Goals of Psych• DESCRIBE – The first goal is to observe behavior and

describe, often in minute detail, what was observed as objectively as possible.

• EXPLAIN – While descriptions come from observable data, psychologists must go beyond what is obvious and explain their observations. In other words, why did the subject do what he or she did? Based on the observable behavior, psychologists can infer mental processes from behavior.

• PREDICT – Based on basic research, what is the science behind the factors? When, where, and why does the behavior or mental processes occur?

• CONTROL – Based on applied research, use the principles and discoveries of psychology for practical purposes, such as controlling real-world problems

GBN Hazing

Abu Ghraib: Pair & Share1. Pick a partner. Write your partner’s name on the back of your E.Q.

2. You and your partner will be sharing information from your E.Q. with each other. You will talk once and then you will listen once.

3. Complete the following with your partner on the back of your E.Q. response:

a. Spend about 4-5 minutes TELLING your partner the main factors that you thought contributed to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal

I. As you are sharing, your partner should be taking down synthesized notes over what you are presenting. These do not have to be complete sentence just complete thoughts

II. SWITCH ROLES AND REPEAT ABOVE

b. Next, discuss and write down what you both agree upon as the single most important factor that contributed to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Make sure to explain why!

4. Write the single most important factor on the board and turn in EQ

AttributionAttribution• the process by which people infer the causes of other

people’s behavior• Example: Why did your boss yell at your co-worker?

– co-worker was slacking off and deserved it?– boss is always a hothead?– boss is usually easygoing but is undergoing a divorce that has her

stressed out?– boss really needed this particular job to be done right because her

job is on the line

External factors• people, events, situation, environment

Internal Factors• traits, needs, intentions

Attribution• How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we

react to it

Negative behavior

Situational attribution“Maybe that driver is ill.”

Dispositional attribution“Crazy driver!”

Tolerant reaction(proceed cautiously, allowdriver a wide berth)

Unfavorable reaction(speed up and race past theother driver, give a dirty look)

Fundamental Attribution Error• Tendency of observers, when analyzing another’s

behavior, to underestimate the impact of a situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

• Also called actor-observer discrepancy• e.g., “I did poorly on the exam because I had a

heavy exam schedule and I’d been sick and I was really stressed out and my goldfish died that morning and…. He did poorly on the exam because he’s stupid and lazy.”

• e.g., GBN Hazing - Girls are crazy, bad apples, have low self-esteem.

Why do we commit FAE? • Actor-observer discrepancy

– we know our behavior changes from situation to situation, but we don’t know this about others

– when we see others perform an action, we concentrate on actor, not situation -- when we perform an action, we see environment, not person

• Mental representations of people (schemas) can effect our interpretation of them– William College students

• Students had a guest speaker • Woman acted either aloof and critical or warm and friendly.• Beforehand, one group of students were told that the woman’s

behavior would be spontaneous; while the other group was told the truth… that she had been instructed to act friendly or unfriendly

• Truth had no effect… students disregarded info. Each group attributed her behavior to her internal disposition.

Why do we commit FAE? • Cross-cultural

differences– Western culture

• people are in charge of own destinies

• more attributions to personality

– Some Eastern cultures • fate in charge of

destiny• more attributions to

situation

Effects of Personal Appearance on Attribution

• The attractiveness bias– physically attractive people are rated higher on intelligence,

competence, sociability, morality– studies

• teachers rate attractive children as smarter, and higher achieving

• adults attribute cause of unattractive child’s misbehavior to personality, attractive child’s to situation

• judges give longer prison sentences to unattractive people• The baby-face bias

– people with rounder heads, large eyes, small jawbones, etc. rated as more naïve, honest, helpless, kind, and warm than mature-faced

– generalize to animals, women, babies

Attitudes • Belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to

objects, people and events– Attitudes can influence behavior through…

• Central Route Persuasion = focus on arguments and scientific evidence

• Peripheral Route Persuasion = influenced by incidental cues, such as speaker’s attractiveness

– Attitudes guide our actions if…• Outside influences on what we say and do are minimal• We are keenly aware of our attitudes

