Invitation to Psychology

ChapteR 10 Behavior in Social and Cultural Context 377

acts of goodness. Although many people believe that only bad or

evil people do bad deeds, the principles of social and cultural

psychology show that under certain conditions, good people

often can be induced to do bad things too. Everyone is influ-

enced to one degree or another by the social processes of obedi-

ence, entrapment, conformity, persuasion, bystander apathy,

groupthink, deindividuation, ethnocentrism, stereotyping, and

prejudice.

Taking Psychology With You

•   Sociocultural research enhances critical thinking by identifying

the cultural rules that govern people’s behavior, values, com-

munication, and ways of doing business. Understanding these

rules can help people examine their assumptions about people

in other cultures, and avoid the tendency to jump to conclusions

and reason emotionally about group differences.

Key Terms

social psychology 341
cultural psychology 341
norms (social) 341
role 342
culture 342
conversational distance 342
entrapment 346
social cognition 348
attribution theory 348
situational attributions 348

dispositional attributions 348

fundamental attribution

error 348

self-serving biases 349

just-world hypothesis 349

blaming the victim 349

attitude 350

implicit and explicit

attitudes 350

cognitive dissonance 350

familiarity effect 351

validity effect 351

nonshared environment 353

groupthink 357

diffusion of

responsibility 359

bystander apathy 359

deindividuation 359

altruism 360

social identity 362

ethnic identity 362

acculturation 362

ethnocentrism 363

stereotype 363

prejudice 365

hostile and benevolent

sexism 366

Implicit Association Test

(IAT) 370

contact hypothesis 371