Social Psych Exam 3
Bowlby's Attachment Theory (1973)
-attachment is not only important for familial and other interpersonal relationships -children are biologically predisposed to develop attachments with caregivers as a means of increasing the chances of their own survival -people are concerned with receiving support for themselves if their security is in question -when people have secure attachments and are less concerned with being vulnerable, they can attend to the needs of others -attachment security should by positively correlated with prosocial behavior
Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment
-attachment style in which infants become extremely upset when their caregiver leaves but reject the caregiver when he or she returns -want to become close to their partners, but worry that they will not return their affections
Avoidant Attachment
-attachments marked by discomfort over, or resistance to, being close to others -less able to trust others, find it difficult to develop close relationships
Secure Attachment
-attachments rooted in trust and marked by intimacy -develop mature, lasting relationships as adults
Amato (1983)
-helped clear up the inconsistent evidence for difference in prosocial behavior between urban/rural settings -randomly selected 55 Australian communities and performed five behavior field studies (charitable purchase, write down favorite color when requests, correct someone's directions, pick up dropped envelope, help someone with a bloody leg) -results: the likelihood of all the behaviors, except picking up a dropped envelope, were negatively correlated with population size -lower population density= most helpful
Urban Overload Hypothesis (Stanley Milgram, 1970)
-the theory that people living in cities are constantly bombarded with stimulation and that they keep to themselves to avoid being overwhelmed by it -if you put urban dwellers in a calmer, less stimulating environment, they would be as likely as anyone else to reach out to others
Steblay (1987): Meta-analysis of Urban Overload Hypothesis
-saw that two relationships seem to be at play that influence the urban overload hypothesis -(1) there is actually a positive relationship between population size and helping in small to medium sized cities (1,000-250,000) - (2) there is still a stark difference in that the most densely populated cities have much less helping behavior than small to medium sized cities -major finding: once you pass 250,000 people in population, Urban Overload takes effect
Autokinetic Effect Study (Sherif, 1935)
-"autokinetic" (self-moving) point of light -in this study, the light isn't actually moving at; it is an optical illusion -if you stare at a bright light in a uniformly dark environment (e.g., a star on a dark night), the light will appear to waver a bit back and forth (occurs because you have no stable visual reference point with which to anchor the position of the light) -first phase: the participants arrived at their own stable estimate, but these estimates differed across people (reproted movement ranged from 1in to 10in) -chose autokinectic effect because the situation is ambiguous -second phase: the participants were paired with two other people, each of whom had had the same prior experience alone with the light; situation became a truly social one, as all three made their judgments out loud -people converged on a common estimate, and each member of the group tended to conform to that estimate (indicates that people were using each other as a source of information)
Outgroup
-"them" - those perceived as different or apart from our in-group -people are more likely to help them if social exchange concerns allow for it
Ingroup
-"us"—people with whom we share a common identity -people are more likely to help people in their in-group becuase you identify with and feel empathy for them
Two Sources of Social Influence:
-(1) the need to be right: we often look to others as sources of information about how to think or behave, especially in ambiguous situations -(2) the need to belong: we want others to like and accept us and we want to fit into important social groups
Empathy Altruism vs. Negative State Relief
-Cialdini: helping as a result of empathy is still egotistic -if you empathize with someone, helping them reduces your own pain or guilt -helping is really about relieving your own negative feelings -Batson: people often help even when helping is not necessary to reduce negative affect -when people are in positive moods, they are generally more inclined to help others -empathy still predicts helping when people can escape the situation, justifying their inaction or have other opportunities to reduce their negative feelings
Media and Aggression
-Most American children are immersed in images of violence in all types of media: from television and movies to video games and the Internet -over 60% of television contains violence and only 20% of those shows include any types of penalty or remorse -the average 12 year old had witnessed over 100,000 acts of violence on television -experimental evidence does demonstrate that watching violence does increase the frequency of aggressive behavior, angry emotions, and hostile thoughts -actively playing violent video games seems to have a stronger influence
Public Compliance
-conforming to other people's behavior publicly without necessarily believing in what other people are doing or saying -does not always imply that your beliefs have changed as a result
Proximate Explanations
-a causal explanation of behavior that focuses on immediate situational and physiological factors -situational influence comes into play -more helpful in determining reasons as to why people do things in the present day -Why did this individual perform this particular action
Compliance
-a change in behavior due to the intentional influence of others -example: I read the Hunger Games series because my friend asked me to
Obedience
-a change in behavior in response to a specific command or authority -example: I read the Hunger Games series because my boss told me I had to -there are countless tragic examples in history that can be explained by obedience -it is not just simply character flaws that explains why people obey authority figures, but rather the situations that promote violence
Conformity
