Synopses & Reviews
Offering a refreshingly new approach, while maintaining the standard chapter topics of traditional social psychology texts, Susan Fiske's SOCIAL BEINGS conveys the excitement and vitality of this fascinating field, and captures students' imaginations by connecting the material to their everyday lives.
Fiske provides a highly readable and engaging narrative flow based on the five core social motives repeatedly identified by personality and social psychologists: Belonging, Understanding, Controlling, Enhancing Self, and Trusting. Throughout, the book integrates material showing the field's relevance to human problems and incorporates motivation, social evolution, and culture, not as after-thoughts, but as intrinsic features of the text.
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Introduction: Situations, Motives, Adaptation, and Culture
2. Scientific Methods for Studying People in Interaction
Within the Individual
3. Ordinary Personology: Figuring Out Why People Do What They Do
4. Social Cognition: Making Sense of Others
5. The Self: Social to the Core
6. Attitudes and Persuasion: Changing Minds
Between People: Dyads
7. Attraction: Initiating Romance, Friendship, and Other Relationships
8. Close Relationships: Passion, Interdependence, Commitment, and Intimacy
9. Helping: Prosocial Behavior
10. Aggression: Antisocial Behavior
Groups
11. Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination: Social Biases
12. Small Groups: Ongoing Interactions
13. Conformity and Obedience: Doing What Others Do and Say
Conclusion: Social Beings
14. Conclusion