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Social Psychology
Chapter 18
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Focuses in Social Psychology


“We cannot live for ourselves alone.”
Herman Melville

Social psychology scientifically studies how we


think about, influence, and relate to one another.
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Social Thinking
1. Does his absenteeism signify illness,
laziness, or a stressful work atmosphere?
2. Was the horror of 9/11 the work of
crazed evil people or ordinary people
corrupted by life events?

Social thinking involves thinking about others,


especially when they engage in doing things
that are unexpected.
Attributing Behavior to Persons or to
Situations

Attribution Theory: Fritz


Heider (1958) suggested
that we have a tendency
to give causal
explanations for

http://www.stedwards.edu
someone’s behavior,
often by crediting either
the situation or the
person’s disposition.
Fritz Heider

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Attributing Behavior to Persons or to
Situations
A teacher may wonder whether a child’s
hostility reflects an aggressive personality
(dispositional attribution) or is a reaction to stress
or abuse (a situational attribution).

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Fundamental Attribution Error


The tendency to overestimate the impact of
personal disposition and underestimate the
impact of the situations in analyzing the
behaviors of others leads to the fundamental
attribution error.

We see Joe as quiet, shy, and introverted most of


the time, but with friends he is very talkative,
loud, and extroverted.
Effects of Attribution
How we explain someone’s behavior affects how
we react to it.

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Attitude
A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to
respond in a particular way to objects, other
people, and events.

If we believe a person is mean, we may feel


dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly
manner.
Attitudes Affect Actions (part 1)
• Attitudes are feelings influenced by beliefs,
which predispose people to have specific
reactions to objects, people, and events.
▫ Peripheral route persuasion occurs when
people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a
speaker’s attractiveness
▫ Central route persuasion occurs when
interested people focus on the arguments and
respond with favorable thoughts
Actions Affect Attitudes (part 2)
• Actions can modify attitudes
▫ Foot-in-the-door phenomenon: The tendency
for people who have first agreed to a small request
to comply later with a larger request
▫ Role: A set of expectations (norms) about a social
position, defining how those in the position ought
to behave
• Attitudes follow behavior
▫ Cooperative actions, such as those performed by
people on sports teams, feed mutual liking. Such
attitudes, in turn, promote positive behavior.
Attitudes Can Affect Action
Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly
because other factors, including the external
situation, also influence behavior.

Democratic leaders supported Bush’s attack on


Iraq under public pressure. However, they had
their private reservations.

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Attitudes Can Affect Action
Not only do people stand for what they believe in
(attitude), they start believing in what they stand
for.

D. MacDonald/ PhotoEdit

Cooperative actions can lead to mutual liking (beliefs). 12


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Small Request – Large Request


In the Korean War, Chinese communists
solicited cooperation from US army prisoners
by asking them to carry out small errands. By
complying to small errands they were likely to
comply to larger ones.

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency


for people who have first agreed to a small
request to comply later with a larger request.
Role Playing Affects Attitudes
Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards
and prisoners to random students and found
that guards and prisoners developed role-
appropriate attitudes.

Originally published in the New Yorker


Phillip G. Zimbardo, Inc.

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Actions Can Affect Attitudes


Why do actions affect attitudes? One
explanation is that when our attitudes and
actions are opposed, we experience tension.
This is called cognitive dissonance (unpleasant
tension).
. tension we bring our
To relieve ourselves of this
attitudes closer to our actions (Festinger, 1957).
You have a belief that But you cheat on a The teacher was really bad
cheating on tests is bad. test!!! so in that class it is OK.
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Cognitive Dissonance
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Slides 1-14 cover pgs. 723-730


Social Influence
The greatest contribution of social psychology is
its study of attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and
actions and the way they are molded by social
influence.

NON SEQUITER © 2000 Wiley. Dist. by Universal


Press Syndicate Reprinted with Permission
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Conformity & Obedience


Behavior is contagious, modeled by one
followed by another. We follow behavior of
others to conform.

Other behaviors may be an expression of


compliance (obedience) toward authority.