-a change in behavior or beliefs to match the behavior or beliefs of others -example: I read the Hunger Games series because I know my friends all like it -happens when a situation is confusing, unusual, or people want to avoid being ridiculed/punished -the influence of others leads us to conform because we see those people as a valuable source of information to guide our behavior -conformity occurs because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous set of circumstances is accurate and will help us choose an appropriate course of action -can result in the diffusion of responsibility (situations are socially defined)
Egosim
-a motive to increase one's own welfare -the opposite of altruism -helping others selfishly to gain rewards for oneself
Hostile Aggression
-an act of aggression stemming from feelings of anger and is aimed at inflicting pain or injury -intended harm for the purpose of hurting a target
Instrumental Aggression
-an act of aggression that is an intermediary step toward a nonaggressive goal -intended harm in service of a goal
Religiosity and Prosocial Behavior
-an important feature of religion is that it binds people together and creates strong social bonds -as a result, religious people are more likely to help others in need (***if that person shares the same religious belief that they do, in-group favoritism) -on surveys: it is reported that people who regularly attend religious services are more likely to report that they volunteer and give to charities -in terms of actual behavior: religious people are more likely to actually help in publicly visible ways -there is no different between religious and nonreligious people when it comes to private, "invisible" ways of helping
Smith & Williams, 2004: Text Messaging Study
-another study measuring the impacts of ostracism -researchers staged an exclusion situation via text messaging with strangers -participant come to a lab and two other participants are there (one man, one woman, and both of them are confederates) -participants were given devices to text each other with and asked to answer two questions provided by the experimenter -then they were told to interact via text for 8 minutes -after that, the participant was either purposefully excluded or included (exclusion: no one responds to participants' texts, no one texts participants inclusion: eight minutes of conversation via text) -results: individuals who were excluded felt lower sense of belonging, less in control, lower self-esteem, more anger
Prosocial Behavior
-any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person -includes actions that are acted out of self interest in hopes of receiving a reward -prosocial actions have positive consequneces for another person, group or society
Relational Aggression
-any behavior intended to harm someone by damaging or manipulating relationships or social status -can also be the threat of causing harm to a relationship -social forms of aggression are just as important to study as physical forms -the bulk of pain people feel on a daily basis is emotional, not physical -could be evolutionarily adaptive: elevates your standing among possible reproductive rivals -research on relational aggression contradicts the stereotype that males are aggressive and females are not
Aggressive Driving
-any behavior that violate traffic laws or that involves anger expressions that result from hostility toward another motorist -every year in the U.S. more than 30,000 people die in motor vehicle accidents -over half of these are due to driver aggression -being aware of negative reactions while driving may help you attend to and cope with them -factors that promote aggressive driving: aggressive personality, being male, wealth, sensation-seeking, narcissism, intoxication, job stress, being hurried, hot temperatures
Functional Approach to Volunteerism (Clary & Snyder, 1991)
-assumes that we engage in volunteerism because we get something out of it -different people can get different rewards from the same behavior -people can engage in different activities to satisfy one need -people can satisfy multiple needs by engaging in a single activity -involves some level of personal benefit and self-focus -if someone identifies a volunteer opportunity that will address a present need, he or she will initiate volunteering
Infomercials
-change peoples' behavior by changing their perceptions of how other people are behaving -"if operators are busy, please call again": suggests that the lines are so busy and that so many people are buying their product, which influences more people to buy their product -small tweaks to how something is framed can have big impacts on perceptions, and in turn our behavior
Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment
-children watched a model attack a doll -then the children were put in a room with toys including the same doll and their behavior was observed -it was found that the kids who watched the aggressive model were much more likely to imitate the aggressive actions
Dark Side of Social Norm Persuasion
-communicating that others are engaging in popular prohibited behaviors might promote that behavior -example: public service announcements aimed at decreasing alcohol consumption that use statistics on how common binge drinking is, have the potential to make people want to drink more in order to fit in with the descriptive norm
Private Acceptance
-conforming to other people's behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right
Ostracism
-deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups -"silent treatment" -people who are ostracized feel alone, anxious, less important, low in control -"Cyberball" has been used to study ostracism
Latane and Darley (1968): Spontaneous Emergency Helping
-developed a simple decision "tree diagram" to demonstrate when people are likely to help -defined a series of necessary conditions for emergency helping to occur -notice the event, interpret it as an emergency, assume responsibility, know how to help, decide to act
Catharsis Hypothesis
-developed by Freud -idea that we feel better if we "blow off steam" -however this has since been refuted and it is found that it is better to just rest and wait to let your anger calm down instead of expressing it physically
Milgram's Situational Variables
-effect of the study seems to depend on the participant's construal of the situation -depending on what influenced them an attenuation or lessening of the effect occurred -examples: no commands at all from the researcher, experimenter out of the room, etc.
