Area of Study 1: Interpersonal and
Group Behaviour
Write your own definition.
Compare your definition to the definition below:
An attitude is an evaluation that a person makes about an object,
a person, group, event or issue. Or about anything!!
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Homework
Three day weekends
VCE
The AFL grandfinal
Your best friend
The person sitting on your right
Your teachers (be nice!)
• Attitudes can be strong or weak. A strong attitude is more
likely to be long-lasting, character defining and influence
your behaviour.
• A weak attitude may not be long lasting and is less likely to
effect your behaviour.
• An attitude is said to be accessible if you use if often. An
accessible attitude may further be strong or weak.
• Most likely explanation is from life experience.
• Forming attitudes is a continual process occurring throughout our
lives
• Attitudes can be modified when new experiences interact with
already existing attitudes
• There are many ways an attitude can be influenced- by
parents, teachers, peers, the media etc
• Try to identify where some of the attitudes you have already
identified have come from. Have any of these attitudes
changed over time? Who may have influenced the change?
• There are three parts to every attitude:
1) Affective component- the feelings and emotions
associated with the attitude
2) Behavioural component- the actions and behaviours
that you do to express the attitude
3) Cognitive component- the beliefs and thoughts that
you have associated with the attitude
The tri-component model argues that an attitude has all three
of the above. If one is missing, it is not an attitude.
Try to identify the affective, behavioural and cognitive
components of the attitudes already explored.
• Out attitude towards a particular product will determine
whether or not we purchase the product. If you have a
favourable attitude towards a product you are more likely to
purchase it.
• Advertising companies will attempt to change peoples attitudes
in favour of you purchasing a product
• They may act to influence or change the affective, cognitive or
behavioural component of your attitude towards their product.
• Changing behaviour- coupons, price reductions, free
samples
• Changing cognitions- change beliefs about a brand, make
the item more important, add beliefs
• Changing Affective response- tie positive emotions to the
brand or item; may use humour, fear, childhood memories;
may use colour and music to evoke emotion
• In general, all three of the components of an attitude will be
consistent.
• For example, if you do not like vegetables you will get
upset when you are given them (affective), you will avoid
eating them (behavioural) and you will believe that they are
not necessary and you can get your vitamins from other
foods (cognitive).
• Another example my best friend really likes chocolate. She
feels happy when she sees it (affective), she eats it
regularly (behavioural) and she believes that a small
amount is not bad for her health (cognitive).
• But are your feelings and beliefs always consistent with your
actions?
• When any one of the three components of an attitude is not
consistent with the other two components, we experience
discomfort. We know that there are inconsistencies in our
attitude. This discomfort is known as cognitive dissonance.
• Rate each of the 5 statements below on a 5 point Likert
scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree
• Global warming is a serious problem and is having
disastrous effects on our planet.
• We as a society are too reliant on fossil fuels.
• Every human has the right to shelter and food
• No child should die of preventable diseases.
• We have a large impact on the natural environment
and should protect our native plants and animals.
1) Do you choose to walk or take public transport whenever possible to
reduce carbon gas emission? Do you take shorter showers, turn your
heater down and turn off you appliances at the power-point when you
have finished using them?
2) Do you have solar panels at home to reduce the amount of electricity
you need that is produced from coal? Will you buy a hybrid for your
first car?
3) Do you donate food and clothes to local charity organisations?
4) Have you ever considered sponsoring a child in a third world country?
Do you donate money to organisations that vaccinate children against
preventable diseases?
5) Do you plant native plants in your garden at home to provide food
and shelter to native animals? Do you donate time or money to
organisations that rehabilitate land?
Too what extent do you display the above behaviours? Do your beliefs
(cognitions) and emotions match your behaviour? How do you feel if
they don’t? This is cognitive dissonance.
• Ignore the cognitive dissonance (but this can be
difficult)
• Change your attitude by changing your cognitions or
behaviour
• Studies have found that people will often change their
cognitions to fit with the behavioural and affective
components of an attitude.
• Explain some ways that you might deal with any
cognitive dissonance encountered on the previous slide.
