 69)
• Self-esteem Motivation (p. 69)
• The 'Dark Side' of Self-esteem (p. 70)
• Self-love (p. 71)
• Perceived Self-control (p. 72)
• Locus of Control (p. 73)
• Learned Helplessness versus Self-determination (p. 74)
• Self-serving Bias (p. 75)
• Explaining Positive and Negative Events (p. 75)
• Can We All Be Better than Average? (p. 76)
• Unrealistic Optimism (p. 76)
• False Consensus and Uniqueness (p. 77)
• Reflections on Self-esteem and Self-serving Bias (p. 78)
• Impression Management (p. 79)
• False Modesty (p. 80)
• Self-handicapping (p. 81)
• Self-presentation (p. 82)
• Focus On: Are We Witnessing an Epidemic of Narcissism among Younger Generations? (p. 84)
• Summing Up: The Self (p. 86)
• Critical Questions (p. 88)
• Recommended Readings (p. 88)
• 4 Social Beliefs and Judgements (p. 91)
• Perceiving our Social World (p. 92)
• Priming (p. 93)
• Categorical Thinking (p. 94)
• Perceiving and Interpreting Events (p. 95)
• Belief Perseverance (p. 97)
• Constructing Memories of Ourselves and our Worlds (p. 98)
• Judging our Social World (p. 102)
• Intuitive Judgements (p. 102)
• Social Schema Theory (p. 104)
• Social Encoding (p. 106)
• Overconfidence (p. 110)
• Heuristics: Menial Shortcuts (p. 113)
• Illusory Thinking (p. 118)
• Research Close-up: Heuristics and Illusions of Control in Slot Machine Gamblers (p. 120)
• Moods and Judgements (p. 122)
• Explaining our Social World (p. 124)
• Attributing Causality: to the Person or the Situation (p. 124)
• The Fundamental Attribution Error (p. 130)
• Intergroup Attribution (p. 138)
• Communicating our Social World: Social Representations Theory and a Thinking Society (p. 141)
• Research Close-Up: Can the Way We Retrieve Information from Memory Affect How We Judge Other People? (p. 142)
• Expectations of our Social World (p. 145)
• Teacher Expectations and Student Performance (p. 146)
• Getting from Others What We Expect (p. 147)
• Conclusions (p. 149)
• Focus On: How Do We Know if We Are Poor Judges of Social Reality or Highly Efficient at these Judgements? (p. 150)
• Summing Up: Social Beliefs and Judgements (p. 152)
• Critical Questions (p. 154)
• Recommended Reading (p. 154)
• 5 Attitudes and Behaviour (p. 157)
• Organization of Attitudes (p. 160)
• Formation of Attitudes (p. 160)
• Function of Attitudes (p. 162)
• Measuring Attitudes (p. 164)
• Research Close-Up- Development and Validation of a Scale Measuring Attitudes toward Non-Drinkers (p. 167)
• How Well Do our Attitudes Predict our Behaviour? (p. 171)
• When Attitudes Predict Behaviour (p. 172)
• When Social Influences on What We Say Are Minimal (p. 172)
• When Other Influences on Behaviour Are Minimal (p. 173)
• When Attitudes Specific to the Behaviour Are Examined (p. 173)
• When Attitudes Are Potent (p. 176)
• Research Close-Up: You've Not Got Mail: Prejudicial Attitudes Predict Discriminatory Behaviour (p. 177)
• When Does our Behaviour Affect our Attitudes? (p. 179)
• Role Playing (p. 180)
• When Saying Becomes Believing (p. 180)
• Evil and Moral Acts (p. 181)
• Why Does our Behaviour Affect our Attitudes? (p. 182)
• Presenting Consistency (p. 182)
• Self-justification: Cognitive Dissonance (p. 182)
• Insufficient Justification (p. 183)
• Dissonance after Decisions (p. 185)
• Dissonance and Group Identity (p. 186)
• Self-perception (p. 187)
• Expressions and Attitude (p. 188)
• Overjustification and Intrinsic Motivations (p. 188)
• Comparing the Theories (p. 191)
• Attitudes as Social Actions (p. 192)
• Focus On: Do Attitudes to Conservation and the Environment Predict Protective Behaviours towards Wildlife? (p. 194)
• Summing Up: Attitudes and Behaviour (p. 196)
• Critical Questions (p. 197)