What is considered short-term helping?
-emergency situations
Examples of Relational Aggression in Early Adulthood
-emphasizing the amount of attention you get from others (bragging) -silent treatment or acting cold towards others -gossip
Burger (2009): Replicating Milgram
-ethical violations of Milgram's original study made it hard to replicate -Burger made many updates to the procedure so he could test the intended effects without violating ethical guidelines: (1) shock generator only went up to 150 volts, (2) participants underwent extensive prescreening, (3) participants were assures more directly that they could leave at any time during the study -results: Burger found no significant difference in obedience rates between his participants and Milgram's; after the critical 150-volt shock had been delivered, 70% of Burger's participants obeyed and were ready to continue
Barker, Dembo, & Lewin (1941)
-evidence for the frustration-aggression theory -put children in groups and led them to a room of toys -some children were prevented from playing with them for a very long time, and some were not -the frustrated children, when finally allowed to play with the toys, were far more destructive than kids allowed to play right away
Milgram's Obedience Study
-experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience -procedure: participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the 'learner' and who would be the 'teacher.'; the draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram's confederates (pretending to be a real participant); the learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger: Severe Shock) to 450 volts (XXX); "teacher" tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of four possible choices; teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time -results: 65% of participants (teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts, and all the participants continued to 300 volts, all expressed serious reservations and exhibited severe emotional reactions during the procedure -different situational factors (individual construal of the situation) influenced whether or not participants would continue all the way to the end -ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being
Maintaining Volunteering
-functional approach helps explain why people keep volunteering -volunteers who reported their needs were being met by their service are more satisfied and less burnt out -individuals with values relevant to their service were most likely to be engaged ten months later -self-focused motives actually tend to predict longer service duration -personal perhaps even selfish motivation may actually be very important
Ultimate Explanations
-functional explanations at the evolutionary level -operates at the levels of genes and not individual -specific adaptations to promote inclusive fitness -Why did this species evolve this behavioral tendency
Normative Social Influence
-going along with what other people do to be liked and accepted by them; we publicly conform with the group's beliefs and behaviors but do not always privately accept them -occurs in situations where we do what other people are doing, not because we are using them as a source of information but so that we won't be made fun of, get into trouble, or be ostracized -does not necessarily result in private acceptance but instead with public compliance
Situational Origins of Aggression
-heat: riots are far more likely to occur on hot days than cold days, hotter temperatures increase the likelihood of violent crime as well -one must be cautious about interpreting events that take place outside the laboratory -are increases in aggression are due to the temperature itself or merely to the fact that more people are apt to be outside (getting in one another's way) on hot days than on cold or rainy days
Reciprocal Alturism
-helping others with the expectation that they will probably return the favor in the future -human groups who engaged in more widespread and long-term type of reciprocal cooperation were more likely to survive -necessary conditions: accepting delayed reciprocation and detection of "cheating" or freeloading -if we can benefit from the help of others and avoid being taken advantage of, we increase our inclusive fitness
The Asch Line-Judgment Studies
-hypothesis: when a situation was wholly unambiguous, people would act like rational, objective problem solvers (when the group said or did something that contradicted an obvious truth, surely people would resist social pressures and decide for themselves what was going on) -participants were told that this was an experiment on perceptual judgment and that you'd be taking part with seven other students -experimenter shows everyone two cards: one with a single line on it and the other with three lines labeled 1, 2, and 3 -asks each of participant to judge and then announce out loud which of the three lines on the second card is closest in length to the line on the first card (repeats this process twice with all confederates stating the correct and same answer as participant) -experimenter presents a third set of lines, and again the answer is obvious; line 3 is clearly the closest in length to the target line, but all other confederates disagree with the participant -results: contrary to what Asch expected, a considerable amount of conformity occurred: 76% of the participants conformed and gave an obviously incorrect response on at least one trial
Did 9/11 increase volunteerism in the U.S.?
