Social Animals (12th Edition)

Social influence is everywhere. How are we affected? Why do we accept information, or in other words, what good does information do for us? What social motives make us vulnerable to what others think, say, and do? What factors increase or decrease the effectiveness of social information? What factors increase or decrease the persistence of social influence? How does one person fall in love with another person? Is it through the same mental process that we choose regular cereal over instant cereal? How does one develop a prejudice against a certain ethnic group, a certain religion, or a racial group? Prejudice is similar to liking? Or is it on the contrary, involving an entirely different set of mental processes?

Many people are interested in questions like this. Because we all spend a lot of time interacting with other people - being influenced by others; affecting others; happy, amused, sad, disgusted, frustrated, or irritated - it is in our nature to be interested in why people do what they do propose a hypothesis. In this sense, each of us is an amateur social psychologist. Although most amateur social psychologists test these hypotheses, to their own satisfaction, when interacting with others, these occasional "tests" lack the rigor and impartiality of careful scientific research.

In the 12th edition, the author has reorganized each chapter and deleted some so-called hot research and theories a few years ago, which have not withstood the test of time and repeated research. They have restructured and streamlined each chapter to maintain narrative clarity while incorporating new material. Recent research informs our understanding of current events—for example, how the internet is making our decision-making processes better or worse, the emergence of information bubbles, and how self-identifying media sources are shaping the polarization of this country Beliefs and behaviours, constant social contrast and negativity on Facebook and WeChat, and the rise of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). Of course, "updating" a book doesn't mean removing the wrong cases of the US government in Vietnam and Iraq, and tragedies like Jonestown, Columbine, and Heaven's Gate. These events happened a long time ago, but the sociopsychological lessons implicit in them have not been well learned. It is hoped that students will understand that what happened then is equally applicable to explain what is happening now.