Because of reciprocal altruism, we are all better off in the long run if we help one another. If helping someone now increases the chances that you will be helped later, then your overall chances of survival are increased.

People high on this dimension have a strong sense of social responsibility, empathize with and feel emotionally tied to those in need, understand the problems the victim is experiencing, and have a heightened sense of moral obligation to be helpful.

Agreeable people seem to expect that others will be similarly cooperative and generous in interpersonal relations, and they, therefore, act in helpful ways that are likely to elicit positive social interactions.

Men and women have traditionally been raised to play different social roles

If the needed help is of relatively low cost in terms of time, money, resources, or risk, then help is more likely to be given.

Although it might seem that having more potential helpers around would increase the chances of the victim getting help, the opposite is often the case.

As he lay dying in the street, only one man checked his status, but many others simply glanced at the scene and continued on their way. (One passerby did stop to take a cellphone photo, however.)

and viewers are outraged when bystanders fail to intervene. They are convinced that they would have helped. But would they? Viewers are overly optimistic in their beliefs that they would play the hero.

Finally, Milgram found that women participants followed the experimenter’s instructions at exactly the same rate the men had.

findings is that, under the right circumstances, each of us may be capable of acting in some very uncharacteristic and perhaps some very unsettling ways.

experimenter to say that no answer should be considered a wrong answer.

“You have no other choice, you must go on.”

“Ugh!” The learner’s reactions became stronger and louder with each lever press. At 150 volts, the learner yelled out, “Experimenter! That’s all. Get me out of here. I told you I had heart trouble. My heart’s starting to bother me now. Get me out of here, please. My heart’s starting to bother me. I refuse to go on. Let me out.”

More disturbingly, obedience often is at the heart of some of the worst of human behavior—massacres, atrocities, and even genocide.

n many situations, obedience is a good thing. We are taught at an early age to obey parents, teachers, and police officers. It’s also important to follow instructions from judges, firefighters, and lifeguards. And a military would fail to function if soldiers stopped obeying orders from superiors.

Researchers who study obedience are interested in how people react when given an order or command from someone in a position of authority.

For example, hotels have been able to significantly increase the numbers of people who re-use bath towels (reducing water and energy use) by informing them on signs in their rooms that re-using towels is a typical behavior of other hotel guests

On the positive side, providing students with accurate information about drinking norms has been found to reduce overindulgent drinking

They notice the boisterous heavy drinker at the party but fail to consider all the students not attending the party.

descriptive norms

informational influence

and that people conform significantly less often when they believe the confederates will not hear their responses

that teenagers are more prone to conforming than are adults,

In almost all cases, the participants knew they were giving an incorrect answer, but their concern for what these other people might be thinking about them overpowered their desire to do the right thing.

But, would participants intentionally give a wrong answer just to conform with the other participants?

His eyes told him one thing, but five out of five people apparently saw something else.

The first of these is normative influence. When normative influence is operating, people go along with the crowd because they are concerned about what others think of them.

But our views on political issues, religious questions, and lifestyles also reflect to some degree the attitudes of the people we interact with. Similarly, decisions about behaviors such as smoking and drinking are influenced by whether the people we spend time with engage in these activities.

no one is immune to fashions and fads and that someday his children will probably be equally amused by his high school photographs and the trends he found so normal at the time.

Unfortunately, we frequently misperceive how the typical person acts, which can contribute to problems such as the excessive binge drinking often seen in college students.

Prisons often punish offenders by putting them in solitary confinement, depriving them of the company of others.

the quantity

Even introverts report feeling happier when they are with others!

One of these is the idea of loneliness. Humans are social animals and we prefer living together in groups.

According to TMT, in order to cope with this unpleasant reality (and the possibility that our lives are ultimately essentially meaningless), we cling firmly to systems of cultural and religious beliefs that give our lives meaning and purpose.

the odds are you’ll play better than when you practice by yourself. (If you haven’t practiced, maybe you should watch a movie instead!)

In essence, participants were in worse moods on rainy days than sunny days, and, if unaware of the weather’s effect on their mood, they incorrectly used their mood as evidence of their overall life satisfaction.

For example, individuals trust medical tests less if the results suggest they have a deficiency compared to when the results suggest they are healthy.

In this situation, your ability to reason objectively about the quality of your assignment may be limited by your anger toward the teacher, upset feelings over the bad grade, and your motivation to maintain your belief that you are a good student.

Hot cognition refers to the mental processes that are influenced by desires and feelings.

occurs because people are generally unaware of the many psychological mechanisms that help us adapt to and cope with negative events

but we often incorrectly predict the strength or duration of those emotions.

For example, we tend to underestimate how much time it will take us to complete a task, whether it is writing a paper, finishing a project at work, or building a bridge—a phenomenon known as the planning fallacy

Similarly, although we are generally aware of our knowledge, abilities, and future prospects, our perceptions are often overly positive, and we display overconfidence in their accuracy and potentia

For example, our own predictions of our future academic performance are more accurate than peers’ predictions of our performance

The answer we arrive at is an example of a future prediction

Another example is the very common fear of flying: dying in a plane crash is extremely rare, but people often overestimate the probability of it occurring because plane crashes tend to be highly memorable and publicized.

Though such a quick test may lead you to believe there are more words that begin with “k,” the truth is that there are 3 times as many words that have “k” as the third letter

more readily available to memory (i.e., more accessible), so they seem to be more numerous.

although the man fits the mental image of a professor, the actual probability of him being one (considering the number of professors out there) is lower than that of being a truck driver.

a perceiver may quickly judge a female to be an athlete based on the fact that the female is tall, muscular, and wearing sports apparel—which fits the perceiver’s representation of an athlete’s characteristics. 

you would easily classify a pit bull into the category of “dog.” But what about a coyote? Or a fox?

She seems to be very adept at giving advice about love and relationships, which stems, the teenager now believes, from her early experiences with her mother. Carrying this causal narrative forward, the teenager now thinks that she would like to be a marriage counselor when she grows up.

understanding of who we once were, who we are today, and who we may become in the future.

autobiographical author

continuous perspective, both in retrospect and prospect.

integrated suite of life goals and values is perhaps the greatest achievement for the self as motivated agent.

people’s behavior is often motivated by inner desires and goals

In order to do so, the person must first realize that people indeed have desires and goals in their minds and that these inner desires and goals motivate (initiate, energize, put into motion) their behavior.

To be an agent is to act with direction and purpose, to move forward into the future in pursuit of self-chosen and valued goals.

When I fail in the presence of others, I may feel embarrassment or shame. When I violate a social rule, I may experience guilt, which may motivate me to make amends.

Homo sapiens and their evolutionary forerunners have survived and flourished by virtue of their ability to live and work together in complex social groups, cooperating with each other to solve problems and overcome threats and competing with each other in the face of limited resources.

We work on our selves, as we might work on any other interesting project. But what exactly is it that we work on?

Third, the self eventually becomes an autobiographical author, too, who takes stock of life — past, present, and future — to create a story about who I am, how I came to be, and where my life may be going.