– e.g., Too Fat? Read your Email or put a mirror on your fridge – However, often times evidence confirms that attitudes follow

behavior, such as seen by the… • Foot-in-the-door technique• Role-playing

Roles and Role Playing • Role

– set of expectations about a social position. Defines how those in the position ought to behave

• Role Playing

– Power of the role can take on a life of its own. People change attitude or behavior to fit role. BEHAVIOR ATTITUDE

– e.g., Zimbardo Prison Study (1975)– e.g., GBN - Seniors took on the behavior of

an authority figure as the role of upper classman and juniors took on submissive role. Juniors did not fight back. Good natured, likeable seniors became vicious attackers. Role of seniors and role of juniors (superiority and grunt – have to take it even though they knew it probably was going to far).

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon• Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to

comply later with a larger request. Small request has paved the way to compliance with the larger request– cognitive dissonance results if person has already granted a

request for one thing, then refuses to give the larger item– e.g., GBN - Getting seniors to do such extreme things. Go from

yelling, to pushing, to hitting, to smearing fish guts, to throwing buckets, etc. Actions feeding attitudes feeding actions enables behavior to escalate.

Cognitive Dissonance• Tension we experience when attitudes are

inconsistent with each other or inconsistent with behavior. If people cannot justify their behavior, they’re likely to change their beliefs about it in order to decrease discomfort

Cognitive Dissonance• Attitudes must be consistent with behavior… if they are not,

people experience discomfort must either change behavior or change attitude; usually it’s easier to change the attitude. Come to believe in what one stood up for – adjust beliefs to be consistent with public acts.

• e.g., Stephan is a neurologist and knows that smoking is a serious health risk. Stephan smokes. Stephan must either:

1. stop smoking

2. change his attitudes

– “The risks are exaggerated.”

– “I’m going to die from something anyway.”

– “Smoking reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”

• e.g., GBN - Reason for the lack of remorse by seniors. Understood that hitting and shoving is wrong but did it. Now they are experiencing discomfort, so they change their attitude and we hear statements like, “Nobody was killed.”

Case Study• Suppose you had volunteered to participate in a psychology

experiment. Upon arrival, you were seated at a table and asked to undertake a series of dull, meaningless tasks for about an hour (such as counting pennies). Afterward, the experimenter convinced you to extol the virtues of the tasks you had performed by describing them to other potential participants as highly worthwhile, interesting and educational. You were paid either $1 or $20 to do this. Suppose you were then asked to privately rate your enjoyment of the tasks on a questionnaire.

• After which amount do you believe your actual enjoyment rating of the tasks would be higher - $1 or 20$?

Cognitive Dissonance and Insufficient Justification Effect

• If people cannot justify their behavior, they’re likely to change their beliefs about it

• Experiment (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959)– gave subjects a boring task– asked subjects to lie to the next subject and say the

experiment was exciting– paid ½ the subjects $1, other ½ $20– then asked subjects to rate boringness of task– $1 group rated the task as far more fun than the $20

group

– each group needed a justification for lying • $20 group had an external justification of money• since $1 isn’t very much money, $1 group said task was fun

Initiation Rites

Conformity

• The adoption of attitudes and behaviors shared by a particular group of people.

• 2 general reasons for conformity– Informational Influence

• change attitudes and behavior to fit with the group because don’t know the rules or the correct answer; other people can provide useful and crucial info

• e.g., Seniors learned how to haze when they went through it themselves or followed the example of other senior girls because they did not know how to haze.

– Normative Influence• change attitudes and behavior to fit with the group because of the

desire to belong• e.g., Powder puff group is the group to belong to. Seniors

participated in the violent hazing because they did not want to become an outcast from the group.

Conditions that Strengthen Conformity

• One is made to feel incompetent or insecure• The group has at least three people (further

increases in group size yield not much more conformity)

• The group is unanimous (the support of a single fellow dissident greatly increases social courage)

• One admires the group’s status and attractiveness• One has made no prior commitment to any

response• Others in the group observe one’s behavior• The particular culture strongly encourages respect

for social standards

Conformity is not always bad

• there would be anarchy without conformity• social acceptance often depends on conformity

“The only thing a non-conformist hates more than a conformist is another non-conformist who won’t conform to the rules of non-conformity.”