• When you meet someone for the first time you make
judgements about them- even after a brief meeting
• This judgment may be based on what the person looks like,
how they approach you and what they say.
• Why do we do this? It is helpful to categorise people. This
helps us to adjust our behaviour accordingly and know what
to expect from the other person.
• A stereotype is a set of commonly held beliefs and ideas about
a person or group
• These beliefs and ideas may or may not be true
• Stereotypes can be positive or negative e.g. Boys are good at
maths (good stereotype) and girls are not (bad stereotype)
• Stereotypes ignore individual characteristics
• Stereotypes help us to better understand our world and save us
work mentally. They help us to make faster decisions. They help
us to better interact with other people.
• While stereotypes may be helpful, they also lead to prejudice
and discrimination
• Prejudice is a negative judgement made about a person just
because they belong to a particular group
• Often a the person holding the prejudiced attitude will not
personally know any member of the group
• Often directed at minority groups
• A person or group can be prejudiced against for any reasonsex, race, age, hair colour, religion, sexual preference, looks,
profession, etc.
• Can you think of some groups that may experience prejudice in
our culture?
• Prejudice involves negative ideas the thoughts. When these
negative thoughts are acted on discrimination occurs.
• Discrimination can take many forms including violence, name
calling, ignoring, put-downs, segregation and exclusion.
• Prejudice and discrimination can be reduced using the following:
• Inter-group Contact
• Sustained Contact- when people spend time with each other over an
extended period
• Mutual Interdependence- two groups are dependent on each other in
some way
• Equality- both groups must have equal status and be treated equally
• Super-ordinate goals- two groups of people are required to
complete a task with each group equally important to the task
• Cognitive Interventions- changing the way that people think about others
and other cultures
• No one strategy alone is adequate- they must exist in
combination
• Each group has been given a scenario. Suggest activities that
you may use to reduce the prejudice/discrimination in the
scenario. Relate these activities to the strategies outlined on the
previous slide.
• Complete a flow chart outlining the “Robbers Cave Experiment”
conducted by Sherif in 1956.
• Social Influence- the ways in which people change their
behaviour or attitudes because of the direct or indirect
influence of others. Social influence may have a positive effect,
a negative effect or no effect at all on a person.
• We will be focusing on group influence- social influence
exerted on a individual by a group.
• What is a group?
• A group is two or more people that interact, influence each other and
work towards a common goal, interest or purpose. The individuals need to
feel that they are a part of the group and must interact with each other.
This interaction and influence differentiates a group from a collective. A
gathering of people together who have little interaction or influence on
each other is known as a collective.
LA 9.1 pg 375
• Within a group, status and power will influence how particular
group members will behave and act.
• What is Status?
• Status is the level of importance of a particular person within a group as
perceived by the other members of the group. It is relative and can easily
change.
• What is Power?
• Power is the ability of one person to influence the thoughts, feelings and
behaviours of another person or persons.
• Psychologists have identified different types of power based on the
source of the power. The type of power a person will have depends on
their role in the group. Often a person may use more than one type of
power to influence others.
• People in groups have power for different reasons.
• Our status, the role we play in society and the situation we
find ourselves in all influence our thoughts, feelings and
behaviour. This influence is not to be underestimated as Philip
Zimbardo found out in his famous Stanford Prison Experiment.
See video and textbook for more information.
• What do you think was concluded from this experiment?
• What is obedience?
• Obedience is a type of compliance that occurs when a person complies
with a demand. If you are told to “clean your room” by a parent and you
do then you are obeying their order. If a parent asks you “Can you
please clean your room?” and you do you are complying with their
request as opposed to obeying a command.
• What influences people to obey a command? What factors influence
people to obey others? These questions were ask by a famous social
psychologists named Stanley Milgram.
• See Milgram slideshow.
• Milgram’s
experiment was
repeated with
female participants
(original only had
males) and in
different countries.
The same results
were obtained each
time.
• Milgram’s original experiment was modified in order to
investigate this very question.