• Recommended Reading (p. 198)
• 6 Persuasion (p. 201)
• What Paths Lead to Persuasion? (p. 205)
• The Central Route (p. 206)
• The Peripheral Route (p. 206)
• Different Routes for Different Purposes (p. 207)
• Just One Route to Persuasion? (p. 208)
• The Elements of Persuasion and their Relationship to Social Norms (p. 209)
• Who Says? The Communicator (p. 209)
• What Is Said? The Message Content (p. 215)
• How Is It Said? The Channel of Communication (p. 221)
• Research Close-up: I Know this Brand, but Did I Like the Ad? (p. 224)
• To Whom Is It Said? The Audience (p. 230)
• How Old Are They? (p. 230)
• Research Close-up: Adult Residents' Perceptions of Neighbourhood Safety (p. 231)
• Extreme Persuasion: How Do Cults Indoctrinate? (p. 234)
• Attitudes Follow Behaviour (p. 236)
• Persuasive Elements (p. 238)
• Group Effects (p. 239)
• How Can Persuasion Be Resisted? (p. 241)
• Strengthening Personal Commitment (p. 241)
• Real-life Applications: Inoculation Programmes (p. 243)
• Implications of Attitude Inoculation (p. 244)
• Focus On: The Lucifer Effect: Bad Apples or Bad Barrels? (p. 245)
• Summing Up: Persuasion (p. 246)
• Critical Questions (p. 247)
• Recommended Reading (p. 247)
• 7 Conformity and Obedience (p. 251)
• What Is Conformity? (p. 251)
• What Are the Classic Conformity and Obedience Studies? (p. 253)
• Sherif's Studies of Norm Formation (p. 253)
• Research Close-Up: Contagious Yawning (p. 256)
• Asch's Studies of Group Pressure (p. 258)
• Milgram's Studies of Obedience (p. 260)
• What Breeds Obedience? (p. 264)
• Reflections on the Classic Studies (p. 267)
• Banality of Evil or Celebration of Virtue? (p. 273)
• Infrahumanization (p. 275)
• Laboratory and Everyday Life (p. 276)
• Research Close-Up: Judging our Own and Others' Misdeeds (p. 277)
• What Predicts Conformity? (p. 279)
• Group Size (p. 280)
• Unanimity (p. 281)
• Cohesion (p. 282)
• Social Impact Theory (p. 282)
• Status (p. 283)
• Public Response (p. 284)
• No Prior Commitment (p. 284)
• Why Conform? (p. 284)
• Culture (p. 286)
• Who Conforms? (p. 288)
• Personality (p. 288)
• Would People Still Obey Today? (p. 289)
• Conformity as Entertainment? (p. 290)
• Gender Differences in Conformity? (p. 290)
• Research Close-Up: A Virtual Replication of Milgram's Obedience Study (p. 291)
• Do We Ever Want to Be Different? (p. 292)
• Reactance (p. 293)
• Asserting Uniqueness (p. 293)
• Focus On: The Ordinary Monster (p. 294)
• Summing Up: Conformity and Obedience (p. 296)
• Critical Questions (p. 298)
• Recommended Reading (p. 298)
• 8 Aggression (p. 301)
• What Is Aggression? (p. 302)
• Some Theories of Aggression (p. 303)
• Aggression as a Biological Phenomenon (p. 303)
• Aggression as a Response to Frustration (p. 308)
• Aggression as Learned Social Behaviour (p. 311)
• Some influences on Aggression (p. 315)
• Aversive Incidents (p. 315)
• Interpreting Arousal (p. 317)
• Research Close-Up: Harassment Online (p. 318)
• Aggression Cues: The Influence of the Environment (p. 320)
• Media Influences: Pornography and Sexual Violence (p. 322)
• Media Influences: Television (p. 324)
• Media Influences: Video Games (p. 330)
• Gender and Aggression (p. 333)
• Can Aggression Be Reduced? (p. 337)
• Catharsis? (p. 337)
• Research Close-Up: When Provoked, Are Groups More Aggressive than Individuals? (p. 338)
• A Social Learning Approach (p. 341)
• Focus On: Teaching Them a Lesson: Motivations for Driver Aggression (p. 342)
• Summing Up: Aggression (p. 343)
• Critical Questions (p. 344)
• Recommended Reading (p. 345)
• 9 Attraction and Intimacy (p. 347)
• What Leads to Friendship and Attraction? (p. 349)
• Where Do You Find your Partner? (p. 349)
• Internet Dating (p. 354)
