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Social Relations

Module 45

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Social Psycholog

ySocial Relations Overview Prejudice

Aggression

Attraction

Altruism

Conflict and Peacemaking

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Social Relations

Social psychology the branch of psychology that studies individuals in the social context.

…teaches us how we relate to one another through prejudice, aggression, and conflict to attraction, and

altruism and peacemaking.

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PrejudicePrejudice is an unjustifiable (usually

negative) attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice is often

directed towards different cultural, ethnic, or gender groups.

1. Beliefs (stereotypes)2. Emotions (hostility, envy, fear)3. Predisposition to act (to discriminate)

Components of Prejudice

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How Prejudiced are People?Over the duration of time many prejudices

against interracial marriage, gender, homosexuality, and minorities have decreased.

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Racial & Gender Prejudice

Americans today express much less racial and gender prejudice, but

prejudices still exist.

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Stereotype: A generalization about a social group

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

• People have expectations about another person that influence how they act toward that person. Such expectations in turn cause that person to behave consistently with the original expectations.

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Stereotypes…

• A FATHER AND HIS SON ARE IN A CAR ACCIDENT, the father dies at the scene and the son, badly injured, is rushed to the hospital. In the operating room, the surgeon looks at the boy and says, 'I can't operate on this boy. He is my son." How can this be?

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IAT

• Implicit Association Test

• Exposes cognitive bias

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Gender Bias

Worldwide more women live in 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.

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Gender BiasAlthough prejudice prevails against

women, more people feel positively toward women than men.

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Women rated picture b [feminized] higher (66%) for a matrimonial ad (Perrett & others, 1998).

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Social Roots of Prejudice

Why does prejudice arise?

1. Social Inequalities2. Social Divisions3. Emotional Scapegoating

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Social Inequality

Prejudice develops when people have money, power, and prestige, and others

do not.

Social inequality increases prejudice.

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Racist Tweets

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Social Divisons: Us and Them

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.

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Emotional Roots of Prejudice

Scapegoat theory: Prejudice provides an outlet for anger

[emotion] by providing someone

to blame.

After 9/11 many people lashed out against innocent Arab-Americans.

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Cognitive Roots of PrejudiceOne way we simplify our world is to categorize.

We categorize people into groups, often we stereotype them.

Foreign sunbathers may think Balinese look alike.

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Cognitive Roots of PrejudiceWe judge frequency by things that readily come to mind

Vivid cases such as the 9/11 attacks, terrorists can feed stereotypes or prejudices (terrorism). Most terrorists are non-Muslims.

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Cognitive Roots of PrejudiceJust-world phenomenon: The tendency of people to believe the world is just, and

people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. ©

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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.

Somebody got what they deserved…

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Aggression

Aggression: any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.

It may be done reactively out of hostility or proactively as a calculated means to an

end.

Research shows that aggressive behavior emerges from the interaction of biology

and experience.

Humans are

amazing creatures

…

Urinary latency in

men…32

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The Biology of Aggression

Three biological influences on aggressive behavior are:

1. Genetic Influences2. Neural Influences3. Biochemical

Influences

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Biology of Aggression

Offense Carrying the genes Not carrying the genes

Aggravated Assault 3,419,000 435,000

Homicide 14,196 1,468

Armed robbery 2,051,000 157,000

Sexual assault 442,000 10,000

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Influences

Genetic Influences: Animals have been bred for aggressiveness for sport and at times for research.

Neural Influences: Some centers in the brain, especially the limbic

system (amygdala) and the frontal lobe, are intimately involved with

aggression.

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InfluencesBiochemical Influences: Hormones,

alcohol and other substances influence the neural systems that

control aggression

• …Testosterone isn't causing aggression, it’s exaggerating the aggression that's already there.

• Dr. Sapolsky

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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; and

4. acquiring social scripts.

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EnvironmentEven environmental temperature can lead to aggressive acts. Murders and rapes increased with the temperature

in Houston.

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Aversive events: 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…

Instrumental Aggression: harmful behavior engaged in without

provocation to obtain an outcome or coerce others.

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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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Models of Aggression: 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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• Chandler: I was just at the bank and there was this really hot teller, and she didn't ask me to go do it with her in the vault!Joey: Same kind of thing happened to me! Woman pizza-delivery guy comes over, gives me the pizza, takes the money, and leaves!Chandler: What? No, "Nice apartment, I bet the bedrooms are huge?"Joey: No! Nothing!Chandler: You know what? We have to turn off the porn.

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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 academic

performance suffers after playing such games.

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The Psychology of Attraction1. Proximity: Geographic nearness is a

powerful predictor of friendship.2. Mere exposure effect: Repeated exposure

to novel stimuli increases its attraction.

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Psychology of Attraction

3. Physical Attractiveness: Once proximity affords contact, the next most important thing in attraction is physical appearance.

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Penalty for Ugliness?

“I am too ugly to get a job.”

A Miami man’s statement in 2003 as to why he committed robberies

“…being very unattractive increases the individual’s propensity for criminal activity for a number of crimes ranging from burglary to theft to selling illicit drugs.” Dr. Erdal Tekin

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Are you more attractive today…

• Are you ovulating?

• Women are perceived as most attractive at the peak of their fertility.

• As judged by men AND other women

• NOT dependent on actions.

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Like attracts like…implicit egoism

• … people more often get married to others with the same first letter of their first name than would be expected by chance.

• People tend to love reflections of themselves in others.

• …they preferred the tea whose name happened to match the first letters of their name.

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More…

• Students that shared a birthday with Rasputin gave him more generous ratings.

• …people named Denise or Dennis are disproportionately likely to become dentists, while people named Laura or Lawrence are more likely to become lawyers, and people with names like George or Georgina to become geologists.

• …physicians have disproportionately more surnames that include doc, dok, or med, while lawyers are more likely to have law, lau, or att in their surnames.

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Psychology of Attraction

4. Similarity: Similar views among individuals causes the bond of attraction to strengthen.

Similarity breeds content! The more people are alike the more their liking endures. (Byrne 1971)

Do they look like you?

• We trust people more who look like us…

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What do you smell like?

It seems the brains of people with different sexual orientations respond differently to odors from either sex.

Sean Kean in The Violinist’s Thumb

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Playing “hard to get”

A quick poll,…does it work?

•The research says….guys less likely to return to the hard to get women.

•What men DO like is women who are cold and standoffish to all OTHER guys, but warm and receptive to them.

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Romantic Love

Passionate Love: An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at

the beginning of a love relationship.

1. Physical arousal plus cognitive appraisal2. Arousal from any source can enhance

one emotion depending upon what we interpret or label the arousal

Two-factor theory of emotion

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Romantic Love

Companionate Love: A deep, affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom

our lives are intertwined.

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.

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An unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Altruism

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Bystander Intervention

The decision-making process for bystander intervention.

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Bystander EffectTendency of any

given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are

present.

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What Fuels Conflict?

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

ideas.

The elements of conflict are the same at all levels. People become deeply

involved in potentially destructive social processes that have undesirable effects.

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Enemy Perceptions

People in conflict form mirror image perceptions of one another.

George Bush“Evil”

Saddam Hussein“Wicked Pharaoh”

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Superordinate Goals are shared goals that override differences among people

and require their cooperation.

Cooperation

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GRIT (Graduated & Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction): 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.

Communication

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EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY(7th Edition in Modules)

David MyersPowerPoint Slides

Aneeq AhmadHenderson State

University

Worth Publishers, © 2008