Chapter 12 Social Psychology Josef F. Steufer/Getty Images Chapter Overview • Social Thinking and Social Influence • Antisocial Relations • Prosocial Relations Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking 12-1: WHAT DO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS STUDY? HOW DO WE TEND TO EXPLAIN OTHERS’ BEHAVIOR AND OUR OWN? • Social psychologists – Use scientific methods to study how people think about, influence, and relate to one another – Study the social influences that explain why the same person will act differently in different situations Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking The Fundamental Attribution Error • Attribution theory, Fritz Heider (1958): The theory that we explain someone else’s behavior by crediting either the situation (a situational attribution) or the person’s disposition (a dispositional attribution). – The fundamental attribution error is the tendency, when analyzing others’ behavior, to overestimate the influence of personal traits and underestimate the effects of the situation. • Fundamental attribution error demonstrated in a study (Napolitan & Goethals,1979): – Students attributed behavior of others to personal traits, even when they were told that behavior was part of an experimental situation. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking The Fundamental Attribution Error What Factors Affect Our Attributions? • Cultural factors: – Individuals from individualist cultures (Westerners) more often attribute behavior to personal traits. – Individuals from collectivist cultures (East Asian, for example) more often attribute behavior to situational factors. • When we explain our own behavior, we are sensitive to how behavior changes the situation. • We are also sensitive to the power of the situation when we explain the behavior of people we have seen in different situations. • Is most likely to occur when judging others’ behaviors, not our own, and especially when a stranger acts badly. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking The Fundamental Attribution Error What Are the Consequences of Our Attributions? • Explaining and attributing actions can have important real-life social and economic effects. – A person’s friendliness may be attributed to romantic interest or politeness. – Unemployment and poverty may be attributed to personal dispositions. • The point to remember: Our attributions—to a person’s disposition or to the situation—have real consequences. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking Attitudes and Actions 12-2: HOW DO ATTITUDES AND ACTIONS INTERACT? • Attitudes are feelings influenced by beliefs, that predispose reactions to objects, people, and events. Attitudes Affect Actions – Peripheral route persuasion occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues; produce fast but relatively thoughtless changes in attitudes. – Central route persuasion occurs when people are offered evidence and arguments to trigger thoughtful responses. • Attitudes are especially likely to affect behavior when external influences are minimal, and when the attitude is stable, specific to the behavior, and easily recalled. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking Attitudes and Actions Actions Affect Attitudes • Not only will people stand up for what they believe, they also will more strongly believe in what they have stood up for. • Foot-in-the-door phenomenon – People agreeing to a small request will find it easier to agree later to a larger one – Principle works for negative and positive behavior • Many streams of evidence confirm that attitudes follow behavior. Cooperative actions, such as those performed by people on sports teams, feed mutual liking. Such attitudes, in turn, promote positive behavior. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking Attitudes and Actions Role Playing Affects Attitudes – A role is a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave. – At first, your behaviors in a new role may feel phony, as though you are acting, but eventually these new ways of acting become a part of you. – Philip Zimbardo’s 1972 Stanford Prison simulation study: controversial, but showed the power of the situation and of role playing. – Other studies have shown that role playing can even train torturers (Staub, 1989). Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Thinking Attitudes and Actions Cognitive Dissonance: Relief From Tension • Cognitive dissonance theory: We act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. – When we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes. – Brain regions the become active when we experience conflict and negative arousal also become active when people experience cognitive dissonance. – Through cognitive dissonance we often bring attitudes into line with our actions (Festinger, 1957). This can be used positively: Act as though you like someone and you soon may. