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 BURTON | SANDERSON

Social
Psychology
1S T A U S T R A L I A N AND NEW ZEAL AND EDITION
9.3 Stereotyping is almost inevitable 382 10.5 How culture influences aggression 446
Stereotypes are activated automatically 385 Prevalence of aggression 447
Stereotypes are hard to suppress 385 Prevalence of domestic violence 447
Disconfirming evidence is ignored 386 Summary 449
Subtle discrimination persists 387 Key terms 449
9.4 How social and cognitive interventions can Review questions 450
help overcome stereotypes 390 Application questions 450
Research activities 450
Increase contact 390
References 451
Provide training and education 393
Acknowledgements 460
Be motivated to avoid stereotyping 394
9.5 How culture influences prejudice and CHAPTER 11
stereotypes 397
Reliance on cognitive biases 398
Interpersonal attraction and
Types of stereotypes 398 close relationships 461
Summary 401 11.1 Predicting interpersonal attraction 463
Key terms 401 Physical attractiveness 465
Review questions 402 Relationship factors 472
Application questions 402
Situational factors 474
Research activities 403
Predictors of attraction in friendship 477
References 403
Acknowledgements 413 11.2 Love is different things to different
people 479
CHAPTER 10 Passionate–companionate love 479

Aggression 414 Triangular theory 480

Love styles 482
10.1 How biological factors influence
Why does love matter? 483
aggression 416
11.3 Predictors of relationship
Instinct and evolutionary theories 417
satisfaction 484
Genetics 419
Social exchange theory 485
Hormones 422
Attachment styles 487
10.2 How social psychological factors
Positive illusions 490
influence aggression 426
Strategies for increasing relationship
Frustration–aggression theory 427
satisfaction 493
Cognitive neoassociation theory 431
11.4 Common problems in close
Excitation transfer theory 433
relationships 494
Social learning theory 433
Conflict 495
General aggression model 435
Jealousy 498
10.3 How the media influences
Loneliness 501
aggression 437
Relationship dissolution 503
The media models aggression 438
11.5 How culture influences interpersonal
The media primes aggressive thoughts and
attraction and close relationships 506
feelings 438
Defining beauty 506
The media creates physiological arousal 440
The nature of love 506
The media reduces reactions to
The nature of friendships 508
aggression 440
Summary 511
10.4 How can we reduce aggression? 442
Key terms 511
Punishing aggressive behaviour 443
Review questions 512
Modelling non‐aggressive responses 443 Application questions 512
Training in communication and problem‐solving Research activities 512
skills 444 References 513
Increasing empathy 445 Acknowledgements 524

vi CONTENTS
 CHAPTER 12 Comparing the models 556
Predicting long‐term helping 558
Altruism and prosocial 12.4 Factors that determine who gets
behaviour 525 help 559
12.1 How personal factors influence helping 527 Person factors 559
Evolutionary factors 529 Social norms 561
Personality 531 Relationship factors 563
Religion 534 The downside of receiving help 565
12.2 How situational factors influence 12.5 How culture influences helping 566
helping 535 Frequency of helping 567
Decision‐making process model 536
Norms for helping 568
Arousal/cost–reward model 542
Motivations for helping 569
Mood 546
Summary 571
Modelling 547
Key terms 571
Environmental factors 548 Review questions 572
12.3 Pure altruism: fact or fiction? 551 Application questions 572
Empathy–altruism hypothesis 551 Research activities 573
Impact of empathetic motives 553 References 573
Impact of feeling similar 553 Acknowledgements 580

CONTENTS vii
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Lorelle Burton
Lorelle Burton is Professor of Psychology in the Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences at the
University of Southern Queensland (USQ). Lorelle is a fully registered psychologist and a full member
of the Australian Psychological Society (APS). She commenced full-time teaching in 1996, with her
primary areas of interest including foundation psychology and individual differences. Lorelle’s passion
for teaching psychology has been recognised with a number of teaching excellence awards, both locally
and nationally. She received the USQ Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001, and the Dean’s Award for
Outstanding Contribution to the Faculty of Sciences in 2005 and 2006. In 2004, she was awarded the
2004 Pearson Education and APS Psychology Early Career Teaching Award, and in 2006 she received
a Carrick Australian Award for Teaching Excellence (Social Sciences) and a Carrick Australian Citation
for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. Lorelle is the author of the widely used first-year
text Psychology, 4th Australian and New Zealand edition.
One of the keys to Lorelle’s success as a teacher is her commitment to developing innovative
approaches to course design and delivery. She is deeply committed to the quality of learning experiences
and the success of her students, and has passionately embraced new technologies as a means of creating
exciting, interesting and meaningful learning environments. Via online discussion forums, interactive
online exercises and multimedia delivery, she engages her students and enables them to become active
and satisfied participants in their learning experiences. For example, she authored the widely used text
entitled An Interactive Approach to Writing Essays and Research Reports in Psychology, currently in its
third edition, which includes interactive practice exercises to help students quickly master the core refer-
encing requirements in psychology and better manage their own learning needs.
Lorelle’s current research focus is on better understanding the factors that impact on student learning.
She has presented and published multiple papers at national and international conferences in her special-
ised areas of teaching and research. Lorelle has been an invited assessor for national teaching excellence
awards and grants and has led numerous national collaborative research projects on student transition.
She has published and presented multiple papers at national and international conferences in her special-
ised areas of teaching and research. Lorelle’s current research focus involves leading cross-community
collaborations to promote community capacity building and wellbeing. Psychology is second to her
main love in life — her family. Lorelle is married to Andrew Fox and they have two children, Emily and
Benjamin.

Catherine A. Sanderson
Catherine Sanderson is a Professor of Psychology at Amherst College. She earned her A. B. at Stan-
ford University and her M. S. and Ph.D. at Princeton University. While at Princeton, she received the
­Psychology Department’s First Year Merit Prize, a National Science Foundation Fellowship and a
­Dissertation Research Award from the American Psychological Association.
Sanderson’s research, which has received funding from the National Institute of Health, is based on
social-personality psychology and specifically on issues within close relationships and health-related
behaviour, such as the interaction of individuals in closer relationships; individuals’ accuracy in per-
ceiving others’ attitudes and behaviour; and why individuals learn more when they receive personally
relevant or ‘matching’ messages. Sanderson is the author of Slow and Steady Parenting: Active Child-
Raising for the Long Haul, as well as a textbook entitled Health Psychology. She has served on the Edi-
torial Boards for Health Psychology, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal
of Research in Personality.

viii ABOUT THE AUTHORS

 In her introductory psychology and social psychology courses at Amherst College, Sanderson’s
teaching emphasises providing students with general information and skills in interpreting and under-
standing research that can be explored in more details in future classes that focus in depth on health
psychology, close relationships and sports psychology. These classes offer a different type of chal-
lenge, namely working with students to critically examine, discuss and write about empirical research in
­particular areas.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS ix

CHAPTER 1

Introducing social
psychology
LEA RNIN G OBJE CTIVE S

After studying this chapter you should be able to:

1.1 define social psychology
1.2 discuss how social psychology has evolved over time
1.3 discuss how social psychology is more than common sense
1.4 identify connections between social psychology and other fields
1.5 explain how social psychology applies across cultures and subcultures.
 CONCEPT MAP

Introducing social psychology

Social psychology defined

• Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, attitudes and behaviours are
influenced by factors in the social world.
• Self‐perception is how we think about ourselves, particularly how our views about ourselves
depend on our environment. Self‐presentation is how we present ourselves to others. We use
many strategies to convey impressions about ourselves to others.
• Social perception is how people form impressions and make inferences about other people and
events in the social world. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to assume that other
people’s behaviour corresponds to their internal states rather than external or situational factors.
Social cognition describes the processes by which people make sense of others, themselves,
social interactions and relationships.
• Social influence is the impact of other people’s attitudes and behaviours on our own thoughts,
feelings, attitudes and behaviour.
• Self‐fulfilling prophecies are false impressions of a situation that evoke behaviour that, in turn,
makes impressions become true.