Asch’s Line Judgment Experiment

3 3

3

3

3

???

Solomon Asch, 1955• replicated by others in 1990

“Which comparison line is the same length as the standard?”

Asch’s Line Judgment ExperimentOn average, subjects conformed on ~40% of trials Conformity dropped to ¼ of its peak if one other person dissented (even when the dissenter made an inaccurate judgment)Conformity dropped dramatically when subjects recorded their responses privately indicating that they conformed due to normative social influence; rather than informational social influence (doubting own perceptual abilities)

Obedience• Change attitudes and

behavior to follow the orders of an authority figure.

• Request is perceived as a command

• EX: Senior girls telling younger girls what to do or more powerful senior girls telling submissive senior girls what to do.

“We do what we’re told.We do what we’re told. We do what we’re told.Told to do.”-- lyrics to “Milgram’s 37” by Peter Gabriel

Stanley Milgram1933-1984

Extreme forms of Obedience

Cambodia(Asia)

1975-19794,000,000

An estimated 210 million people were killed by genocide in 20th century.

Nazi HolocaustGermany & Poland

(Europe)1941-19456,000,000

Rwanda(Africa)1994

800,000

Milgram’s Obedience ExperimentMilgram interested in unquestioning obedience to orders

Psychologists’ predictions

Percentage of subjects administeringthe maximum shock (450 volts)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Follow-Up Studies to Milgram

• Original study

• Different building

• Teacher with learner

• Put hand on shock

• Orders by phone

• Ordinary man orders

• 2 teachers rebel

• Teacher chooses shock level

Factors that affect obedience1. Remoteness of the victim (actual distance or depersonalization)

– teacher and learner in separate rooms: 65% obedience– teacher and learner in same room: 40% obedience– teacher and learner in physical contact (teacher had to put learners hand on

apparatus): 30% obedience2. Closeness and legitimacy of authority figure

– “ordinary person” confederate instead of experimenter: 20% obedience. Authority of Yale and value of science.

3. Cog in a Wheel– “another subject” confederate does the dirty work and real subject assists:

93% obedience– “another subject” confederate disobeys: 10% obedience– subjects told they are responsible for learner’s welfare: 0% obedience

4. Personal characteristics– no significant differences based on sex (though women reported feeling

more guilty), politics, religion, occupation, education, military service, or psychological characteristics

Group Polarization• The enhancement of a

group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group

• e.g., racist attitudes; AA meetings

• e.g., GBN - Hazing was pre-planned. Many senior girls must have met up to discuss what items they would bring for the hazing. They already had the similar attitude that they have a right to haze as a tradition. During discussion, girls probably came up with more and more ideas about how to haze and reasons to support their ideas, strengthening their attitude that it was okay to haze.

Groupthink• Mode of thinking that occurs

when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives. Dissenting views suppressed to maintain good feeling of group.

• e.g., Responsible for many stupid policy decisions, such as Bay of Pigs invasion by JFK or Space Shuttle Challenger launch in 1986

• e.g., GBN - Hazing was pre-planned. Many girls probably understood what they were planning to do was wrong but wanted to be part of the prestigious group. No one dissented.

Groupthink• Causes of Groupthink

– Powerful group of people who think alike

– Absence of objective and impartial leadership

– High levels of stress regarding decision

• Preventing Groupthink

– Be impartial and objective

– Leader should encourage dissent

– Assign at least one “devil’s advocate”

– Occasionally break group into subgroups

– Seek opinions of external experts

– Towards end of decision, have a “second chance” meeting to review lingering doubts

• NASA under strong pressure to launch shuttle

– first civilian in space– many delays had occurred

• Engineers were opposed to the launch because of concerns that cold temperatures might make rubber seals too brittle

• NASA executives made the decision to launch without input from engineers

• final NASA decision-maker was never told of engineers’ concerns

Space Shuttle ChallengerJanuary 28, 1986

Social Facilitation• An individual performs better in the presence of others when

the task is easy or well-learned• Examples:

– 1898: cyclists who competed against one another performed better than those who cycled alone or against the clock

