Social Behavior

Abstract

To understand the interplay between individuals and social context, social psychology must span levels of analysis. At the social level, social psychology examines how the behavior and attitudes of individuals are influenced by social factors. At the cognitive level, it addresses how the individual interprets, evaluates, and ascribes meaning to the social world. At the biological level, social psychology examines individuals as biological entities whose physiology influences, and is influenced by, social life. This chapter addresses issues at each of these levels, providing an overview of central topics in experimental social psychology such as motivation, emotion, attitudes, social influence, the self, social cognition, and social neuroscience. We conclude that because human behavior is multiply determined, the study of the individual may be incomplete without considering the independent, interactive, and reciprocal effects of biological, cognitive, and social factors.

Social Neuroscience: The Footprints of Phineas Gage

“…The relative magnitude of these influences may vary, depending on a host of factors, including the domain under consideration-as is the case for nature and nurture, genes and environment, the person and the situation, and other familiar theoretical dualisms. More important, as we have long understood from the biopychosocial model (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1992a, b;Cacioppo, Berntson, & McClintock, 2000;Crawford, Luka, & Cacioppo, 2002;Engel, 1977Engel, , 1980, biological and social influences interact, with each other and with behavior, in a relation that Bandura characterized as reciprocal determinism (Bandura, 1978; see also Kihlstrom, in press). The issue addressed here is not whether biology influences mind and behavior, much less the magnitude of that influence compared to others.…”