Conformity Obedience
Social Influence
• Social contagion
▫ Chartrand and colleagues (1999)
 Demonstrated the chameleon
effect with college students
 Automatic mimicry helps people
to empathize and feel what others
feel.
 The more we mimic, the greater
our empathy, and the more
people tend to like us.
 This is a form of conformity.
The Chameleon Effect
Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or
thinking to coincide with a group standard
(Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).

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Group Pressure & Conformity


Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity,
adjusting our behavior or thinking toward
some group standard.
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Group Pressure & Conformity


An influence resulting from one’s willingness to
accept others’ opinions about reality.

William Vandivert/ Scientific American


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Conditions that Strengthen Conformity

1. One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.


2. The group has at least three people.
3. The group is unanimous.
4. One admires the group’s status and
attractiveness.
5. One has no prior commitment or response.
6. The group observes one’s behavior.
7. One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a
social standard.
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Reasons for Conformity


Normative Social Influence: Influence resulting
from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid
rejection. A person may respect normative
behavior because there may be a severe price to
pay if not respected.

Informative Social Influence: The group may


provide valuable information, but stubborn
people will never listen to others.
Informative Social Influence
Baron and colleagues (1996) made students do
an eyewitness identification task. If the task was
easy (lineup exposure 5 sec.), conformity was
low in comparison to a difficult (1/2 sec.
exposure) task.

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Informative Social Influence

Baron et al., (1996)


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Obedience
People comply to social

Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center


pressures. How would
they respond to outright
command?

Stanley Milgram
designed a study that
investigates the effects of
authority on obedience.
Stanley Milgram
(1933-1984)
Both Photos: © 1965 By Stanley Miligram, from the
film Obedience, dist. by Penn State, Media Sales
Milgram’s Study

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Milgram’s Study: Results

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Individual Resistance
A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study
resisted social coercion.

AP/ Wide World Photos


An unarmed individual single-handedly
challenged a line of tanks at Tiananmen Square.
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Lessons from the Conformity and


Obedience Studies

In both Ash's and Milgram's studies,


participants were pressured to follow their
standards and be responsive to others.

In Milgram’s study, participants were torn


between hearing the victims pleas and the
experimenter’s orders.
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Group Influence
How do groups affect our behavior? Social
psychologists study various groups:

1. One person affecting another


2. Families
3. Teams
4. Committees
Individual Behavior in the Presence
of Others
Social facilitation: Refers
to improved
performance on tasks in
the presence of others.
Triplett (1898) noticed
cyclists’ race times were

Michelle Agnis/ NYT Pictures


faster when they
competed against others
than when they just
raced against the clock.
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Social Loafing
The tendency of an individual in a group to
exert less effort toward attaining a common
goal than when tested individually (Latané,
1981).
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Deindividuation
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in
group situations that foster arousal and
anonymity.

Mob behavior
Loss of self-awareness and self-
restraint. Deindividuat
Examples: Riots, KKK rallies, ion
concerts, identity-concealed online
bullying.
 Happens when people are in group
situations involving: 1) Anonymity and
2) Arousal.
 When people of similar views form a group
Group together, discussion within the group makes
Polarization their views more extreme.
 Thus, different groups become MORE
different, more polarized, in their views.

People in these groups may


have only encountered ideas
reinforcing the views they
already held.
Liberal Blogs (blue) and
conservative blogs (red) link
mostly to other like-minded
blogs, generating this portrait
of the polarized Blogosphere.
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Groupthink
A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire
for harmony in a decision-making group
overrides the realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Attack on Pearl Harbor


Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Watergate Cover-up
Chernobyl Reactor Accident
 In pursuit of social harmony
(and avoidance of open
disagreement), groups will Groupthink
make decisions without an open
exchange of ideas.
 Irony: Group “think” prevents
thinking, prevents a realistic
assessment of options.
Power of Individuals
The power of social

Margaret Bourke-White/ Life Magazine. © 1946 Time Warner, Inc.


influence is enormous,
but so is the power of
the individual.