– cockroaches running toward a goal run faster in pairs– home team advantage

• home teams win ~60% of games played

Social Interference• an individual performs worse in the presence of others when

the task is hard or your not good at it

Zajonc’s Theory

• Linked social interference and facilitation to arousal level

• High arousal improves simple or well-learned tasks; strengthens most likely response

• High arousal worsens complex or poorly-learned task

Worsened performanceof nondominant responses(social Interference)

Improved performanceof dominant responses(social facilitation)

Increased drive orarousal

Presence of others

Social Loafing• As the number of people

increases, the effort exerted by each individual declines

• examples that are probably all-too-familiar to you:– group projects– roommates and housework

• less common in collectivist cultures (e.g., China) than individualistic cultures (e.g., USA)– Chinese subjects work

harder in groups than when alone (social compensation)

Preventing Social Loafing• Make each person accountable• Record who did what• Make the task challenging, appealing and involving• Keep the group small• If possible, put people of the same intelligence &

competence together

What would you do?• Rip out a piece of notebook paper and tear it in half.• Do NOT put your name on the piece of paper.• Do NOT discuss your answers during or after the exercise.• Answer the following question…

– If you could do anything humanly possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible, what would you do?

• When you are done answering the question, fold sheet of paper in half and sit quietly

If you could do anything… Research Results

• 11 content categories seem to arise: aggression, charity, academic dishonesty, escapism, political activities, sexual behavior, social disruption, interpersonal spying, eavesdropping, travel, and a catchall category “other”

• Answers were categorized as prosocial, antisocial, nonnormative (violating social norms but without helping or hurting others), and neutral (meeting none of the other three categories)

• Most frequent responses were criminal acts (26%), sexual acts (11%), and spying behaviors (11%). Most common response was “rob a bank” that were 15% of all responses

• 36% of the responses were antisocial, 19% nonnormative, 36% neutral, 9% prosocial

Deindividuation• Loss of self-awareness and self-restraint

in group situations that foster pyhsical arousal and anonymity

• Occurs in large groups and groups heighten physical arousal

– e.g., looting, rioting

• Physical anonymity

– e.g., Would KKK members burn crosses if they weren’t wearing hoods?

• e.g., Taunted to Jump

• e.g., GBN - Mob of girls. All wearing exactly the same thing, can’t be detected. The presence of alcohol and the group cheering them heightened their arousal. Do things that you would normally not do.

“Jump jump!!”

Prejudice & Discrimination• Prejudice = an unjustifiable and usually negative ATTITUDE toward a group and

its members

– Involves stereotypes = a generalized (often over-generalized) belief about a group of people that distinguishes those people from others

• Public – what we say to others about a group

• Private – what we consciously think about a group, but don’t say to others

• Implicit – unconscious mental associations guiding our judgments and actions without our conscious awareness.

– IAT Test 

– Public stereotypes have decreased in North America recently (“political correctness”). Does this mean people no longer carry stereotypes?

– Stereotypes lead to self-fulfilling prophecy = one person’s belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief.

• Discrimination = unjustified, negative BEHAVIORS toward a group and its members

Discrimination vs. Prejudice

No Prejudice Prejudice

No Discrimination

No relevant behaviors A restaurant owner who is bigoted against Jews treats them fairly because she needs their business

Discrimination

An executive with favorable views toward Hispanics doesn’t hire them because he would get in trouble with his boss

A professor who is hostile toward women grades his female students unfairly

• Discrimination– unfair treatment of a group

• Prejudice– negative attitudes toward or beliefs (stereotypes) about members of

a group

Self-fulfilling prophecyThe Pygmalion effect• In the myth, Pygmalion created a statue that he treated

with such affection, it came to life– person A believes that person B has a particular

characteristic

– person B may begin to behave in accordance with that characteristic

• 1968 experiment in a lower class San Francisco elementary school– gave students an IQ test– told teachers that the test had identified students who

were “late bloomers” and would show a spurt in IQ growth

– the experimenters randomly selected 20% of the pupils who were identified to the teachers as late bloomers (in reality, these students were no different in their IQs than the remaining 80%)

– after one year those students showed significantly higher IQ scores (an increase of 12 points compared to 4 points in the other students)

• works on rats too!

