Psychology 11/12
Miss Carey
Social Psychology
- Attribution Theory: the theory that we tend to give a
casual explanation for someone’s behaviour.
Example: Is an aggressive student acting that way because of internal
dispositions OR is it their external situations (environment)?
- Fundamental Attribution Error: the tendency for
observers, when analyzing other’s behaviour, to
underestimate the impact of the situation and
overestimate the impact of personal disposition.
Example: A quiet student in class may be a ‘party person’ outside of the
situation.
- Attitude: a belief and feeling that predisposes one to
respond in a particular way to objects, people and
events.
- Foot-In-the-Door Phenomenon: the tendency for
people who have first agreed to a small request to
comply later with a larger request.
Example: Korean War POW’s…brainwashed into believing Communism
was good for Asia. Some even stayed there after the war….”To get people
to agree to something big, start with something small and build”.
SOCIAL RELATIONS 1
The Psychology of Attraction
- Depends on Proximity, Physical Attractiveness, &
Similarity. (3 things)
- Mere-Exposure Effect – see it more = like it more
- Two Kinds of Love:
o Passionate Love
o Companionate Love
Social Relations 2
The Psychology of Aggression (p.666-676)
“Why do people get mad? Why do they act on their aggression and anger?”
Aggression: any physical or verbal behaviour intended to
hurt or destroy.
“For a gun to fire, the trigger must be pulled.”
- what do you think causes people to become violent?
1)
Biology: according to some, our species has a
volcanic potential to erupt in aggression. Biology does
influence aggression.
- Genetics: animals have been bred for aggressiveness
and in twin studies, if one has a violent temper, it is
most likely the other twin will too.
- Neural: our neural systems produce aggressive
behaviour when in the presence of provocation.
- Biochemical: hormones, alcohol, substances in the
blood influence the neural systems and hence
aggression. When injected with testosterone, mice
become aggressive. Fact: most violent crimes are committed
by muscular young men with lower than average intelligence scores
and higher than average testosterone levels.
2) Psychology: psychological factors ‘pull the trigger’
- Aversive Events: Studies in which animals or humans
experience unpleasant events reveal that those made
miserable often make others miserable.
Frustration-Aggression Principle. (p.669)
- Learning to Express & Inhibit Aggression:
aggression may be a natural response to aversive
events.
An Example: crime rates are higher in countries marked
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by a great disparity between the rich and poor. Social
influence is also a factor = higher violence rates in
families with minimal father care in the home.
Television Watching & Aggression
During a child’s first 18 years, most spend more time
watching TV than going to school.
In the USA the average household watches 51 hours of
TV per week.
In 1993, US network programs offered about 3 violent
acts per hour during prime time and 18 per hour during
children’s Saturday morning cartoons.
By the year 2000, most children were exposed to 8000
TV murders and 100,000 other acts of violence before
finishing elementary school.
What about video game violence? Grand Theft Auto??
DOES VIEWING AGGRESSION ON TV INFLUENCE
SOME PEOPLE TO COMMIT AGGRESSION?
o Correlational studies see a link…but it does not
imply causation. What do you think????
- Sexual Aggression & the Media
We have seen an increase in sexual aggression (rape,
assaults) AND a correlation/link to the number of and
access to R-rated ‘slasher’ films and X-rated films.
- Do images of sexual exploitation influence sexual
aggression?