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PSY2042 Personality
and Social Psychology
Monash University
A Custom Edition
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) – 9781488619960 – Aronson/ PSY2042 Personality and Social Psychology
PART 1 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
All the content included in this section has been compiled from:
Aronson, E., Wilson, T., Akert, R., & Sommers, S. (2016). Social Psychology (9th ed).
United States of America: Pearson Education Inc.
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PSY2042 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY I Introduction to social psychology
A Publication from Pearson Custom Publishing page 3
Chapter 1
Introducing Social
Psychology
Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives

Defining Social Psychology Where Construals Come From: Basic Human
1.1 What is social psychology, and how is it different Motives
from other disciplines? 1.3 What happens when people’s need to feel good about
themselves conflicts with their need to be accurate?
Social Psychology, Philosophy, Science, and Common
Sense The Self-Esteem Motive: The Need to Feel Good About
How Social Psychology Differs from Its Closest Cousins Ourselves
The Social Cognition Motive: The Need to Be Accurate
The Power of the Situation
1.2 Why does it matter how people explain and interpret
events—and their own and others’ behavior?
The Importance of Explanation

The Importance of Interpretation
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I Introduction to social psychology PSY2042 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
page 4 A Publication from Pearson Custom Publishing
2 Chapter 1
It is a pleasure to be your tour guides as we take you on a journey through the world
of social psychology. The four authors of your book, combined, have taught this
course for almost 100 years, so we know the terrain pretty well. As we embark on this
journey, our hope is to convey our excitement about social psychology—what it is and
why it matters. Not only do we enjoy teaching this stuff, we also love contributing to
the growth and development of this field—for, in addition to being teachers, each of
us is a scientist who has contributed to the knowledge base that makes up our dis-
cipline. In effect, not only are we leading this tour, we also helped create some of its
major attractions. We will travel to fascinating and exotic places like prejudice, love,
propaganda, education, the law, aggression, compassion, . . . all the rich variety and
surprise of human social life. Ready? OK, let’s go!
Let’s begin with a few examples of the heroic, touching, tragic, and puzzling
things that people do:
š After two brothers set off a bomb at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013,
killing three people and severely injuring 170 others, citizens of Boston raced to
the rescue. Many, in spite of the risk to themselves, ran straight to the site of the
bombing to help the injured, putting tourniquets on bleeding wounds until ambu-
lances could arrive. “We’re a strong city,” said the mayor. “Boston will overcome.”
š Kristen has known Martin for 2 months and feels that she is madly in love with
him. “We’re soul mates!” she tells her best friend. “He’s the one!” “What are you
thinking?” says the BF. “He’s completely wrong for you! He’s as different from
you as can be—different background, religion, politics; you even like different
movies.” “I’m not worried,” says Kristen. “Opposites attract. I know that’s true; I
read it on Wikipedia!”
š Janine and her brother Oscar are arguing about fraternities. Janine’s college didn’t
have any, but Oscar is at a large state university in the Midwest, where he has joined
Alpha Beta. He went through a severe and scary hazing ritual to join, and Janine
cannot understand why he loves these guys so much. “They make the pledges do
such stupid stuff,” she says. “They humiliate you and force you to get sick drunk
and practically freeze to death in the middle of the night. How can you possibly be
happy living there?” “You don’t get it,” Oscar replies. “Alpha Beta is the best of all
fraternities. My frat brothers just seem more fun than most other guys.”
š Abraham Biggs Jr., age 19, had been posting to an online discussion board for
2 years. Unhappy about his future and that a relationship had ended, Biggs an-
nounced on camera that he was going to commit suicide. He took an overdose of
drugs and linked to a live video feed from his bedroom. None of his hundreds of
observers called the police for more than 10 hours; some egged him on. Paramed-
ics reached him too late, and Biggs died.
š In the mid-1970s, several hundred members of the Peoples Temple, a
California-based religious cult, immigrated to Guyana under the guidance of
their leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, where they founded an interracial commu-
nity called Jonestown. But within a few years some members wanted out, an out-
side investigation was about to get Jones in trouble, and the group’s solidarity
was waning. Jones grew despondent and, summoning everyone in the commu-
nity, spoke to them about the beauty of dying and the certainty that everyone
would meet again in another place. The residents willingly lined up in front of a
vat containing a mixture of Kool-Aid and cyanide, and drank the lethal concoc-
tion. (The legacy of this massacre is the term “drinking the Kool-Aid,” referring
to a person’s blind belief in an ideology that could lead to death.) A total of 914
people died, including 80 babies and the Reverend Jones.
Why do many people rush into danger and discomfort to help strangers in trou-
ble? Is Kristen right that opposites attract or is she just kidding herself? Why did Oscar
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Introducing Social Psychology 3
come to love his fraternity brothers in spite of the hazing they had put him through?
Why would people watch a troubled young man commit suicide in front of their eyes,
when, by simply flagging the video to alert the Web site, they might have averted a
tragedy? How could hundreds of people be induced to kill their own children and
then commit suicide?
All of these stories—the good, the bad, the ugly—pose fascinating questions
about human behavior. In this book, we will show you how social psychologists go
about answering them.
Defining Social Psychology

1.1 What is social psychology, and how is it different from other disciplines?
The task of the psychologist is to try to understand and predict human behavior.
Different kinds of psychologists go about this task in different ways, and we want
to show you how social psychologists do it. Social psychology is the scientific study Social Psychology
of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by The scientific study of the way in
the real or imagined presence of other people: parents, friends, employers, teachers, which people’s thoughts, feelings,
strangers—indeed, by the entire social situation (Allport, 1985). When we think of and behaviors are influenced by
social influence, the kinds of examples that readily come to mind are direct attempts at the real or imagined presence of
persuasion, whereby one person deliberately tries to change another person’s behav- other people
ior or attitude. This is what happens when advertisers use sophisticated techniques to
persuade us to buy a particular brand of toothpaste, or when our friends try to get us
to do something we don’t really want to do (“Come on, have another beer—everyone
is doing it”), or when the schoolyard bully uses force or threats to get smaller kids to
part with their lunch money.
The study of direct attempts at social influence is a major part of social psychol- Social Influence
ogy and will be discussed in our chapters on conformity, attitudes, and group pro- The effect that the words, actions,
cesses. To the social psychologist, however, social influence is broader than attempts or mere presence of other people
by one person to change another person’s behavior. It includes our thoughts and feel- have on our thoughts, feelings,
ings as well as our overt acts, and takes many forms other than deliberate attempts at attitudes, or behavior
persuasion. We are often influenced merely by the presence of other people, including
perfect strangers who are not interacting with us. Other people don’t even have to
be present: We are governed by the imaginary approval or disapproval of our par-
ents, friends, and teachers and by how we expect others to react to us. Sometimes
these influences conflict with one another, and social psychologists are especially
interested in what happens in the mind of an individual when they do. For example,
conflicts frequently occur when young people go off to college and find themselves
torn between the beliefs and values they learned at home and the beliefs and values of
their professors or peers. (See the Try It!)
TRY IT!
How Do Other People Affect Your Values?
Think of the major values that govern people’s lives: love, differences in your lists, how do they affect you? Are some of
money, sex, religion, freedom, compassion for others, your values conflicting with those of your parents or friends,
security, children, duty, loyalty, and so on. Make three lists and if so do you find yourself rejecting one set of values
of the 10 values that are most important to (1) you, (2) your in favor of the other? Are you trying to find a compromise
parents, and (3) your closest friends in college. If there are between the two?
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4 Chapter 1
Our thoughts, feelings, and actions

are influenced by our immediate
surroundings, including the presence
of other people—even mere strangers.
We will spend the rest of this introductory chapter expanding on these issues, so
that you will get an idea of what social psychology is, what it isn’t, and how it differs
from other, related disciplines.
Social Psychology, Philosophy, Science,

and Common Sense
Throughout history, philosophy has been a major source of insight about human
nature. Indeed, the work of philosophers is part of the foundation of contempo-
rary psychology. Psychologists have looked to philosophers for insights into the
nature of consciousness (e.g., Dennett, 1991) and how people form beliefs about
the social world (e.g., Gilbert, 1991). Sometimes, however, even great thinkers find
themselves in disagreement with one another. When this occurs, how are you sup-
posed to know who is right? Are there some situations where Philosopher A might
be right, and other situations where Philosopher B might be right? How would you
determine this?
We social psychologists address many of the same questions that philosophers
do, but we attempt to look at these questions scientifically—even questions concern-
ing that great human mystery, love. In 1663, the Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza
offered a highly original insight. In sharp disagreement with the hedonistic philoso-
pher Aristippus, he proposed that if we fall in love with someone whom we formerly
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British soldiers stand near burning

vehicles in Kabul, Afghanistan, after a
suicide car bomber killed soldiers on
a NATO-led peacekeeping mission.
What causes a person to become a
suicide bomber? Popular theories
say such people must be mentally
ill, alienated loners, or psychopaths.
But social psychologists would try
to understand the circumstances
and situations that drive otherwise
healthy, well-educated, bright people
to commit murder and suicide for the
sake of a religious or political goal.
hated, that love will be stronger than if hatred had not preceded it. Spinoza’s prop-
osition was beautifully worked out, with impeccable logic. But how can we be sure
that it holds up? Does it always hold up? What are the conditions under which it does
or doesn’t? These are empirical questions, meaning that their answers can be derived
from experimentation or measurement rather than by personal opinion (Aronson,
1999; Aronson & Linder, 1965).
Now let’s take another look at the examples that opened this chapter. Why
did these people behave the way they did? One way to answer would simply be
to ask them. We could ask the people who observed Abraham Biggs’s suicide why
they didn’t call the police; we could ask Oscar why he enjoys fraternity life; we
could ask the Boston rescuers why they ran headlong into a potentially dangerous
situation. The problem with this approach is that people are often unaware of the
reasons behind their own responses and feelings (Gilbert, 2008; Nisbett & Wilson,
1977; Wilson, 2002). People might come up with plenty of justifications for not call-
ing the police to rescue Biggs, but those justifications might not be the reason they
did nothing.
After the mass suicide at Jonestown, everyone had an explanation:
š Jones used hypnotism and drugs to weaken the resistance of his followers.
š Jones attracted people who were already clinically depressed.
š Only mentally ill or emotionally disturbed people join cults.
These were the leading “common sense” answers, but they are mistaken. More-
over, if we rely on commonsense explanations of one particular tragic event, we don’t
learn much that helps us understand other, similar ones.
Thus, in explaining a tragedy like Jonestown—or any other topic of interest—
social psychologists would want to know which of many possible explanations is
the most likely. To do this, we have devised an array of scientific methods to test our
assumptions, guesses, and ideas about human social behavior, empirically and sys-
tematically rather than by relying on folk wisdom, common sense, or the opinions and
insights of philosophers, novelists, political pundits, and our grandmothers. Doing
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6 Chapter 1
experiments in social psychology presents many challenges, primarily because we