Robert Rosenthal

• black students perform worse on a verbal test when it’s described as an “intelligence test” a (race prime) than when it’s described as a “laboratory test” (no race prime)

• Asian American women did better on a math test when primed by “Asians are good at math” and worse when primed by “Women are bad at math.”

Stereotype Threat

Claude Steele

Implicit Stereotypes

• Use of priming: subject doesn’t know stereotype is being activated, can’t work to suppress it– Bargh study

• have subjects read word lists, some lists include words like “gray,” “Bingo,” and “Florida”

• subjects with “old” word lists walked to elevators significantly more slowly

– another study • flash pictures of Black vs. White faces subliminally

• give incomplete words like “hos_____,” subjects seeing Black make “hostile,” seeing White make “hospital”

Implicit Stereotypes

• Devine’s automaticity theory

– stereotypes about African-Americans are so prevalent in our culture that we all hold them

– these stereotypes are automatically activated whenever we come into contact with an African-American

– we have to actively push them back down if we don’t wish to act in a prejudiced way.

– Overcoming prejudice is possible, but takes work

Implicit Association Test

Web test resultsRace • 75% of White participants showed pro-White/anti-Black preference• 42% of Black participants showed pro-White/anti-Black preference

Age• preference for young over old, held by old and young, the strongest effect yet observed.

Gender+Career and Gender+Science • Males and females equally linked women to ‘home’ and ‘Liberal Arts’ and men to ‘career’ and ‘Science.’

“If we are aware of our biases, we can correct for them—as when driving a car that drifts to the right, we steer left to go where we intend."

Origins of Prejudice & Discrimination1) Heuristics = rules of thumb; shortcut methods to solve problems

(vs. Algorithms)

– Vivid cases (availability heuristic) – estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness or rarity), we presume such events are common

• Can lead us to believe a relationship exists between two events/things when none really does – illusory correlation

– Confirmation bias – tendency to notice and recall instances that confirm our beliefs and ignore instances that disconfirm our beliefs. Media plays a role because it supplies us with confirming evidence.

– Belief perseverance – clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Prejudice and the Brain• Ohio State psychologist Cunningham measured whit people’s brain

activity as they viewed a series of white and black faces– Black faces – compared with white faces – that they flashed for only

30 milliseconds (too quick to notice) triggered greater activity in the amygdala (assoc with vigilance and fear)

– Black faces that were flashed for half a second – enough time to consciously process them – triggered heightened activity in the prefrontal brain areas associated with detecting internal conflicts and controlling responses. Individuals were consciously trying to suppress their implicit associations.

Origins of Prejudice & Discrimination2) Just world phenomenon (blaming the victim) = tendency of people to believe the

world is just or life is fair and people get what they deserve. EX: the rape victim was asking for it, what was she doing in that neighborhood anyways?

– it would seem horrible to think that you can be a really good person and bad things could happen to you anyway

3) Social Categorization = “Us” vs. “Them”

– In-group bias = evaluation of one’s own group as better than others and a tendency to disparage those outside the group. EX: Blue Eye / Brown Eye Experiment

• “To bolster our own status, we are predisposed to ascribe superior characteristics to the groups to which we belong, or in-groups, and to exaggerate differences between our own group and outsiders”

– Out-group homogeneity bias = members of out-groups are viewed as more similar to one another than are members of in-group. “We are diverse; They are all alike. EX: White Americans see Hispanics as all alike; Mexican Americans see themselves as different from the other types of Hispanics who they see as all alike (Cuban-Americans, Puerto-Rican Americans) leads to stereotypes

• Same Race Memory Advantage - More readily remember faces of your own race than of other races

Belief in a Just World Survey• Reverse scores on items 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17,

and 20– 0 = 5– 4 = 1– 3 = 2

• Add up the numbers in front of all twenty items.• Range: 0 – 100• Higher scores indicate a stronger belief in a just

world

David Hamilton and Robert Gifford Study from PsychSim “Not My Type”

David Hamilton and Robert Gifford Study from PsychSim “Not My Type”

Media then reinforces these stereotypes…

Media’s Reinforcement of Stereotypes After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, two photographs published by Yahoo! News

depicting residents making their way through chest-deep water caused an uproar relating to bias in media coverage. The first image, shot by photographer Dave Martin for the Associated Press, showed a young black man, who, according to the accompanying caption, “walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store.” In a similar shot, taken by photographer Chris Graythen for AFP/Getty Images, a white couple was shown wading "through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store.”