-in the 2 years prior to 9/11, between 2005 and 6000 people per week used volunteermatch.org to connect with volunteer organizations -in the week following 9/11, this figure shot up to 13,000 per week -it then returned to slightly elevated, but normal levels, shortly after
Attachment and Prosocial Behavior
-insecure attachment styles are less willing to help a distressed person in need -insure attachment styles have more self-oriented motives for volunteering -secure attachment styles display greater volunteerism and are more compassionate when it comes to responding to others' suffering -avoidant attachment styles are less supportive towards persons with cancer
Aggression
-intentional behavior aimed at causing physical harm or psychological pain to another person -not just thoughts of carrying out behavior, but actual displayed behavior -different from assertiveness -can be physical, verbal, or emotional -thoughts or feelings alone are not instance of aggression -an act can be aggressive whether it succeeds in its goal or not -violence is an extreme form of aggression
Physical Aggression
-intentional use of physical force to injure or abuse someone
Bond and Smith (1996)
-investigated the Asch paradigm in other cultures (133 studies conducted in 17 countries) -meta-analysis of previous studies of Asch paradigm in 17 countries -results: conformity is consistently found across countries and participants from collectivist countries showed greater levels of conformity than those from individualistic countries
What mitiagates conformity?
-number people who descend from the majority -whether or not responses are written/verbal or anonymous -group size (smaller the group=less conformity)
Relational Aggression in Adolescence
-just like most psychological processes, the older you get the more complex and sophisticated actions become -examples: talking about people behind their backs, pretending to be friends with someone and then double crossing them, trying to steal someone's romantic partner, trying to embarrass someone publicly
Clary et al, 1988: Implications for Recruitment
-key finding: tailoring messages to a particular function will generate more interest among people looking to serve that function
Relational Aggression in Early Childhood
-levels of relational aggression in boys and girls diverge over time (begins at 2.5 years) -boys are more likely to use physical aggression (15.6%) to get what they want and girls are more likely to use relational aggression (17.4%) to get what they want -mostly manifests as acts of ignoring others or social exclusion -children who engage in relational aggression are more likely to experience social, psychological and emotional difficulties (peer rejection, depression, tendency to externalize their problems) -relational aggression in early childhood leads to more maladjustments later in life
Volunteerism
-long-term helping -around 100 million U.s. adults do volunteer work of some kind annually -estimated annual value of volunteer efforts and labor in the U.S. to be $170 billion -why do people initiate volunteering and why do people maintain volunteering
Gender Differences in Prosocial Behavior
-men are more likely to help in emergencies or when situations call for heroic and chivalrous behavior -women are more likely to help in long-term situations like volunteering or when the situation calls for a nurturer role -these differences are held cross culturally
Problems with Aggression Research
-mostly focused on male participants -this male focus leads to "male" definition of aggressions -leads to false confirmations of stereotypes that males are more aggressive and female are not
Penner (2005): National Crises and its Impact on Prosocial Behavior
-national crises or threats threaten our beliefs of a fair and just world -they increase mortality salience (our awareness that death is inevitable) -people seem to use volunteerism as a way to "restore balance"
What situations might influence the amount of volunteer work that takes place?
-national threats or crises -personal circumstances
Evolutionary Psychology and Prosocial Behavior
-natural selection favors genes that promote the survival of the individual -evolutionary psychologists attempt to explain social behavior in terms of genetic factors that have evolved over time according to the principles of natural selection -humans have evolved to function in social groups (society is a consequence of human prosociality) -look at kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and levels of analysis -behaviors evolve because of selection pressures on our ancestors and these pressures may or may not still exist
Why does media violence affect viewers' aggression?
