Table Of Content

THE PERSON AND THE SITUATION 2 For Stanley Schachter About the Authors Lee Ross is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 1969. He is coauthor with Richard Nisbett of Human Inference and coeditor with John Flavell of Cognitive Social Development: Frontiers and Possible Futures. He is a founder and one of the principal investigators of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. His 1977 article “The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings” is the most widely cited article of the 1980s in social psychology. 3 Richard E. Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Professor of Psychology and Director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. degree in Psychology from Columbia University in 1966. He taught at Yale University from 1966 to 1971. He is co-author, with Lee Ross, of Human Inference, with E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, H. H. Kelley, S. Valins and B. Weiner of Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior, and with J. Holland, K. Holyoak, and P. Thagard of Induction. In 1982 he was the recipient of the Donald Campbell Award for Distinguished Research in Social Psychology. 4 THE PERSON AND THE SITUATION Perspectives of Social Psychology Lee Ross Stanford University Richard E. Nisbett University of Michigan Foreword Malcolm Gladwell 5 The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology First published by McGraw-Hill 1991 This edition first published in Great Britain by Pinter & Martin Ltd 2011 Copyright © Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett 1991, 2011 Foreword © Malcolm Gladwell 2011 All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-905177-44-8 The right of Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade and otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the 6 publisher’s prior consent in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall Pinter & Martin Ltd 6 Effra Parade London SW2 1PS www.pinterandmartin.com 7 CONTENTS FOREWORD BY MALCOLM GLADWELL PREFACE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 INTRODUCTION The Lessons and Challenges of Social Psychology The Weakness of Individual Differences The Power of Situations The Subtlety of Situations The Predictability of Human Behavior The Conflict Between the Lessons of Social Psychology and the Experience of Everyday Life The Tripod on Which Social Psychology Rests The Principle of Situationism 8 The Principle of Construal The Concept of Tension Systems Predictability and Indeterminacy Prediction by Social Scientists Prediction by Laypeople The Problem of Effect Size Statistical Criteria of Size Pragmatic Criteria of Size Expectation Criteria of Size Overview and Plan of the Book 2 THE POWER OF THE SITUATION Social Influence and Group Processes Uniformity Pressures in the Laboratory: Sherif’s” Autokinetic” Studies and the Asch Paradigm The Bennington Studies Sherif’s Studies of Intergroup Competition and Conflict 9 Inhibition of Bystander Intervention Why Is Social Influence So Powerful? Channel Factors On Selling War Bonds Time to Be a Good Samaritan Effects of Minimal Compliance Putting It All Together: Stanley Milgram and the Banality of Evil 3 CONSTRUING THE SOCIAL WORLD Subjectivist Considerations in Objective Behaviorism Relativity in Judgment and Motivation Phenomena Some Nonobvious Motivational Consequences of Reward The Construal Question in Social Psychology Solomon Asch and the “Object of Judgment” Partisanship and Perception The Tools of Construal 10