Non-violent fasts and


appeals by Gandhi led
to the independence of
India from the British. Gandhi

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Slides 16-37 cover pgs. 730-742


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Social Relations
Social psychology teaches us how we relate to
one another through prejudice, aggression, and
conflict to attraction, and altruism and
peacemaking.
Social Relations
Social Psychologists also study the psychological
components of how people relate to each other.
Examples:

Prejudice: Attraction and


When we Love
prejudge Aggression:
Relationships
others When we hurt
others

Social
Altruism:
Conflict: When
When we help
and how we
others
make peace
Social Relations
Prejudice
Components of
 Prejudice: An Prejudice
unjustified (usually
negative) attitude
toward a group (and its Beliefs
members). (stereotypes)
 Discrimination:
Unjustified behavior
selectively applied to Emotions
members of a group. (hostility,
 Stereotype: A envy, fear)
generalized belief about
a group, applied to every Predisposition
member of a group. to act (to
discriminate)
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Reign of Prejudice
Prejudice works at the conscious and [more at]
the unconscious level. Therefore, prejudice is
more like a knee-jerk response than a conscious
decision.
How Prejudiced are People?
Over the duration of time many prejudices
against interracial marriage, gender,
homosexuality, and minorities have decreased.

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Levels of Prejudice can Change
Generation Generation
X Y

Baby
Boomers

The Silent Support


Generation for
interracial
The Greatest dating
Generation
Racial & Gender Prejudice
Americans today express much less racial and
gender prejudice, but prejudices still exist.

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Social Relations
Prejudice Remains

 Attitudes about gay marriage have not come as


far as attitudes about interracial marriage.
 Increased prejudice toward all Muslims and
Arabs after 9/11 has still not subsided much.
 Women are still judged and treated unfairly.
 Automatic, subtle, and institutional prejudice
still occurs even when people state that they
have no prejudice in principle (but may have
unconscious prejudiced reactions).
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Race
Nine out of ten white respondents were slow
when responding to words like “peace” or
“paradise” when they saw a black individual’s
photo compared to a white individual’s photo
(Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003).
Automatic Prejudice
Study: People were more likely to misperceive a
tool as a gun when preceded by an African-
American face, when both were presented quickly
followed by blank screen or “visual mask.”

Not a gun
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Gender
Most women still live in more poverty than
men. About 100,000,000 women are missing in
the world. There is a preference for male
children in China and India, even with sex-
selected abortion outlawed.
Gender
Although prejudice prevails against women,
more people feel positively toward women than
men. Women rated picture b [feminized] higher
(665) for a matrimonial ad (Perrett, 1998).

Professor Dave Perrett, St. Andrews University


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Social Relations
Social Roots of Prejudice
Social Inequality, when some
groups have fewer resources and it breeds
opportunities than others: contempt for
the people
 May result from prejudice, but better off,
can also make it worse… disrespect for
people less
 May be used to justify people as well off.
deserving their current position:
“Those doing well
must have done
something right, so:
those suffering must
have done something
wrong.”
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Social Roots of Prejudice


Why does prejudice arise?

1. Social Inequalities
2. Social Divisions
3. Emotional Scapegoating
Social Inequality
Prejudice develops when people have money,
power, and prestige, and others do not. Social
inequality increases prejudice.

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Even if people are randomly assigned
Us vs. Them: to groups:
 Part of our natural drive to belong
Ingroups, to a group leads to ingroup bias
(favoring one’s own group),
Outgroups misjudging other groups, and
quickly categorizing strangers:
“with me or against me.”
In and Out Groups
Ingroup: People with whom one shares a
common identity. Outgroup: Those perceived as
different from one’s ingroup. Ingroup Bias: The
tendency to favor one’s own group.

Mike Hewitt/ Getty Images


Scotland’s famed “Tartan Army” fans. 59
Social Relations
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
 Scapegoat Theory: The observation that,
when bad things happen, prejudice offers an
outlet for anger by finding someone to
blame.
 Experiments show a link: Prejudice increases
during temporary frustration (and
decreases when experiencing loving support)
 Link to fear: Prejudice seems absent in
people with inactive fear responses in the
amygdala.
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Emotional Roots of Prejudice


Prejudice provides an outlet for anger
[emotion] by providing someone to blame.
After 9/11 many people lashed out against
innocent Arab-Americans.
Social Relations
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
Forming Categories:
The Other-Race Effect

The Power of Vivid Cases:


Availability heuristic ignores
statistics

“Just World” Belief:


People must deserve what they get
Fed by hindsight bias, cognitive
dissonance
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
One way we simplify our world is to
categorize. We categorize people into groups
by stereotyping them.