-norms: "If they can do it, so can I"-when people see characters behaving violently, it may weaken their previously learned inhibitions against violent behavior -observational learning: "Oh, so that's how you do it!"-when people see characters behaving violently, it might trigger imitation, providing them with ideas as to how they might go about it. -misattribution: "Those feelings I am having must be real anger rather than merely my reaction to a stressful day."-watching violence may put people more in touch with their feelings of anger and make an aggressive response more likely through priming -habituation: "Ho-hum, another brutal beating. What's on the other channel?"-watching a lot of mayhem seems to reduce both our sense of horror about violence and our sympathy for the victims, making it easier for us to live with violence and perhaps easier for us to act aggressively -self-fulfilling Prophecy: "I had better get him before he gets me!"-if watching a lot of television makes people think the world is a dangerous place, they might be more apt to be hostile to a stranger who approaches them on the street
Norm of Reciprocity
-the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future -evolutionarily based
Empathy Evidence (Toi & Batson, 1982)
-participants listens to a recording of "Carol" (fellow student) talking about a car accident in which both of her legs were broken and how she was worried about falling behind in her course -participants were asked to share their lecture notes and meet with Carol -point of the study was to look at whether people agreed to help Carol and to pit two motives against each other: empathy versus self-interest -researchers varied how much empathy people felt toward Carol by telling different participants to adopt different perspectives when listening to her story -high-empathy condition: people were told to try to imagine how Carol felt about what had happened to her and how it had changed her life -low-empathy condition: people were told to try to be objective and not be concerned with how Carol felt -results: people in the high-empathy condition reported feeling more empathy for Carol than people in the low-empathy condition did -researchers looked at self-interest by varying how costly it would be not to help Carol -high-cost condition: participants learned that she would start coming back to class the following week and happened to be in the same psychology section as they were; thus, they would see her every time they went to class and would be reminded that she needed help -low-cost condition: people learned that Carol would be studying at home and would not be coming to class; therefore, they would never have to face her in her wheelchair and feel guilty about not helping her
Bushman, Baumeister, and Stack (1999)
-participants were told that an essay they wrote about a personal topic was "one of the worst" the judge had ever read -participants were then instructed to either punch and punching bag for 2 minutes (cathartic condition) or do nothing -after the 2 minute time period participants played a game against an opponent where they could choose to punish the opponent with blasts of noise -it was found that those in the cathartic condition gave about 40 times stronger blasts than the participants who did nothing -results: hitting a punching bag when angry increased aggression, which is opposite of what the cathartic theory suggests should happen
Prosocial Behavior and Social Affiliation
-people have a need to "belong" -giving people stuff often seems like a good way to get people to like you -people who are motivated to make friends may be motivated to behave prosocially -evidence: lonely individuals are more likely to accept unfair allocation in dictator games -evidence: individuals who have just experienced social rejection (more motivated to make friends) are more likely to grant monetary compensation, and grant larger sums, to potential partners than more socially secure individuals
Prosocial Behavior and Affect
-people might just help other to feel good or to feel less bad -helps people avoid the experience of negative emotions and seeking the experience of positive emotions
Who is more likely to volunteer?
-people who are more educated, have higher incomes, older, more religious, more agreeable, more empathetic
Descriptive Norms
-people's perceptions of how people actually behave in given situations, regardless of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved of by others -what people do, what is -example: 60% of people give to charity
Injunctive Norms
-people's perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others in a given situation -what people are supposed to do, what aught to be -example: everyone should give to charity
Evolutionary View of Aggression
-physical aggression is genetically programmed into men because it enables them to defend their group and perpetuate their genes -men: aggress to establish dominance over other males and to ensure paternity out of sexual jealousy -females: aggress to protect their offspring
Who did not obey the experimenter in the Milgram Study?