are attempting to predict the behavior of highly sophisticated organisms in complex
situations. As scientists, our goal is to find objective answers to such questions as:
What are the factors that cause aggression? What causes prejudice, and how might we
reduce it? What variables cause two people to like or love each other? Why do certain
kinds of political advertisements work better than others?
To answer questions like these, the first task of the social psychologist is to make
an educated guess, called a hypothesis, about the specific situations under which one
outcome or the other would occur. Just as a physicist performs experiments to test
hypotheses about the nature of the physical world, the social psychologist performs
experiments to test hypotheses about the nature of the social world. The next task
is to design well-controlled experiments sophisticated enough to tease out the situ-
ations that would result in one or another outcome. This method allows us to make
accurate predictions once we know the key aspects of the prevailing situation. (See
Chapter 2.)
Social psychologists are not opposed to folk wisdom—far from it. The primary
problem with relying entirely on such sources is that, like philosopher A and phi-
losopher B, they often disagree with one another. Consider what folk wisdom has to
say about the factors that influence how much we like other people. We know that
“birds of a feather flock together.” Of course, we say, thinking of the many examples
of our pleasure in hanging out with people who share our backgrounds and interests.
But folk wisdom also tells us—as it persuaded lovestruck Kristen—that “opposites
attract.” Of course, we say, thinking of all the times we were attracted to people with
different backgrounds and interests. Well, which is it? Similarly, are we to believe that
“out of sight is out of mind” or that “absence makes the heart grow fonder”?
Social psychologists would suggest that there are some conditions under which
birds of a feather do flock together, and other conditions under which opposites do
attract. Similarly, in some conditions absence does make the heart grow fonder, and in
others “out of sight” does mean out of mind. But it’s not enough to say both proverbs
can be true. Part of the job of the social psychologist is to do the research that specifies
the conditions under which one or another is most likely to take place.
How Social Psychology Differs from Its

Closest Cousins
If you are like most people, when you read the examples that opened this chapter,
you assumed that the individuals involved had some weaknesses, strengths, and
personality traits that led them to respond as they did. Some people are leaders and
others are followers; some people are public-spirited and others are selfish; some
are brave and others are cowardly. Perhaps the people who failed to get help for
Abraham Biggs were lazy, timid, selfish, or heartless. Given what you know about
their behavior, would you loan them your car or trust them to take care of your new
puppy?
Asking and trying to answer questions about people’s behavior in terms of their
traits is the work of personality psychologists, who generally focus on individual dif-
ferences, the aspects of people’s personalities that make them different from others.
Research on personality increases our understanding of human behavior, but social
psychologists believe that explaining behavior primarily through personality traits
ignores a critical part of the story: the powerful role played by social influence.
Consider again the tragedy at Jonestown. Remember that it was not just a handful
of people who committed suicide there, but almost 100 percent of them. It is highly
improbable that they were all mentally ill or had the same constellation of person-
ality traits. If we want a richer, more thorough explanation of this tragic event, we
need to understand what kind of power and influence a charismatic figure like Jim
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Personality psychologists study

qualities of the individual that might
make a person shy, conventional,
rebellious, and willing to wear
a turquoise wig in public or a
yellow shirt in a sea of blue. Social
psychologists study the powerful role
of social influence on how all of us
behave.
Jones possessed, the nature of the impact of living in a closed society cut off from
other points of view, and other factors that could have caused mentally healthy peo-
ple to obey him. In fact, as social psychologists have shown, the social conditions at
Jonestown were such that virtually anyone—even strong, nondepressed individuals
like you or us—would have succumbed to Jones’s influence.
Here is a more mundane example. Suppose you go to a party and see a great-look-
ing fellow student you have been hoping to get to know better. The student is look-
ing pretty uncomfortable, however—standing alone, not making eye contact, not
talking to anyone who comes over. You decide you’re not so interested; this person
seems pretty aloof, even arrogant. But a few weeks later you see the student again,
now being outgoing, witty, and appealing. So what is this person “really” like? Shy or
arrogant, charming and welcoming? It’s the wrong question; the answer is both and
neither. All of us are capable of being shy in some situations and outgoing in others. A
much more interesting question is: What factors were different in these two situations
that had such a profound effect on the student’s behavior? That is a social psychologi-
cal question. (See the Try It!)
TRY IT!
Social Situations and Shyness
1. Think about one of your friends or acquaintances whom you 3. List the situations that might bring forth more outgoing
regard as shy. (You may use yourself!) Try not to think about behaviors on your friend’s part. Being with a small group of
him or her as “a shy person,” but rather as someone who friends he or she is at ease with? Being with a new person,
has difficulty relating to people in some situations but not but one who shares your friend’s interests?
others. 4. Set up a social environment that you think would make your
2. List the situations you think are most likely to bring out your friend comfortable. Pay close attention to the effect that it
friend’s shy behavior. has on your friend’s behavior—or yours.
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8 Chapter 1
Social psychology is related to other disciplines in the social sciences, includ-

ing sociology, economics, and political science. Each examines the influence of
social factors on human behavior, but important differences set social psychology
apart—most notably in their level of analysis. For biologists, the level of analy-
sis might be genes, hormones, or neurotransmitters. For personality and clinical
psychologists, the level of the analysis is the individual. For the social psychologist,
the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. For example,
to understand why people intentionally hurt one another, the social psycholo-
gist focuses on the psychological processes that trigger aggression in specific sit-
uations. To what extent is aggression preceded by frustration? Does frustration
always precede aggression? If people are feeling frustrated, under what condi-
tions will they vent their frustration with an aggressive act and under what con-
ditions will they restrain themselves? What are other causes of aggression? (See
Chapter 12.)
Other social sciences are more concerned with social, economic, political, and
historical factors that influence events. Sociology, rather than focusing on the indi-
vidual, focuses on such topics as social class, social structure, and social institu-
tions. Of course, because society is made up of collections of people, some overlap
is bound to exist between the domains of sociology and those of social psychology.
The major difference is that in sociology, the level of analysis is the group, institution,
or society at large. So while sociologists, like social psychologists, are interested in
causes of aggression, sociologists are more likely to be concerned with why a par-
ticular society (or group within a society) produces different levels of violence in
its members. Why is the murder rate in the United States so much higher than in
Canada or Europe? Within the United States, why is the murder rate higher in some
geographic regions than in others? How do changes in society relate to changes in
aggressive behavior?
Social psychology differs from other social sciences not only in the level of
The people in this photo can be
studied from a variety of perspectives: analysis, but also in what is being explained. The goal of social psychology is to iden-
as individuals or as members of a tify properties of human nature that make almost everyone susceptible to social inf luence,
family, a social class, an occupation, regardless of social class or culture. The laws governing the relationship between
a culture, or a region. Sociologists frustration and aggression, for example, are hypothesized to be true of most peo-
study the group or institution; social
ple in most places, not just members of one gender, social class, culture, age group,
psychologists study the influence
or ethnicity.
of those groups and institutions on
individual behavior. However, because social psychology is a young science that developed mostly
in the United States, many of its findings have not yet been
tested in other cultures to see if they are universal. None-
theless, our goal is to discover such laws. And increas-
ingly, as methods and theories developed by American
social psychologists are adopted by European, Asian, Afri-
can, Middle Eastern, and South American social psychol-
ogists, we are learning more about the extent to which
these laws are universal, as well as cultural differences in
the way these laws are expressed (see Chapter 2). Cross-
cultural research is therefore extremely valuable, because it
sharpens theories, either by demonstrating their universality
or by leading us to discover additional variables that help us
improve our understanding and prediction of human behav-
ior. We will offer many examples of cross-cultural research in
this book.
In sum, social psychology is located between its
closest cousins, sociology and personality psychology
(see Table 1.1). Social psychology and sociology share an
interest in the way the situation and the larger society
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Table 1.1 Social Psychology Compared to Related Disciplines

Sociology Social Psychology Personality Psychology
The study of groups, The study of the psychological The study of the characteristics
organizations, and societies, processes people have in that make individuals unique and
rather than individuals. common that make them different from one another.
susceptible to social influence.
influence behavior. Social psychology and personality psychology share an inter-

est in the psychology of the individual. But social psychologists work in the over-
lap between those two disciplines: They emphasize the psychological processes
shared by most people around the world that make them susceptible to social
influence.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. A social psychologist would tend to look for explanations of a c. Social psychology provides general laws and theories
young man’s violent behavior primarily in terms of: about societies, whereas personality psychology stud-
a. his aggressive personality traits. ies the characteristics that make people unique.
b. possible genetic contributions. d. Social psychology focuses on individual differences,
c. how his peer group behaves. whereas personality psychology provides general laws
d. what his father taught him. and theories about societies.
2. The topic that would most interest a social psychologist is 4. What is the “level of analysis” for a social psychologist?
a. how the level of extroversion of different presidents a. The individual in the context of a social situation.
affected their political decisions. b. The social situation itself.
b. whether people’s decision about whether to cheat on c. A person’s level of achievement.
a test is influenced by how they imagine their friends d. A person’s level of reasoning.
would react if they found out. 5. Which of the following research topics about violence is one
c. the extent to which people’s social class predicts their that a social psychologist might investigate?
income. a. How rates of violence change over time within a culture.
d. what passers-by on the street think of global warming. b. Why murder rates vary across cultures.
3. How does social psychology differ from personality psychology? c. Brain abnormalities that produce aggression when a
a. Social psychology focuses on individual differences, person is provoked.
whereas personality psychology focuses on how people d. Why some situations are more likely to provoke aggres-
behave in different situations. sion than others.
b. Social psychology focuses on the shared processes that
make people susceptible to social influence, whereas
personality psychology focuses on individual differences. See page AK-1 for the answers.
The Power of the Situation