Michael S. Yamashita/ Woodfin Camp Associates


Foreign sunbathers may think Balinese look alike. 63
Judging Based on Vivid Cases
If we see dramatic examples of terrorism carried
out by people who are Muslim, we may form a false
association, when in fact:

9/11
hijackers

The stereotype “Muslim = terrorist” sticks in


some people’s minds even though the vast majority
of Muslims do not fit this stereotype.
Social Relations: Cognitive Roots of
Prejudice
Belief that the World is Just
The Just-World Fallacy: Believing
that Justice generally happens,
that people get the benefits and
punishments they deserve.

 Implication: If people are rich, privileged, they


must have earned it;
 So, if people are poor, outcast, they must not
deserve better.
Believing that justice happens… leads to
blaming the victim.
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
The tendency of people to believe the world is
just, and people get what they deserve and
deserve what they get (the just-world
phenomenon).

© The New Yorker Collection, 1981, Robert Mankoff from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
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Hindsight Bias
After learning an outcome, the tendency to
believe that we could have predicted it
beforehand may contribute to blaming the
victim and forming a prejudice against them.

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The Availability
Heuristic:
Stereotypes are
built on vivid cases
rather than
statistics
Cognitive
dissonance: Thinking Confirmation
“My culture and Habits Bias: we are not
family treats likely to look for
minorities this Reinforcing counterexamples
way, can we be Prejudice to our
wrong?” stereotypes.

Hindsight
Bias: “they
should have
known better,”
blames victims
for misfortunes.
Social Relations
Aggression
Definition: Behavior with the
intent of harming another person.
Aggression can have many
forms and purposes:
 Aggression can be physical,
verbal, relational: e.g.
punching, insulting, shooting,
betraying.
 Aggression can be planned or
reactive.
 Aggression can be driven by
hostile rage or can be a coldly
calculated means to an end.
Social Relations
The Biology of Aggression
There is not one genetically universal
style or amount of aggressiveness in
human behavior
But there are biological factors which
may explain variation in levels of
aggression:

1. Genetic factors (including Heredity)


2. Neural factors, esp. Brain Activity
3. Biochemistry, esp. hormones and
alcohol
Social Relations
Genetic Influences on Aggression
There is evidence that aggression is tied to genes,
even if we’re not sure which ones:
1. Aggression can be selectively bred in animals
and then passed on to the next generation
2. Identical twins are more similar in their levels
of aggression than fraternal twins or siblings
3. Males are more prone to aggression, and differ
by a chromosome (female XX vs. male XY)
Social Relations
Neural Influences
Brain Activity and Aggression
Evidence of brain links to aggression:
 One monkey learned to subdue the aggression
of another, by turning on an electrode
implanted in an aggression-inhibiting brain
area
 A woman became rude and violent after
painless stimulation of her amygdala
 Underactive frontal lobes (which inhibit
impulses) are linked to aggression, violence
Social Relations
Biochemistry of Aggression
The Male hormone
 Testosterone levels are
correlated with irritability,
assertiveness, impulsiveness,
and low tolerance for
frustration.
 Traits linked to testosterone
levels, such as facial width,
also are linked to
aggressiveness.
 Violent criminal males have
high testosterone levels along
with low serotonin levels
 Reducing testosterone
reduces aggression, in both
humans and animals
Social Relations
Biochemistry of Aggression
Alcohol
Alcohol may chemically
or psychologically make
the following more likely:
 Disinhibited
aggressive behavior
 Aggressive responses
to frustration
 Violent crimes,
especially spousal
abuse
 Lack of attention to
peacemaking options
 Interpreting neutral
acts as provocations
Social Relations
Psychosocial Factors and
Aggression
Levels of aggression are
influenced by:
 Aversive conditions and
feeling frustrated;
 Getting reinforced for
aggressive behavior;
 Having aggression
modeled at home or in the
media
 Adopting social scripts for
aggression from culture
and the media.
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The Psychology of Aggression


Four psychological factors that influence
aggressive behavior are:

1. Dealing with aversive events


2. Learning aggression is rewarding
3. Observing models of aggression
4. Acquiring social scripts
Aversive/Unpleasant Conditions
Aggression is often a
response to frustration
and other aversive
conditions and events.
 Violence increases
during hot years, hot
days.
 Also aversive: pain,
heat, crowding, foul
odors.

