In stock investing, stock price growth or decline usually gets the most attention because it's fairly straightforward: You buy shares at A price, and now they're Z price. However, that doesn't paint the full picture of an investment because it doesn't account for dividends.

You generally won't see dividends on a standard stock chart, but they can play a crucial role in total returns over time. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) -- which tracks the 500 largest stocks -- is considered the primary benchmark for overall market performance as well as dividend yields.

The S&P 500's dividend yield isn't typically jaw-dropping at about 1.5%. Many companies in the S&P 500 have dividend yields much higher than this average, but that doesn't always make them good buys. Here are three companies in the S&P 500 with the highest dividend yields:

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Source Fool.com