Readings about The Social Animal

by Aronson, Joshua; Aronson, Elliot

• ISBN13: 9781429233422
• ISBN10: 1429233427
• Edition: 11th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-01
• Publisher: Worth Publishers

Summary

Exploring the most important ideas in social psychology, this collection of classic and contemporary reading includes accounts of specific experimental findings as well as more general articles summarizing studies on such topics as attraction and aggression.

Author Biography

Joshua Aronson is associate professor of developmental, social, and educational psychology at New York University. Focusing on the social and psychological influences on academic achievement, he has won numerous awards for his scholarships, including the Career Award from the National Science Foundation, the William T. Grant Scholars Award, and the Kidder Early Career Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. One of the most frequently cited psychologists in the past decade, he is the editor of Improving Academic Achievement and The Scientist and The Humanist. Elliot Aronson is one of the most eminent and versatile psychologists of our time. He is the only person in the 120-year history of the American Psychological Association to have won all three of its major awards: Distinguished Research (1999), Distinguished Teaching (1973), and Distinguished Writing (1975). In addition, among his many honors are the Gordon Allport Prize for his contributions to the betterment of intergroup relations and the Donald Campbell Award for distinguished research in social psychology. In 1981, he was named Professor of the Year by the American Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Inducted in 1992, he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, he was named a William James Fellow in commemoration of a lifetime of creative contributions to scientific psychology.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. XI
An Open Letter to the Reader	p. XIII
Introduction: Reflections on the Research Process	p. 1
Research in Social Psychology as a Leap of Faith	p. 3
On Baseball and Failure	p. 10
Conformity and Obedience	p. 15
Opinions and Social Pressure	p. 17
Behavioral Study of Obedience	p. 27
"From Jerusalem to Jericho": A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior	p. 41
A Focus Theory of Normative Conduct: Recycling the Concept of Norms to Reduce Littering in Public Places	p. 56
Making Sense of the Nonsensical: An Analysis of Jonestown	p. 80
Mass Communication Propaganda, and Persuasion	p. 99
Effects of Varying the Recommendations in a Fear-Arousing Communication	p. 101
Attribution Versus Persuasion as a Means for Modifying Behavior	p. 112
The Impact of Mass Media Violence on U.S. Homicides	p. 132
Social Cognition	p. 147
Contrast Effects and Judgments of Physical Attractiveness: When Beauty Becomes a Social Problem	p. 149
The Effect of Attitude on the Recall of Personal Histories	p. 164
The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad	p. 176
Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious	p. 189
Self-Theories of Intelligence	p. 201
Self-Justification	p. 217
Dissonance, Hypocrisy, and the Self-Concept	p. 219
Compliance Without Pressure: The Foot-in-the-Door Technique	p. 237
Reducing Weight by Reducing Dissonance: The Role of Effort Justification in Inducing Weight Loss	p. 249
Dishonest Behavior as a Function of Differential Levels of Induced Self-Esteem	p. 263
Using Cognitive Dissonance to Encourage Water Conservation	p. 275
A Self-Affirmation Intervention to Reduce the Racial Achievement Gap	p. 288
Human Aggression	p. 301
The Effects of Observing Violence	p. 303
Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish The Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding	p. 315
Peacetime Casualties: The Effects of War on the Violent Behavior of Noncombatants	p. 329
Deindividuation and Anger-Mediated Interracial Aggression: Unmasking Regressive Racism	p. 341
Predictors of Naturalistic Sexual Aggression	p. 357
Prejudice	p. 379
The Nonverbal Mediation of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Interracial Interaction	p. 381
Low Numbers: Stereotypes and the Underrepresentation of Women in Math and Science	p. 394
Experiments in Group Conflict	p. 415
Jigsaw Groups and the Desegregated Classroom: In Pursuit of Common Goals	p. 425
Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson, and the Social Psychology of Affirmative Action	p. 436
Prejudice as Self-Image Maintenance: Affirming the Self Through Derogating Others	p. 445
The Positive Feedback Bias	p. 475
Liking, Loving, and Interpersonal Sensitivity	p. 495
Lending a Hand: Social Regulation of the Neural Response to Threat	p. 497
The Search for a Romantic Partner: The Effects of Self-Esteem and Physical Attractiveness on Romantic Behavior	p. 512
Social Perception and Interpersonal Behavior: On the Self-Fulfilling Nature of Social Stereotypes	p. 521
Some Evidence for Heightened Sexual Attraction Under Conditions of High Anxiety	p. 536
Cognitive, Interpersonal, and Behavioral Effects of Social Exclusion: How people Respond to Rejection	p. 550
Arbitrary Social Norms Influence Sex Differences in Romantic Selectivity	p. 568
Name Index	p. 581
Subject Index	p. 594
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