1. Understanding ourselves What factors influence the ways that we (and, by extension, others) behave in various situations?

2. Beliefs Are beliefs a purely individual thing? Do they depend on the beliefs of people around us? –Milgram’s “interesting window” –Asch’s line length judgments. We seem to believe in a shared reality.

3. Cognitive dissonance What happens when your actions are inconsistent with your beliefs? –Doomsday cults –Festinger’s boring tasks

4. Factors that influence social behaviors Reciprocity: We feel a need to repay that which we are given –Foot in the door –Free stuff from charities and companies

5. Factors, cont. Altruism: Do we really help others simply out of the goodness of our hearts? Does anyone? –Self-interest as motivation –Internal vs. external rewards

6. More factors Obedience: People succumb to the desires of a perceived authority figure –The Milgram experiment –The Stanford Prison Experiment Conformity: We want to be like other people

7. Social Impact Theory We must constantly sort out competing social influences –Social facilitation –Social loafing –Deindividuation