Media’s Reinforcement of Stereotypes

“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says,

'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And,

you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the

people are black.”

Kayne West, during a fundraiser broadcast on NBC for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Origins of Prejudice & Discrimination4) Scapegoat theory = theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger

by proving someone to blame

5) Social inequalities = competition for scarce resources enhances prejudice. EX: ongoing prejudice against immigrants

6) FAE leads observers to blame innate, dispositions for behavior instead of situational factors. EX: Unemployed people are irresponsible instead of victims of a slow economy or discrimination; obese people are lazy instead of byproducts of our fast food culture

7) Group polarization = enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within a group. EX: If prejudiced people get together, become more intolerant and negative

How can we reduce prejudice?• Cooperative Action

– Robbers Cave Experiment (Sherif et al., 1961)

• 22 5th grade boys in summer camp in 1954

• experimenters arranged for camp truck to break down

• both groups needed to pull it uphill

• intergroup friendships began to develop

• cooperative approached is being used in US classrooms

– give assignment where students from different racial groups can only succeed by working together in a “jigsaw” approach

How can we reduce prejudice?• Be mindful of your biases

– children who were shown pictures of handicapped individuals and asked to think carefully about them (e.g., to think how they would drive a car) were more willing to play with disabled children than those who did only a superficial task (Langer et al., 1985)

– recognizing the presence of implicit bias helps offset it• Mere Exposure Effect – increased exposure leads to

increased liking– friendships with outgroup members (as friends,

neighbors, co-workers) leads to reliably lower levels of prejudice

– Seeing targeted groups in more favorable social contexts can help thwart biased attitudes

Aggression and Causes• Aggression = any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy, whether

done reactively out of hostility or proactively as a calculated means

Causes of Aggression

1) Biology

– Genes and Evolution

– Neural

• Brain has neural systems that facilitate aggression and compassion

• Biochemical influences

2) Frustration-Aggression Principle – frustration – the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal – creates anger, which can generate aggression

– Scarcity

– Social exclusion

– Death of a family member

3) Learning

– Rewards and/or punishments

– Modeling – observe others in real life or on tv/video games and imitate behavior

• Observing violence aggression???? (Not CAUSE, just CORRELATE)

Aggression and Causes• Aggression = any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy,

whether done reactively out of hostility or proactively as a calculated means

• Altruism = unselfish regard for the welfare of others

Causes of Aggression

1) Biology

– Genes and Evolution

• If one identical twin admits to having a violent temper, the other twin will often admit the same

– Neural

• Brain has neural systems that facilitate aggression and compassion

– Rewire brain to strengthen circuits that underlies virtues. Make person feel more secure!

– Electrode implanted in limbic system – amygdala – person will become aggressive

• Biochemical influences

– High testosterone is correlated with violence – violent criminals tend to be muscular young males with lots of testosterone

Aggression and Causes3) Learning

– Rewards and/or punishments• Children whose aggression intimidates other kids at school or provides them with

attention may become more aggressive– Modeling – observe others in real life or on tv/video games and imitate behavior

• Observing violence aggression? (Not CAUSE, just CORRELATE) – YES

» Bobo Doll Experiment » Homicide rates doubled in US with the intro and spread of TV» While spending 3 evenings watching sexually violent movies male

viewers became less bothered by rapes and slashings. Expressed less sympathy for domestic violence victims – desensitization to violence

» University men who have spent the most hours playing violent video games tend to be more physically aggressive (hitting someone, arguments with people) – action fuels attitude

– NO» Video game experiment in the article “Chasing Dreams” found no

increase in aggression among game players» America’s violent crime actually fell sharply in the 1990s, just as the use

of video and computer games was taking off.

Dealing with Aggression• Catharsis Hypothesis = reduce anger by releasing it through

aggressive action or fantasy. Emotional release that relieves aggressive urges.