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Cultural Influences 12-3: HOW DOES CULTURE AFFECT OUR BEHAVIOR? Culture: The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people • Transmitted from one generation to the next • Transmits customs and beliefs that enable us to communicate with each other • Transmits agreed-upon rules to avoid confrontation Variation Across Cultures • Norm: Understood rules for accepted and expected behavior • Each cultural group evolves its own norms; when cultures collide, their differing norms can confuse or even anger Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Cultural Influences Variation Over Time Like biological creatures, • Cultures vary and compete for resources • Cultures evolve over time, and may change rapidly; cultural evolution is far faster than biological evolution • Cultural changes can be negative or positive • Cultures shape our lives Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures 12-4: WHAT IS AUTOMATIC MIMICRY, AND HOW DO CONFORMITY EXPERIMENTS REVEAL THE POWER OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE? Automatic Mimicry – Behavior is contagious; what we see we often do. – Chartrand and colleagues (1999) demonstrated the chameleon effect with college students. – Automatic mimicry helps people to empathize and feel what others feel (mood linkage). – The more we mimic, the greater our empathy, and the more people tend to like us. – Suggestibility and mimicry are subtle forms of conformity. Automatic Mimicry CONFORMING TO NONCONFORMITY Are these students asserting their individuality or identifying themselves with others of the same microculture? Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures Conformity and Social Norms • Conformity: Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard • Solomon Asch’s (1955) experiments on conformity showed that people fear being “oddballs,” and will often conform with other group members, even though they do not agree with the group’s decision • Later investigations have not always found as much conformity as Asch found, but it is nevertheless a significant phenomenon ASCH’S CONFORMITY EXPERIMENTS Which of the three comparison lines on the left is equal to the standard line? The photo on the right (from one of the experiments) was taken after five people, who were actually working for Asch, had answered, “Line 3.” The student in the center shows the severe discomfort that comes from disagreeing with the responses of other group members. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures Solomon Asch and others have found that people are most likely to adjust their behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard when: • • • • • • • They are made to feel incompetent or insecure Their group has at least three people Everyone else agrees They admire the group’s status and attractiveness They have not already committed to another response They know they are being observed Their culture encourages respect for social standards Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures • Normative social influence: Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval – Conforming to avoid rejection or to gain social approval • Informational social influence: Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions as new information – Conforming because we want to be accurate • Conformity rates are generally lower in individualist cultures than in collectivist cultures, which put a higher value on honoring group standards Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Obedience: Following Orders 12-5: WHAT DID MILGRAM’S OBEDIENCE EXPERIMENTS TEACH US ABOUT THE POWER OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE? • Stanley Milgram’s experiments (1963, 1974) were intended to see how people would respond to outright commands. – Research participants became “teachers” to supposedly random “learners” and believed they were subjecting them to escalating levels of electric shocks. – More than 60 percent complied fully; other studies have shown even higher obedience rates. • People in these studies obeyed orders even when they thought they were harming another person. MILGRAM’S FOLLOW-UP OBEDIENCE EXPERIMENT In a repeat of the earlier experiment, 65 percent of the adult male “teachers” fully obeyed the experimenter’s commands to continue. They did so despite the “learner’s” earlier mention of a heart condition and despite hearing cries of protest after they administered what they thought were 150 volts and agonized protests after 330 volts. (Data from Milgram, 1974.) Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Obedience: Following Orders Obedience in the Milgram experiments was highest when: • Person giving orders was nearby and was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure • Research was supported by a prestigious institution • Victim was depersonalized or at a distance • There were no role models for defiance Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Obedience: Following Orders Lessons From the Obedience Studies – Strong social influences can make people conform to falsehoods or capitulate to cruelty – Ordinary people are corrupted by evil situations – People get to real-life violence in tiny increments (the foot-in-the-door phenomenon): In any society, great evils often grow out of people’s compliance with lesser evils – Milgram (1974): “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process” Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Group Behavior 12-6: HOW IS OUR BEHAVIOR AFFECTED BY THE PRESENCE OF OTHERS? Social Facilitation • In social facilitation (Triplett, 1898), the presence of others arouses people, improving performance on easy or well-learned tasks but decreasing it on difficult ones. – Our arousal heightens our reactions, strengthening our most likely response—the correct one on an easy task but an incorrect one on a difficult task. • Home advantage for team sports; doing something we do well in front of a friendly audience • Crowding effect; performers know that a “good house” is a full one Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Group Behavior Social Loafing – Tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable • Three causes of social loafing: – Acting as part of group and feeling less accountable – Feeling individual contribution doesn’t matter and is dispensable – Slacking off, or free riding on others’ efforts, which is especially common when there is lack of identification with the group Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Group Behavior Deindividuation – The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity. – Thrives in many different settings. – When we shed self-awareness and self-restraint— whether in a mob, at a rock concert, at a ballgame, or at worship—we become more responsive to the group experience, whether bad or good. DEINDIVIDUATION Deindividuation: During England’s 2011 riots and looting, rioters were disinhibited by social arousal and by the anonymity provided by darkness and their hoods and masks. Later, some of those arrested expressed bewilderment over their own behavior. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Group Polarization 12-7: WHAT ARE GROUP POLARIZATION AND GROUPTHINK, AND HOW MUCH POWER DO WE HAVE AS INDIVIDUALS? – Group polarization: The enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group. – Online communication magnifies this effect, for better (motivating positive social change in protest groups) and for worse (cementing prejudiced opinions in hate groups). GROUP POLARIZATION • If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions. • Talking over racial issues increased prejudice in a high-prejudice group of high school students and decreased it in a lowprejudice group (Data from Myers & Bishop, 1970). LIKE MINDS NETWORK IN THE BLOGOSPHERE • Blue liberal blogs link mostly to one another, as do red conservative blogs. (The intervening colors display links across the liberal conservative boundary.) • Each dot represents a blog, and each dot’s size reflects the number of other blogs By connecting and linking to that blog. (From magnifying the inclinations of Lazer et al., 2009.) likeminded people, the Internet can be very, very bad, but also very, very good. Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Group Polarization • Groupthink (Janis, 1982): The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony within a decisionmaking group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives • Groupthink is prevented when leaders – Welcome various opinions, usually in diverse groups – Invite experts’ critiques of developing plans – Assign people to identify possible problems Social Thinking and Social Influence Social Influence Group Polarization The Power of Individuals • Power of the individual (personal control) and the power of the situation (social control) interact. • A committed individual or a small minority with consistently expressed views may sway the majority. • The power of one or two individuals to sway majorities is referred to as minority influence. Antisocial Relations Prejudice 12-8: WHAT IS PREJUDICE? WHAT ARE ITS SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL ROOTS? Prejudice Components • Means “prejudgment” • Is an unjustified negative attitude toward a group and its members • Often targets a different cultural, ethnic, or gender group • Beliefs (stereotypes) • Emotions (for example, hostility or fear) • Predispositions to action (to discriminate) Antisocial Relations Prejudice Prejudice is a negative attitude. To believe that obese people are gluttonous, and to feel dislike for an obese person, is to be prejudiced; prejudice is a negative attitude. To pass over all the obese people on a dating site, or to reject an obese person as a potential job candidate, is to discriminate; discrimination is a negative behavior. Discrimination is a negative behavior. Antisocial Relations Prejudice How Prejudiced Are People? • Prejudice comes as both explicit (overt) and implicit (automatic) attitudes toward people of a particular ethnic group, gender, sexual orientation, or viewpoint. Explicit Ethnic Prejudice • Explicit ethnic prejudice in North America has decreased over time. – Expressed support today for all forms of racial contact, including the once unpopular idea of interracial dating. – Overt prejudice has waned; subtle prejudice lingers. – Prejudice can be automatic and unconscious. Antisocial Relations Prejudice How Prejudiced Are