1.2 Why does it matter how people explain and interpret events—and their own
and others’ behavior?
Suppose you stop at a roadside restaurant for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. The
server comes over to take your order, but you are having a hard time deciding which
pie you want. While you are hesitating, she impatiently taps her pen against her note-
pad, rolls her eyes toward the ceiling, scowls at you, and finally snaps, “Hey, I haven’t
got all day, you know!” Like most people, you would probably think that she is a
nasty or unpleasant person.
But suppose, while you are deciding whether to complain about her to the man-
ager, a regular customer tells you that your “crabby” server is a single parent who
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10 Chapter 1
was kept awake all night by the moaning of her youngest child, who was terribly
sick; that her car broke down on her way to work and she has no idea where she will
find the money to have it repaired; that when she finally arrived at the restaurant, she
learned that her coworker was too drunk to work, requiring her to cover twice the
usual number of tables; and that the short-order cook keeps screaming at her because
she is not picking up the orders fast enough to please him. Given all that information,
you might now conclude that she is not a nasty person but an ordinary human under
enormous stress.
This small story has huge implications. Most Americans will explain someone’s
behavior in terms of personality; they focus on the fish, and not the water the fish
swims in. The fact that they fail to take the situation into account has a profound
impact on how human beings relate to one another—such as, in the case of the server,
whether they feel sympathy and tolerance or impatience and anger.
The Importance of Explanation

Thus, the social psychologist is up against a formidable barrier known as the
Fundamental Attribution Error fundamental attribution error: the tendency to explain our own and other people’s
The tendency to overestimate the behavior entirely in terms of personality traits and to underestimate the power of
extent to which people’s behavior social influence and the immediate situation. We are going to give you the basics of
is due to internal, dispositional this phenomenon here, because you will be encountering it throughout this book.
factors and to underestimate the Understanding that people’s behavior is often not caused by their personalities but by
role of situational factors the situations they are in is central to social psychology.
Explaining behavior in terms of personality can give us a feeling of false security.
When people try to explain repugnant or bizarre behavior, such as suicide bombers
or the people of Jonestown taking their own lives and killing their own children, they
find it tempting and, in a strange way, comforting to write off the victims as flawed
human beings. Doing so gives them the feeling that it could never happen to them.
Ironically, this way of thinking actually increases our vulnerability to destructive
social influences by making us less aware of our own susceptibility to them. More-
over, by failing to fully appreciate the power of the situation, we tend to oversimplify
the problem, which can lead us to blame the victim in situations where the individ-
ual was overpowered by social forces too difficult for most of us to resist, as in the
Jonestown tragedy.
To take a more everyday example, imagine a situation in which two people are
playing a game and they must choose one of two strategies: They can play competi-
tively and try to win as much money as possible and make sure their partner loses as
much as possible, or they can play cooperatively and try to make sure they both win
some money. How do you think each of your friends would play this game?
Few people find this question hard to answer; we all have a feeling for the rel-
ative competitiveness of our friends. Accordingly, you might say, “I am certain that
my friend Jennifer, who is a hard-nosed business major, would play this game more
competitively than my friend Anna, who is a soft-hearted, generous person.” But how
accurate are you likely to be? Should you be thinking about the game itself rather than
who is playing it?
To find out, Lee Ross and his students conducted the following experiment
( Liberman, Samuels, & Ross, 2004). They described the game to resident assis-
tants (RAs) in a student dorm and asked them to come up with a list of undergrads
whom they thought were either especially cooperative or especially competitive. As
expected, the RAs easily identified students who fit each category. Next, Ross invited
these students to play the game in a psychology experiment. There was one added
twist: The researchers varied a seemingly minor aspect of the social situation—what
the game was called. They told half the participants that they would be playing the
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Figure 1.1 Why the Name of the Game Matters

In this experiment, when the name of the game was the “Community Game,” players were far more
likely to behave cooperatively than when it was called the “Wall Street Game”—regardless of their
own cooperative or competitive personality traits. The game’s title conveyed social norms that
trumped personality and shaped the players’ behavior.
(Data from Liberman, Samuels, & Ross, 2004)
80
70
choosing cooperative strategy
Percentage of people
60
50
40
30
20
10 “Cooperative” people
0 “Competitive” people
Community Game Wall Street Game
Wall Street Game and the other half that they would be playing the Community
Game. Everything else about the game was identical. Thus, people who were judged
as either competitive or cooperative played a game that was called either the Wall
Street Game or the Community Game, resulting in four conditions: cooperative peo-
ple playing the Wall Street Game, cooperative people playing the Community Game,
competitive people playing the Wall Street Game, or competitive people playing the
Community Game.
Again, most of us go through life assuming that what really counts is an individu-
al’s personality, not something about the individual’s immediate situation and certainly
not something as trivial as what a game is called, right? Not so fast! As you can see in
Figure 1.1, the name of the game made a tremendous difference in how people behaved.
When it was called the Wall Street Game, approximately two-thirds of the students
responded competitively; when it was called the Community Game, only a third
responded competitively. The name of the game sent a powerful message about how the
players should behave. But a student’s alleged personality trait made no measurable dif-
ference in the student’s behavior. The students labeled competitive were no more likely to
adopt the competitive strategy than those who were labeled cooperative. We will see this
pattern of results throughout this book: Aspects of the social situation that may seem
minor can overwhelm the differences in people’s personalities (Ross & Ward, 1996).
If merely assigning a name to the game has an important impact on the behavior
of the players, what do you think the impact would be of changing the atmosphere
of the classroom to reflect the nature of the game being played? Suppose you are a
seventh-grade history teacher. In one of your classes, you structure the learning expe-
rience so that it resembles the situation implied by the term “Wall Street Game.” You
encourage competition, you tell your students to raise their hands as quickly as pos-
sible and to jeer at any incorrect answers given by other students. In your other class,
you structure the learning situation such that the students are rewarded for cooper-
ating with one another, for listening well, for encouraging one another and pulling
together to learn the material. What do you suppose the effect these different situa-
tions might have on the performance of your students, on their enjoyment of school,
and on their feelings about one another? Such an experiment will be discussed in
Chapters 12 and 13 (Aronson & Patnoe, 2011).
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12 Chapter 1
Of course personality differences do exist and frequently are of great importance,

but social and environmental situations are so powerful that they have dramatic
effects on almost everyone. This is the domain of the social psychologist.
The Importance of Interpretation

It is one thing to say that the social situation has profound effects on human behav-
ior, but what exactly do we mean by the social situation? One strategy for defining
it would be to specify the objective properties of the situation, such as how reward-
ing it is to people, and then document the behaviors that follow from these objective
properties.
Behaviorism This is the approach taken by behaviorism, a school of psychology maintaining
A school of psychology that to understand human behavior, one need only consider the reinforcing properties
maintaining that to understand of the environment: When behavior is followed by a reward (such as money, attention,
human behavior, one need only praise, or other benefits), it is likely to continue; when behavior is followed by a pun-
consider the reinforcing properties ishment (such as pain, loss, or angry shouts), it is likely to become extinguished. Dogs
of the environment come when they are called because they have learned that compliance is followed by
positive reinforcement (e.g., food or petting); children memorize their multiplication
tables more quickly if you praise them, smile at them, and paste a gold star on their
foreheads following correct answers. Behavioral psychologists, notably the pioneer-
ing behaviorist B. F. Skinner (1938), believed that all behavior could be understood by
examining the rewards and punishments in the organism’s environment.
Behaviorism has many strengths, and its principles explain some behavior very
well. (See Chapter 10.) However, because the early behaviorists did not concern them-
selves with cognition, thinking, and feeling—concepts they considered too vague and
mentalistic and not sufficiently anchored to observable behavior—they overlooked
phenomena that are vital to the human social experience. Most especially, they over-
looked the importance of how people interpret their environments.
For social psychologists, the relationship between the social environment and the
individual is a two-way street. Not only does the situation influence people’s behav-
Construal ior; people’s behavior also depends on their interpretation, or construal, of their
The way in which people perceive, social environment (Griffin & Ross, 1991; Ross & Nisbett, 1991). For example, if a per-
comprehend, and interpret the son approaches you, slaps you on the back, and asks you how you are feeling, your
social world response will depend not on what that person has done, but on how you interpret
that behavior. You might construe these actions differently depending on whether
they come from a close friend who is concerned about your health, a casual acquain-
tance who is just passing the time of day, or an automobile salesperson attempting to
be ingratiating for the purpose of selling you a used car. And your answer will vary
also, even if the question about your health were worded the same and asked in the
same tone of voice. You would be unlikely to say, “Actually, I’m feeling pretty worried
about this kidney pain” to a salesperson, but you might tell your close friend.
Gestalt Psychology The emphasis on construal has its roots in an approach called Gestalt psychology.
A school of psychology stressing First proposed as a theory of how people perceive the physical world, Gestalt psy-
the importance of studying the chology holds that we should study the subjective way in which an object appears in
subjective way in which an object people’s minds (the gestalt, or whole) rather than the way in which the objective, phys-
appears in people’s minds rather ical attributes of the object combine. For example, one way to understand how people
than the objective, physical perceive an overall image of a painting would be to break it down into its individual
attributes of the object elements, such as the exact amounts of primary colors applied to the different parts of
the canvas, the types of brushstrokes used to apply the colors, and the different geo-
metric shapes they form. According to Gestalt psychologists, however, it is impossible
to understand how an object is perceived only by studying these building blocks of
perception. The whole is different from the sum of its parts. One must focus on the
phenomenology of the perceivers—on how an object appears to them—instead of on
its objective components.
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The Gestalt approach was formulated by German psychologists in the first part
of the twentieth century. In the late 1930s, several of these psychologists fled to the
United States to escape the Nazi regime. Among the émigrés was Kurt Lewin, gen-
erally considered the founding father of modern experimental social psychology. As
a young German Jewish professor in the 1930s, Lewin experienced the anti-Semitism
rampant in Nazi Germany. The experience profoundly affected his thinking, and once
he moved to the United States, Lewin helped shape American social psychology,
directing it toward a deep interest in exploring the causes and cures of prejudice and
ethnic stereotyping.
As a theorist, Lewin took the bold step of applying Gestalt principles beyond the
perception of objects to social perception. It is often more important to understand
how people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world, he said, than it is
to understand its objective properties (Lewin, 1943). “If an individual sits in a room
trusting that the ceiling will not come down,” he said, “should only his ‘subjective
probability’ be taken into account for predicting behavior or should we also consider
the ‘objective probability’ of the ceiling’s coming down as determined by engineers? Kurt Lewin (1890–1947).
To my mind, only the first has to be taken into account.”
Social psychologists soon began to focus on the importance of how people con-
strue their environments. Fritz Heider, another early founder of social psychology,
observed, “Generally, a person reacts to what he thinks the other person is perceiv-
ing, feeling, and thinking, in addition to what the other person may be doing.” We
are busy guessing all the time about the other person’s state of mind, motives, and
thoughts. We may be right—but often we are wrong.
That is why construal has major implications. In a murder trial, when the pros-
ecution presents compelling evidence it believes will prove the defendant guilty, the
verdict always hinges on precisely how each jury member construes that evidence.
These construals rest on a variety of events and perceptions that often bear no objec-
tive relevance to the case. During cross-examination, did a key witness come across as
being too remote or too arrogant? Did the prosecutor appear to be smug, obnoxious,
or uncertain? Fritz Heider (1896–1988).
A special kind of construal is what Lee Ross calls “naïve realism,” the conviction
that we perceive things “as they really are.” If other people see the same things differ-
ently, therefore, it must be because they are biased (Ehrlinger, Gilovich, & Ross, 2005;
Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, 2004; Ross, 2010). Ross has been working closely with Israeli
and Palestinian negotiators. These negotiations frequently run aground because of
naïve realism; each side assumes that other reasonable people see things the same way
they do. “[E]ven when each side recognizes that the other side perceives the issues
differently,” says Ross, “each thinks that the other side is biased while they themselves
are objective and that their own perceptions of reality should provide the basis for set-
tlement.” So both sides resist compromise, fearing that their “biased” opponent will
benefit more than they.
In a simple experiment, Ross took peace proposals created by Israeli negotiators,
labeled them as Palestinian proposals, and asked Israeli citizens to judge them. The
Israelis liked the Palestinian proposal attributed to Israel more than they liked the
Israeli proposal attributed to the Palestinians. Ross concludes, “If your own proposal
isn’t going to be attractive to you when it comes from the other side, what chance is
there that the other side’s proposal is going to be attractive when it comes from the
other side?” The hope is that once negotiators on both sides become fully aware of this
phenomenon and how it impedes conflict resolution, a reasonable compromise will be
more likely.
You can see that construals range from the simple (as in the question “How are
you feeling?”) to the remarkably complex (international negotiations). And they affect
all of us in our everyday lives. Imagine that Jason is a college student who admires
Maria from afar. As a budding social psychologist, you have the job of predicting
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14 Chapter 1
Research by social psychologists on

