helping that has as its ultimate goal the improvement of another’s welfare

bystanders may reinterpret the situation to justify not helping at all.

By eliminating the victim’s pain, we eliminate our own aversive arousal.

Through socialization, we have learned that helping can serve as a secondary reinforcement that will relieve negative moods

But people seem predisposed to identify those who fail to reciprocate, and punishments including social exclusion may result

If helping someone now increases the chances that you will be helped later, then your overall chances of survival are increased.

we are helpful in ways that increase the chances that our DNA will be passed along to future generations

people tend to help in ways that are most consistent with their gender roles.

Initially, no one responds, but as soon as the woman asks about her missing purse, a group of men immediately rush out the door to catch the thief.

it is the economics of helping

fulfilling the obligations of their roles overrode the influence of the diffusion of responsibility effect.

pluralistic ignorance (Latané & Darley, 1970). When people use the inactions of others to define their own course of action, the resulting pluralistic ignorance leads to less help being given.

One passerby did stop to take a cellphone photo, however.

, while onlookers typically fail to intervene.

The most effective way to circumvent psychological reactance is to first get a foot in the door and then escalate the demands so gradually that there is seemingly nothing to react against.

or when they stand to lose the opportunity to acquire them on favorable terms

The that’s-not-all technique also begins with the salesperson asking a high price. This is followed by several seconds’ pause during which the customer is kept from responding. The salesperson then offers a better deal by either lowering the price or adding a bonus product.

They want the door to be slammed in their face. Looking forlorn, they now follow this with a smaller request, which, unknown to the customer, was their target all along.

Westerners have a desire to both feel and be perceived to act consistently.

sometimes hires children to log into chat rooms and pretend to be fans of one of their clients or pays students to throw parties where they subtly circulate marketing material among their classmates.

Surveys show we turn to people around us for many decisions.

Celebrity endorsements are a frequent feature in commercials aimed at children.

Various studies have shown we perceive attractive people as smarter, kinder, stronger, more successful, more socially skilled, better poised, better adjusted, more exciting, more nurturing, and, most important, of higher moral character.

One clear finding, however, is that physically attractive people tend to be liked more.

calculates that children have seen almost six million ads by the age of 16.

expertise in one domain may be confused with expertise in general.

The phrase "for a good cause" was an influential enough hot button that the exact cause didn't seem to matter.

he central route employs direct, relevant, logical messages.

The peripheral approach is also common in the darkest of persuasion programs, such as those of dictators and cult leaders.

. When persuasion is well-meaning, we might call it education. When it is manipulative, it might be called mind control

nd this life-changing decision stems from the simple, natural human tendency to be more comfortable with people like yourself. 

This results in the perception that “they” really differ from us, and “they” are all alike.

SDO have a strong belief in work ethic—that hard work always pays off and leisure is a waste of time. People higher on SDO tend to choose and thrive in occupations that maintain existing group hierarchies

For example, someone high in SDO would likely be upset if someone from an outgroup moved into his or her neighborhood.

Those who score high on SDO believe that some groups are inherently better than others, and because of this, there is no such thing as group “equality.”

Social psychologists sometimes need to deceive participants (e.g., using a cover story) to avoid demand characteristics by hiding the true nature of the study. This is typically done to prevent participants from modifying their behavior in unnatural ways, especially in laboratory or field experiments

they apparently only did so after data collection was complete, raising further questions about the ethicality of the study and highlighting concerns about the ability of large, profit-driven corporations to subtly manipulate people’s social lives and choices.

A more recently developed technique, known as the electronically activated recorder, or EAR, does not even require participants to stop what they are doing to record their thoughts or feelings; instead, a small portable audio recorder or smartphone app is used to automatically record brief snippets of participants’ conversations throughout the day for later coding and analysis.

The use of complex experimental designs, with multiple independent and/or dependent variables, has grown increasingly popular because they permit researchers to study both the individual and joint effects of several factors on a range of related situations.

we now know that this effect, referred to as “social facilitation,” is reliable—performance on simple or well-rehearsed tasks tends to be enhanced when we are in the presence of others (even when we are not competing against them).

For example, sometimes it can be difficult to measure people’s true opinions on racial issues, because participants fear that expressing their true attitudes will be viewed as socially unacceptable.

When concepts and behaviors have been repeatedly associated with each other, one of them can be primed—i.e., made more cognitively accessible—by exposing participants to the (strongly associated) other one.

The chameleon effect—where individuals nonconsciously mimic the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of their interaction partners—is an example of how people may engage in certain behaviors without conscious intention or awareness

When we have these directional goals, we are motivated to reach a particular outcome or judgment and do not process information in a cold, objective manner.

. We are adept at predicting whether a future event or situation will make us feel positively or negatively (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003), but we often incorrectly predict the strength or duration of those emotions

, peer reports are more accurate than self-reports

the mind has an entire kit of “tools” that allows us to navigate that information efficiently.

one can simply judge the likelihood of the object belonging to a category, based on how similar it is to one’s mental representation of that category.

A schema is a mental model, or representation, of any of the various things we come across in our daily lives. A schema (related to the word schematic) is kind of like a mental blueprint for how we expect something to be or behave.

but the same stories can encourage moral righteousness and a naïve expectation that suffering will always be redeemed. F

tracking the move from sin to salvation, rags to riches, oppression to liberation, or sickness/abuse to health/recovery

, redemptive stories track the move from suffering to an enhanced status or state, while scripting the development of a chosen protagonist who journeys forth into a dangerous and unredeemed world

e a person’s life with some degree of unity, meaning, and purpose over time

It also involves achieving a sense of temporal continuity in life—a reflexive understanding of how I have come to be the person I am becoming, or put differently, how my past self has developed into my present self, and how my present self will, in turn, develop into an envisioned future self.

In the realm of the motivated agent, moreover, changing values can influence life goals.

As a social actor, a person may come across as friendly and compassionate, or cynical and mean-spirited, but in neither case can we infer their motivations from their traits or their roles.

observers can never fully know what is in the actor’s head, no matter how closely they watch. We can see actors act, but we cannot know for sure what they want or what they value, unless they tell us straightaway.

the I comes to know the Me through reflection

When I do things that win the approval of others, I feel proud of myself. When I fail in the presence of others, I may feel embarrassment or shame. When I violate a social rule, I may experience guilt, which may motivate me to make amends.

the self is what happens when “I” reflects back upon “Me.” The self is both the I and the Me—it is the knower, and it is what the knower knows when the knower reflects upon itself. When you look back at yourself, what do you see?