• Physical Attractiveness (p. 355)
• Similarity versus Complementarity (p. 363)
• Liking Those Who Like Us (p. 367)
• Evaluative Conditioning (p. 370)
• Who Is Love? (p. 372)
• Passionate Love (p. 372)
• Companionate Love (p. 376)
• What Enables Close Relationship? (p. 377)
• Commitment (p. 377)
• Attachment (p. 378)
• Equity (p. 382)
• Self-disclosure (p. 383)
• Research Close-Up: Does Love Mean Never Having to Say You're Sorry? (p. 386)
• How Do Relationships End? (p. 388)
• Focus On: Sexuality and Attraction: Are there Real Differences? (p. 391)
• Summing Up: Attraction and Intimacy (p. 392)
• Critical Questions (p. 393)
• Recommended Reading (p. 393)
• 10 Helping (p. 395)
• Altruism and Helping (p. 396)
• Why Do We Help? (p. 397)
• Social Exchange and Social Norms (p. 397)
• Research Close-Up: Young Children Are Intrinsically Motivated to See Others Helped (p. 400)
• Evolutionary Explanations (p. 407)
• Genuine Altruism (p. 409)
• When Will We Help? (p. 412)
• Number of Bystanders (p. 413)
• Helping When Someone Else Does (p. 419)
• Time Pressures (p. 420)
• Similarity (p. 421)
• Helping on the Internet (p. 423)
• Research Close-Up: Identity and Emergency Intervention (p. 424)
• Who Will Help? (p. 426)
• Personality, Gender and Age (p. 426)
• Religious Faith (p. 428)
• How Can We Increase Helping? (p. 429)
• Reduce Ambiguity, Increase Responsibility (p. 429)
• Guilt and Concern for Self-image (p. 430)
• Socializing Altruism (p. 431)
• Focus On: The Benefits - and the Costs - of Empathy-induced Altruism (p. 436)
• Summing Up: Helping (p. 437)
• Critical Questions (p. 438)
• Recommended Reading (p. 439)
• 11 Small Group Processes (p. 441)
• What Is a Group? (p. 442)
• The Structure and Composition of Groups (p. 443)
• Social Facilitation: How Are We Affected by the Presence of Others? (p. 445)
• The Mere Presence of Others (p. 445)
• Research Close-Up: An Experiment on the Social Facilitation of Gambling Behaviour (p. 445)
• Why Are We Aroused in the Presence of Others? (p. 448)
• Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert Less Effort in a Group? (p. 450)
• Many Hands Make Light Work (p. 450)
• Social Loafing in Everyday Life (p. 452)
• Research Close-Up: The Relationship Between Group Cohesion, Group Norms and Perceived Social Loafing in Soccer Teams (p. 455)
• Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensity our Opinions? (p. 456)
• The Case of the 'Risky Shift' (p. 456)
• Do Groups Intensify Opinions? (p. 458)
• Explaining Polarization (p. 460)
• Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions? (p. 464)
• Symptoms of Groupthink (p. 465)
• Preventing Groupthink (p. 469)
• Group Problem Solving (p. 469)
• How Do Minorities Influence the Group? (p. 471)
• Consistency (p. 472)
• Self-confidence (p. 473)
• Defections from the Majority (p. 474)
• Is Leadership Minority Influence? (p. 475)
• Focus On: Have Small Group Processes such as Risky Shift and Groupthink Contributed to Cyber-bullying? (p. 477)
• Summing Up: Small Group Process (p. 478)
• Critical Questions (p. 480)
• Recommended Reading (p. 480)
• 12 Social Categorization and Social Identity (p. 483)
• A Categorized Social World (p. 484)
• Level of Category Inclusiveness (p. 484)
• Category Prototypes and Exemplars (p. 485)
• The Accentuation Effect (p. 485)
• Social Categories and Stereotypes (p. 487)
• The Social Categorization of the Self (p. 489)
• Social Identity (p. 491)
• People Conform to Majorities Categorized as Ingroup (p. 492)
• People Convert to Minorities Seen as Ingroup (p. 493)
• Why are Ingroup Members Especially Influential? (p. 493)
• Research Close-up, Laughing: The Influence of the Ingroup (p. 494)