construal shows why negotiation
between nations can be so difficult:
Each side thinks that it sees the issues
clearly but that the other side is
“biased.”
whether or not Jason will ask Maria to have dinner with him. To do this, you need to
begin by viewing Maria’s behavior through Jason’s eyes—that is, by seeing how Jason
interprets her behavior. If she smiles at him, does Jason construe her behavior as mere
politeness, the kind of politeness she would extend to any of the dozens of nerds and
losers in their class? Or does he view her smile as an encouraging sign that inspires
him to ask her out? If she ignores him, does Jason figure that she’s playing hard to get,
or does he take it as a sign that she’s not interested in him? To predict what Jason will
do, it is not enough to know Maria’s behavior; we must know how Jason interprets
her behavior.
Now suppose that after class one day, Maria impulsively kisses Jason on the cheek
as she says goodbye. Again, how he responds will depend on how he construes that
act: Does he interpret that kiss as a sign of romantic interest on Maria’s part, clear evi-
dence that she’s hot for him? Or does he see it as a sisterly signal that Maria wants to
be friends but isn’t really into him? Were Jason to misinterpret the situation, he might
commit a serious blunder: He might turn his back on what could have been the love
of his life, or he might express his own passionate feelings inappropriately. In either
case, social psychologists would say that the best strategy for understanding Jason’s
reaction would be to find a way to determine his construal of Maria’s behavior rather
than to dissect the objective nature of the kiss itself (its length, degree of pressure, etc.).
But how are these construals formed? Stay tuned.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. The fundamental attribution error is best defined as the d. believe that people’s personalities influence their
tendency to behavior more than their group memberships.
a. explain our own and other people’s behavior entirely in 2. What does the Wall Street Game reveal about personality
terms of personality traits, thereby underestimating the and situation?
power of social influence. a. Competitive people will compete fiercely no matter what a
b. explain our own and other people’s behavior in terms game is called.
of the social situation, thereby underestimating the b. Cooperative people will try hard to get competitive
power of personality factors. opponents to work with them.
c. believe that people’s group memberships influence c. The name of the game makes no difference in how
their behavior more than their personalities. people play the game.
9781488619960_T.indd 16 4/10/17 5:00 PM

d. The name of the game strongly influences how people 4. Social psychology had its origins in
play the game. a. Gestalt psychology.
3. A stranger approaches Emily on campus and says b. Freudian psychology.
he is a professional photographer. He asks if she will c. behavioral psychology.
spend 15 minutes posing for pictures next to the d. biological psychology.
student union. According to social psychologists, 5. “Naïve realism” refers to the fact that
Emily’s decision will depend on which of the a. most people are naïve (uneducated) about psychology.
following? b. few people are realistic.
a. How well dressed the man is. c. most people would rather be naïve than accurate.
b. Whether the man offers to pay her. d. most people believe they perceive things accurately.
c. How Emily construes the situation.
d. Whether the man has a criminal record. See page AK-1 for the answers.
Where Construals Come From:

Basic Human Motives
1.3 What happens when people’s need to feel good about themselves conflicts
with their need to be accurate?
How will Jason determine why Maria kissed him? If it is true that subjective and not
objective situations influence people, we need to understand how people arrive at
their subjective impressions of the world. What are people trying to accomplish when
they interpret the social world? Are they concerned with making an interpretation
that places them in the most positive light (e.g., Jason’s deciding that “Maria is ignor-
ing me just to make me jealous”) or with making the most accurate interpretation,
even if it is unflattering (e.g., “Painful as it may be, I must admit that she would rather
go out with a sea slug than with me”)? Social psychologists seek to understand the
fundamental laws of human nature, common to all, that explain why we construe the
social world the way we do.
We human beings are complex organisms. At any given moment, various inter-
secting motives underlie our thoughts and behaviors, including hunger, thirst, fear, a
desire for control, and the promise of love, favors, and other rewards. (See Chapters 10
and 11.) Social psychologists emphasize the importance of two central motives: the
need to feel good about ourselves and the need to be accurate. Sometimes, each of these
motives pulls us in the same direction. Often, though, these motives tug us in opposite
directions, where to perceive the world accurately requires us to admit that we have
behaved foolishly or immorally.
Leon Festinger, one of social psychology’s most innovative theorists, realized that
it is precisely when these two motives pull in opposite directions that we can gain our Leon Festinger (1919–1989) wrote:
most valuable insights into the workings of the mind. Imagine that you are the pres- “If the empirical world looks
ident of the United States and your country is engaged in a difficult and costly war. complicated, if people seem to react
You have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into that war, and it has consumed in bewilderingly different ways to
tens of thousands of American lives as well as thousands more lives of innocent civil- similar forces, and if I cannot see the
operation of universal underlying
ians. The war seems to be at a stalemate; no end is in sight. You frequently wake up
dynamics, then that is my fault. I have
in the middle of the night, bathed in the cold sweat of conflict: On the one hand, you asked the wrong questions; I have, at
deplore all the carnage that is going on; on the other hand, you don’t want to go down a theoretical level, sliced up the world
in history as the first American president to lose a war. incorrectly. The underlying dynamics
Some of your advisers tell you that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, are there, and I have to find the
theoretical apparatus that will enable
and that if you intensify the bombing or add thousands more troops, the enemy will
me to reveal these uniformities.”
soon capitulate and the war will be over. This would be a great outcome for you: Not Finding and illuminating those
only will you have succeeded in achieving your military and political aims, but his- underlying dynamics is the goal of
tory will consider you to have been a great leader as well. Other advisers, however, social psychology.
9781488619960_T.indd 17 4/10/17 5:00 PM

16 Chapter 1
believe that intensifying the bombing will only

strengthen the enemy’s resolve; they advise you
to sue for peace.
Which advisers are you likely to believe? Pres-
ident Lyndon Johnson faced this exact dilemma in
the 1960s, with the war in Vietnam; so did George
W. Bush in 2003, when the war in Iraq did not end
in six weeks as he had predicted; so did Barack
Obama, in deciding in 2009 whether to invest more
troops in the war in Afghanistan. (See Chapter 6.)
Most presidents have chosen to believe their advis-
ers who suggest escalating the war, because if they
succeed in winning, the victory justifies the human
and financial cost; but withdrawing not only
This is Edward Snowden, a former computing contractor for the National means going down in history as a president who
Security Agency. Snowden’s release in 2013 of thousands of classified documents
lost a war, but also having to justify the fact that all
related to the U.S. government’s surveillance programs led the Department of
Justice to charge him with espionage. Some have argued that Snowden is a spy, a
those lives and all that money have been spent in
traitor, and a criminal who should be brought back to the United States from his vain. As you can see, the need to feel good about
asylum in Russia to face trial. Others view him as a whistleblower, a patriot, and our decisions can fly in the face of the need to be
a hero fighting to protect privacy rights and inform the American public of what accurate, and can have catastrophic consequences
its government is up to (in fact, here you see him pictured receiving a German (Draper, 2008; McClellan, 2008; Woodward, 2011).
peace prize, a prize he was only able to accept via Skype). Each side is sure that
In Johnson’s case, the decision to increase the
they are right. Where do differing construals come from, and what are their
consequences? bombing did strengthen the enemy’s resolve,
thereby prolonging the war in Vietnam.
The Self-Esteem Motive: The Need to Feel