• Spill-Over Effect = Blowing of steam may temporarily calm us (reduce anger), but it may also amplify the underlying hostility– Fried Green Tomatoes– Experiments with video games and pornography shows that

expressing anger breeds more anger and practicing violence breeds more violence

• How should one deal with their anger?– Wait – bring down physiological arousal created by anger– Don’t get mad at every little annoyance an don’t sulk or ruminate– Exercise, play an instrument, talk to a friend to calm yourself.

Conflict• Conflict = perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas, which

leads to potentially destructive social processes that produce results no one wants– Social traps = a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each

rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior EX: Individual whalers reasoned that the few whales they took would not threaten the species and that if they didn’t take them others would anyway; thus, the result was some species of whales became endangered and the reason for the show WHALE WARS. Challenging us to find ways of reconciling our right to pursue our personal well-being with our responsibility for the well-being of all.

– Mirror-image perceptions = in conflict we tend to form diabolical images of one another; mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive

Social Trap: Prisoner’s Dilemma• Social trap – a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their

self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior– Zero-Sum Environment -- Here the resources are strictly limited and the allocations

based on any particular set of decisions cancel each other out, thus equaling zero. In effect, this means that if one person gains, others must lose in direct proportion. Competition and mistrust created.

• When participants realize that there is no possibility of meaningful cooperation, they generally move toward a minimax strategy that minimizes their losses and maximizes their gains under the worst situation that their opponent can produce for them.

• Saddle point = the point at which the minimax strategies of the two players converge. it's the most favorable result they can expect, given the competitive strategy of the other participant.

– Non-Zero-Sum Environment -- Here the resources are flexible, and the allocations do not necessarily sum to zero. This means that certain sets of decisions could lead to gains for all, while other sets of decisions could produce losses for everyone. Payoff matrix.

• Tit-for-Tat - When participants believe that the other player is trustworthy and fair, they generally move toward a joint strategy that maximizes the overall gains of both participants without favoring one over the other.

• When participants find that they cannot trust the other person to work for the common good, they tend to fall back on a competitive strategy, even if it means that both of them lose.

Prisoner’s Dilemma

Optimaloutcome

Probableoutcome

Person 1Choose A Choose B

Per

son

2C

ho

ose

B

C

ho

ose

A

Altruism• Altruism = unselfish regard for the welfare of others• Why we Help?...

– Social Exchange Theory = social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs (cost-benefit analysis). EX: donate blood benefits (reduced guilt, social approval, and good feelings) have to outweigh costs (time, discomfort, and anxiety)

– Through socialization we learn the reciprocity norm - an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them - and the social-responsibility norm – an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them, such as children, the poor, the elderly, etc

Altruism• Why don’t we Help?...• Bystander Effect = the tendency for any given

bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present– People don’t help because…

• Diffusion of responsibility• Ambiguity• Risks to self• Anonymity

Kitty Genovese• New York City, 1964• Kitty Genovese was raped

and murdered while at least 38 neighbors looked on

• nobody phoned the police until after the attacker left the scene

• When asked why they didn’t act, bystanders said things like, “I just don’t know,” or “I just didn’t want to get involved.”

Bystander Apathy• Experiment (Latane and Darley, 1970)

– subjects heard student in adjacent room having an epileptic seizure and gasping for help

– likelihood and speed of intervention depended on how many others subject though were present

• Field studies (Harold Takooshian)– New York City– bicycle theft– wallet pick-pocketing– man put unconscious woman in car

trunk• 20 replications, no intervention

– why car alarms don’t work• 95-99% false alarms• few people stop thieves (1-5%)

Practice What You Preach• Experiment (Darley & Batson,

1973)• Princeton Theology Seminary

students were on their way to give a sermon about “The Good Samaritan”– Good Samaritan: New Testament

figure who takes time to help injured man at a roadside

• Subjects were deliberately made to be early, on-time, or late

• On their way through an alley, the seminary students found a man slumped in a doorway, coughing and groaning

• What do you think they did?

Peacemaking • Cooperation

– Superordinate goals = shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

• Shared predicament unifies, such as 9/11 and superordinate desire to overcome it

• Leads people to define a new, inclusive group that dissolves their former subgroups

• Communication

• Conciliation

– GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction) – a strategy designed to decrease international tensions. One side first announces its recognition of mutual interests and its intent to reduce tensions. This modest beginning hopefully opens the door for reciprocity by the other party

PsychQuest: How do we Pick our Mates?• Go to the following website: http://bcs.worthpublishers.com/myers7e/content/psychquest/index.htm

• Scroll down and click on the link “How do we Pick our Mates?”

