PSY 450 Final
Competitive altruism
altruism as status acquisition; when contributions are public, people behave more altruistically; more altruistic members gained highest status and most frequently preferred as cooperative partners; as the costs of altruism increases, status rewards also increase; THM: individuals may behave altruistically for reputational reasons because selective benefits accrue to the more generous
Sherif and the autokinetic effect
- participants replicated their original groups' estimates - the influence of group was informational rather than coercive - they had internalized their original group's way of seeing the world
no, on average; using aggression to get rid of aggression primes aggression, creating more arousal
Does catharsis work to reduce future aggression? Why or why not?
group size, group unanimity (social support from other non-conformists), group cohesiveness (cohesive groups = greater confirmity), expertise and status of group members, culture (greater conformity in collectivist culture, emphasize social relationships to a greater extent, so more motivated to conform to maintain group access), ambiguity or difficulty of task (we have limited info to make a judgement, so are motivated to seek info from other sources such as people), and anonymity (less conformity when we can give response anonymously)
Factors that influence conformity to a group norm
immediacy of the victim, physical closeness of the authority, two peers "rebelling;" institutional authority not significant
Factors that influence obedience
- very similar level of disobedience in his design - obedience was not affected by participant sex - was not affected by empathic concern - empathy level was unrelated to the likelihood - participant gender were unrelated to stopping - so personality and gender unrelated to levels of obedience - 60-65% of Ps obeyed completely, up to shocks of 450 volts - Burger found statistically equivalent amount of obedience compared to Milgram's original study
How did Burger's replication of the obedience studies relate to Milgram's original findings?
not all that well; sometimes we are accurate in understanding them; however, we have difficulty predicting future emotions; we have difficulty identifying the sources of our emotional experience
How well do we understand our emotions?
if we constantly dwelled on bad things, it would be disabling; we have adapted to 'disregard' negative events
Psychological immune system
physical pain: aggression as a self protection response ostracism and isolation: feeling left out often leads to violence and aggression, social pain theory
Situational factors in aggression
stereotyping is processing people categorically; individuating is paying attention to their individual identify rather than category membership; stereotyping others is automatic and effortless; individuating others requires resources and is effortful; so not stereotyping and individuating instead requires self-regulatory resources
Stereotyping vs. individuating
foot-in-the-door, low-ball, door-in-the-face, free gift technique, scarity and liking, and that's-not-all approach
Techniques for inducing compliance
topic is personally relevant (motivation), we know more about the topic, we feel responsible or accountable for our actions following the persuasive method
Use central route when...
we lack motivation or we lack cognitive resources (distraction, time constraints)
Use peripheral route when...
contact hypothesis; use of hypocrisy, with attitudes and behavior at odds, can capitalize on dissonance reduction and reduce prejudice and discrimination, "I'm surprised to hear you say that, you always seemed open and fair"; categorization processes = be more inclusive; encourage superordinate categorizations ("Oh, we're both humans"); accept categorizations with mutual respect, color-blindness is dissatisfying and unrealistic, multicultural perspective
What are considered effective ways of reducing prejudice and how do they work? What approaches do not work?
direct contact with groups will reduce prejudice if either common goals exist, interacting partners have equal status, contact is personal, cooperative activities occur, social norms favor inter-group contact, or exposure to stereotype-disconfirming group members cocurs
What are the necessary features of the contact hypothesis in order to reduce prejudice?
social animals socially learn; social learning theory
What did Bandura find in his Bobo Doll research and which theory of aggression does this support?