Good About Ourselves
Self-Esteem Most people have a strong need to maintain reasonably high self-esteem—that is, to
People’s evaluations of their own see themselves as good, competent, and decent (Aronson, 1998, 2007; Baumeister, 1993;
self-worth—that is, the extent to Tavris & Aronson, 2007). Given the choice between distorting the world to feel good
which they view themselves as about themselves and representing the world accurately, people often take the first
good, competent, and decent option. They put a slightly different spin on the matter, one that puts them in the best
possible light. You might consider your friend Roger to be a nice guy but an awful
slob—somehow he’s always got stains on his shirt and empty food cartons all over his
kitchen. Roger, though, probably describes himself as being casual and noncompulsive.
Self-esteem is obviously a beneficial thing, but when it causes people to justify
their actions rather than learn from them, it can impede change and self-improve-
ment. Suppose a couple gets divorced after 10 years of a marriage made difficult by
the husband’s irrational jealousy. Rather than admitting the truth—that his jealousy
and possessiveness drove his wife away—the husband blames the breakup of his mar-
riage on her; she was not responsive enough to his needs. His interpretation serves a
purpose: It makes him feel better about himself (Simpson, 2010). The consequence of
this distortion, of course, is that learning from experience becomes unlikely. In his next
marriage, the husband will probably recreate the same problems. Acknowledging our
deficiencies is difficult, even when the cost is seeing the world inaccurately.
SUFFERING AND SELF-JUSTIFICATION Let’s go back to one of our early scenar-

ios: Oscar and the hazing he went through to join his fraternity. Personality psycholo-
gists might suggest that only extroverts who have a high tolerance for embarrassment
would want to be in a fraternity. Behavioral psychologists would predict that Os-
car would dislike anyone or anything that caused him pain and humiliation. Social
psychologists, however, have found that the major reason that Oscar and his fellow
pledges like their fraternity brothers so much was the degrading hazing ritual itself.
9781488619960_T.indd 18 4/10/17 5:00 PM