• In these modified experiments:
• The experimenter was in another room or gave orders via a phone to the
teacher
• The teacher had to hold the hand of the learning on the shock plate
• The experiment was moved from Yale University to a run down office
block
• The Experimenter wore normal everyday clothing rather than a lab coat
• The teacher was teamed with other participants (confederates) who
obeyed the experimenter
• The teacher was teamed with other participants (confederates) who did
not obey the experimenter.
• From these modified experiments, several factors have been
identified that increase the chance of obedience
• Social Proximity
• Legitimacy of the Authority Figure
• Group Pressure
• Milgram modified his experiment so that more distance
separated the experimenter and the teacher. When the
experimenter was not in the room and gave instructions via a
phone or tape recording, compliance to the full 450V fell from
65% to 20%. Compliance also decreased when the teacher
was closer to the learner.
• Milgram concluded that the closer the participant to the
authority figure the more likely they are to obey. The closer the
participant is to the learner the less likely they are to obey.
• Milgram believed that the legitimacy of the authority figure
would influence obedience. In his first experiment, the
experimenter was a university professor and the study took
place at Yale University. Milgram modified his experimental
design to test his hypothesis. He conducted the tests in a run
down building external to the university and in some instances
dressed as a janitor. Compliance to the 450V dropped to
between 48% to 20%.
• With higher levels of authority, people are more likely to obey.
• Milgram also altered the number of people present during the
experiment. Milgram recruited two more teachers
(confederates).
• In one situation, the confederates were trained to complain and
leave the study early. When this happened, only 10% of
participants delivered the full 450V shock.
• Conversely, when the confederates supported the experimenter,
conformity rose to 73%.
• It thus appears that group pressure is the most influential factor
in determining obedience.
• Milgram’s study was able to show the how strong social
influence can be in influencing behaviour.
• Milgram’s study showed the negative consequences of
obedience- or the result of social influence being abused.
• In many instances obedience is not a negative thing. It plays an
important role in maintaining an fair and just society.
• Conformity refers to any behaviour that is motivated by
pressure from other members of a group. When we conform,
we act in a way that is expected and excepted by the others
members of a group. In some situations we conform despite a
difference between our own feelings, thoughts and behaviours
and the feelings, thoughts and behaviours of the group.
• Can you think of a time in which you have conformed? You may
have agreed or disagreed with the conformity.
• Can you think of a time that you have been a non-conformist
and not conformed to the expectations of a group?
• Social psychologist Solomon Asch was interested in researching
the factors that influence conformity.
• He conducted a simple experiment that asked participants to
judge line lengths.
• He asked participants: “Which of the following lines- A, B, or Cmatches line X?”
• The answer appears simple- Line B. However, by changing his
experimental design 70% of participants answered incorrectly.
How do you think he got these results?
• Asch told participants that they were
participating in a study on perception.
He had to lie about the real aim of the
study- conformity- as knowing the study
was investigating conformity would
influence people’s responses.
• The study took place with a group of 6
participants sitting around a table. Only
one was a true participant however and
the others were confederates. The
participants were shown the line X and
asked to pick the line that matched from
various images one at a time taking
turns. The true participant was always
seated last and so heard the response
of all of the other participants first.
• In the first few rounds the right choice was very obvious and all
participants agreed. However, after this the confederates
started answering incorrectly. Not just one of the confederates
but all of them.
• In all Asch ran 12 trials. He found that 75% of the participants
conformed (provided an incorrect answer to agree with the
group) on at least one occasion. Approximately 33% agreed
with the incorrect responses on 6 or more of the trials.
• That being said 24% of the participants did not conform on any
of the trials.
• When Asch asked the participants why they conformed many
said that they conformed because they felt that their judgement
must have been wrong as all of the other participants made the
same judgement.
• This makes sense- it is more likely that one person would be
wrong than two, three, four or even five!
• Some participants said that they provided the incorrect
response because they feared being the odd one out.
• Through various experiments, Asch and other social
psychologists have identified a range of factors that influence
conformity. These are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Normative Influence
Culture
Informational Influence
Unanimity
Group Size
De-individuation
Social Learning Theory
• We want to be liked and accepted by others. The normative
influence theory states that we comply with others in order to
be accepted and liked by a group. We feel that people will
like us more if we agree with their thoughts, feelings and
actions.
