Towards a More Social Social Psychology 219study in which “Americans tended to pick the minority-colored pens,
whereas Asians tended to pick the pens that had a majority of the color” (p.
504). Lillienfeld et al. (2014, p. 504) first acknowledge the individualistic
perspective that “people with low self- esteem are especially prone to
conformity” (citing Hardy, 1957). The text authors next recognized Asians
as being more likely to conform compared with Americans, “probably
because most Asian cultures are collectivist” (p. 504). The authors should
have proceeded to add information on the differences between collectivist
and individualistic cultures on self-construal and how the norms would
explain alternative hypotheses regarding subjects in Asch’s experiment.
Lahey (2012) identified “conformity” as “yielding to group pressure
even when no direct request to comply has been made” (p. 532), thereby
relying upon the social pressure notion of adherence to authority as the
cause of conforming to group pressure. Alternative explanations are
presented as several factors under a subheading: “Culture and Conformity”
which “increase the likelihood of [individual] conformity to the group”
(Lahey, 2012, p. 533). The author goes on to detail the difference between
collectivist and individualistic cultures as follows: “collectivist cultures,
which emphasize the welfare of society as a whole rather than the
individual” (2012, p. 534). Lahey does cite Bond and Smith (1996) but
neglects to detail the specific findings of Bond and Smith in various
cultures globally as alternative explanations to the Asch study results.
Baird’s (2010) Think Psychology posits the most critical social
psychology presentation (pp. 200-217). Berger and Luckmann’s
constructing social reality is first offered as the theoretical basis (p. 203).
In his consideration of social influence, Baird begins with facial
recognition, and asks the student to use the lens of “perceptions of social
cues” (p. 203), in a sub-heading entitled: ‘Social Cognition’, thus linking
social psychology to the prior chapter which ends with “the social
cognitive perspective”. Further elaboration of the connections between
social psychology and other aspects of psychology, Baird includes social
control as a group interaction mechanism and covers in some depth cross
cultural differences in personality (p. 197). This inquiry is in line with
critical social psychology scholars (Burton, 2005; Burton and Kagan,