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with every tide! This became the universal supply for us and for the
Natives all round the Harbour and for miles inland. Hundreds of
Natives from all parts of Tanna flocked to examine this greatest
wonder they had ever seen—rain rising up out of the earth. I built it
round with a kind of stone brought in my boat from the other side of
the bay; and for many years it was the only fresh water supply for the
Natives all around. Some years later a native Chief sank a well about
a mile nearer the entrance to the Harbour at his own village, and
built it round with the bricks that I had purchased for house-
building; these he grabbed and thus appropriated! Many a vessel,
calling at the Harbour, was glad to get her casks refilled at my well,
and all were apparently more friendly because of it; but the Sinking
of this Well produced no such revolution as on Aniwa,—to be
hereafter related.
For fully three months, all our available time, with all the native
help which I could hire, was spent in erecting a building to serve for
Church and School. It was fifty feet long, by twenty-one feet six
inches broad. The studs were three feet apart, and all fixed by tenon
and mortise into upper and lower wall plates. The beautiful roof of
iron, wood, and sugar-cane leaf, was supported by three massive
pillars of wood, sunk deeply into the ground. The roof extended
about three feet over the wall plates, both to form a verandah and to
carry the rain-drop free beyond the walls. It was made of sugar-cane
leaf and cocoa-nut leaves all around. The floor was laid with white
coral, broken small, and covered with cocoa-nut leaf mats, such as
those on which the Natives sat. Indeed, it was as comfortable a
House of Prayer as any man need wish for in the tropics, though
having only open spaces for doors and windows! I bought the heavy
wood for it on Aneityum—price, fifty pairs of native trousers; and
these again were the gift of my Bible Class in Glasgow, all cut and
sewed by their own hands. I gave also one hundred and thirty yards
of cloth, along with other things, for other needful wood.
My Tannese people at first opposed the erection of a Church. They
did not wish Jehovah to secure a House on their island. On the
opening day, only five men, three women, and three children were
present, besides our Aneityumese Teachers. But after the morning
service, on that day, I visited ten villages, and had worship in each.
The people were generally shy and unfriendly. They said that we
were the cause of the prevailing sickness and fever. They had no idea
of any sickness or death being natural, but believed that all such
events were caused by some one nahaking, i.e., bewitching them.
Hence their incessant feuds; and many were murdered in blind
revenge.
As we were preparing a foundation for the Church, a huge and
singular-looking round stone was dug up, at sight of which the
Tannese stood aghast. The eldest Chief said,—
“Missi, that stone was either brought there by Karapanamun (the
Evil Spirit), or hid there by our great Chief who is dead. That is the
Stone God to which our forefathers offered human sacrifices; these
holes held the blood of the victim till drunk up by the Spirit. The
Spirit of that stone eats up men and women and drinks their blood,
as our fathers taught us. We are in greatest fear!”
A Sacred Man claimed possession, and was exceedingly desirous to
carry it off; but I managed to keep it, and did everything in my power
to show them the absurdity of these foolish notions. Idolatry had not,
indeed, yet fallen throughout Tanna, but one cruel idol, at least, had
to give way for the erection of God’s House on that benighted land.
An ever-memorable event was the printing of my first book in
Tannese. Thomas Binnie, Esq., Glasgow, gave me a printing-press
and a font of type. Printing was one of the things I had never tried,
but having now prepared a booklet in Tannese, I got my press into
order, and began fingering the type. But book-printing turned out to
be for me a much more difficult affair than house-building had been.
Yet by dogged perseverance I succeeded at last. My biggest difficulty
was how to arrange the pages properly! After many failures, I folded
a piece of paper into the number of leaves wanted, cut the corners,
folding them back, and numbering as they would be when correctly
placed in the book; then folding all back without cutting up the sheet,
I found now by these numbers how to arrange the pages in the frame
or case for printing, as indicated on each side. And do you think me
foolish, when I confess that I shouted in an ecstasy of joy when the
first sheet came from the press all correct? It was about one o’clock
in the morning. I was the only white man then on the island, and all
the Natives had been fast asleep for hours! Yet I literally pitched my
hat into the air, and danced like a schoolboy round and round that
printing-press; till I began to think, Am I losing my reason? Would it
not be liker a Missionary to be upon my knees, adoring God for this
first portion of His blessed Word ever printed in this new language?
Friend, bear with me, and believe me, that was as true worship as
ever was David’s dancing before the Ark of his God! Nor think that I
did not, over that first sheet of God’s Word ever printed in the
Tannese tongue, go upon my knees too, and then, and every day
since, plead with the mighty Lord to carry the light and joy of His
own Holy Bible into every dark heart and benighted home on Tanna!
But the Tannese had a superstitious dread of books, and especially of
God’s Book. I afterwards heard that Dr. Turner had printed a small
primer in Tannese, translated by the help of the Samoan Teachers;
but this I never saw till near the close of my work on Tanna. Dr.
Geddie sent me a copy, but it was more Samoan than Tannese,
especially in its spelling, and I could make little or nothing of it.
Shortly after this, I was greatly refreshed by the visit of an
American whaler, the Camden Packet, under Captain Allan. He, his
chief officer, and many of his double company of seamen, were
decided Christians—a great contrast to most of the Traders that had
called at Port Resolution. The Captain cordially invited me on board
to preach and conduct a religious service. That evening I enjoyed
exceedingly—wells in the desert! The Captain introduced me, saying,
—
“This is my ship’s company. My first officer and most of my men
are real Christians, trying to love and serve Jesus Christ. We have
been three years out on this voyage, and are very happy with each
other. You would never hear or see worse on board of this vessel than
you see now. And God has given us gratifying success.”
He afterwards told me that he had a very valuable cargo of sperm
oil on board, the vessel being nearly filled up with it. He was eager to
leave supplies, or do something for me, but I needed nothing that he
could give. His mate, on examining my boat, found a hole in her, and
several planks split and bulged in, as I had gone down on a reef with
her when out on Mission work, and narrowly escaped drowning.
Next morning, the Captain, of his own accord, set his carpenter to
repair the boat, and left it as good as new. Not one farthing of
recompense would any of them take from me; their own Christian
love rewarded them, in the circumstances. I had been longing for a
chance to send it to Sydney for repairs, and felt deeply thankful for
such unexpected and generous aid. The Captain would not admit
that the delay was any loss to him,—his boats spending the day in
purchasing cocoa-nuts and provisions from the Natives for his own
ship. Oh, how the Christlike spirit knits together all true followers of
Christ! What other earthly or human tie could have so bound that
stranger to me? In the heart of Christ we met as brothers.
Dangers again darkened round me. One day, while toiling away at
my house, the war Chief, his brother, and a large party of armed men
surrounded the plot where I was working. They all had muskets,
besides their own native weapons. They watched me for some time in
silence, and then every man levelled a musket straight at my head.
Escape was impossible. Speech would only have increased my
danger. My eyesight came and went for a few moments. I prayed to
my Lord Jesus, either Himself to protect me, or to take me home to
His Glory. I tried to keep working on at my task, as if no one was
near me. In that moment, as never before, the words came to me,
—“Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, I will do it;” and I knew that
I was safe. Retiring a little from their first position, no word having
been spoken, they took up the same attitude somewhat farther off,
and seemed to be urging one another to fire the first shot. But my
dear Lord restrained them once again, and they withdrew, leaving
me with a new cause for trusting Him with all that concerned me for
Time and Eternity. Perils seemed, however, to enclose me on every
hand, and my life was frequently attempted. I had to move about
more cautiously than ever, some days scarcely daring to appear
outside my Mission premises. For I have ever most firmly believed,
and do believe, that only when we use every lawful and possible
means for the preservation of our life, which is God’s second greatest
gift to man (His Son being the first), can we expect God to protect us,
or have we the right to plead His precious promises.
The vessel of one calling himself Prince de Jean Beuve, a French
refugee, who had become a naturalized American, visited Port
Resolution. He said, he had to escape from his own country for
political offences. His large and beautiful ship was fitted up and
armed like a Man-of-war. She was manned chiefly by slaves, whom
he ruled with an iron hand. What a contrast to Captain Allan’s
whaler! Yet he also was very sympathetic and kind to me. Having
heard rumour of my trials and dangers, he came on shore, as soon as
his ship cast anchor, with a body of armed men. He was effusively
polite, with all a Frenchman’s gush and gesticulation, and offered to
do anything possible for me. He would take me to Aneityum or
Sydney or wherever I wished. The ship was his own; he was sailing
chiefly for pleasure, and he had called at our Islands to see if
sufficient trade could be opened up to justify his laying on a line of
steamers to call here in their transit. He urged me, I believe
sincerely, to give him the pleasure of taking me and my belongings to
some place of safety. But I was restrained from leaving, through the
fear that I would never be permitted to return, and that Christ’s work
would suffer. In the still burning hope of being able to lead the
Tannese to love and serve Jesus, I declined with much gratitude his
genuine kindness. He looked truly sorry to leave me in the
circumstances wherein I was placed. After two hours on shore, he
returned to his ship towards evening.
Knowing that the Tannese were threatening to burn my former
house, which I wished to remove to higher ground and add to the
room I now occupied on the hill, I took advantage of the presence of
the Prince’s vessel, and set my Aneityumese Teachers and some
friendly Natives to prepare for the task; but unfortunately, I forgot to
send word to the Frenchman regarding my plans and aims. We
removed the sugar-cane leaf thatch from the roof of the house, and
began burning it on cleared ground, so that I might be able to save
the heavy wood which could not be replaced on Tanna. Our French
friend, on seeing the flames rising up furiously, at once loaded his
heavy guns, and prepared his men for action. Under great
excitement, he came ashore with a large number of armed men,
leaving the rest on board ready at a given signal to protect them with
shot and shell. Leaving one half of those brought on shore to guard
the boats, he came running towards my house, followed by the other
half, wet with perspiration, and crying,—
“Fer are dey? fer are dey? De scoundrels! I vill do for dem, and
protect you. I sall punish dem, de scoundrels!”
He was so excited, he could scarcely compose himself to hear my
explanations, which, when understood, he laughed at heartily. He
again urged me to leave in his vessel; he could not bear me to lead
such a life amongst savages. I explained to him my reasons for not
leaving the island, but these he seemed unable to understand. He put
his men through drill on shore, and left them under officers, ready
for action at a moment’s warning, saying they would all be the better
for a day on shore. He wished to take pot luck with me at our Mission
House of one room for all purposes! My humble dinner and tea must
have been anything but a treat for him, but he seemed to relish the
deliverance for once from all the conventionalisms of the world.
Before he left, he sent of his own accord for all the Chiefs within
reach, and warned them that if they hurt me or took my life, he
would return with his Man-of-war and punish them, by killing
themselves and firing their villages; and that a British Man-of-war
would also come and set their island on fire. They promised all
possible good conduct, being undoubtedly put into great terror. The
kind-hearted Frenchman left, with profuse expressions of admiration
for my courage and of pity for my lot. No doubt he thought me a
foolish dreamer of dreams.
A miserable contrast befell us in the bad impression produced by
the conduct of one of Captain T——’s vessels in the Sydney sandal-
wood trade. Whale-boats had been sent out with Mr. Copeland and
myself from Glasgow, as part of the necessary equipment of every
Missionary on these Islands. Mine being rather large and heavy, I
had sold it to one of T——’s captains; but the other had also been left
to my care. After having used my boat for about twelve months—the
best boat in that trade only being expected to last two years—the
Captain called on Mr. Copeland, and got a note from him to me
regarding the sale of his boat too. He declared, when calling on me,
that Mr. Copeland had authorized him to get his boat from me in
exchange for mine, which he had now been using for a year. I asked
for the letter, and found it to be authority for me to sell his boat for
cash only and at the same price as mine. Captain V—— then raged at
me and stormed, declaring that he would return my old boat, and
take the other in defiance of me. Swearing dreadfully, he made for
his ship, and returned with a large party of men whom he had picked
up amongst the Islands. Collecting also a company of Tannese, and
offering them tobacco, he broke down the fence, burst into the boat-
house, and began to draw out the boat. Here I reached the spot, and
sternly opposed them. He swore and foamed at me, and before the
natives knocked and pulled me about, even kicking at me, though I
evaded his blows. Standing by, I said in Tannese,—
“You are helping that man to steal my boat; he is stealing it as you
see.”
On hearing this, the Tannese ran away, and his own party alone
could not do it. In great wrath, he went off again to his vessel, and
brought on shore as much tobacco as could be held in a large
handkerchief tied by the four corners; but even for that, our own
Natives refused to help him. He offered it then to a crowd of Inland
savages, gathered at the head of the bay, who, regardless of my
remonstrances, launched the boat, he raging at and all but striking
me. Instead of returning, however, the other boat to the house, he
merely set it adrift from his vessel, and it was carried on to the reef,
where it remained fast, and was knocked about by the waves. After
his vessel left, I, with much difficulty, got it off and brought it to the
boat-house. Imagine, when such was their tyrannical treatment of a
Missionary and a British fellow-subject, how they would act towards
these poor native Islanders.
By the earliest opportunity, I wrote all the facts of the case to his
employer, Captain T—— of Sydney, but got not even a reply, while
Captain V—— continued in their trade, a scourge to these Islands,
and a dishonour to his country and to humanity. Unfriendly Tannese
now said,—
“When a white man from his own country can so pull and knock
the Missionary about and steal his boat and chain without being
punished for it, we also may do as we please!”
I hesitate not to record my conviction that that man’s conduct had
a very bad effect, emboldening them in acts of dishonesty and in
attempts upon my life till the Mission Station was ultimately broken
up. After I had to escape from Tanna, with bare life in my hand, one
of the same Captain’s vessels called at Port Resolution and gave the
Natives about three pounds weight of useless tobacco, purchasable at
Sydney for less than one shilling per pound, to allow them to take
away my boat, with oars, sails, mast, and all other belongings. They
also purchased all the plunder from my house. Both boats were so
large and so strongly built, that by adding a plank or two they turned
them into small-decked schooners, admirably suited for the sandal-
wood traffic round the shores, while larger vessels lay at safe
anchorage to receive what they collected. Once, when Dr. Inglis and I
met in Sydney, we called on Captain T—— and stated the whole case,
asking reasonable payment at least for the boats. He admitted that
the boats had been taken and were in his service, and agreed to pay
us for the boats if we would repay the large sum invested therein by
his Captains. Calling one of his clerks, he instructed him to trace in
the office record how much had been paid to the Tannese for the
Missionary’s boat.
The young man innocently returned the reply, “Three pounds of
tobacco.”
In anger, he said, “I understood that a larger value had been
given!”
The clerk assured him, “That is the only record.”
Captain T——, after discussing the worth of the boat as being about
£80, agreed to give us £60, but in writing out the cheque, threw
down the pen and shouted, “I’ll see you —— first!”
Offering £50, to which we agreed, he again resiled, and declared
he would not give a penny above £30.
We appealed to him to regard this as a debt of honour, and to
cease haggling over the price, as he well knew how we had been
wronged in the matter.
Finally we left him declaring, “I am building similar boats just now
at £25 apiece; I will send you one of them, and you may either take
that or want!”
We left, glad to get away on any terms from such a character; and,
though next year he did send one of his promised boats for me to
Aneityum, yet the conduct of his degraded servants engaged in the
sandal-wood trade had a great share in the guilt of breaking up and
ruining our Mission. Thousands upon thousands were made by it
yearly, so long as it lasted; but it was a trade steeped in human blood
and indescribable vice, nor could God’s blessing rest on them and
their ill-gotten gains. Oh, how often did we pray at that time to be
delivered from the hands of unreasonable and wicked men! Sandal-
wood traders murdered many of the Islanders when robbing them of
their wood, and the Islanders murdered many of them and their
servants in revenge. White men, engaged in the trade, also shot dead
and murdered each other in vicious and drunken quarrels, and not a
few put end to their own lives. I have scarcely known one of them
who did not come to ruin and poverty; the money that came even to
the shipowners was a conspicuous curse. Fools there made a mock at
sin, thinking that no one cared for these poor savages, but their sin
did find them out, and God made good in their experience His own
irrepealable law, “The wages of sin is death.”
Ships, highly insured, were said to be sent into our Island trade to
be deliberately wrecked. One Sabbath evening, towards dark, the
notorious Captain H——, in command of a large ship, allowed her to
drift ashore and be wrecked without any apparent effort to save her.
Next morning, the whole company were wading about in the water
and pretending to have lost everything! The Captain, put in prison
when he returned to Sydney for running away with another man’s
wife and property, imposed on Mr. Copeland and myself, getting all
the biscuits, flour, and blankets we could spare for his destitute and
shipwrecked company. We discovered afterwards that she was lying
on a beautiful bank of sand, only a few yards from the shore, and that
everything contained in her could be easily rescued without danger
to life or limb! What we parted with was almost necessary for our life
and health; of course he gave us an order on Captain T—— for
everything, but not one farthing was ever repaid. At first he made a
pretence of paying the Natives for food received; but afterwards, an
armed band went inland night by night and robbed and plundered
whatever came to hand. The Natives, seeing the food of their children
ruthlessly stolen, were shot down without mercy when they dared to
interfere; and the life of every white man was marked for speedy
revenge. Glad were we when a vessel called, and carried away these
white heathen Savages.
The same Captain T—— also began the shocking Kanaka labour-
traffic to the Colonies, after the sandal-wood trade was exhausted,
which has since destroyed so many thousands of the Natives in what
was nothing less than Colonial slavery, and has largely depopulated
the Islands either directly or indirectly. And yet he wrote, and
published in Sydney, a pamphlet declaring that he and his sandal-
wooders and Kanaka labour collectors had done more to civilize the
Islanders than all our Mission efforts combined. Civilize them,
indeed! By spreading disease and vice, misery and death amongst
them, even at the best; at the worst, slaving many of them till they
perished at their toils, shooting down others under one or other
guilty pretence, and positively sweeping thousands into an untimely
grave. A common cry on their lips was,—
“Let them perish and let the white men occupy these Isles.”
It was such conduct as this, that made the Islanders suspect all
foreigners and hate the white man and seek revenge in robbery and
murder. One Trader, for instance, a sandal-wooder and collector of
Kanakas, living at Port Resolution, abominably ill-used a party of
Natives. They determined in revenge to plunder his store. The cellar
was underneath his house, and he himself slept above the trap-door
by which alone it could be entered. Night and day he was guarded by
armed men, Natives of adjoining islands, and all approaches to his
premises were watched by savage dogs that gave timely warning. He
felt himself secure. But the Tannese actually constructed a tunnel
underground from the bush, through which they rolled away
tobacco, ammunition, etc., and nearly emptied his cellar! My heart
bled to see men so capable and clever thus brutally abused and
demoralized and swept away. By the Gospel, and the civilization
which it brings, they were capable of learning anything and being
trained to a useful and even noble manhood. But all influence that
ever I witnessed from these Traders was degrading, and dead against
the work of our Missions.
The Chief, Nowar Noukamara, usually known as Nowar, was my
best and most-to-be-trusted friend He was one of the nine or ten who
were most favourable to the Mission work, attending the Worship
pretty regularly, conducting it also in their own houses and villages,
and making generally a somewhat unstable profession of
Christianity. One or more of them often accompanied me on
Sabbath, when going to conduct the Worship at inland villages, and
sometimes they protected me from personal injury. This Nowar
influenced the Harbour Chiefs and their people for eight or ten miles
around to get up a great feast in favour of the Worship of Jehovah.
All were personally and specially invited, and it was the largest
Assembly of any kind that I ever witnessed on the Islands.
