Chapter Nine: Behavior in Social and Cultural Context

Looking Back

Now that you have read the chapter, see whether you can answer the "What's Ahead" questions that preceded each major section. By using these questions to "look back," you can find out how much you have learned -- and what you may need to review.

How do social rules guide behavior --- and what is likely to happen you violate them? Do you have to be mean or disturbed to inflict pain on someone just because an authority tells you to? How can ordinary college students be transformed into sadistic prison guards? How can people be "entrapped" into violating their moral principles? In what ways do people balance their ethnic identity and membership in the larger culture? What's one of the most common mistakes people make when explaining the behavior of others? What is the "Big Lie" ---and why does it work so well? What's the difference between ordinary techniques of persuasion and the coercive techniques used by cults? Why do people in groups often go along with the majority even when the majority is dead wrong? How can "groupthink" lead to bad---even catastrophic---decisions? Why is it common for a group of people to hear someone shout for help without one of them calling the police? What enables some people to dissent, take moral action, or blow the whistle on wrongdoers? How do stereotypes benefit us ---and how do they distort reality? Why does prejudice increase in times of social and economic unrest? Why do well-intentioned people sometimes get caught in a "cycle of distrust" with members of other ethnic or cultural groups? Why isn't there contact between groups enough to resolve cultural conflict? What would work?

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