• We are more likely to conform when we like the person/people
in the group.
• Studies have found that people who care very little about what
others think about them are less likely to conform.
• Asch’s experiments described previously has been replicated
many times across many cultures.
• High levels of compliance were seen in countries such as China,
Japan, Fiji and some African nations.
• Lower levels of compliance were seen in countries such as the
USA, Canada, and Western European countries such as France
and Portugal.
• Researchers have found a large difference in the conformity
between collectivist cultures and individualistic cultures.
Collectivist cultures work towards group goals and encourage
uniformity. Individualistic cultures focus on individuality, personal
achievement and independence.
• We conform because we believe that the information that we
have been presented with is true.
• People are more likely to conform when they feel they are
incapable of making the correct decision/judgement on their
own. They may be out of their area of expertise and need to
rely on someone else’s judgement.
• When the all or a majority of a group holds the same belief,
we are more likely to conform.
• When just one other person disagrees, conformity drops
dramatically. Asch found that having just one of the
confederates in his study provide the correct answer against the
majority of the group, conformity fell to just 10%.
• Asch varied the number of participants
in his study- from a little as 1 to as many
as 15. He found that as the number of
participants increased, so did conformity.
• It has however been suggested by more
recent research that it is not so much the
size of the group that is important but
the number of individuals whose
judgements seem independent.
• In the larger groups, participants seemed
to think that after the first 3 or 4
response the other participants were just
following what the first three participants
said. Therefore it appears that its the
number of independent judgements that
have the most impact. This is supported
by the finding that the highest rates of
conformity actually occur with a group
size of 3 -4 .
• De-individuation is when you lose your identity when you are in
a group. You feel anonymous within the group.
• When an individual feels as though the have no identity within
the group they also feel that they are no longer personal
responsible for providing a correct answer. This is the
responsibility of the group.
• Social Learning Theory- all our behaviours are learned and
occur as a result of whether these behaviours were rewarded or
punished in the past.
• This theory proposes that we conform because we have learnt
to and that in the past conformity has been rewarded.
• Conformity has allowed us to avoid embarrassment in the past.
When we have not conformed we may have experienced
negative feelings by expressing an incorrect idea, displaying an
inappropriate behaviour, etc
• Maybe we can look at how we treat non-conformists! How did
you treat your non-conformist?
• The information presented so
far focuses on the idea that
we behave differently when
we are in a group compared
to our behaviour when we
are alone.
• Peer pressure is the name
given to the influence of your
peer group- those the same
age, gender, etc. Peer
pressure mostly occurs during
social activities and can be
associated with misconduct
and family tension. It can be
real or imagined.
• Peer pressure is considered a
type of conformity. It can be
negative (pressure to drink,
take drugs, etc) or it can be
positive (pressure to attend a
party that you actually have
a lot of fun at, make new
friends etc).
• Social loafing refers to the
tendency of people to make
less effort when they are in a
group
• The total effort of a group
will not be equal to the sum
of the individual efforts when
alone
• There are cultural differences
in social loafing however. It
has been found that members
of collectivist societies will
put in more effort when in a
group than when alone.
• Social behaviours are behaviours displayed when we are
interacting with others.
• Pro-social behaviour- Behaviour that is performed with the
intention of helping someone. The soul intent of the behaviour
must be to help another. We have all performed pro-social acts.
• Anti-social Behaviour- Behaviour with the intention of causing
deliberate pain, discomfort or disruption (directed towards a
person, group or property)
• First we will look at pro-social behaviour
• What do you think influences people to act pro-socially?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
See others act prosocially
Upbringing
Personality
Media and TV
Personal gain
Moral reasons
Religion
Societal rules
• Psychologists are also interested in why we behave prosocially. Most
experimental research into prosocial behaviours took place after the 1964
Kitty Genovese murder case.
• On her way home from work at 3am Kitty
was attached by a man with a knife out the
front of her apartment building. Kitty
screamed for help. These cries for help were
heard by 38 people. Many of these people
switched on their lights and watched the
attack through their windows. None of them
came to her aid and only one person called
the police.