When all was ready, Nowar sent a party of Chiefs to escort me and
my Aneityumese Teachers to the feast. Fourteen Chiefs, in turn,
made speeches to the assembled multitude; the drift of all being, that
war and fighting be given up on Tanna,—that no more people be
killed by nahak, for witchcraft and sorcery were lies,—that Sacred
Men no longer profess to make wind and rain, famine and plenty,
disease and death,—that the dark heathen talk of Tanna should
cease, that all here present should adopt the Worship of Jehovah as
taught to them by the Missionary and the Aneityumese,—and that all
the banished Tribes should be invited to their own lands to live in
peace! These strange speeches did not draw forth a single opposing
voice. Doubtless these men were in earnest, and had there been one
master mind to rule and mould them, their regeneration had
dawned. Though for the moment a feeling of friendliness prevailed,
the Tannese were unstable as water and easily swayed one way or the
other. They are born talkers, and can and will speechify on all
occasions, but most of it means nothing, bears no fruit.
After these speeches, a scene followed which gradually assumed
shape as an idolatrous ceremonial and greatly horrified me. It was in
connection with the immense quantity of food that had been
prepared for the feast, especially pigs and fowls. A great heap had
been piled up for each Tribe represented, and a handsome portion
also set apart for the Missionary and his Teachers. The ceremony was
this, as nearly as I could follow it. One hundred or so of the leading
men marched into the large cleared space in the centre of the
assembled multitudes, and stood there facing each other in equal
lines, with a man at either end closing up the passage between. At the
middle they stood eight or ten feet apart, gradually nearing till they
almost met at either end. Amid tremendous silence for a few
moments all stood hushed; then every man kneeled on his right
knee, extended his right hand, and bent forward till his face nearly
touched the ground. Thereon the man at the one end began
muttering something, his voice rising ever louder as he rose to his
feet, when it ended in a fearful yell as he stood erect. Next the two
long lines of men, all in a body, went through the same ceremonial,
rising gradually to their feet, with mutterings deepening into a howl,
and heightening into a yell as they stood erect. Finally, the man at
the other end went through the same hideous forms. All this was
thrice deliberately repeated, each time with growing frenzy. And
then, all standing on their feet, they united as with one voice in what
sounded like music running mad up and down the scale, closing with
a long, deep-toned, hollow howl as of souls in pain. With smiles of
joy, the men then all shook hands with each other. Nowar and
another Chief briefly spoke, and the food was then divided and
exchanged, a principal man of each Tribe standing by to receive and
watch his portion.
At this stage, Nowar and Nerwangi, as leaders, addressed the
Teachers and the Missionary to this effect:—
“This feast is held to move all the Chiefs and People here to give up
fighting, to become friends, and to worship your Jehovah God. We
wish you to remain, and to teach us all good conduct. As an evidence
of our sincerity, and of our love, we have prepared this pile of food
for you.”
In reply, I addressed the whole multitude, saying how pleased I
was with their speeches and with the resolutions and promises which
they all had made. I further urged them to stick fast by these, and
that grand fruits would arise to their island, to themselves and to
their children.
Having finished a brief address, I then walked forward to the very
middle of the circle, and laid down before them a bundle of stripes of
red calico and pieces of white calico, a number of fish-hooks, knives,
etc. etc., requesting the two Chiefs to divide my offering of goodwill
among the Tribes assembled, and also the pile of food presented to
us, as a token of my love and friendship to them all.
Their insisting upon me taking their present of food, laid upon me
an unpleasant and dangerous necessity of explaining my refusal. I
again thanked them very warmly, and explained that, as they had in
my presence given away all their food to an Idol God and asked his
blessing on it as a sacrifice, even to Karapanamun, the great Evil
Spirit, my people and I durst not and could not eat of it, for that
would be to have fellowship with their Idols and to dishonour
Jehovah God. Christians could acknowledge only the one true and
living God, and ask His blessing on their food, and offer it and
themselves in thanksgiving unto Him, but unto no cruel or evil
Spirit. Yet I explained to them how much I thanked them, and how I
loved them just as much as if we had eaten all their gifts, and how it
would please us to see them all, along with my own gifts, divided
amongst their Tribes.
Not without some doubt, and under considerable trial, did I take
this apparently unfriendly attitude. But I feared to seem even to
approve of any act of devil-worship, or to confirm them in it, being
there to discourage all such scenes, and to lead them to acknowledge
only the true God. I felt as if guilty and as if the hat were rising from
my head, when I heard them imprecating and appeasing their God,
without being able to show them the God of Love and the better way
into His presence through Jesus Christ. My opportunity to do so
arose over the refusal of the food offered unto Idols, and I told them
of the claims of Jehovah, the jealous God, who would not share His
worship with any other. But all the time I felt this qualm,—that it
were better to eat food with men who acknowledged some God and
asked his blessing than with those white Heathens at home, who
asked the blessing of no God, nor thanked Him, in this worse than
the dog which licks the hand that feeds it! Nowar and Nerwangi
explained in great orations what I meant, and how I wished all to be
divided amongst the assembled Tribes to show my love. With this, all
seemed highly satisfied.
Heathen dances were now entered upon, their paint and feathers
and ornaments adding to the wildness of the scene. The men seemed
to dance in an inside ring, and the women in an outside ring, at a
considerable distance from each other. Music was supplied by
singing and clapping of hands. The order was perfect, and the figures
highly intricate. But I have never been able to associate dancing with
things lovely and of good report! After the dancing, all retired to the
bush, and a kind of sham fight followed on the public cleared ground.
A host of painted savages rushed in and took possession with songs
and shoutings. From the bush, on the opposite side, the chanting of
women was heard in the distance, louder and louder as they
approached. Snatching from a burning fire flaming sticks, they
rushed on the men with these, beating them and throwing burning
pieces of wood among them, till with deafening yells amongst
themselves and amidst shouts of laughter from the crowd, they drove
them from the space, and danced thereon and sang a song of victory.
The dancing and fighting, the naked painted figures, and the
constant yells and shoutings gave one a weird sensation, and
suggested strange ideas of Hell broken loose.
The final scene approached, when the men assisted their women to
fill all the allotted food into baskets, to be carried home and eaten
there; for the different Tribes do not sit down together and eat
together as we would do; their coming together is for the purpose of
exchanging and dividing the food presented. And now they broke
into friendly confusion, and freely walked about mingling with each
other; and a kind of savage rehearsal of Jonathan and David took
place. They stripped themselves of their fantastic dresses, their
handsomely woven and twisted grass skirts, leaf skirts, grass and leaf
aprons; they gave away or exchanged all these, and their ornaments
and bows and arrows, besides their less romantic calico and print
dresses more recently acquired. The effusion and ceremonial of the
gifts and exchanges seemed to betoken a loving people; and so they
were for the feast—but that laid not aside a single deadly feud, and
streams of blood and cries of hate would soon efface all traces of this
day.
I had now six Stations, opened up and ministered to by
Aneityumese Teachers, at the leading villages along the coast, and
forming links in a chain towards the other Mission Establishment on
Tanna. And there were villages prepared to receive as many more.
These Teachers had all been cannibals once, yet, with one exception,
they proved themselves to the best of my judgment to be a band of
faithful and devoted followers of Christ. Their names were Abraham,
Kowari, Nomuri, Nerwa, Lazarus, and Eoufati. I visited them
periodically and frequently, encouraging and guiding them, as well
as trying to interest the villagers in their teaching and work. But,
whenever war broke out they had all to return to the Mission House,
and sleep there for safety by night, visiting their Stations, if
practicable, by the light of day. My poor dear Teachers, too, had to
bear persecutions for Jesu’s sake, as the following incident will
sorrowfully prove.
A native woman, with some murderous purpose in her heart,
pretended great friendship to the excellent wife of one of my fellow-
labourers. She was specially effusive in bringing to her dishes of food
from time to time. Having thus gained confidence, she caught a little
black fish of those parts, known to be deadly poisonous, and baked it
up in a mess for the unsuspecting Teacher’s wife. On returning, she
boasted of what she had done, and thereon a friendly neighbour
rushed off to warn the other, but arrived just to learn that the fatal
meal had been taken. Beyond all reach of human skill, this unknown
martyr for Christ died soon after in great agony, and doubtless
received her Master’s reward.
In helping to open up new Stations, those dear native Teachers
often bore the greatest hardships and indignities with a noble self-
denial and positively wonderful patience. Nothing known to men
under Heaven could have produced their new character and
disposition, except only the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Though still
marred by many of the faults of Heathenism, they were at the roots
of their being literally new creatures, trying, according to their best
light, to live for and to please their new Master, Jesus Christ. This
shone out very conspicuously in these two apostolic souls, Abraham
and Kowari, as leaders among all the devoted band.
Let me recall another occasion, on which I prevented a war. Early
one morning, the savage yells of warring Tribes woke me from sleep.
They had broken into a quarrel about a woman, and were fiercely
engaged with their clubs. According to my custom, I rushed in
amongst them, and, not without much difficulty, was blessed in
separating them before deadly wounds had been given or received.
On this occasion, the Chiefs of both Tribes, being very friendly to me,
drove their people back from each other at my earnest appeals.
Sitting down at length within earshot, they had it out in a wild
scolding match, a contest of lung and tongue. Meanwhile I rested on
a canoe midway betwixt them, in the hope of averting a renewal of
hostilities. By-and-by an old Sacred Man, a Chief called Sapa, with
some touch of savage comedy in his breast, volunteered an episode
which restored good humour to the scene. Leaping up, he came
dancing and singing towards me, and there, to the amusement of all,
re-enacted the quarrel, and mimicked rather cleverly my attempt at
separating the combatants. Smashing at the canoe with his club, he
yelled and knocked down imaginary enemies; then, rushing first at
one party and then at the other, he represented me as appealing and
gesticulating and pushing them afar from each other, till he became
quite exhausted. Thereon he came and planted himself in great glee
beside me, and looked around as if to say,—“You must laugh, for I
have played.” At this very juncture, a loud cry of “Sail O!” broke upon
our ears, and all parties leapt to their feet, and prepared for a new
sensation; for in those climes, everything—war itself—is a smaller
interest than a vessel from the Great Unknown World sailing into
your Harbour.
Not many days thereafter, a very horrible transaction occurred.
Before daybreak, I heard shot after shot quickly discharged in the
Harbour. One of my Teachers came running, and cried,—
“Missi, six or seven men have been shot dead this morning for a
great feast. It is to reconcile Tribes that have been at war, and to
allow a banished Tribe to return in peace.”
I learned that the leading men had in council agreed upon this
sacrifice, but the name of each victim was kept a secret till the last
moment. The torture of suspense and uncertainty seemed to be
borne by all as part of their appointed lot, nor did they prepare as if
suspecting any dread assault. Before daylight, the Sacred Men
allocated a murderer to the door of each house where a victim slept.
A signal shot was fired; all rushed to their doors, and the doomed
ones were shot and clubbed to death as they attempted to escape.
Their bodies were then borne to a sacred tree, and hung up there by
the hands for a time, as an offering to the Gods. Being taken down,
they were carried ceremoniously and laid out on the shore near my
house, placed under a special guard.
Information had reached me that my Teachers and I were also
destined victims for this same feast, and sure enough we espied a
band of armed men, the killers, despatched towards our premises.
Instantaneously I had the Teachers and their wives and myself
securely locked into the Mission House; and, cut off from all human
hope, we set ourselves to pray to our dear Lord Jesus, either Himself
to protect us or to take us to His glory. All through that morning and
forenoon we heard them tramp-tramping round our house,
whispering to each other, and hovering near window and door. They
knew that there were a double-barrelled fowling-piece and a revolver
on the premises, though they never had seen me use them, and that
may, under God, have held them back in dread. But such a thought
did not enter our souls even in that awful time. I had gone to save,
and not to destroy. It would be easier for me at any time to die than
to kill one of them. Our safety lay in our appeal to that blessed Lord
who had placed us there, and to whom all power had been given in
Heaven and on Earth. He that was with us was more than all that
could be against us. This is strength; this is peace:—to feel, in
entering on every day, that all its duties and trials have been
committed to the Lord Jesus,—that, come what may, He will use us
for His own glory and our real good!
All through that dreadful morning, and far into the afternoon, we
thus abode together, feeling conscious that we were united to this
dear Lord Jesus, and we had sweet communion with Him,
meditating on the wonders of His person and the hopes and glories
of His kingdom. Oh, that all my readers may learn something of this
in their own experience of the Lord! I can wish them nothing more
precious. Towards sundown, constrained by the Invisible One, they
withdrew from our Mission House, and left us once more in peace.
They bore away the slain to be cooked, and distributed amongst the
Tribes, and eaten in their feast of reconciliation; a covenant sealed in
blood, and soon, alas, to be buried in blood again! For many days
thereafter, we had to take unusual care, and not unduly expose
ourselves to danger; for dark characters were seen prowling about in
the bush near at hand, and we knew that our life was the prize. We
took what care we could, and God the Lord did the rest, or rather He
did all—for His wisdom guided us, and His power baffled them.
Shortly thereafter, war was again declared by the Inland people
attacking our Harbour people. It was an old quarrel; and the war was
renewed and continued, long after the cause thereof had passed
away. Going amongst them every day, I did my utmost to stop
hostilities, setting the evils of war before them, and pleading with the
leading men to renounce it. Thereon arose a characteristic incident
of Island and Heathen life. One day I held a Service in the village
where morning after morning their Tribes assembled, and declared
that if they would believe in and follow the Jehovah God, He would
deliver them from all their enemies and lead them into a happy life.
There were present three Sacred Men, Chiefs, of whom the whole
population lived in terror,—brothers or cousins, heroes of traditional
feats, professors of sorcery, and claiming the power of life and death,
health and sickness, rain and drought, according to their will. On
hearing me, these three stood up and declared they did not believe in
Jehovah, nor did they need His help, for they had the power to kill
my life by Nahak (i.e., sorcery or witchcraft), if only they could get
possession of any piece of the fruit or food that I had eaten. This was
an essential condition of their black art; hence the peel of a banana
or an orange, and every broken scrap of food, is gathered up by the
Natives, lest it should fall into the hands of the Sacred Men, and be
used for Nahak. This superstition was the cause of most of the
bloodshed and terror upon Tanna; and being thus challenged, I
asked God’s help, and determined to strike a blow against it. A
woman was standing near with a bunch of native fruit in her hand,
like our plums, called quonquore. I asked her to be pleased to give
me some; and she, holding out a bunch, said,—
“Take freely what you will!”
Calling the attention of all the Assembly to what I was doing, I took
three fruits from the bunch, and taking a bite out of each, I gave
them one after another to the three Sacred Men, and deliberately
said in the hearing of all,—
“You have seen me eat of this fruit, you have seen me give the
remainder to your Sacred Men; they have said they can kill me by
Nahak, but I challenge them to do it if they can, without arrow or
spear, club or musket, for I deny that they have any power against
me or against any one by their Sorcery.”
The challenge was accepted; the Natives looked terror-struck at
the position in which I was placed! The ceremony of Nahak was
usually performed in secret,—the Tannese fleeing in dread, as
Europeans would from the touch of the plague; but I lingered and
eagerly watched their ritual. As the three Chiefs arose, and drew near
to one of the Sacred Trees, to begin their ceremonial, the Natives fled
in terror, crying,—
“Missi, away! Alas, Missi!”
But I held on at my post of observation. Amidst wavings and
incantations, they rolled up the pieces of the fruit from which I had
eaten, in certain leaves of this Sacred Tree into a shape like a waxen
candle; then they kindled a sacred fire near the root, and continued
their mutterings, gradually burning a little more and a little more of
the candle-shaped things, wheeling them round their heads, blowing
upon them with their breaths, waving them in the air, and glancing
wildly at me as if expecting my sudden destruction. Wondering
whether after all they did not believe their own lie, for they seemed to
be in dead earnest, I, more eager than ever to break the chains of
such vile superstition, urged them again and again, crying,—
“Be quick! Stir up your Gods to help you! I am not killed yet; I am
perfectly well!”
At last they stood up and said,—
“We must delay till we have called all our Sacred Men. We will kill
Missi before his next Sabbath comes round. Let all watch, for he will
soon die and that without fail.”
I replied, “Very good! I challenge all your Priests to unite and kill
me by Sorcery or Nahak. If on Sabbath next I come again to your
village in health, you will all admit that your Gods have no power
over me, and that I am protected by the true and living Jehovah
God!”
For every day throughout the remainder of that week, the Conchs
were sounded, and over that side of the island all their Sacred Men
were at work trying to kill me by their arts. Now and again
messengers arrived from every quarter of the island, inquiring
anxiously after my health, and wondering if I was not feeling sick,
and great excitement prevailed amongst the poor deluded idolaters.
Sabbath dawned upon me peacefully, and I went to that village in
more than my usual health and strength. Large numbers assembled,
and when I appeared they looked at each other in terror, as if it could
not really be I, myself, still spared and well. Entering into the public
ground, I saluted them to this effect,—
“My love to you all, my friends! I have come again to talk to you
about the Jehovah God and His Worship.”
The three Sacred Men, on being asked, admitted that they had
tried to kill me by Nahak, but had failed; and on being questioned,
why they had failed, they gave the acute and subtle reply, that I also
was myself a Sacred Man, and that my God being the stronger had
protected me from their Gods. Addressing the multitude, I answered
thus,—
“Yea, truly; my Jehovah God is stronger than your Gods. He
protected me, and helped me; for He is the only living and true God,
the only God that can hear or answer any prayer from the children of
men. Your Gods cannot hear prayers, but my God can and will hear
and answer you, if you will give heart and life to Him, and love and
serve Him only. This is my God, and He is also your friend if you will
hear and follow His voice.”
Having said this, I sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and
addressed them,—
“Come and sit down all around me, and I will talk to you about the
love and mercy of my God, and teach you how to worship and please
Him.”
Two of the Sacred Men then sat down, and all the people gathered
round and seated themselves very quietly. I tried to present to them
ideas of sin, and of salvation through Jesus Christ, as revealed to us
in the Holy Scriptures.
The third Sacred Man, the highest in rank, a man of great stature
and uncommon strength, had meantime gone off for his warrior’s
spear, and returned brandishing it in the air and poising it at me. I
said to the people,—
“Of course he can kill me with his spear, but he undertook to kill
me by Nahak or Sorcery, and promised not to use against me any
weapons of war; and if you let him kill me now, you will kill your
friend, one who lives among you and only tries to do you good, as you
all know so well. I know that if you kill me thus, my God will be angry
and will punish you.”
Thereon I seated myself calmly in the midst of the crowd, while he
leaped about in rage, scolding his brothers and all who were present
for listening to me. The other Sacred Men, however, took my side,
and, as many of the people also were friendly to me and stood closely
packed around me, he did not throw his spear. To allay the tumult
and obviate further bloodshed, I offered to leave with my Teachers at
once, and, in doing so, I ardently pled with them to live at peace.
Though we got safely home, that old Sacred Man seemed still to
hunger after my blood. For weeks thereafter, go where I would, he
would suddenly appear on the path behind me, poising in his right
hand that same Goliath spear. God only kept it from being thrown,
and I, using every lawful precaution, had all the same to attend to my
work, as if no enemy were there, leaving all other results in the hands
of Jesus. This whole incident did, doubtless, shake the prejudices of
many as to Sorcery; but few even of converted Natives ever get
entirely clear of the dread of Nahak.
If not truly converted, the two Priests were fast friends of mine
from that day, as also another leading man in the same district. They

