Social Relations
Attraction
Conflict and Prejudice
Altruism and Peacemaking
How do we relate to others?
Aggression
I love you…no wait. I hate you.
I am not sure, but you are hot.
Throughout your life (and in particular
during high school) you will feel a lot of
powerful emotions towards others.
Three of the big ones will be…
– Attraction
– Love
– Aggression
Attraction
being drawn towards something
5 Factors of Attraction….
• Think about your
friends. What makes
you like, or even fall
in love with one
person and ignore or
react negatively to
someone else?
Proximity
• The more you are around something, the more
likely you are to be attracted to it.
…ever spent a week at camp??
Mere exposure effect
• Repeated exposure to something breeds liking.
• And the greater exposure the more likely you
will find similarity
Similarity
• Paula Abdul was
wrong- opposites do
NOT attract.
• Birds of the same
feather do flock
together.
• Similarity breeds
content.
• In background,
attitudes, and values
Reciprocal Liking
• You are more
likely to like
someone who likes
you.
• Why?
• Except in
elementary
school!!!!
Liking through Association
• Classical Conditioning can play a part in attraction.
• If I wanted ____ to like me and I new she loved
Godiva chocolate, I would start showing up every
time she ate Godiva.
• Godiva is the UCS and the happy feeling is the UCR.
At this point I am neutral but hope to become the
CS when she associates me with chocolate.
• Once she experiences acquisition every time she
sees me she will become happy (CR)
• So don’t try to pick someone up at the dentist –
they may associate you with those negative stimuli
Physical Attractiveness
Matching Hypothesis
States that people tend to pick partners who are
about equal in level of attractiveness to themselves
The Halo Effect
• Physically attractiveness often predicts
greater success in certain areas of life
– For example dating frequency (they date more).
• Research shows…they are perceived as…
–
–
–
–
–
–
Healthier
happier
more honest
have better personalities
greater job competence
and more successful than less attractive
counterparts.
What is considered beautiful??
Beauty and Culture
Are these cultures really that
different?
LOVE
• Passionate Love:
– an aroused state of
INTENSE positive
absorption of another.
• Compassionate Love:
– the deep affectionate
attachment we feel for
those with whom our
lives are intertwined.
What makes compassionate love
work?
• Equality
• Self-disclosure
Aggression
• Any physical or
verbal behavior
intended to
hurt or destroy.
• Two types
– Hostile
– Instrumental
• Hostile
– Aggression that has no clear purpose
– Margaret just felt angry one day and
kicked the ---- out of Tyler = hostile
• Instrumental
– Aggression that has a purpose
– Margaret wanted Tyler’s lunch money
and slapped him aside the head to get
his cash = aggression has a goal =
instrumental
• There are many theories to why aggression
exists.
• How would the main theorists view
aggression?
– Freud??
• Defense mechanism
– Skinner??
• A reinforced learned behavior
– Bandura??
• Observational learning
The Biology of Aggression
• Genetics
• Neural
Influences
(aggression in
the brain)
• Biochemical
The Psychology of Aggression
Frustration-Aggressive Principle:
• When one is frustrated they become
aggressive
• the blocking of an attempt to achieve
some goal creates anger which
generates aggression.
Goals can be:
•Sports or work
•Relationship
•Body Condition etc…
Hot Weather and Aggression
Can we learn to be aggressive
or gentle?
Bandura
thought
so…
They can be learned…through models...but…
Once learned they are difficult to change.
If this is true, turn on the cartoon channel and
think about what we are teaching our kids
Aggression and TV
Watches
=
• By the time you are 18, you spend more time in front of TV than in
school
•2/3 of all homes have 3 or more sets average 51 hours a week.
•By the time a child finishes elementary school they have witnessed
8000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on TV
•Over half of all deaths do NOT show the victim's pain
•As TV watching has grown exponentially, as does violent behaviora strong positive correlation.
•How do you think TV has effected sexual aggression?
• Even though aggression gets
most of the research…
sometimes people do positive
things towards each other
– This is called pro-social behavior
(PSB)
• Altruism
– Unselfish regard for the welfare
of others.
• However, there are some
exceptions
• Kitty Genovese case.
Kitty Genovese and the Bystander Effect
 Stabbed
and eventually murdered by a man in
NYC while more than 35 people watched or
listened
 Bystander

Effect
bystanders less willing to help if there are other
bystanders around
WHY???
 Diffusion


of Responsibility
The presence of others may diffuse the sense of
individual responsibility
People tend to assume that someone else will
take action so they need not to do so
Bystander Effect #2
• Another factor influencing bystander
intervention is Pluralistic Ignorance
• People seem to decide what appropriate
actions to take by looking at other
people
• If we are sitting in the classroom and we
hear a really loud noise and I look at you
guys and you guys do nothing…I think to
myself “they must know what the noise
is” and you look at me and think the same
thing. And none of us do anything!!
Social Exchange Theory
• The idea that our social behavior is an
exchange process, which we maximize
benefits and minimize costs.
Social Responsibility Norm
• A societal rule that tells people they
should help others who need help even
if doing so is costly
Peacemaking
• Working towards superordinate goals allows people to overcome
differences.
• superordinate goals – Shared goals that override differences among
people and require cooperation
• Sherifs’ Robbers Cave Experiment
• GRIT – Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction –
A strategy designed to decrease International Tensions