• In response to this case, psychologists stared
to ask why no-one went to help? What
might increase the likelihood that someone
would help?
• Under what circumstances are we more likely to help
others?
• Psychologists have identified 3 major influences:
1. Situational Factors
2. Social Factors
3. Personal Factors
Note that these factors can increase or decrease the
likelihood that someone will show prosocial helping
behaviours.
• Two psychologists particularly interested in the case of Kitty
Genovese were Bibb Latane and John Darley. Through
numerous experiments, they were able to identify three
factors associated with the situation that may influence
where people will choose to act pro-socially.
• These three situational factors were:
• Noticing the Situation
• Interpreting the Situation
• The preparedness of a person to take responsibility
• In order to help a person, you would first need to actually
notice that they need help.
• Research has found that you are more likely to notice someone
in need when you are on your own than when you are in a
group.
• Many situations in which a person might need help can be
ambiguous. That is, it is not entirely clear whether or not help is
actually needed. For example, how would you interpret the
image on the left below.
• The less ambiguous a situation is, the more likely someone will
offer help.
• Once a situation has been noticed and
interpreted as one in which help is
required, a person needs to make the
decision that it is their responsibility to
help.
• For various reasons, a person may decide
it is not their responsibility to help. For
example, someone is hurt at a sports
match. It would be the responsibility of
the first aid team to respond.
• When other people are near by we may
decide not to take responsibility and
leave the helping up to someone else
even if they are not more qualified.
• Many of Kitty Genovese’s murder witnesses had noticed the situation
and interpreted it as one in which she needed help. They did not help
however because they noticed many others also witnessing the event.
They mistakenly believed that one of the other neighbours would run out
to help her or call the police.
• Latane and Darley hypothesised that the presence of others would
influence the likelihood that an individual will help.
• In an experiment in 1975, Latane and Darley had a confederate drop
coins or pencils while in a lift. They found that when there were only 2
or 3 people in the lift, 40% of the time the confederate was helped.
However, when there were more people in the lift, only 20% of the time
did the confederate get any help.
• When participants were questions about there actions, they felt that
when a lot of other people were around it was not their responsibility to
help. Darley and Latane called this Bystander Effect.
Bystander Intervention is the tendency for a bystander to intervene and help
another. The bystander effect describes how bystanders are less likely to help
if other potential helpers are present. The more people present the less likely
an individual is to help. Bystander intervention is dependent on the decision of
the observer to stand up and take the initiative to help.
• Bystander effect was researched by Darley and Latane.
• They placed college students in individual booths hooked up using an intercom. The
students spoke to each other but only one of the students was a real subject. One of the
confederates suffered a seizure and Darley and Latane recorded how many of the
students went to assist him.
• When the subject believed that they were alone with the other student, 85% left their
booth to assist. However, when the participant believed that they were one of four students
present, only 13% left to assist the student suffering the seizure.
• They found that the more students the subject believed were present, the less likely they
were to get out of their booth and help.
• When other people are present, the onus on ourselves to personally assist has
been dispersed to others. This is known as diffusion of responsibility.
• The tendency for us to not help someone in need when there are
other people present because of our belief that someone else
will offer assistance. The responsibility is diffused (spread)
amoung the group making an individual less responsible.
• Watch Video
• Social norms are expectations placed on us by society.
They are guided by cultural rules that define appropriate
values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
• Social norms influence pro-social behaviour
• The tendency to help others if they have or will in future help
you
• This principle can be quite powerful as Krishnan and Carment
(1979) discovered. They had a university student (a
conferderate) offer help to another student. Later the
confederate in return asked for help from the student. They
found that 66% of the students offered the confederate help
when the confederate had earlier offered them help. 0% of
students who had not been offered help previously from the
confederate helped when asked.
• This principle is evident when we help our friends. We would
expect in future that they would help us out in return.
• Some people may be unable to help us in the future. In this case,
we rely on the Social Responsibility Norm to guide helping
behaviours.
• The Social Responsibility Norm states that we should help those
in need or those less fortunate than ourselves.