The evolution of social psychology

• The discipline of behaviourism focuses on the relationship between observable behaviours and
environmental stimuli.
• Gestalt psychology emphasises that perception is an active experience of imposing order on
details by seeing them as parts of a larger whole.
• Positive psychology was established in 1998 to focus specifically on people’s virtues and strengths
(Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Researchers in this field examine the traits that are associated with
life satisfaction and the predictors of healthy human functioning, then design interventions to
improve wellbeing.

Social psychology or common sense?

• Hindsight bias refers to people’s tendency to believe, once they’ve learned the outcome of
something, that that particular outcome was obvious.
• The scientific method is a research method used for investigating phenomena, acquiring new
knowledge, and evaluating and integrating previous knowledge. Social psychologists use the
scientific method to examine the accuracy of seemingly common‐sense beliefs. A hypothesis is
an educated guess about the relationship between events, the accuracy of which is examined
through the collection of data, observation and/or experimentation.

Social psychology and other fields

• Social psychology links to the following fields within the psychology discipline:
–– personality psychology (focuses on individual differences)
–– clinical psychology (focuses on understanding and treating people with psychological disorders)
–– cognitive psychology (focuses on mental processes).
• Social psychology also links to other disciplines, including:
–– sociology (examines general rules and theories about groups)
–– biology (examines the structure, function, growth and evolution of living things)
–– anthropology (examines the concept of culture)
–– economics (studies how people make trade‐offs between scarce resources and how they
choose between various alternatives).

2 Social Psychology
 Social psychology across cultures

• This sociocultural perspective describes people’s behaviour and mental processes as shaped in
part by their social and/or cultural contact, including race, gender and nationality.
• The individualism–collectivism continuum classifies cultures based on the extent to which
they favour individual goals compared to communal goals. Modern Australia, along with
other Western cultures (e.g., the US, Canada and Great Britain), is an individualist culture.
Traditional Aboriginal communities in Australia and Maori communities in New Zealand —
along with many Eastern countries, such as Japan, Thailand and India — are collectivist
in nature.

1.1 Defining social psychology

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1.1 Define social psychology.
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, attitudes and behaviours are influ-
enced by factors in the social world. For example, social psychologists study how people’s thoughts
about the attractiveness of their romantic partner vary depending on whom they are comparing this
partner to, how people’s attitudes might change after hearing a particular advertising message, and why
people behave more aggressively when they are in a group setting than when they are alone.
This resource will focus on three distinct, but interrelated, topics addressed by social psychologists:
•• how we think about ourselves
•• how we think, feel and act in the social world
•• how our attitudes and behaviour shape the social world.
These three topics within social psychology will be highlighted in the big picture table at the end
of each chapter so that you can see how the topics addressed relate to these broad themes and con-
tribute to an understanding of the big picture of social psychology. Let’s examine each of these topics
in turn.

How we think about ourselves

Social psychology examines how we think about ourselves, or self‐perception, and how our views
about ourselves depend on our environment. Many students arrive at university feeling rather good
about themselves. They may have been one of the smartest, most athletic or most artistic members
of their class in Year 12. However, students quickly realise that in the university environment, the
comparison group is different. Once you are surrounded by hundreds of people who themselves
were the smartest, most athletic or most artistic members of their own Year 12 class, you suddenly
don’t feel so good about yourself. Similarly, you may feel quite confident about your own appear-
ance. But after scrolling through the ‘fitspo’ hashtag on Instagram, you may feel rather insecure.
These are just some of the ways in which factors in the social world influence how we think about
ourselves.
Social psychology also examines self‐presentation, or how we present ourselves to others. We
use many strategies to convey impressions about ourselves to others: the car we drive, the clothes or
jewellery we wear, even the kind of phone we own. Even the content we share on social media —
posts about where we are going on holiday, parties we’ve attended and items we’ve bought — convey
information about our habits, interests and resources.

CHAPTER 1 Introducing social psychology 3

Results of a study by Back et al. (2009) were consistent with the extended real-life hypothesis: Facebook profiles
reflect a user’s actual personality, rather than their idealised self. We can assume, then, that the man in this picture
really is a ‘dog person’ if he posts this selfie to his Facebook timeline.

How we think, feel and act in the social world

Social psychology also examines how people form impressions and make inferences about other people and
events in the social world, a process called social perception. We form these impressions easily and fre-
quently — we decide why our favourite NRL team won the game, why a result on an assignment was lower
than we expected and why our best friend’s Tinder date probably won’t result in a lasting relationship.
Although understanding and predicting someone’s attitudes and behaviour may seem like a very rational
and straightforward process, we often make mistakes in assessing the cause of another person’s behaviour.
One of the common errors we make is to focus too much on the role of personal factors, while ignoring or
downplaying the often considerable influence of the situation. Imagine you’re waiting in line to buy your
groceries and you overhear the customer in front of you snapping at the service assistant for scanning each
item too slowly. Many people in this situation would make an assumption about the customer’s personality,
judging him or her as rude, aggressive or obnoxious. These are all internal traits or characteristics. How-
ever, we are much less likely to think about external or situational factors that may have influenced this
person’s behaviour. Perhaps the customer was running late for a job interview or was worried about receiving
a parking ticket. Either of these situational factors could potentially explain the person’s rude behaviour,
and yet we often ignore such variables and instead attribute the behaviour to the person’s internal traits. This
phenomenon is called the fundamental attribution error (also referred to as correspondence bias).
A particular type of social perception, social cognition, describes how people think about others,
themselves, social interactions and relationships. In some cases, we see the world in an accurate way.
For example, you might assume that expensive restaurants serve better food than fast food restaurants —
and this is a pretty good assumption. But in other cases, we make errors in our judgements about people
and events in the world. For example, many people are more afraid of travel by aeroplane than travel by
car, despite many more people dying in car accidents than in aeroplane accidents each year.
Another central issue examined by social psychology is social influence, meaning the impact of other
people’s attitudes and behaviours on our own thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviour. In some cases
social influence is quite direct: sponsored posts in your Facebook feed are a good example of deliberate
efforts to influence attitudes and behaviour. In other cases, however, social influence is very subtle.

4 Social Psychology
We are, for example, less likely to help a person in need if we are in a large group than if we are alone
with the person, partly because we don’t feel personally responsible for helping.
Social psychology examines not only the impact of people’s attitudes and behaviour — that is, the
attitudes and behaviour of our friends, classmates, parents, public figures and so on — but also the
impact of our perceptions of these people’s attitudes and behaviours. Let’s take an example that occurs
frequently in lectures. Imagine that your professor finishes a section of the lecture and asks whether
anyone has a question. You might have a question that you’d like to ask about the material that was just
presented, but when you look around the room, you notice that no one else has a hand raised. You there-
fore decide not to ask your question, because you fear looking stupid for being the only person with a
question. In this case, you assume that no other students have questions, and therefore believe that they
must have understood all the material. This perception of their knowledge — regardless of whether it is
accurate — influences your own behaviour. Our beliefs about the social world can influence our attitudes
and behaviour even when these beliefs are inaccurate, as described in the health connections box.