"everybody is doing it" approach; door hangers from study about reusing towel; door hangers with info on them, most effective "by the way, people who stay on this wing of the hotel tend to reuse towels"
What factors are most influential in getting people to comply to environmentally responsible behaviors?
buying green products can effectively help you attain status but two conditions must be met; one the purchase has to be seen by other people and two the green product needs to be costlier than non-green alternative
What is competitive altruism and how does it explain purchasing green products?
misattribution of arousal; arousal produced by one source is attributed to another stimulus; London bridge, produced arousal, arousal is due to attractive female, but in study arousal is due to bridge
What is excitation transfer and which research supports it?
built into the legal, political, social and economic institutions of a culture; aspects of a system that could be legal, economic, are not designed to be discriminatory, but incidentally lead to discrimination; ex: YMCA offering family discounts, firemen having to be at least 5'8
What is institutionalized discrimination and what are some examples?
emotion is in the moment, driven by specific stimulus; mood is not driven by a specific stimulus
What is the difference between emotion and mood?
simply being placed in a group makes you like that group more and more likely to be prosocial toward them
What is the minimal groups paradigm and what does it tell us about prejudice and discrimination?
empathy does promote social behavior but not simply because we want to help another person; empathy promotes helping because it causes us to experience personal distress; if we believe helping that person will reduce our own distress, then we are motivated to help
What is the relationship between empathy, the ability to change one's mood, and willingness to engage in helping behavior?
mating primes lead unrestricting men to be aggressive toward other men; mating + unrestricted male = aggression toward men; mating + restricted female = aggression toward men
What is the relationship between gender, socio-sexual orientation, and aggression?
high level of testosterone increases aggression; high serotonin lowers aggression
What is the relationship between serotonin, testosterone, and aggression?
for night, as heat increases so does aggression, could be more successful with plan; in day, as heat increases become more aggressive, but actually become less aggressive, gets too hot to do anything such as be aggressive; heat leads to increase in hostile thoughts and feelings; heat plus increased individuation opportunity of NIGHTFALL leads to continuous increase in aggression; in DAYLIGHT, gets so hot, people become inactive overall, which reduces assault
What is the relationship between time of day, heat, and aggression?
video games prime people with aggressive thoughts; research did not measure aggressive behavior
What is the relationship between violent video games and aggression?
appropriation of resources, setting status hierarchy, defending one's mate, competing intersexually for mate
What kinds of adaptive problems did aggression evolve to solve?
- research showed an experimenter giving prompts - people were more willing to be disobedient when they could hear on other side of wall - if distance was created, obedience was more likely - experimenter was in another room giving directions on intercom - 60-65% of Ps obeyed completely, up to shocks of 450 volts
What were the different variables in Milgram's research that influenced obedience levels?
clear emergency, danger to helper is minimal, helper is asked, no one else can, or helper has time
When do people help in emergencies?
Prosocial behavior
a high frequency behavior documented in all cultures; magnitude of personal cost when helping varies, helper always incurs an initial cost (time, tangible resources, emotional resources)
Elaboration likelihood model
a theory that persuasive messages can cause attitude change in two ways, each differing in the amount of elaboration it requires (central route and peripheral route)
Compliance
acting in accord with another person's direct request
Distal factors of aggression
aggression is context-specific; it occurs when aggression could solve an adaptive problem; appropriate resources, intrasexual rivalry, ascend status/dominance hierarchies; why are men more aggressive physically than women? parental investment and intrasexual competition, parental care more important to female inclusive fitness -> females could not afford the high costs of physical aggression when conflicts arise; controlling for sex norms and social approval, women still prefer to engage in relational aggression more than males
Indirect aggression
any behavior that harms someone who is not physically present; burning down a house, gossip; more likely in women
Direct aggression
any behavior that intentionally harms someone who is physically present; punching someone, shooting someone; more likely in men
Cognitive neoassociation model
aversive events activate the schemas for fight and flight, which elicit emotions of anger and fear; whether people respond with aggression or escape depends on the pattern of cues in the situation
Normative influence
being influenced by other people because one desires their approval and does not want to be excluded or ostracized; need to belong: we may conform to the desires of others in exchange for acceptance; we may even given answers we know to be incorrect, if we think it will facilitate acceptance
Informational influence
being influenced by other people because one sees their comments or actions as information about what is "correct"; people find themselves in an ambiguous situation and turn to others for help, hoping it will lead to a correct response; Autokinetic affect is an illusion (dot moving or not)
Stereotypes
beliefs about a group of people that are generalized to all members of the group; a prototype about a social group
Sex differences in aggression
boys are consistently rated as more aggressive than girls; but the type of aggression can change this, because boys -> more physical aggression and girls -> more relational aggression
Frustration-aggression hypothesis
the idea that frustration, the perception that you are being prevented from attaining a goal, increases the probability of an aggressive response
Conformity
changing oneself (by copying others) in response to real or imagined group pressure
Proactive aggression
cold and premeditated; calculated harmful behavior that is a means to some practical or material end; war or robbery
Consistency motivation
dissonance reduction; "I signed the petition in support of the cause, not donating would be inconsistent with this prior behavior."