Frustration-Aggression Principle:
After repeated frustrating events,
Anger can build, and find a target, and then:
Aggression can erupt, possibly against someone who
was not the initial cause of the frustration.
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Aversive Events
Studies in which animals and humans experience
unpleasant events reveal that those made
miserable often make others miserable.

Jeff Kowalsky/ EPA/ Landov


Ron Artest (Pacers) attack on Detroit Pistons fans.
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Environment
Even environmental temperature can lead to
aggressive acts. Murders and rapes increased
with the temperature in Houston.
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Frustration-Aggression Principle

A principle in which frustration (caused by the


blocking of an attempt to achieve a desired goal)
creates anger, which can generate aggression.
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Learning that Aggression is


Rewarding
When aggression leads to desired outcomes, one
learns to be aggressive. This is shown in both
animals and humans.

Cultures that favor violence breed violence.


Scotch-Irish settlers in the South had more violent
tendencies than their Quaker Dutch counterparts
in the Northeast of the US.
Reinforced/Rewarded Aggression
 Sometimes
aggression works!
Bullies win control
and obedience,
Robbers gain wealth,
tacklers who injure
receivers get bonuses.
Aggression, like
any behavior,
increases in
frequency and
intensity after it
is reinforced.
 Parents and
Aggression-
Replacement
Training can guide
youth by rewarding
other, prosocial
behaviors that still
meet personal needs.
Observing Models of Aggression

Sexually coercive men


are promiscuous and
hostile in their
relationships with
women. This
coerciveness has
increased due to
television viewing of R-
and X-rated movies.

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Family, Cultural
Models for Aggression
 Parents dislike aggressive
behavior in their children,
but unfortunately: They
may have modeled that
behavior, such as yelling, as
their kids watched them
handle frustration.
 Some cultures model
aggression and violence as
a solution to personal and
societal injustice.
 Models for aggression are
also conveyed through
media, in the form of
social scripts.
Acquiring Social Scripts
The media portrays social scripts and generates
mental tapes in the minds of the viewers. When
confronted with new situations individuals may
rely on such social scripts. If social scripts are
violent in nature, people may act them out.

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Aggression in Media: Social Scripts
 Aggression portrayed in
video, music, books, and
other media, follows and Social Scripts: Culturally
teaches a script. constructed directions on how
 When confronted with new to act, downloaded from
situations, we may rely on media as a “file” or “program”
social scripts to guide our in the mind.
responses. Many scripts
proscribe aggression.
Effects of Social Scripts
 Watchers of TV crime see the world as
Studies: Exposure to more threatening (needing a
one aggressive story aggressive defense?)
increases other forms  Randomly assigned to watch explicit
of aggressive behavior. pornography, study participants
suggested shorter sentences for rapists
and accepted the myth that victims
may have enjoyed the rape.
Do Video Games Teach or Release
Violence?

The general consensus on violent video games


is that, to some extent, they breed violence.
Adolescents view the world as hostile when
they get into arguments and receive bad grades
after playing such games.

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More Media Effects Video Games
on Aggression and Aggression

 Exposure to violence
in media, especially
in pornography,
seems to increase,
rather than release,
male aggressive
impulses.  People randomly assigned to play
 Media can portray ultraviolent video games showed
minorities, women, increases in hostility
the poor, and others  People playing a game helping
with less power as characters, showed increased real-life
being weak, stupid, helping
submissive, and less
human, and thus  People have acted out violent acts
deserving their from video games; People playing the
victimhood. most violent games tended to be the
most aggressive; but what came first,
aggressiveness or games?
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Summary
90

Take the Implicit Association Test


(IAT)and see where you stand.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/impli
cit/education.html

There’s a link on your website.