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(Original PDF) Personality and Social

Psychology PSY2042 (Custom Edition)

9781488619960_T.indd 1 4/10/17 5:30 PM

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Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives

The Importance of Explanation

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Introducing Social Psychology 3

Defining Social Psychology

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Our thoughts, feelings, and actions

Social Psychology, Philosophy, Science,

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Introducing Social Psychology 5

British soldiers stand near burning

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experiments in social psychology presents many challenges, primarily because we

How Social Psychology Differs from Its

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Introducing Social Psychology 7

Personality psychologists study

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Social psychology is related to other disciplines in the social sciences, includ-

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Introducing Social Psychology 9

Table 1.1 Social Psychology Compared to Related Disciplines

influence behavior. Social psychology and personality psychology share an inter-

The Power of the Situation

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The Importance of Explanation

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Introducing Social Psychology 11

Figure 1.1 Why the Name of the Game Matters

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Of course personality differences do exist and frequently are of great importance,

The Importance of Interpretation

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Introducing Social Psychology 13

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Research by social psychologists on

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Introducing Social Psychology 15

Where Construals Come From:

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believe that intensifying the bombing will only

The Self-Esteem Motive: The Need to Feel

SUFFERING AND SELF-JUSTIFICATION Let’s go back to one of our early scenar-

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