Foot-in-the-door technique
compliance with an initial, small request makes us more likely to comply with a later, larger request; due to consistency motivation
Stereotype lift
conditions that promote underperformance among stereotyped groups also tend to promote over-performance among advantaged groups
Situational determinants of helping
costs and rewards; number of bystanders
Cold cognition
emotion absent from cognitive processing
Hot cognition
emotion influences cognitive processing
Altruistic motive
empathic concern motive
Mood
enduring affective state, not clearly linked to an event or object
Social exchange theory
when perceived benefits outweighs perceived cost; if we think cost will outweigh benefit, we might not try to help
Modeling helpful behavior
exposure to models of helpful behavior can influence the likelihood of our own helping; can actually serve to model or prime helping behavior
Stereotype threat
fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group; this can actually disrupt performance and result in confirming the stereotype
Persuasion
getting someone to change his/her attitudes
Free gift technique
giving someone a free gift also activates the norm of reciprocity; we comply to repay this nice "favor"
Reactive aggression
heat of the moment, done with emotion, "hot" and impulsive; angry behavior motivated by desire to harm someone
Social rewards motive for helping
helping to increase one's esteem in the eyes of others (praise, positive attention, honors, gratitude, tangible rewards)
Experienced distress motive for helping
helping to reduce one's own distress caused by witnessing another's distress; through empathy you experience their distress, you want to get rid of the negative feeling, if you help them then you will feel better; similar to negative state relief hypothesis; helping and compliance: "I feel bad, therefore I will comply which will aid another, thereby making me feel good."
Empathic concern motive
helping to reduce the other's distress, which is felt empathetically; by identifying with another (feeling and understanding what they are experiencing), this can produce an intention to help the person
Systemic oppression
how racism is embedded in the sociocultural legacy of historical oppression that continues to exert hidden influence on present-day experience
Cuture of honor
if someone damages your reputation, you should take aggressive vengeance against them; defined by places where resources are easily taken and not a lot of sanctioned legal ramifications to deal with it, so take it into own hands; resource can be easily taken; there is little formal governmental protection or legal recourse; developing a reputation for violent retribution against those who steal was one way to discourage theft where resource can be easily taken; men in honor cultures perceive interpersonal threats more readily than men in other cultures, including increases in cortisol and testosterone levels following insults; in culture-of-honor states, high school students were found to be more likely to bring a weapon to school in the past month and over a 20-year period, there were more than twice as many school shootings per capita
Categorization processes
in-group vs. out-group categorization; "cognitive misers" (stereotyping vs. individuating)
Kin selection hypothesis and helping behavior
inclusive fitness; our kin shares our genes so 'altruism' toward genetically related others benefit our own genes; in life-threatening situations, people report more willingness to help genetic relatives than normal relatives; we help those who have helped us; reciprocal altruism; solves the problem of helping non-kin; found all over nature (vampire bats need blood, will regurgitate some blood they have sucked to share with others, but only those who have helped them in past)
Varieties of oppression
individual (biased thoughts, feelings, or actions), institutional (organizational or societal practices that result in different oucomes for similarly situated persons), and cultural (patterns of racist stuff embedded in ideologies, values, institutions, practices, and artifacts)
Realistic group conflict theory
limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice; perceived or concern over access to resources lead groups to be discriminatory toward one another; anti-ex: immigration attitudes are often driven by concerns that immigrants will take jobs away from citizens
Prejudice
negative attitude or emotions toward a group of people
Factors that contribute to compliance
norm of reciprocity
Parental investment theory, intra-sexual competition, and sex differences in physical aggression
parents care more important to female inclusive fitness; females could not afford the high costs of physical aggression when conflicts arise; women engage in relational aggression more than males
Weapons effect