Conflict
Conflict is perceived as an incompatibility of
actions, goals, or ideas.

A Social Trap is a situation in which the conflicting


parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-
interest, become caught in mutually destructive
behavior.

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A Game of Social Trap
By pursuing our self-interest and not trusting
others, we can end up losers.

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Enemy Perceptions –
Mirror-Image
People in conflict form diabolical images of one
another.

http://www.aftonbladet.se
http://www.cnn.com

Saddam Hussein George Bush


“Wicked Pharaoh” “Evil”
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STOP
Attraction is next

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Warm up: Copy and respond: To


what degree do we judge people
on the basis of their physical
appearance?

Pair-share, when done


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Beauty and the Beast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VeU8QQ8LMs
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Explain: Beauty isn’t only


important in relationships; it can
have a significant impact on one’s
lifestyle and earning potential.

So let’s go through the psychology


of attraction
Social Relations
Understanding Attraction
What factors make
two people feel
attraction, wanting
to be together?
 Psychological factors
bringing people
together: Proximity,
Exposure/Familiarit
y, Attractiveness
 What can develop
next: Romantic
Love, with: Passion,
Compassion, Self-
Disclosure, Positive
Interactions, and
Support
Psychology of Attraction
1. Proximity: Geographic nearness is a powerful
predictor of friendship. Repeated exposure to
novel stimuli increases their attraction (mere
exposure effect).

A rare white penguin born


in a zoo was accepted after
3 weeks by other penguins

Rex USA
just due to proximity.
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Physical Who is
Attractiveness rated as
physically
People who are rated as attractive?
physically attractive:
1. Become the objects of
emotional attraction.  Standards differ from
culture to culture about
2. Are seen as healthy, what facial and body
happy, successfully, features are desirable.
and socially skilled,  Across cultures (suggesting
though not necessarily evolutionary influence):
caring.
 Men seek apparent youth
3. Are not any happier and fertility
than the average
person,  Women seek maturity,
masculinity, affluence
4. Do not have higher
self-esteem, in fact  Both like facial
mistrust praise as symmetry and
being about their averageness
looks.  Also attractive: Nice
people, and loved ones.
Psychology of Attraction
2. Physical Attractiveness: Once proximity
affords contact, the next most important thing
in attraction is physical appearance.

Brooks Kraft/ Corbis

Brooks Kraft/ Corbis


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Beauty and success


To those that have, shall be given

The ugly are one of the few groups against whom


it is still legal to discriminate. Unfortunately for
them, there are good reasons why beauty and
success go hand in hand

Dec 19th 2007


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104

Business Insider Attractive People Are Simply


More Successful Melissa Stanger Oct. 9, 2012, 2:36 PM

• This is part of our series on The Sexiest • Beautiful people tend to bring in more
CEOs Alive. money for their companies, and are
• Studies have shown that attractive therefore seen as more valuable
people are usually hired sooner, get employees and harder workers, according
promotions more quickly, and are to an article in Psychology Today by
paid more than their less-attractive Dario Maestripieri, a professor of
coworkers. comparative human development,
• Attractive people earn an average of 3 evolutionary biology, and neurobiology at
or 4 percent more than people with the University of Chicago. A door-to-door
below-average looks, according to Daniel insurance salesman is better able to sell
Hamermesh, professor of economics at to customers who find him attractive,
the University of Texas at Austin and says Maestripieri, because the
author of the book "Beauty Pays: Why customers will be more likely to
Attractive People Are More Successful.“ buy if they think it will increase
• Researchers have studied the concept of their chances to have sex with him.
beauty as a factor in a person’s success Maestripieri calls this principle “the
over and over again, and in multiple pleasure of dealing with good-
ways. looking people.”
105