HEALTH CONNECTIONS

Why uni students drink less than you think they do

To help you make connections between research in social psychology and real‐world issues, in each
chapter this resource features boxes that illustrate how principles in social psychology relate to edu-
cation, law, health, business, mainstream and social media, and the environment.
Social norms and errors we make in perceiving them influence alcohol use by university students. In
one of the first studies of this effect, Deborah Prentice and Dale Miller at Princeton University examined
students’ own comfort with the frequency of alcohol use on campus as well as their beliefs about their
peers’ comfort with alcohol use (1993). Their findings revealed that many students felt uncomfortable
with the amount of drinking on campus — they believed that there was too much drinking. However,
these students also tended to believe that other students were quite comfortable with the amount of
drinking. Unfortunately, students who believe (even wrongly) that other students approve of high levels
of drinking may start drinking more in order to fit in with their perceptions of what others are doing. In
this way, beliefs about the frequency of and comfort with alcohol use on campus can actually increase
such behaviour, even when such beliefs are based on inaccurate information.

CHAPTER 1 Introducing social psychology 5

 Social psychology examines the impact of events on our attitudes and behaviours. Have you ever
noticed that when you are in a bad mood you are more likely to act rudely? Would you believe that just
feeling really hot can lead you to behave more aggressively, or that smelling biscuits baking in the oven
could lead you to be nicer to others? We’ll talk about these and other ways in which aspects of the social
world influence how we feel, think and behave.

How our attitudes and behaviours shape the social world

Finally, social psychology also examines how our own attitudes and behaviours can shape the social
world. In self‐fulfilling prophecies, people’s expectations about someone else’s traits influence how
they act towards that person. In turn, these actions elicit the behaviour that is expected. Self‐fulfilling
prophecies therefore lead people to confirm whatever beliefs they have, and make it very difficult for
these beliefs to be disconfirmed.
Self‐fulfilling prophecies can have dramatic consequences in real‐world situations. In chapter 4,
you’ll learn about a study in which researchers told primary school teachers that a test had revealed
­certain students in their class would show a rise in intelligence scores in the upcoming school year
(Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). In reality, these students who were identified as likely to show an
increase in intelligence were chosen at random by the experimenters. However, students whose teachers
believed they would show an increase in intelligence improved their scores by as much as 30 points.
This is just one example of the power of self‐fulfilling prophecy on creating behaviour in real‐world
situations.

CONCEPTS IN CONTEXT

What is social psychology?

Theme Example

How we think about ourselves Sakirrah feels smarter when spending time with her high school friends
than when spending time with her university friends.

How we think, feel and act in James is very afraid of flying, even though his mother has assured him
the social world that flying is a safer way of travelling than driving.

How our attitudes and Pam believes her new co‐worker is aloof and distant. She therefore
behaviours shape the doesn’t ask him to join the other staff members for their regular after‐
social world work drinks on Fridays. Pam then notices that he seems even more
aloof and distant, thereby confirming her original opinion of him.

1.2 The evolution of social psychology over time

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1.2 Discuss how social psychology has evolved over time.
The field of social psychology is a relatively new one within the discipline of psychology; it was first
established as a unique discipline within psychology only at the start of the twentieth century, with the
publication of the first textbook in social psychology, written by Floyd Allport (1924). Early research in
social psychology was heavily influenced by three major factors: behaviourism, Gestalt psychology and
historical events. Let’s review each of these factors.

Behaviourism
In the early 20th century, psychologists who were interested in understanding people’s behaviour focused
on the impact of positive and negative events on behaviour. This discipline of behaviourism described

6 Social Psychology
people’s behaviour in a very straightforward way: behaviour followed with a reward would continue;
behaviour followed by punishment would not. This perspective was very influential in much of the
early work understanding animal behaviour. For example, renowned behaviourist B. F. Skinner trained
pigeons to engage in various behaviours, such as turning in a circle, nodding and ‘playing’ the piano,
using a reward to reinforce the behaviour.
The behaviourist approach is still influential in social psychology today. The social learning perspec-
tive describes how people form attitudes and behaviours through both receiving reinforcements for their
own attitudes and behaviours and watching other people’s attitudes and behaviours. Children who watch
movies where people are smoking are more likely to form positive attitudes towards smoking, and chil-
dren whose parents show prejudice towards people form negative attitudes about others. Both of these
topics will be covered throughout the course of this text.
Although the behaviourist approach clearly explains some behaviour, it ignores the role of people’s
thoughts, feelings and attitudes, and thereby is too simplistic to explain other behaviours. Giving a child
a reward for reading a book, for example, can actually backfire and reduce his or her interest in reading,
because the child then sees reading as driven only by the prospect of a reward, and not as driven by the
pure enjoyment of reading. This is one example of how people’s interpretation of their behaviour
matters.

Gestalt psychology
In part due to the limitations inherent in the
behaviourist approach, other psychologists
in the early 1900s examined the influence of
people’s perceptions of objects and events
in the world, not simply their objective
appearance. This subfield, called Gestalt
psychology, emphasised the importance
of looking at the whole object and how it
appeared in people’s minds, as opposed to
looking at specific objective parts of the
object.
In the 1930s and 1940s, several psy-
chologists who were trained in the Gestalt
approach migrated to the United States in
order to avoid the atrocities committed by
the Nazis during World War II. These psy-
chologists had a keen sense of the impor-
tance of perception in determining attitudes
and behaviours, as well as first‐hand experi-
ence in the dangers of social influence. One
of these psychologists, Kurt Lewin, is often
considered the founder of modern social
psychology.
Lewin was born into a Jewish family in
Poland, and served in the German army
during World War I. Following a war injury,
he attended the University of Berlin and
received a PhD in 1916. Lewin initially This picture is a classic example of the Gestalt perspective
that dates back to the 1900s. British cartoonist William
worked within the school of behavioural Ely Hill published ‘My wife and my mother‐in‐law’ in an
psychology, and the Gestalt school of American humour magazine in November 1915 with the
­psychology, but his largely Jewish reading caption, ‘They are both in this picture — find them.’

CHAPTER 1 Introducing social psychology 7

group was forced to disband when Hitler came into power in Germany in 1933. Lewin then moved to the
United States. His research focused on the role of social perception in influencing people’s behaviour,
the nature of group dynamics and the factors contributing to stereotyping and prejudice (and you’ll learn
more about his work on these topics later in the text).

Historical events
Historical events also influenced other
young social psychologists. Muzafer Sherif
grew up in Turkey, and then moved to the
United States to attend graduate school. He
received a PhD in psychology in 1935 from
Columbia University, and then returned
to Turkey to teach at Ankara University.
Sherif’s outspoken opposition to the Nazi
movement during World War II led to his
imprisonment in Turkey. Following com-
plaints from colleagues in the United States,
Sherif was released from prison after four
months and returned to the US. His per-
sonal experience with the dangerous powers
of groups during times of war led to a
series of studies on group influence; in par-
ticular, how introducing tasks that required
cooperation between groups could reduce
inter‐group conflict. You’ll read about
Sherif’s work on group processes and group
conflict in chapter 8.
Similarly, Stanley Milgram, a social psy-
chologist who began his work in the late
1960s, was deeply affected by the events
of Nazi Germany. Although many people
Kurt Lewin, a German‐Jewish professor living in Germany
blamed these events on the cruel and evil
in the 1930s, is often considered the founder of social
German people, Milgram wondered whether psychology.
the people themselves were less to blame for
the atrocities of Nazi Germany than the situ-
ation. While a professor at Yale University, Milgram conducted a series of experiments demonstrating
the powerful role of the authority in leading to obedience. This research, which was greeted by much
controversy when its results were first published, is one of the most famous studies in social psychology,
and has been used to explain many real‐world events, including mistreatment of prisoners during times of
war. You’ll read about Milgram’s research on the power of authority in leading to obedience in chapter 7.
Social psychologists in the United States were also influenced by a series of legal decisions on racial
segregation, culminating with the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision requiring inte-
gration of public schools (Pettigrew, 2004). Social psychologists served as expert witnesses about the
psychological consequences of segregation as well as on how school desegregation should best be
accomplished. Chief Justice Warren noted Kenneth Clark, a social psychologist who, with his wife,
performed a series of studies on the detrimental effects of segregation on African-American children’s
self‐concepts, as one of the ‘modern authorities’ on which the decision was based. This was the first
time that psychological research was cited in a Supreme Court decision and was seen as influential in
the Court’s decision.