-political party did not make a different -religion seemed to have some influence on obedience: Catholics slightly more likely to obey than Protestants or Jewish participants -more education lead to less obedience -those who were in so called "moral" profession were more defiant than those in "technical" fields -education and values may have played an important role in mitigation blind obedience
Motives behind Prosocial Behavior:
-reciprocity (giving back) -social affiliation (making friends) -seeking positive and avoiding negative affect -empathy
Informational Social Science
-relying on other people as a source of information to guide our behavior; we conform because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is correct and can help us choose an appropriate course of action -people will conform due to informational social influence when the situation is ambiguous (most important factor), when they are in a crisis situation (limited time to act), or when information comes from experts
Seminar Study: John Darley and Daniel Batson (1973)
-researchers conducted a study that mirrored the parable of the Good Samaritan, wherein many passersby failed to stop to help a man lying unconscious at the side of the road -participants: extremely altruistic—seminary students -students were asked to walk to another building, where the researchers would record them making a brief speech -group 1: told that they were late and should hurry to keep their appointment -group 2: told that there was no rush because the assistant in the other building was running a few minutes behind schedule -as they walked to the other building, each of the students passed a man who was slumped in a doorway -results: if they were not in a hurry, most of the students (63%) would help and if they were hurrying to keep their appointment, however, only 10% stopped to help
Cyberball Study (Sommer et al., 2001; Eisenberger et al. 1996)
-researchers set up a virtual computer game of catch that a participant plays "with other people" (not actually real people) -the game starts pretty equitable, with equal passing of the ball, but after a while the participant becomes excluded -participant initially included and then becomes excluded -used to study the impact of ostracism on emotional state
Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2007: variation of "Cyberball" Study
-same Cyberball game was set up (one participants playing with 2 other "real people") -participants were told that the other players were either members of their in-group, rival out-group, or despised out-group -wanted to see if there were differing levels of ostracism depending on which group you get excluded from -results: effects were the same regardless of which group participants were excluded from (still felts low sense of belonging, less control, lower self-esteem, etc.)
Piff et al. (2010)
-studied the impact that social class has a levels of prosocial behavior -we might intuitively expect that people with more tend to give more -question: what if lower class people are just as helpful because they rely on social bonds more than those with wealth? -conducted 4 studies to test this question -IV: various measures and manipulations of social class -DV: reported levels of generosity, charitableness, trust, helpfulness -Results: across all different measures and manipulations of class it seems that people in lower objective class rankings or people who perceive themselves to be in lower rankings, are more likely to help, trust people, and give charitable donations
DeWall et al. (2010): Acetaminophen reduces social pain: behavioral and neural evidence
-studied to physiological effects of social pain -participants took a pill twice daily, upon waking up and going to bed -group 1: Tylenol -group 2: placebo -for three weeks, they reported how much their feelings were hurt and how much social pain they felt -over the course of the the three weeks participants reported how much their feelings were hurt and how much social pain they felt -results: tylenol group showed reduced behavioral and neural responses associated with the pain of social rejection, demonstrating substantial overlap between social and physical pain
Schultz et al. (2007): Energy Use Study
-suggested that social norm campaigns also affect those whose behavior is more desirable than the norm and has the opposite influence on them, causing them to decrease their "good behavior"
Werner & Crick, 1999: Relational aggression and social-psychological adjustment in a college sample
-surveyed 225 sorority and fraternity members about their fellow peers' social adjustments and personalities -study examines the associations between relational aggression and social-psychological adjustment in a sample of young adults -would ask things such as "when angry, do they give others the silent treatment?" -found that relational aggression tendencies were significantly associated with multiple forms of maladjustment (peer rejection, lower life satisfaction, antisocial behaviors, etc.)
What hormone fuels aggression?