What Is Beautiful Is Good


• There is fascinating research on the
importance of physical attractiveness to
liking. The importance of physical
attractiveness is not limited to dating
• The physical attractiveness stereotype
relationships.
(what is beautiful is good) extends to
• For example, college students judged an adults’ evaluation of children.
essay written by an attractive author to
• In one study, for example, over 400
be of higher quality than one by an
fifth-grade teachers evaluated attractive
unattractive author.
children as having greater intelligence
• Similarly, simulated juries conferred and scholastic potential than
less guilt and punishment on physically unattractive children.
attractive defendants than on
• And as early as nursery school, children
unattractive defendants. Ralph Keyes
themselves are responsive to the
has found that the average salary of over
physical attractiveness of their peers.
17,000 middle-aged men was positively
related to their height. Every inch over • It has been suggested that parents may
5’ 3” was worth an extra $370 a year in implicitly teach the physical
salary, so it appears that if you walk tall, attractiveness stereotype through the
you’ll carry a fatter wallet. bedtime stories they read their children.
Physical deformities and chronic illness
often symbolize inner defects.
106

• The villain in Peter Pan,


Captain Hook, wore a
prosthesis.
• Cinderella’s mean stepsisters
were ugly.
• Hansel and Gretel were
victims of an arthritic witch.
• Pinocchio’s nose lengthened
as his integrity slipped.
• Is it possible that more recent
heroes that students grew up
with—such as E.T., Alf, and the
Cookie Monster—who are
scary yet lovable, will serve to
weaken the physical
attractiveness stereotype?
Similarity and Attraction
Opposites Attract? Not usually.
 We already have seen: We like those who share our features.
 We also enjoy being around people who have similar
attitudes, beliefs, humor, interests, intelligence, age,
education, and income.
 We like those who have similar feelings, especially if they like
us back.

Similarity breeds
content!
Romantic Love
Passionate Love: An aroused state of intense
positive absorption in another, usually present at
the beginning of a love relationship.

Two-factor theory of emotion


1. Physical arousal plus cognitive appraisal
2. Arousal from any source can enhance one
emotion depending upon what we interpret or
label the arousal

108
Romantic Love
Companionate Love: A deep, affectionate
attachment we feel for those with whom our lives
are intertwined.

Courtship and Matrimony (from the collection of Werner Nekes) 109


Held
together by
Romantic Love positive
interaction,
Grows into support
Compassionat
e Love

Then often
has a phase
of
Passionate
Love Made closer
by Equity
and Self-
Disclosure

Often starts
with
attraction, or
friendship
Passionate Love
Compassionate Love
A state of strong Deep, caring,
attraction, interest, affectionate
excitement, felt so attachment/commitme
strongly that people are nt
absorbed in each other

Components of Passionate  Commitment: a plan to


Love stay together even when
 Physiological Arousal not feeling passionate
(sweating, heart attraction
pounding)  Attachment is now more
 Flattering appraisal of the than just desire to be
other together: a feeling that
 Intense desire for the lives are intertwined.
others’ presence
Keys to a Lasting Love Relationship
 Equity: Both giving and receiving, sharing
responsibilities, with a sense of partnership
 Self-Disclosure: Sharing self in conversation increases
intimacy
 Positive Interactions and Support: Offering
sympathy, concern, laughs, hugs
Altruism
An unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Equity: A condition in which people


receive from a relationship in proportion
to what they give.

Self-Disclosure: Revealing intimate


aspects of oneself to others.

113
Bystander Effect
Tendency of any given
bystander to be less
likely to give aid if other
bystanders are present.

114
Bystander Intervention
The decision-making process for bystander
intervention.

Akos Szilvasi/ Stock, Boston


115
The Norms for Helping
Social Exchange Theory: Our social behavior is
an exchange process. The aim is to maximize
benefits and minimize costs.

 Reciprocity Norm: The expectation that we


should return help and not harm those who have
helped us.

 Social–Responsibility Norm: Largely learned, it is


a norm that tells us to help others when they need
us even though they may not repay us.

116
Peacemaking
Superordinate Goals are shared goals that
override differences among people and require
their cooperation.

Syracuse Newspapers/ The Image Works


Communication and understanding developed
through talking to one another. Sometimes it is
mediated by a third party.
117
Peacemaking
Graduated & Reciprocated Initiatives in
Tension-Reduction (GRIT): This is a strategy
designed to decrease international tensions.
One side recognizes mutual interests and
initiates a small conciliatory act that opens the
door for reciprocation by the other party.

118

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