• We are more likely to help when we believe that the person
needs help because of their situation and not through their own
wrong doing. We may be less likely to help when we believe they
nees assistance because of their own wrong doing.
• Helping behaviours can be influenced by personal factors such
as empathy, mood and competence.
• Empathy- the ability to understand and experience situations
and emotions from another person’s perspective.
• Empathy increases the likelihood we will help someone in
distress. The more empathy we have for someone the more
likely we are to help them (empathy-altruism hypothesis)
• Mood- an emotional state at a given time and
place; can be short lived and change with the
situation we are in
• People in a happy mood are more likely to
help others. It is suggests that this occurs
because it is a way to share the happy mood.
• There has been mixed results in the research
on people in bad moods. Some studies have
found that people in bad moods can be just as
likely to help as someone in a good mood. It
appears that if the person in the bad mood
focuses on the person in need they are more
likely to help. If they focus on themselves
however they are not likely to help.
• The most influential personal factor
• The ability to help when someone is in need (can be real or
perceived).
• For example, if someone falls and cut their leg, a person
who has received first aid training is more likely to help
than someone who has not.
• A specific kind of Pro-social behaviour in which the motive for
helping is entirely selfless. The behaviour focusses on the wellbeing of another with no thought to personal wellbeing.
• Altruism involves no personal gain, reward or benefit.
• Altruism can involve personal risk.
• Some people believe that no prosocial behaviour is truly
altruistic; the behaviour always has an underlying selfish
motivation. I wonder if they have ever heard of Mother Theresa.
• Having investigated factors that influence pro-social behaviour,
psychologists also became interested in why people choose not
to help someone in need. That is, why do people chose not to
act pro-socially?
• Psychologists have identified several factors that may lead a
person to decide not to help a person in need. These factors
include the situational factors (noticing the situation, interpreting
the situation and bystander effect) and personal factors
(empathy, mood and competence) already discussed. In
addition, psychologists have found that the presence of others
will influence helping behaviour beyond just bystander effect
and diffusion of responsibility.
• The reluctance to help when in front of other people (audience)
to avoid embarrassment if the person does not need/want help
• Is increased in ambiguous situations- when the actions of the
person make it unclear as to whether or not they need help.
• Is reduced when less people are present
• Was investigated by Darley and Latane (1968) in their “Smoke
Filled Room Experiment”
• Darley and Latane (1968)
• Told participants they were participating in a study on memory.
Deception was necessary as if participants knew the study was on
helping behaviours they would have been extra helpful
• Participants were asked to wait in the waiting room and fill out a
form outlining their personal details. The independent variable was
whether the participant filled the form out in an empty room or in a
room with two confederates who were also filling in personal
information forms
• While the participants filled out forms, smoke would enter the room
through a vent.
• How do you think the participants acted in the two experimental
conditions?
• Darley and Latane found that when the participants were
alone, they all investigated the smoke and went for help.
• However, when other people were present 90% stayed in the
room while it filled with smoke! They coughed, waved the smoke
away, rubbed their eyes and opened the window but did not
go for help.
• When the researchers asked why they didn’t go for help the
participants replied that there was no fire and therefore no
danger. They noted that the other participants seems calm and
so there was no need to worry.
• We would undoubtable assume that the fact that there were
other passive participants present had a large influence on their
behaviour!
• The evaluation we make about helping that weighs up the pros
and cons of a situation. The pros and cons can be personal and
social.
• If the pros out-weigh the cons then we will help (pro-social). If
the cons out-weigh the pros, we will not help (anti-social).
• Example: A friend asks you to come watch him play footy on
Saturday. Its the last game for the season and you have been
promising you will come watch a game. Your mum has been
asking you all week to clean up your room. She wants it done
by Sunday morning as you have family coming for lunch. You
also have to go to the shops to get a new portfolio for
Psychology class. Weigh up the pros and cons and decide what
you will do.
• In groups devise a short role play that demonstrates costbenefit analysis.
• Any behaviour performed with the intention of
causing pain, discomfort or disruption to an
individual, group or property.