• Click on the link “Background”, read through each page, and then click next at the bottom

• *Use headphones for this quest!

•  Directions: Take notes as you go through the psychquest in your notebook. You can type your notes or handwrite your notes. If you type it, do not cut and paste. Detail counts! Focus on the following points:

• Dating and/or marriage across cultures

• Factors that influence romantic attraction

• Characteristics of your ideal partner and how you compare to research

• Darwin’s theory

• Gender differences in mate selection and the evolutionary reasons for these differences

• Gender differences in jealousy and the evolutionary reasons for these differences

• The most interesting concept/theory you learned from this psychquest and the reasons why

• You do not have to take the quiz.

Love and Attraction

Passionate Love vs. Companionate Love

Passionate Love…• Intense preoccupation with loved one• Deeply felt desire to be with him/her• Feelings of incompleteness without loved

one• It can develop rapidly and be very robust

when it doesCompanionate Love…• Feelings of deep affection, attachment,

and intimacy• Feeling at ease with partner• Includes development of trust, loyalty,

and willingness to sacrifice for partner

Understanding Love• Evolutionary Perspective:

– Mate selection is influenced by reproductive benefits; increase chances of attracting a mate and producing offspring that would survive to reproduce. Men tend to focus on women’s physical appearance, while women focus on men’s social status and access to resources

• Psychoanalytic Perspective: Freud and Jung– We love because of the past we hope to reclaim; love is

rooted in our earliest infantile experiences with intimacy– Passion is driven by some kind of collective unconscious

• Socio-cultural Perspective:– Romantic love = human universal; however, expression

of it varies from culture to culture

Understanding Love• Neuroscience Perspective• The limbic system, located between the

brainstem and cerebral hemispheres controls drives, such as sex.– Dopamine = a neurotransmitter,

contributes to a feeling of giddiness, excitement, attention, energy, and may be at work in the early "falling in love" stage, and it may predominate in obsessive relationships.

– Testosterone = a hormone, contributes to maintaining arousal state

– Oxytocin = a neurochemical that women release during labor and nursing, also is released after orgasm in both men and women. May be the "bonding or cuddle" chemical--designed to keep men and women together by enhancing a feeling of closeness and belonging.

– http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/science-of-sex-appeal-human-behavior/

Recipe for Love1. Proximity

• Geographic nearness (neighborhood, job, school) greater availability to meet

– Mere exposure effect – the phenomenon that repeated exposure to stimuli increases liking (why we like our mirror image of ourselves)

• Physical Proximity– Scent is amplified up close– Men can exchange testosterone with women by kissing– Release oxytocin through touch

2. Physical attractiveness – youthfulness, clear skin, bright eyes and symmetry may be associated with health and fertility

• Attractiveness bias – physically attractive people are rated higher on intelligence, competence, sociability, morality

• Matching hypothesis – people tend to find partners that are just as attractive as they are

• Women = ample breasts, broad hips, 70% waist to hip ration high fertility, can bear and nurse children

• Men = broad chest and shoulders, deep voice good immune system and fertile

3. Similarity – opposites do not attract

Recipe for Love• Go on date when ovulating• Find someone with a different MHC (major histocompatibility complex -

related to finding different genotype of immune system) t-shirt smell test and kissing as taste test of MHC

• Don’t be too eager – show that your genes are worth waiting for.• Reciprocal Liking – you are more likely to like someone that likes you• Provide touch or hugs to release bonding hormone of oxytocin• Do something exciting – adrenaline can distort perceptions and person

will start to be associated with the good feelings produced by opiates– Two-Factor Theory of Emotion – experience emotion by 1)

experiencing physiological arousal and 2) cognitively label arousal– Transferred Excitation - residual excitation from one stimulus will

amplify the excitatory response to another stimulus

How to make love last?• Equity – people receive from a relationship in

proportion to what they give it• Self-disclosure – revealing intimate aspects of

oneself to others