8 Social Psychology
In the 1940s, research by social psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark revealed that African-American girls
preferred playing with a Caucasian doll to playing with an African-American doll. This study provided additional
evidence for the dangers of segregation, and may have contributed to the famous Brown v. Board of Education
decision in 1954 that led to school desegregation.

In part because early theory and research in social psychology was sparked by truly horrific events,
such as the Holocaust, much of the early work in social psychology focused on explaining evil behav-
iour, including aggression, stereotyping and prejudice, and obedience to authority. More recent research
in social psychology focuses on positive behaviours, such as altruism, attraction and leadership. One
subfield within social psychology, positive psychology, was established in 1998 to focus specifically
on people’s virtues and strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Researchers in this field examine the
traits that are associated with life satisfaction and the predictors of healthy human functioning. Then,
researchers design interventions to improve wellbeing.
Social psychologists continue to be interested in examining and solving real‐world issues, including
decreasing prejudice and discrimination, helping communities regulate the use of natural resources
and understanding the impact of technology on the nature of social experiences. To give you a sense
of the multiple applications of social psychology to real‐world issues, each chapter features several
boxes that describe applications of social psychology to various domains, including education, social
media, traditional media, the law, health and business. For example, in chapter 5 you’ll read about
the effects of media’s images of smoking and drinking on such behaviours in real‐world settings. In
chapter 9 you’ll read about the effects of racism on the physical health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Australians.

CHAPTER 1 Introducing social psychology 9

 CONCEPTS IN CONTEXT

How social psychology evolved over time

Influence Example
Behaviourism Liam’s older brother always watches wrestling on television. Liam now also enjoys
watching wrestling.
Gestalt Ricardo is not comfortable with the homophobic slurs that he often hears one of his
psychology friends use. However, Ricardo believes that his other friends aren’t bothered by this
offensive language, so he decides not to speak up about his concerns.
Historical events After allowing her Year 2 students to sit wherever they’d like in the classroom,
Ms O’Shea noticed a clear separation, and increased conflict, between the boys
and the girls. She then created smaller groups, each composed of both boys
and girls, to work on particular shared tasks. This effort decreased conflict, and
increased cooperation, between the sexes.

1.3 Social psychology or common sense?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1.3 Discuss how social psychology is more than common sense.
This focus on practical and real‐world issues is one of the earliest tenets of social psychology, in part
because initial research in this field was prompted by horrific real‐world events, such as Nazi Germany.
In fact, Kurt Lewin, the founder of modern social psychology, saw the inherent connection between
social psychological theory and application as one of its greatest strengths: ‘There is nothing so practical
as a good theory.’ Unfortunately, this ready application of social‐psychological theories and research to
daily life can also be a curse, in that people may view social psychology as simply ‘common sense’.
This section will describe the biases that lead people to see the field in this simplistic way, and the
importance of using the scientific method and engaging in critical thinking to combat such tendencies.

The ‘I knew it all along’ problem

If I told you that scientific research suggests that people’s social media profiles reflect an idealised version
of themselves, you’d probably believe me. But you’d be just as likely to agree with me if I’d said that
people use social networking sites like Facebook to communicate their true identities. In the same vein, if
I told you, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’, that would sound pretty plausible. But once again, so
would the opposite expression, ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
These examples illustrate a bias that people fall prey to frequently: hindsight bias. Hindsight bias, or
the ‘I knew it all along’ phenomenon, refers to people’s tendency to believe, once they’ve learned the
outcome of something, that that particular outcome was obvious. This bias can lead people to see social
psychology as little more than common sense because once they’ve heard something, they see it as
obvious (Richard, Bond, & Stokes‐Zoota, 2001; Slovic & Fischhoff, 1977). What they don’t recognise is
that the exact opposite statement would also have sounded believable.
Here’s an example of this problem. Let’s say I offered to pay you either $20 to do something, or $1 to
do the same behaviour; which reward would make you like that behaviour more? The behaviourist tra-
dition believed that people would like engaging in behaviour that was reinforced with a big reward more
than behaviour that was reinforced with a small reward — and you’d probably agree with this principle
(surely you’d rather receive $20 than $1). But the results of a classic experiment on the phenomenon of
cognitive dissonance revealed the reverse; at least in some cases, people who receive $1 for engaging in
a behaviour report liking that behaviour more than those who receive $20. You’ll learn more about this
experiment by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) in chapter 5.

10 Social Psychology
Social psychology has many applications to the legal system. Social psychologists have studied the influence of
group pressures on jury deliberations, the effects of order in which information is presented in a trial, and cognitive
errors that can lead to mistaken identifications of suspects.

Use of the scientific method

To examine the accuracy of these and other seemingly common sense beliefs, social psychologists use
the scientific method, a research method for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, and
evaluating and integrating previous knowledge. Social psychologists form an educated guess, called a
hypothesis, about the relationship between events, and then examine the accuracy of this guess by col-
lecting data, through observation and/or experimentation, to determine whether this belief is accurate
or false. Social psychology therefore uses the same approach to evaluate hypotheses as other scientific
fields, such as biology, chemistry and physics. This research process helps us find objective answers to
questions about why people feel, think and behave the way that they do.
In some cases this research leads us to conclusions that are quite surprising. If, for example, I told
you that people who receive a bronze medal are happier than those who receive a silver medal, you
might be quite puzzled. But this is exactly the finding of considerable research on errors we make in
social cognition, as you’ll read about in chapter 4. Similarly, although we often assume that children
from upper class families will face fewer problems than those from low‐income backgrounds, some
research suggests exactly the opposite: one study found that adolescents from high‐income communities
actually report significantly more anxiety and depression than those from inner‐city (and low‐income)
communities (Luthar & Latendresse, 2005). Moreover, adolescents from high‐income communities also
reported higher rates of substance abuse, including alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and other illegal drugs.
Using the scientific method is therefore crucial, because it allows researchers to test whether our beliefs
are actually correct.

CHAPTER 1 Introducing social psychology 11

 On the flip side, testing can also lead researchers to accept unsurprising findings as true. For example,
a widely accepted finding within the field of social psychology is that men are more interested in casual
sex than are women (read more about this in chapter 11).

RESEARCH FOCUS

Understanding gender differences in sexual behaviour

Some research suggests that economic principles can explain many of the often‐noted gender dif-
ferences in sexual behaviour (Baumeister & Vohs, 2004). According to this view, men are interested
in paying for sex, because sex for men is largely a no‐cost proposition. For women, the potential
cost of sex is high (disease, pregnancy, even death from childbirth), and so women are interested in
using sex to gain other resources. This view of sex as a resource that is ‘bought’ by men and ‘sold’
by women explains a number of gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviour, including the
significant gender imbalance in prostitution (women just aren’t interested in paying men for sex), the
tendency for men to desire sex at earlier stages of relationships than women, and men’s greater
interest in ‘one‐night‐stands’. For example, in one study researchers approached attractive men and
women on campus and asked if they would be interested in engaging in sexual intercourse that
evening (Clark & Hatfield, 1989). Although none of the women agreed to this proposition, 75 percent
of the men agreed.

