Social Psychology. Daniel W. Barrett

the text and ancillary materials—and my daughter Maddie—for putting up with my (occasional) grumpiness and intense focus on the book.

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      About the Author

      Daniel W. Barrettis a professor in the Department of Psychology at Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, Connecticut. He received his PhD in Social Psychology from Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, and his BA from the College of Social Studies, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. Prior to joining WCSU, Dr. Barrett served as a postdoctoral research fellow in Health Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. At WCSU, he has served as the director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and the director of Faculty Advising. He is currently the president of the University Senate. His research interests include persuasion, social influence, and cross-cultural psychology.

Part I Foundations of Social Psychology

      Chapter 1 Introducing Social Psychology

      A married couple in West Hollywood, CA, celebrate the June 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

      David McNew/Stringer/Getty Images News/Getty Images.

      Learning Objectives

       1.1 Define social psychology and contrast it with the other social sciences and psychology subdisciplines.

       1.2 Identify the six fundamental questions of human existence and explain their relevance to social psychology.

       1.3 Outline how social psychology has evolved since the early 20th century; explain how the first textbooks contributed to the development of social psychology; describe Kurt Lewin’s contribution to understanding social behavior; discuss the three levels of explanation and illustrate how they can help us understand social behavior.

       1.4 Identify the four principles of social psychology and provide an example to illustrate each.

       1.5 Discuss the hindsight bias and its relevance to the study of social psychology; describe the four essential characteristics of science as a process; identify the three goals of science.

       1.6 Explain what hypotheses and theories are and show their role in scientific research; contrast correlational and causal relationships; define experiment, independent variable, dependent variable, experimental group, control group, and confound, and discuss what is meant by experimental control and why it is important.

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      The Mystery of Romantic Attraction

      On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which had denied federal medical and other job-related benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages. This decision, along with recent related efforts in many states to allow same-sex couples to marry, form civil unions, and obtain other privileges accorded to heterosexual couples across the nation, reignited longstanding debates in the United States about same-sex attraction. President Barack Obama extended health and other benefits to gay partners of federal employees one year later, in June 2014. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges issued on June 26, 2015, gay marriage is now allowed throughout the United States. People in the United States and around the globe—including both those who embrace and those who object to same-sex relations—have struggled to understand it. Is same-sex attraction “normal”? Or is it deviant, perhaps the product of character, spiritual, or genetic defects? The way a given culture explains the origins of social behavior impacts how it is handled in the media, by its government, and by its religious institutions. Are same-sex relations encouraged, tolerated, or outlawed? Are homosexuals persecuted, prosecuted, institutionalized, or just left alone? If it is a mental illness, can it be cured?

      Like many laypeople, social psychologists have wondered about the nature and origins of sexual attraction, including between individuals of the same sex. However, social psychologists are different than laypeople because we examine such social behaviors more systematically and bring to the table a wealth of theories and research in our efforts to explain them. For instance, we may ask whether the principles underlying opposite-sex attraction and relationships apply to all people, regardless of their sexual preferences. In addition, social psychologists would consider a wide range of possible explanatory factors, including variation across cultures, social influences, genetic factors, and a person’s learning history. In fact, these types of factors are the same ones that we’ll look to when we try to understand other social behavior. We will return more specifically to the topic of sexual attraction