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If you are reading this book, then you are likely already enrolled in a social psychology course. Why should you stay in it or sign up if you haven’t already? Well, consider that social behavior is virtually everywhere around (and inside) us all of the time. To social psychologists, the world is our proverbial oyster. Many of the same behaviors that fascinate you, as a student, captivate our imagination and literally call out for investigation. There are four compelling reasons to study social psychology. First, social psychology investigates the most fascinating topic in the universe: us. Second, social psychology provides tremendous insight into what people do and why people do it. You’ll undoubtedly come to a much deeper understanding of yourself and others by the time you finish reading this text. Students invariably tell me how much they have learned about why they and others do what they do and how they excitedly share what they learn with partners, family, and friends. For instance, they’ll tell a friend that they observed a car salesperson appeal to the consistency principle and now understand why it worked (more on this later). Or they realized that others did not in fact notice their “bad hair” day as much as they had expected. You too will be applying the lessons from social psychology almost immediately—and doing so is one effective way to learn them.

Third, social psychology is useful: It helps us to solve serious real-world problems in ways that other sciences cannot. It aids us in improving schools, increasing helping behavior, reducing violence, and overcoming prejudice. Many of our central research streams originate in our desire to change the world for the better and are often rooted in our personal experiences and observations. For instance, Muzafer Sherif began to study social psychology after having narrowly escaped death in a violent ethnic dispute and sought to comprehend, among other things, the nature and causes of intergroup conflict (reported in Trotter, 1985) (see Figure 1.1). On a less serious note, I may be walking across campus and notice a staff person throwing an empty glass bottle into a trash bin rather than the adjacent bright blue bin clearly displaying a recycling symbol and ask myself, “Hmm, why didn’t she recycle that bottle?” I could choose to conduct a study to figure out why (I have in fact studied recycling behavior).

Figure 1.1 Muzafer Sherif on Why He Studied Social Psychology

Source: Aron & Aron (1989). The Heart of Social Psychology).

Fourth, social psychology is fun. Not only do we learn the sometimes-surprising reasons people do what they do, but also we often get to concoct funny experiments to figure out why. For instance, one prominent social psychologist convinced research participants to suck on a pacifier while waiting to begin an experiment on Freud (Sarnoff & Zimbardo, 1961). I surely wish I had seen that one!

Social Psychology: Scientific study of the social experiences and behaviors of individuals