Emphasis on critical thinking

This focus on the scientific method also means that you should carefully and critically examine research
findings presented in this text, and those that are presented in the media.
Imagine that you learn happy people make more money, which is true; you need to carefully examine
what factors lead to this association. One possibility is that happy people engage in certain behaviours
that lead them to experience greater work success — such as getting along better with colleagues or per-
sisting through difficulties — which in turn leads to more financial success. But another, equally likely
possibility is that making more money leads to greater happiness. Still another possibility is that another
factor altogether — perhaps optimism or social support — leads to both happiness and income.
Let’s take another example. One study reported that adolescents who frequently had dinner with their
families reported lower levels of smoking, drinking, drug use and depressive thoughts. These adolescents
also had better results at school (Eisenberg, Olson, Neumark‐Sztainer, Story, & Bearinger, 2004). The
media widely reported this study, and urged parents to have dinner with their kids as a way of preventing
drug use and increasing school performance. But let’s think about whether this study demonstrates that
having dinner as a family really has such a strong impact. Can you think of other explanations for this
finding?
First, remember that this study shows that two things are related to each other, but it doesn’t demon-
strate that one thing, such as eating dinner together, causes another, such as less smoking and higher
grades. One possibility is that parents who eat dinner with their children differ in some other way from
those who don’t eat dinner with their children, and that this other factor leads to this relationship. For
example, maybe parents who are wealthier, more religious or more conscientious spend more time with
their children, and these other factors (wealth, religiosity, conscientiousness) lead to better grades and
less smoking.
Another possibility is that simply spending time with children is associated with better outcomes,
regardless of whether that time is during dinner specifically. In turn, research might show that parents
who spend more time with their children each day, or each week, have children who have better grades
and healthier behaviour. In this case, it would be the amount of time that would influence these behav-
iours, not whether that time was during dinner.

12 Social Psychology
Although research reveals that teenagers who have dinner with their family have better health habits and better
grades, this finding does not prove that eating dinner together as a family caused those beneficial effects.

Still another possibility is that children who engage in unhealthy behaviour and show poor academic
performance are less interested or willing to eat dinner with their families. Perhaps children who are
‘acting out’ in some way refuse to eat dinner with their parents, even if their parents are home at dinner
time. This example illustrates the principle of reverse causality, in which two factors are related in pre-
cisely the opposite direction than is hypothesised.

CONCEPTS IN CONTEXT

Why social psychology is not just common sense

Themes Example

The ‘I knew it all After reading a newspaper article describing very aggressive behaviour by players
along’ problem during a football game, Jeremy comes to the conclusion that these players must be very
aggressive kids. His older sister, however, then points out that many situational factors —
such as high levels of physical arousal and the anonymity of the football uniform — may
have contributed to this behaviour, meaning that we can’t assume the athletes were
generally aggressive. Both of these explanations sound equally plausible to Jeremy.

Use of the Mei‐Yen learns in her psychology class that women typically eat more when they are
scientific method with other women than when they are eating with men. Mei‐Yen is surprised by this
finding and decides to measure how much she notices female friends eating in these
two situations.

Emphasis on Naomi hears about a new book that profiles a number of highly successful people who
critical thinking were C‐average uni students. Although this book claims that C‐average students are
particularly successful in life, Naomi is sceptical about whether these students are
actually more successful than those with who performed better academically.

CHAPTER 1 Introducing social psychology 13

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 XVI
Les Mères doivent voter

«Le vote est le droit à la considération, le

vote est le droit au pain.»

H. A.

La mère doit voter pour préparer un bon avenir à ses enfants. La

femme électeur ne peut pas comme le demandait un candidat, être un
satellite de l’homme. Elle doit déposer elle-même son bulletin dans l’urne,
et non se borner à multiplier la capacité sociale de son mari. Ce candidat
voulait qu’on donnât à la famille la prééminence politique à laquelle elle a
droit. Il préconisait le vote familial au lieu du vote des femmes.

«Ce que la femme doit vouloir, écrit-il, c’est la reconnaissance

légale de son existence sociale au même titre que le mari. La
question de savoir ensuite quelle sera la main qui portera dans
l’urne le morceau de carton représentant le bulletin familial, n’est
qu’accessoire.
«L’essentiel c’est que la femme existe. Et elle comprendra
qu’elle ne pourra conquérir ce droit éminent à l’existence qu’en
s’appuyant sur ses enfants, dont le nombre donnera autant de voix
à la famille. Ce sera là la grande force de la femme, qui ne doit se
considérer que pour ce qu’elle est naturellement: la multiplicatrice
de la capacité sociale de son mari».