People? Implicit Ethnic Prejudice – Implicit racial associations • Implicit Association Tests results: Even people who deny racial prejudice may carry negative associations – Unconscious patronization • Lower expectations, inflated praise and insufficient criticism for minority student achievement – Race-influenced perceptions • Fatigue can increase automatic reactions that amplify racial bias • Unconscious prejudices can cause discrimination even without conscious discriminatory intent, but monitoring feelings and actions can help significantly diminish both Antisocial Relations Prejudice How Prejudiced Are People? Gender Prejudice • Overt gender prejudice has also declined sharply, but gender prejudice and discrimination persist – For example, people tend to perceive their fathers as more intelligent than their mothers, despite equality between the sexes in intelligence test scores. • Gender inequality in wages – For example, we pay more to those (usually men) who care for our streets than to those (usually women) who care for our children. • Worldwide, more women than men live in poverty, there are more illiterate women than men, 30 percent of women have experienced intimate partner violence, and sons are often valued more than daughters. Antisocial Relations Prejudice How Prejudiced Are People? Sexual Orientation Prejudice • Dozens of countries have laws criminalizing same-sex relationships • Anti-gay prejudice, though rapidly subsiding in Western countries, still persists. In national surveys, 39 percent of LGBT Americans reported having “been rejected by a friend or family member” because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. And 58 percent reported being “subject to slurs or jokes” (Pew, 2013). • LGBT experience: – Higher rates of depressive, anxiety, and alcohol use disorders – Higher rates of cardiovascular deaths Antisocial Relations Prejudice Social Roots of Prejudice • Why does prejudice arise? Social inequalities and divisions are partly responsible. Social Inequalities • Social inequalities: The privileged often developed attitudes that justify the status quo. • Just-world phenomenon: Good is rewarded and evil is punished. • Stereotypes rationalize inequalities. • Victims of discrimination may react in ways that feed prejudice, in a classic blame-the-victim dynamic: – Circumstances of poverty breed a higher crime rate, for example, which then can be used as a justification for discrimination. Antisocial Relations Prejudice Social Roots of Prejudice Us and Them: Ingroup and Outgroup • Through social identities people associate themselves with certain groups and contrast ourselves with others. • Evolution prepares people to identify with a group: – Ingroup: “us” – people with whom we share a common identity – Social definition of who we are includes who we are not – Outgroup: “them” – those perceived as different or apart from our group – Ingroup bias: Favoring of our own group Antisocial Relations Prejudice Emotional Roots of Prejudice • Scapegoat theory proposes that when things go wrong, finding someone to blame can provide an outlet for anger • Philip Zimbardo (2001) on terrorism: “Fear and anger create aggression, and aggression against citizens of different ethnicity or race creates racism and, in turn, new forms of terrorism.” • Prejudice levels tend to be high among economically frustrated people • In experiments, a temporary frustration increases prejudice • Negative emotions feed prejudice Antisocial Relations Prejudice Cognitive Roots of Prejudice 12-9: WHAT ARE THE COGNITIVE ROOTS OF PREJUDICE? • Stereotyped beliefs are a by-product of how we cognitively simplify the world. Forming Categories – Humans categorize people by race: mixed-race people often identified by minority identity. – Similarities of others overestimated during categorization, creating “We” and “They.” – Other-race effect (also called the cross-race effect and the own-race bias): The tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races. CATEGORIZING MIXED-RACE PEOPLE When New Zealanders quickly classified 104 photos by race, those of European descent more often than those of Chinese descent classified the ambiguous middle two as Chinese (Halberstadt et al., 2011). Antisocial Relations Prejudice Cognitive Roots of Prejudice Vivid Cases Feed Stereotypes Antisocial Relations Prejudice Cognitive Roots of Prejudice Remembering Vivid Cases • We often judge the frequency of events by instances that come readily to mind. • Vivid—violent, for example—cases are more readily available to our memory and feed our stereotypes. Believing the World Is Just • If the world is just, people must get what they deserve. • Hindsight bias often comes into play, promoting a blamethe-victim mentality (which also reassures people that terrible crimes couldn’t happen to them). • People also have a basic tendency to justify their culture’s social systems. Antisocial Relations Aggression 12-10: HOW DOES PSYCHOLOGY’S DEFINITION OF AGGRESSION DIFFER FROM EVERYDAY USAGE? WHAT BIOLOGICAL FACTORS MAKE US MORE PRONE TO HURT ONE ANOTHER? – Aggression: Any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally – Examples of aggressive behavior: passing along vicious rumors, bullying in person or online, physical attack – Aggressive behavior results from interaction of biology and experience Antisocial Relations: Aggression The Biology of Aggression • Biology influences aggression at three levels. Genetic Influences • Evidence from animal studies and twin studies; the male Y chromosome is a genetic marker, as is the MAOA gene – People who have low MAOA gene expression tend to behave aggressively when provoked Neural Influences • Neural systems facilitate or inhibit aggression when provoked • Aggression more likely to occur with frontal lobe damage Biochemical Influences • Testosterone influences the neural systems that control aggression • Alcohol effect—unleashes aggressive responses (even just thinking you’ve consumed it has an effect) Antisocial Relations: Aggression Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression 12-11: WHAT PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL-CULTURAL FACTORS MAY TRIGGER AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR? Aversive Events – Frustration-aggression principle: Frustration creates anger, which can spark aggression Reinforcement, Modeling, and Self-Control – Previous reinforcement for aggressive behavior, observing an aggressive role model, and poor selfcontrol may all trigger aggression – Hot temperatures, physical pain, personal insults, foul odors, cigarette smoke, crowding, and a host of other aversive stimuli may also evoke hostility – “Manly honor” and “culture-of-honor” traditions may encourage aggressive behavior Antisocial Relations: Aggression Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression Media Models for Violence • Media portrayals of violence provide social scripts that children learn to follow. • Viewing sexual violence contributes to greater aggression toward women. • Playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Antisocial Relations: Aggression Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression Men Who Sexually Coerce Women Antisocial Relations: Aggression Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression Do Violent Video Games Teach Social Scripts for Violence? • Nearly 400 studies of 130,000 people suggest video games can prime aggressive thoughts, decrease empathy, and increase aggression. • Some researchers dispute this finding and note other factors they say may be more important: Depression, family violence, and peer influence. COINCIDENCE OR CAUSE? In 2011, Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik bombed government buildings in Oslo, and then went to a youth camp where he shot and killed 69 people, mostly teens. How is this related to effects of media violence? Antisocial Relations: Aggression Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression Prosocial Relations Attraction The Psychology of Attraction 12-12: WHY DO WE BEFRIEND OR FALL IN LOVE WITH SOME PEOPLE BUT NOT OTHERS? Proximity • Proximity—geographic nearness—is friendship’s most powerful predictor • Provides opportunity for aggression or friendship, but much more often breeds the latter • Mere exposure effect: The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them Prosocial Relations Attraction The Psychology of Attraction Modern Matchmaking • Internet-formed friendships and romantic relationships are on average slightly more likely to last and be satisfying. • A national U.S. survey showed that nearly a quarter of heterosexual and two-thirds of same-sex couples met online. • Speed-dating • For many people, 4 minutes sufficient to form a feeling about a conversational partner and to register whether the partner likes them. • People who fear rejection often elicit it. • Choices may be more superficial, especially given many options. • Women tend to be more choosy than men. Prosocial Relations Attraction The Psychology of Attraction Physical Attractiveness • Affects first impression • Predicts frequency of dating and popularity • Is influenced by cultural ideals and personal feelings. Similarity • Includes shared attitudes, beliefs, interests, age, religion, race, education, intelligence, smoking behavior, and economic status The reward theory of attraction holds that we will like those whose behavior is rewarding to us, including those who are both able and willing to help us achieve our goals. WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “ATTRACTIVE”? The answer varies by culture and over time. • Some adult physical features, such as a youthful form and symmetrical face, seem attractive everywhere. • Appealing traits enhance feelings of physical attractiveness. Prosocial Relations Attraction Romantic Love 12-13: HOW DOES ROMANTIC LOVE TYPICALLY CHANGE AS TIME PASSES? Passionate Love • The two-factor theory of emotion can help us understand passionate love: – Emotions have two ingredients: physical arousal and cognitive appraisal. – Arousal from any source can enhance an emotion, depending on how we interpret and label the arousal. • Sexual desire + a growing attachment = the passion of romantic love. Prosocial Relations Attraction Romantic Love Companionate Love – Although the desire and attachment of passionate love often endure, the intensity generally fades into a steadier companionate love—a deep, affectionate attachment – Passion-facilitating hormones (testosterone, dopamine, adrenaline) give way to another, oxytocin, that supports feelings of trust, calmness, and bonding – Equity is an important key to satisfying and enduring relationship – Self-disclosure deepens intimacy – A third key to enduring love is positive support Prosocial Relations Altruism 12-14: WHEN ARE PEOPLE MOST—AND LEAST— LIKELY TO HELP? • Altruism is an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. • Altruism became a major concern of social psychologists after an especially vile act. On March 13, 1964, a stalker repeatedly stabbed Kitty Genovese, then raped her as she lay dying outside her Queens, New York, apartment at 3:30 a.m. Genovese’s screams for help attracted attention, but no one called the police until 3:50 a.m., after the attacker had already fled. Prosocial Relations Altruism Bystander Intervention Bystander Effect – People are most likely to help when they notice an incident, interpret it as an emergency, and assume responsibility for helping (Darley and colleagues). – When more people share responsibility for helping, there is a diffusion of responsibility. – The bystander effect is the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present. Prosocial Relations Altruism Bystander Intervention • Odds for deciding to help are increased when – The person appears to deserve help – The person is in some way similar to us – The person is a woman – We have just observed someone else being helpful – We are unhurried or in a good mood – We are feeling guilty – We are focused on others and not preoccupied Prosocial Relations Altruism Bystander Intervention The Decision-Making Process for Bystander Intervention Prosocial Relations Altruism The Norms for Helping 12-15: HOW DO SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY AND SOCIAL NORMS EXPLAIN HELPING BEHAVIOR? Why do we help? • Social exchange theory – Maximizing rewards and minimizing costs (accountants call it cost-benefit analysis; philosophers call it utilitarianism; psychologists call it social exchange theory) • Reciprocity norm – Expectation that people will respond favorably to each other by returning benefits for benefit • Social-responsibility norm – Expectation that people should help those who depend on them Prosocial Relations Peacemaking Elements of Conflict 12-16: HOW DO SOCIAL TRAPS AND MIRROR-IMAGE PERCEPTIONS FUEL SOCIAL CONFLICT? Conflict – Perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas in which people become enmeshed in potentially destructive processes that often produce unwanted results – Among these processes are social traps and distorted perceptions Prosocial Relations Peacemaking Elements of Conflict Social Traps • Situation in which conflicting parties, by each pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior • Social traps harm our collective well-being • Social traps challenge us to reconcile our right to pursue our personal well-being with our responsibility for the well-being of all. Psychologists have explored ways to convince people to cooperate—agreed-upon regulations, better communication, and awareness of our responsibilities toward community, nation, and the whole of humanity Prosocial Relations Peacemaking Elements of Conflict Enemy Perceptions • Psychologists have noted that those in conflict have a curious tendency to form diabolical images of one another. • Mirror-image perceptions: 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. • Self-fulfilling prophecy: A belief that leads to its own fulfilment. • As enemies change, so do perceptions (for example, a negative American view of Japan during WWII later became positive). Prosocial Relations Peacemaking Promoting Peace 12-17: HOW CAN WE TRANSFORM FEELINGS OF PREJUDICE, AGGRESSION, AND CONFLICT INTO ATTITUDES THAT PROMOTE PEACE? Research indicates that in some cases contact and cooperation can be transformational. Contact – Most effective when contact is free of competition and equal status exists. – Across a quarter-million people studied in 38 nations, friendly contact with ethnic minorities, older people, and people with disabilities has usually led to less prejudice. – Contact is not always enough. Also important are cooperation, communication, and conciliation. Prosocial Relations Peacemaking: Promoting Peace Cooperation •Cooperative contact, not contact alone, reduces conflict. •A shared predicament or superordinate goal can have a unifying effect. •Experiments with teens in 11 countries confirm that cooperative learning can maintain or enhance student achievement. •When real-life conflicts become intense, a third-party mediator may facilitate muchneeded communication. Communication •Mediators can help each party to voice its viewpoint and to understand the other’s needs and goals; change a competitive win-lose orientation to a cooperative win-win one. Conciliation •GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction) is alternative to conflict, to war or surrender.