participants came in room, one with nothing on table the other with guns on table; received shock; weapons primed aggressive response, made those that had guns in front of them more wanting to shock back
Norm of reciprocity
people tend to provide benefits (return favors) to those who benefit them
Peripheral route
persuasion that occurs when people do not think carefully about a persuasive message and instead are influenced by cues that are irrelevant to the content or quality of the message; likely to revert back to original attitude; if you think your argument is weak, but really want to convince people to adopt it anyway, then appealing to this route is beneficial (attractive others celebrities)
Central route
persuasion that occurs when people think carefully about a persuasive message and are influenced by the strength of its arguments; if thinking produces more thoughts inconsistent with message arguments, our attitude does not change; if you think your argument is strong and convincing, appealing to this route may be beneficial for persuasion; attitude change is permanent
Affective forecasting
predicting our future emotions; we often do not know what will make us happy even though we think we do
Situational factors
priming: violence in media and video games
Explaining aggression
proximal causes, cultural and chemical factors, or distal causes
Door-in-the-face technique
refusing an initial, large request makes us more likely to comply with a later, smaller request; due to pressure to honor the norm of reciprocity; we feel urge to repay a favor with a favor; when other party honors or request not to honor their large request, we feel obligated to reciprocate when they ask for something smaller by agreeing to it
Egoistic motives
social rewards motive and experienced distress motive
Negative state relief hypothesis
some people engage in certain actions, such as helping or agreeing to a request, to relieve negative feelings or to feel better
Emotion
specific, toward people or events; brief psychological and physiological response; subjectively experienced as feelings; arousal
Automatic vs. controlled processes
stereotypes are activated automatically; some people use controlled processes to inhibit them
Social identity theory
suggests that people seek to enhance their self-esteem by identifying with specific social groups; perceive those groups as better than other groups; basking in reflective glory; in-group bias; evidence: minimal group paradigms
Shooter bias
tendency for people to mistakenly shoot unarmed African American targets more frequently than unarmed Caucasian targets; both participants showed same bias; not driven by prejudice, driven by knowing there is a stereotype associating AA's with aggression; prejudice can be changed by just knowing there is a stereotype cannot
Empathy-altruism hypothesis
the idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help that person purely for altruistic reasons; some believe empathy is the only determinant of helping that is 'truly' selfless
That's-not-all approach
the influencer makes a large request, then immediately offers a discount or bonus before the initial request is refused
Bystander effect
the more people present when a person needs help, the less likely it is that help will be given; sense of personal responsibility decreases when we know others are around who could help; diffusion of responsibility; clarity of the situation and pluralistic ignorance; normative: "don't want to look stupid when no one else is reacting"; informational: "must not be real problem because no one is reacting"
Obedience
the performance of an action in response to a direct order
Immune neglect
the tendency to underestimate our capacity to be resilient in responding to difficult life events, which leads us to overestimate the extent to which life's difficulties will reduce our personal well-being
Contact hypothesis
the theory that under certain conditions, direct contact between antagonistic groups will reduce prejudice; mere exposure effect
Mood and helping
the warm glow of a good mood can spark us to help others
Discrimination
unjustified negative action toward a member of a group simply because of his or her membership in that group
Low-ball technique
we agree to an initial, attractive deal; something happens to alter the bargain (bad elements are introduced or good elements are removed); we still go along with modified, worse deal (consistency motivation)
Like-me-then-help-me
we are more likely to be influenced by attractive, similar, nice, trustworthy others
Personal norms
we each have expectations about our behavior in particular situations
Social learning theory
we learn social behavior (aggression) by observing others and imitating them
Need to belong
we may conform to the desires of others in exchange for acceptance
Norm of social responsibility
we should help those who are deserving
Scarcity and liking
what is scarce is valuable (limited-time offers, limited availability makes an offer seem more attractive than it might otherwise)