Les hommes qui se moquent de Guillaume II parlant de sa royauté de

droit divin, disent aux femmes qu’ils ont sur elles une autorité de droit
divin, et que la politique est incompatible avec les fonctions de mères et
d’épouses. Mais le travail de mercenaire, de blanchissage, de portefaix
n’est pas incompatible avec ces fonctions.
On ne peut opposer la maternité, à l’exercice des droits de cette
quantité innombrable de femmes qui ne sont pas mères, qui ne le seront
jamais, qui ne l’ont jamais été.
On ne peut pas opposer, davantage, la maternité à l’exercice des
droits des femmes qui sont mères, parce qu’en aucun cas, un devoir ne
peut destituer d’un droit.
Quand il survient à l’homme des devoirs, les devoirs de la paternité, le
prive-t-on de ses droits civiques? Non. Alors pourquoi sous le prétexte
qu’elle est mère destituerait-on la femme des siens?
Est-ce que la paternité entraîne moins d’obligations que la maternité?
Est-ce que le soin d’élever l’enfant n’incombe pas solidairement aux deux
auteurs de sa naissance? Dernièrement, un candidat a enlevé un
auditoire d’hommes avec cette phrase: «Si les femmes votaient, vous
seriez obligés de garder les enfants.» Cet argument n’est pas heureux. Il
exprime avec un trop naïf égoïsme que si l’homme détient le droit de la
femme, c’est surtout dans la crainte d’être astreint à faire son devoir. Les
républicains excluent les femmes du droit, de crainte que la femme ne leur
échappe comme servante.
Qu’on n’allègue pas contre les mères l’impossibilité où elles seraient
de quitter leur enfant pour voter. Est-ce que les mères ne pourraient pas
se faire remplacer par le père près du berceau de l’enfant pour aller
préparer, par leur vote, un avenir heureux aux petits êtres qu’elles
adorent?
Est-ce que l’homme serait déshonoré parce qu’à son tour il garderait
l’enfant?
La maternité ne s’oppose pas plus à l’exercice des droits civiques,
qu’elle ne s’oppose à l’exercice d’un commerce, à l’exercice d’une
profession, à l’exercice d’un art.
Les femmes ne manqueraient pas plus à leurs devoirs familiaux en
contribuant par leur part d’intelligence au bien de la société, qu’elles n’y
manquent en allant à l’Eglise, au théâtre, au cinéma, dans les magasins.
Si la maternité absorbait la femme, au point de l’empêcher de
s’occuper de toute vie extérieure, alors il faudrait commencer par faire des
rentes à toutes les mères qui n’en ont pas, car l’obligation de gagner le
pain quotidien, l’obligation d’aller quérir les provisions du ménage,
éloigneront certainement toujours plus les mères de leurs enfants que
celle d’aller déposer dans l’urne un bulletin de vote un jour d’élection.
D’ailleurs, si la maternité n’était une allégation hypocrite pour refuser le
vote aux femmes, celles qui ne sont pas mères devraient pouvoir exercer
leurs droits, tandis qu’elles en sont tout aussi bien destituées que celles
qui sont mères.
Si nous demandons pour toutes les femmes, pour celles qui sont
mères, comme pour celles ne le sont pas, l’intégralité du droit, c’est que
nous savons que le sentiment de la responsabilité, qui résulte de la
possession du droit, éveille à un haut degré l’idée du devoir.
C’est que nous savons que la femme, une fois en possession de ses
droits civiques, marchera avec l’homme dans la voie du progrès, et que
ses enfants, après s’être nourris de son lait, s’assimileront ses idées de
justice et de liberté.
Si nous demandons pour la femme l’intégralité du droit, c’est que nous
savons que l’autorité de la Citoyenne est indispensable à la femme pour
être non seulement une mère selon la nature, une mère qui donne à son
enfant la santé, la force et la beauté du corps, mais encore, mais surtout,
une mère selon l’intelligence, une mère capable de donner à son enfant la
santé, la force et la beauté de l’âme, mens sana in corpore sano.
Quelques personnes nous disent: La famille serait désorganisée si
l’homme cessait de régner partout en roi absolu, si la femme avait sa part
de pouvoir dans la famille et dans l’Etat.
Profonde erreur. Qu’est-ce donc qui peut mieux établir la sympathie
entre les hommes que la solidarité des intérêts qui résulte de la
communauté du pouvoir?
Qu’est-ce donc qui pourrait mieux qu’une communauté de pouvoir
amener entre les époux la concorde, l’union de l’esprit? Union autrement
solide, celle-ci, que l’union du cœur!
Qu’est-ce qui pourrait mieux qu’une communauté de pouvoir, amener
chez les époux une communion de goûts, d’idées, d’aspirations, une
communion de vie intellectuelle?
Aujourd’hui, quand l’union si éphémère du cœur cesse d’exister, un
abîme se creuse entre les époux parce qu’ils n’ont pas un seul point de
ralliement. Aucun but moral, aucun intérêt élevé ne les réunit. Et dans ces
ménages où l’on ne cause, certes, ni de politique ni de sociologie, les
enfants sont le plus souvent abandonnés.
Tandis qu’avec cette chose rationnelle, la vie publique ouverte aux
femmes, la vie publique commune pour les époux, comme est commune
la vie privée, le niveau moral intellectuel s’élèverait bientôt dans chaque
ménage.
L’obligation pour les femmes de s’occuper de choses sérieuses qui
intéressent les hommes, établirait au grand profit de l’harmonie conjugale
entre maris et femmes, une émulation salutaire pour le progrès.
Les intérêts de la société, avant d’être discutés et rendus publics,
seraient d’abord discutés et résolus en famille. L’enfant témoin de ces
saines préoccupations grandirait heureux. Sa précoce initiation à la vie
civique aurait la puissance de l’éloigner des atmosphères vicieuses.
Donc, à ce triple point de vue, le bonheur de l’homme, l’intérêt de
l’enfant, l’harmonie de la famille, il est urgent que la femme, que la mère,
exerce au plus tôt ses droits civiques.
Les Français souverains ne font encore que jouer au progrès. Ils ont
badigeonné une façade de république, mais ils n’ont point la virilité
nécessaire pour accomplir les transformations fondamentales en
changeant la condition de celle qui donne aux mâles et femelles de la
nation les muscles et la moëlle. Cependant, si les milieux influent sur les
individus, combien plus exercent sur eux, d’action, les molécules d’où ils
tirent leur origine.
«Dis-moi d’où tu sors, je te dirai qui tu es!...»
Les Français, qui tous, sortent de serves, ne peuvent pas être
naturellement indépendants. L’absence de caractère, la veulerie ne se
surmonteront que quand les humains naîtront de mères libres.
La mère donne à l’enfant son empreinte. Le sein maternel fait ce qu’ils
sont, les humains.
Les femmes annulées, opprimées font des enfants à la mentalité
tordue. Pour que les enfants soient droits cérébralement il faut appeler
celles qui les créent à la plénitude de l’existence sociale et politique.
 Il faut affranchir la dispensatrice de la vie en proclamant l’égalité des
sexes devant la loi.
Les femmes n’ont pas seulement le droit de participer à la politique.
Elles ont besoin d’y participer, afin de trouver là un point d’appui quand,
par le fait de la disparition de leur compagnon, le sol manque sous leurs
pieds.
Les femmes concentreraient sur l’amélioration des conditions
d’existence leurs énergies accumulées qui pourraient aider à résoudre
des problèmes qui aujourd’hui semblent insolubles, parce qu’ils
concernent l’humanité toute entière et que les seuls efforts masculins sont
impuissants à en donner la clef.
Le droit qu’ont les femmes de faire valoir leurs droits civiques, se
double pour elles du devoir de changer pour les générations qu’elles
créent, la vie de privations en vie de satisfaction, de bien-être.
Le droit d’intervenir dans les arrangements sociaux est refusé aux
femmes par les hommes qui leur attribuent le plus grand pouvoir occulte.
C’est une anomalie de garder les femmes qui tiennent une si grande place
dans la position d’inférieures où elles sont.
Si l’instinct de conservation ne contraint les antiféministes à dire à la
femme: Tu n’es plus une poupée avec laquelle on joue et dont on se joue.
Tu es un important acteur social dont on attend l’effort. Si la dispensatrice
de la vie reste annulée, si la femme n’a pas le pouvoir de sauver les
individus en transformant, avec les lois, le milieu social, elle sera la
vengeresse inconsciente qui poussera l’humanité dégénérée à s’abîmer
dans l’anéantissement.
 XVII
La fonction maternelle rétribuée

«Parce que la femme est mère, elle ne

peut être ni électeur, ni député, mais elle peut
être blanchisseuse, femme de peine.»

Hubertine Auclert.

Le sexe masculin est incapable de bien légiférer pour les deux sexes.
Parce que les femmes ne sont ni électeurs, ni éligibles, les lois,
mêmes faites pour elles, se tournent contre elles. Ainsi la loi sur la
recherche de la paternité fait condamner à l’amende, à la prison, à
l’interdiction de séjour, la fille mère qui n’a pas de preuves écrites de la
coopération de celui qu’elle poursuit comme cocréateur de son enfant.
Pour assurer aux hommes de n’être pas ennuyés par les femmes qu’ils
rendent mères, cette loi force les femmes à recourir à l’infanticide: la
charge d’un enfant étant au-dessus des ressources d’une fille-mère.
Pendant que des hommes graves clament que le pays se dépeuple,
pendant que des politiciens se liguent pour augmenter la natalité, ce ne
sont pas seulement celles qui n’ont pu devenir mères selon la formule
édictée par le Code, qui risquent la vie pour empêcher un bébé de naître.
Tous les jours, des épouses légitimes disent: «je ne peux pas avoir un
nouvel enfant, je serais délaissée» et elles vont trouver l’opérateur, de
chez lequel elles sortent non point toujours mortes, mais souvent
estropiées.
Pourquoi cette rage de destruction d’embryons humains existe-t-elle
dans un pays dont on prédit l’effacement pour cause de manque
d’habitants?
Parce que les Français, barbares, laissent à la femme qui ne parvient
pas à se suffire à elle-même, la charge d’élever les enfants communs.
 Femmes mariées comme femmes célibataires ont la terreur de la
maternité, parce que la maternité leur inflige, en plus de la souffrance, la
gêne, la pauvreté, la noire misère.
Les Françaises n’auraient point cette terreur de la maternité, si elles
pouvaient en participant à la législation, se donner des garanties. Les
hommes législateurs ne proposent point de procurer la sérénité au sein
maternel. On semble n’attacher aucune importance à ce que les Mères de
la nation, détériorées par les souffrances physiques et morales, ne soient
pas en état à donner le jour à des êtres assez forts pour supporter la vie.
Quand on veut fabriquer un objet, on donne au moule qui doit l’exécuter la
forme et la solidité nécessaires. Mais lorsqu’il s’agit de fabriquer des
humains, on se dispense de prendre cette précaution élémentaire. On
aime mieux créer des hôpitaux pour les malades que de donner aux
génératrices la possibilité de mettre au monde des enfants robustes, sur
lesquels n’aurait point de prise la maladie.
La nature qui ne demande pas à la femme son acquiescement à la
maternité, lui impose la charge de l’enfant. La mère n’a qu’une garantie
illusoire d’être aidée à élever l’enfant, puisque cette garantie repose sur le
seul bon plaisir de l’homme. Chacun sait en effet, que l’amant se dérobe
dès qu’apparaît la grossesse de son amie, et que de plus en plus
nombreux sont les époux légitimes qui font la fête et se dispensent de
remplir le devoir paternel. Dans l’intérêt de la nation et de l’espèce
humaine, cet état de choses doit cesser. Il est plus que temps de régler la
question relative aux rapports des sexes.
La mère qui assure la perpétuation de l’espèce doit être traitée comme
le soldat qui assure la sécurité du territoire: c’est-à-dire, être logée, nourrie
durant le temps de son service de mère.
La maternité cessera de terrifier les Françaises quand, au lieu de les
déshonorer et de les réduire au dénûment, elle les fera considérer et
indemniser comme d’indispensables fonctionnaires.
On se procurera l’argent nécessaire pour rétribuer la maternité en
établissant l’impôt paternel que les hommes auront avantage à payer pour
s’épargner des coups de revolver, des brûlures de vitriol et se garantir des
procès en recherche de paternité, suivis souvent de procès en divorce.
Il suffit de mettre dans la loi cet article: «A partir de 16 ans tout
Français paie l’impôt paternel pour indemniser les mères sans ressources
et assurer l’existence des enfants.»
 XVIII
L’enfant doit-il porter le nom de la Mère? Matriarcat