-testosterone -higher levels in males which makes them more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior -laboratory animals who were injected with testosterone become more aggressive -testosterone may lead to aggression by reducing our ability to control impulses
Empathy
-the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and to experience events and emotions the way that person experiences them -emotional: share joy or pain -cognitive: understanding others' feelings and recognizing them as distinct from one's own -motivational: desire to alleviate the target's suffering or maintains their positive feelings
Pluralistic Ignorance
-the case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation is a certain way, when in fact they are not -generally more likely when situation is ambiguous -if no one seems worried the event most likely won't be interpreted as an emergency
Altruism
-the desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper -no internal or external reward to the helper -altruism is caused by selfless motivations, not selfish ones
Social Pain
-the discomfort that people feel when they are socially rejected or when they lose a valued companion -just like how physical aggression causes physical pain, relational aggression causes social pain
Social Influence
-the effect of the real or imagined influence of other people, often resulting in changes in beliefs of behavior -altering behaviors to conform to the expectations of others
Kin Selection
-the idea that behaviors that help a genetic relative are favored by natural selection -since selection operates at the level of genes, not the individual, helping people with similar genes promotes inclusive fitness -people are more likely to help those genetically related to them -not sufficient to explain human cooperation
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis (Batson)
-the idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help that person for purely altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain -when we lack empathy, social exchange concerns come into play -sometimes prosocial behavior is independent of the perceived benefit to the helper
Social Norms
-the implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members -often communicated indirectly or inferred from observations -two types: descriptive norms and injunctive norms -example: people are more likely to turn off a light when they exit a room if it was off when they entered -powerful influence on behavior, especially when injunctive and descriptive norms are both salient and are consistent with one each other -people are often oblivious to social norms or unwilling to admit their influence
Frustration
-the perception that you are being prevented from attaining a goal -arises from the gap between expectations and attainment -increase when interruptions are unexpected and goals are near
Diffusion of Responsibility
-the phenomenon wherein each bystander's sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases -the more people present who could help, the less likely any one of them is to actually help -responsibility is psychologically divided among the present -diffusion of responsibility is particularly likely to occur when people cannot tell whether someone else has already intervened
Diffusion of Responsibility
-the phenomenon wherein each bystander's sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases -when situations are ambiguous, they are especially likely to be socially defined -when people aren't sure if a situation is an emergency, they turn to others
Negative State Relief Model (Cialdini)
-the proposition that people help others in order to counteract their own feelings of sadness -helping others provides emotional relief and improves mood -if people have the opportunity to make themselves feel good in some other way, they will choose not to help others
Inclusive Fitness
-the sum of an individual's own fitness to place his or her own genes in the next generation plus the sum of the effects of his or her own behavior on the related fitness of all other individuals carrying the same gene
Frustration-Aggression Theory
-the theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress -frustration can be a key catalyst to aggression -frustration does not always lead to aggression it just readies people, increasing the likelihood of aggressive behavior -other situational factors must be generally conducive to aggression as well
Social Exchange Theory
-the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs -we tend to behave in a prosocial manner when the benefits outweigh the costs -suggests that helping will occur more often when it is easy and when it will be reciprocated -assume that just as people in an economic marketplace try to maximize the ratio of their monetary profits to their monetary losses, people in their relationships with others try to maximize the ratio of social rewards to social costs -when we lack empathy in a situation, this is when this theory comes to play
Social-Cognitive Learning Theory
-the theory that people learn social behavior (aggression) in large part through observation and imitation of others and by cognitive processes such as plans, expectations, and beliefs -we learning social norms by observing others -aggression and even the "proper ways" to aggress are learned from our social environment
Value Function
-volunteering can help express or act on important values such as humanitarianism and egalitarianism
Social Function
-volunteering can help us build and strengthen social relationships
Career Function
-volunteering can help us gain career experience or qualification
Enhancement Function
-volunteering can help us grow as a person
Understanding Function
-volunteering can help us learn or use unused skills
Protective Function
-volunteering can help us reduce negative feelings o address personal problems
What is considered long-term helping?
-volunteerism
The Volunteer Process Model
-volunteerism is an ongoing process -personality, motivational, and situational factors predict who volunteers -intrapsychic and interpersonal processes define the experiences of volunteers -attitudinal, behavioral, and broader social consequences emerge as a result of volunteering -antecedents, experiences, and consequences should be considered together to predict initiation and maintenance of volunteering -important to consider multiple levels of analysis
Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius (2008)
-wanted to see if they could conserve water and towel usage and save the hotel money by manipulating the social norms -ran a study on hotel bathroom signs at a local Holiday Inn -typical these signs emphasize the benefit to the environment and are generally not effective because they don't utilize social aspects to influence behavior -guests were randomly assigned to receive the normal sign or one that said " 75% of fellow guest reuse towels at least once" -results: those who received the new sign increased reuse rates by 15% and it increased even more to 30% when the sign included information about the specific guests in that room