• Leaders as 'Entrepreneurs of Social Identity' (p. 495)
• Social Identity and Respect (p. 498)
• Social Identity and Help (p. 499)
• Group Identity Norms, Deviance and Schism (p. 500)
• The Black Sheep Effect (p. 500)
• When Deviance and Criticism from the Inside Are Accepted (p. 501)
• Research Close-Up: Evaluating Deviants in Individualistic and in Collectivistic Cultures (p. 502)
• Peripheral Group Members (p. 504)
• Contested Identities and Schism (p. 505)
• Social Identity Motives (p. 507)
• The Self-esteem Motive (p. 507)
• The Distinctiveness Motive (p. 508)
• The Motive to Belong (p. 508)
• The Motive to Achieve Symbolic Immortality (p. 509)
• The Motive for Uncertainty Reduction (p. 509)
• Social Identity and Health (p. 510)
• Social Identity and Symptom Perception (p. 510)
• Social Identity and Health Behaviour (p. 511)
• Social Identity, Positive Physiological Processes and Health (p. 512)
• The Development of Social Categorization and Social Identity (p. 514)
• Social Categorization in Children (p. 514)
• The Beginnings of Self-categorization (p. 514)
• From Self-categorization to Social Identity (p. 515)
• Social Identity and Derogation of Ingroup Deviants (p. 516)
• Focus On: The Group in the Mind (p. 516)
• Summing Up: Social Categorization and Social Identity (p. 517)
• Critical Questions (p. 520)
• Recommended Reading (p. 520)
• 13 Prejudice, Intergroup Relations and Conflict (p. 523)
• Understanding Prejudice (p. 524)
• What Is Prejudice? (p. 525)
• The Prejudiced Personality (p. 525)
• The Social Context of Prejudice (p. 528)
• The Language of Prejudice (p. 535)
• Subtle and Implicit Prejudice (p. 538)
• Intergrop Conflict (p. 545)
• Realistic Conflict Theory (p. 546)
• Categorization, Stereotyping and Social Groups (p. 546)
• Research Close-Up: The Robbers Cave Experiment (p. 547)
• Social Comparison (p. 549)
• Crowds (p. 550)
• The Group Mind (p. 550)
• Deindividuation (p. 552)
• Emergent Norm Theory (p. 553)
• Social Identity Theory and Crowds (p. 555)
• Research Close Up: The Psychology of Tyranny (p. 556)
• Intergroup Harmony (p. 558)
• Contact (p. 558)
• Communication (p. 567)
• Focus On: Is Prejudice all in our Heads? (p. 571)
• Summing Up: Prejudice Intergroup Relations and Conflict (p. 572)
• Critical Questions (p. 574)
• Recommended Reading (p. 574)
• 14 Genes, Culture and Gender (p. 577)
• How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? (p. 579)
• Genes, Evolution and Behaviour (p. 580)
• Neurobiology and Culture (p. 584)
• Culture and Behaviour (p. 586)
• Cultural Similarity (p. 589)
• Research Close-Up: Passing Encounters, East and West (p. 590)
• How Are Gender $$$ and Differences Explained? (p. 593)
• Independence versus Connectedness (p. 595)
• Social Dominance (p. 597)
• Research Close-Up: Gendered Wording in Job Advertisements Leads to Gender Inequality (p. 600)
• Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally? (p. 603)
• Gender and Mating Preferences: The Evolutionary Approach (p. 604)
• Reflections on Evolutionary Psychology (p. 605)
• Gender and Hormones (p. 605)
• Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture Says? (p. 606)
• The Social Construction of Gender (p. 607)
• Gender Roles Vary with Culture (p. 608)
• Peer-transmitted Culture (p. 609)
• What Can We Conclude about Genes, Culture and Gender (p. 611)
• Biology and Culture (p. 611)
• The Power of the Situation and the Person (p. 612)
• Focus On: Mind the Gap: From Sexed Brains to Gendered Behaviour (p. 613)
• Summing Up: Genes, Culture and Gender (p. 614)
• Critical Questions (p. 615)
• Recommended Reading (p. 615)
• References (p. 617)
• Name Index (p. 683)
• Subject Index (p. 702)