Tous ceux qui ont séjourné en Algérie dans les oasis, ont pu voir au
printemps des Arabes grimper au faîte de hauts palmiers femelles, pour
répandre au-dessus de leur tête du pollen de palmiers mâles. Les fruits du
dattier femelle ainsi fécondé, lui appartiennent en propre. Ne devrait-il pas
en être ainsi des fruits humains? Pourquoi la femme qui a modelé dans
ses flancs et moralement formé l’enfant, peut-elle moins bien le classer
socialement que l’homme fécondateur?
Ce ne sera plus en étalant devant les tribunaux une faiblesse, point
générale chez son sexe, en exhalant des plaintes au théâtre contre
l’homme auteur de son déshonneur, que la mère naturelle parviendra à se
faire honorer. C’est en revendiquant virilement la responsabilité de son
acte, c’est en demandant d’être, par une rétribution équitable, mise à
même d’exercer cette fonction sociale: la maternité.
L’élémentaire justice, faisant proposer de donner un père à l’enfant
naturel, qui paraît avantageux pour la femme, règle en réalité à son
détriment une situation, en augmentant l’autorité de l’homme.
La mère élevée par son enfant au rang de chef de famille, a une autre
situation morale que l’esclave qui reconnaît son indignité, en demandant
le patronage de l’homme qui se dérobe.
—Que veut le féminisme?
—Diviser l’autorité familiale et sociale.
Enlever à l’homme la moitié de son pouvoir autocratique pour en doter
sa compagne. Or la recherche de la paternité tend à un but tout opposé,
puisqu’elle concentre dans une seule main l’autorité, en conférant à
l’homme, hors du mariage, comme dans le mariage, la qualité de chef de
famille.
Emile de Girardin, qui demandait que toute distinction établie par les
lois, entre les enfants naturels, adultérins, incestueux, légitimes, fût abolie,
voulait que l’enfant porte le nom de sa mère et soit sous son autorité.
C’était le matriarcat substitué au patriarcat.
En confondant les mères entre elles, en les reconnaissant également
aptes à exercer l’autorité sur leurs enfants et à leur donner leurs noms, le
matriarcat empêcherait de distinguer les mères naturelles des autres, et il
rendrait les enfants égaux devant l’état-civil.
Bien que la couvade n’existe pas matériellement en France, les
Français matricides rendent moralement inexistantes les mères en se
substituant à elles, en s’attribuant le mérite de leurs maternités et en
retirant honneurs et profits.
La créatrice annulée et écrasée chez nous a exercé ailleurs, en une
période de l’évolution humaine, une domination bienfaisante.
Le matriarcat a existé et existe encore dans un certain nombre
d’agglomérations humaines.
Dans la Chine antique, avant l’époque de Fohi, disent les anciens
livres, les hommes connaissaient leur mère, mais ils ignoraient qui était
leur père.
En Asie, les Lyciens prenaient le nom de leur mère et attribuaient
l’héritage aux filles.
Dans l’ancienne Egypte, les enfants portaient le nom de leur mère et
étaient dirigés par elle. Les femmes d’Egypte, dit Hérodote, vont sur la
place publique, se livrent au commerce et à l’industrie pendant que les
hommes demeurent à la maison, et y font le travail intérieur. Les femmes,
aux portes de l’Egypte, considèrent comme un déshonneur de tisser et de
filer.
Les Hurons et les Iroquois prennent le nom de leur mère, et c’est par
elle qu’ils comptent leur généalogie. C’est par les femmes que se consiste
la nation, la noblesse du sang, l’arbre généalogique, l’ordre des
générations et la conservation des familles.
La noblesse utérine exista en France en la période féodale. La mère
noble donnait le jour à un fils noble: le père fut-il roturier.
Les Crétois, d’après Platon, nommaient leur patrie d’origine, matrie:
combien d’autres peuples primitifs préférant la réalité à la fiction se
servaient de ce doux terme, matrie (mère) pour désigner les lieux qu’ils
habitaient. Ne serait-il pas plus naturel de dire: la France est ma matrie,
ma mère, que: la France est ma patrie, mon père?
Les Touaregs qui habitent le centre du Sahara Africain, ainsi que
presque tous les peuples de race berbère, sont régis par le matriarcat. Ils
se dénomment en raison de cela Beni-oummia (fils de la mère).
C’est, dit une formule de leur droit traditionnel, «le ventre qui teint
l’enfant». Aussi, le fils d’une mère noble et d’un père esclave est noble, le
fils d’une mère esclave et d’un père noble, est esclave.
Chez les Beni-oummia la loi salique est renversée. Ce n’est point le fils
du chef qui succède à son père, c’est le fils de la sœur de celui-ci.
Même nomade, la femme Targuie est instruite et a partout la première
place. Elle discute dans les conseils de la Tribu. Elle a l’administration de
l’héritage. Elle seule dispose des tentes, maisons, troupeaux, sources et
jardins. Enfin, elle confère, avec la condition sociale, les droits de
commandement sur les serfs et les redevances payées par les voyageurs.
On voit que les peuples qui se désintéressent de la paternité, au point
de s’appeler «fils de la mère» accordent à la femme, avec l’autorité
morale, bien des privilèges et que les Français civilisés auraient beaucoup
à apprendre au point de vue féministe, des Touaregs qualifiés de
barbares, par ceux qui ne les connaissent pas.
Malgré que les hommes s’efforcent de se le dissimuler, la mère donne
à l’enfant son empreinte en dépit de l’école. Nos belles écoles, qui sont à
juste titre l’orgueil et l’espoir de la nation, ne cultivent que l’intelligence.
Quand on aura affranchi la dispensatrice de la vie en proclamant
l’égalité des sexes devant la loi, les humains ne piétineront plus. Ils
courront dans la voie du progrès.
 XIX
Les mères et la dépopulation

En entendant répéter que les femmes ont pour unique rôle de mettre
des enfants au monde, on pouvait penser que le sexe féminin restait dans
la mission qui lui est assignée, en demandant de faire partie de la
commission extra-parlementaire chargée de combattre la dépopulation.
Il nous semblait que les deux sexes réunis, étaient seuls compétents
pour décider d’une affaire où le couple est indispensable. Eh bien, nous
étions dans l’erreur. Les hommes seuls suffisent pour repeupler la France,
puisque pas une femme n’a été nommée membre de la commission de
repeuplement.
Les Français présomptueux croient qu’ils pourront, sans les
Françaises, augmenter la natalité, comme sans elles, ils pensent
continuer à administrer et à gouverner.
Les messieurs réunis pour remédier à la dépopulation, s’imagineront
résoudre la question en récompensant l’homme qui n’a que du plaisir en
devenant père, tandis que la femme ruine sa santé, risque sa vie en
enfantant.
N’étant point traitée comme la cheville ouvrière du repeuplement, la
génératrice continuera, suivant la coutume, à se préserver de la
fécondation, à recourir à l’avortement, de sorte que l’homme déçu de ses
rêves de paternité, ne pourra percevoir le dédommagement du travail
puerpéral qui lui aura été attribué.
Bien que notre orgueil national prenne plaisir à constater que les
peuples les plus civilisés sont les moins prolifiques, la disette d’enfants
met la France en si mauvaise posture dans le monde, que les législateurs
ont songé à proposer de surtaxer les célibataires, les veufs, les divorcés.
Si cet impôt vexatoire ne frappait que les femmes, qui ne votant point,
ne sont point à ménager, il serait sûrement adopté par la commission.
Mais les célibataires mâles étant électeurs, on ne rééditera pas la loi de
1798 qui, durant quelques années, surimposera les célibataires.
 D’ailleurs, un impôt ne contraindrait pas au mariage les célibataires.
L’unique moyen d’augmenter la natalité consiste à intéresser les
génératrices à cette augmentation. Pendant que les femmes n’auront
aucun avantage à procréer beaucoup d’enfants, elles se soustrairont aux
nombreuses maternités qui les accablent de souffrances, les surchargent
de travail et les enlaidissent!
Certes, les hommes sont en France bien puissants. Pourtant, quoique
souverains, ils ne peuvent ni changer les lois naturelles, ni augmenter,
sans le concours des femmes, la natalité. Il devient donc, dès lors,
indispensable que les femmes fassent connaître à quelles conditions elles
consentiront à être plus souvent mères. La solution de la question du
dépeuplement est seulement là.
Si les législateurs ne trouvent pas que les procréatrices sont, plus que
quiconque, aptes à donner sur cela leur avis, les efforts en vue du
repeuplement échoueront: les seules personnes capables de les faire
aboutir étant laissées de côté.
On propose de spolier les génératrices, de récompenser les hommes
du travail de gestation et de parturition des femmes. La prime donnée au
père n’allégerait point le fardeau maternel. Ce ne serait pas, parce que les
hommes civilisés empocheraient la récompense de l’enfantement, qu’ils
parviendraient plus que les primitifs—simulant les douleurs quand leur
femme accouche—à faire croire que ce sont eux qui mettent au monde
les enfants.
Pour obtenir de la femme qu’elle dépense ses forces, passe ses nuits
en veilles, ruine sa santé et risque sa vie afin d’augmenter la population,
c’est employer un singulier moyen que de gratifier le père, parce qu’il vote,
du travail accompli par la mère, qui ne vote pas. Est-ce le moyen de
déterminer les femmes à appeler à la vie beaucoup d’enfants? Les
ouvriers seraient-ils excités à travailler en un chantier où le contre-maître
s’attribuerait leur salaire?
Les nombreuses maternités déforment, fatiguent, affaiblissent,
enlaidissent, non le père, mais la mère. Si, au lieu de lui attacher par un
petit intérêt son mari, on spolie la femme souffreteuse de la rente qui lui
est due pour la donner à l’homme gaillard, est-ce que ce ne sera pas
inciter celui-ci à la dépenser, cette rente, avec une accorte voisine, point
productrice d’enfants?
 On tourne autour de la question de l’indemnisation maternelle, qu’on
ne veut pas proposer parce que la femme qui est en droit de la toucher,
est une hors la loi.
Il est facile de comprendre que quiconque a la peine doit toucher un
salaire et que les femmes ne se déprimeront ni ne s’useront plus, dans le
seul but de procurer des rentes à leur mari qui, après la douzaine
d’enfants pourrait les planter là.
La femme est la propriété de l’homme (une propriété de rapport)
comme l’arbre à fruit est celle du jardinier, puisqu’on reconnaît seulement
à celui-ci le droit de tirer profit des fruits humains.
Que l’on tourne et retourne, en tous sens, la question du
repeuplement, on ne parviendra à la résoudre que par l’indemnisation
maternelle, qui allégera les charges du père et permettra à la mère de
conserver en se soignant, des forces de réserve pour de nouvelles
maternités.
A la femme aisée ou riche, qui ne serait, ni par une indemnité, ni par
une retraite, encouragée à de successives maternités, on pourrait offrir
l’appât des récompenses honorifiques.
Nous trouvons puériles les décorations, mais puisque les hommes en
raffolent, les femmes peuvent bien, à leur exemple, les convoiter.
Il ne faudrait pas bien entendu, que la décoration attribuée à la
maternité, lui soit spéciale: une croix de la maternité serait de suite
appelée Croix de Gigogne.
Mais admettre la femme, six fois mère, à la Légion d’honneur,
honorerait la croix en lui faisant récompenser ce qui est utile au pays.
 XX
La femme en état de légitime défense

Les infanticides sont si fréquents, que chacun est forcé de se

demander s’ils ne sont pas une nécessité sociale, et s’il ne serait pas
temps de mettre, relativement à la génération, les conventions et les lois
en harmonie avec la nature.
Le public qui traque la coupable d’infanticide et dispute à la police le
soin de l’amener devant ses juges, n’est rien moins que disposé à
atténuer son crime.
Cependant, cette meurtrière était en état de légitime défense. C’est
pour se sauver qu’elle a tué. La société tout entière fonçait sur elle,
menaçait de la vomir de son sein, de l’écharper moralement. Affolée par
l’horreur de sa situation, elle est devenue horrible. Elle a mis son enfant
hors la vie, pour ne pas être mise hors de l’humanité.
Il faudrait voir comment se comporteraient ceux qui déclament contre
la fille-mère exterminatrice, s’ils étaient aux prises avec les difficultés
inénarrables de son présent et l’épouvantement de l’avenir qui lui est
réservé. Sa faute va tendre autour d’elle un cordon sanitaire. On
s’éloignera d’elle comme d’une pestiférée, ses amis ne la connaîtront
plus. Toutes les portes, tous les cœurs lui seront fermés. Enfin, alors que
ses besoins s’augmenteront de ceux d’une autre existence, elle ne
trouvera plus d’ouvrage.
La fille-mère a à choisir entre le mépris public, un dénûment sans nom
et... le crime! L’instinct de la conservation, le sentiment faux mais très
violent de l’honneur, en font une criminelle.
Quel est l’individu, homme ou femme, qui sachant qu’il va être à tout
jamais flétri et flétri injustement, est bien certain de ne pas perdre un
instant la raison, et de ne pas commettre un crime pour échapper à
l’opprobre qui l’attend?
A ceux qui soutiennent que la mère infanticide a été impitoyable, on
peut demander si elle a été aussi impitoyable et féroce que la société qui
contraint toutes les pauvres filles, sous peine de déchéance, à se