• For a behaviour to be considered Anti-social it
must be deliberate, voluntary and must intend
to cause harm
• Anti-social behaviour is of interest to
psychologists as studying it and understanding
its causes can help prevent anti-social acts and
the pain and suffering they cause
• At the core of many anti-social acts is
aggression.
• Aggression is defined by psychologists as any type of
behaviour that intends to cause physical or psychological harm
to a person, animal or object.
• The cause of aggression is something that psychologists are still
trying to explain.
• There are four perspectives that we will look at. They are:
•
•
•
•
The Psychodynamic Perspective
The Ethological Perspective
The Biological Perspective
The Social Learning Perspective
• Freud proposed aggression was an “instinct” present from birth
• This instinct resides in our subconscious
• Overtime, the urge to harm ourselves or others builds up and
must be expressed. At some point our conscious mind can no
longer control this urge.
• Eventually we must release this energy. Releasing the energy
however does not always results in a display of aggressive
behaviours. Behaviours to release this energy can include sport,
computer games, reading books.
• Freud’s theory is presented here mainly for historical interest. It
has no scientific support and is mostly overlooked by
psychologists today.
• Ethology is a mix between psychology and zoology. Ethologists
study behaviour patterns of species in their natural environment.
Often, observations of one species are used to make
predictions about the behaviour of another species. For
example, behaviour patterns found in animals may be used to
explain human behaviour.
• One of the founders of Ethology was Konrad Lorenz. He studied
aggression in many different species of animal and viewed
aggression as instinctual.
• He believed that animals evolved to be aggressive to promote
survival.
• Criticisms of his work include that is relies on generalisations
from non-human species and little empirical evidence.
• The biological perspective emphasises the role of genetics, structures
in the brain and nervous system as well as the role of hormones and
chemicals in the body on aggression.
• Genetics: Some studies have found that genetics play a role in
aggression making some people more likely to show aggression. The
effect of the environment however appears to play a greater role.
• Brain Structure: Studies on the brain have found that the amygdala (a
structure in the centre of the brain) may be partly responsible for
aggression.
• Hormones: Experiments have shown that higher levels of testosterone
may lead to more aggressive behaviours.
• Chemicals: In many cases, alcohol and drug use increase aggression.
• The social learning perspective emphasises
the role of learning. Aggression results
from watching others behave aggressively
and then copying their behaviour. This is
known as observational learning.
• It is not only the behaviour that a person
will observe but also the consequence of
the behaviour. If the consequence is
positive, then we are more likely to copy
the behaviour. If the consequence is
negative, then we are less likely to copy
the behaviour.
• The role of observational learning on
aggression was investigated by
psychologist Albert Bandura.
• Aim: To investigate the effect of observational learning and reinforcement
(positive or negative) on behaviour
• Participants: Pre-school aged children
• Method: Participants watched a series of videos. The film featured an adult
and a blow up clown Bobo. In the film, the adult punched Bobo and knocked
him down while shouting phrases such as “sockaroo”. The film however ended
with one of thee scenarios:
1. the adult was rewarded with praise and lollies for hitting the
doll
2. the adult was scolded and smacked for hitting the doll.
3. the adult was neither rewarded or punished
o After the videos the children were allowed to play with the Bobo doll while
being observed through double windows.
What behaviours do you think the children displayed?
Watch Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4586465813762682933
• Results: Children who saw the violent behaviour were more
likely to mimic the behaviour of the adult and act violently
towards the Bobo doll
• Bandura later found that if the child was personally rewarded
for aggressive behaviour towards the doll they would act
violently even of they had seen the adult punished.
• It is however not exposure to violent behaviour that is the only
cause of aggression. We see violence on TV everyday and yet
most of us do not engage in such acts of violence. There are
clearly many more influences on behaviour than observation of
reward and punishment.
• Bullying is defined as aggressive behaviour that involves in
inappropriate use of power by one or more people over a less
powerful person or group.
• Bullying is intentional and premeditated. The bullying will be
repeated over time.
• Bullying can take many forms including physical assault, name
calling, spreading rumours, exclusion and personal attacks on
social media.
• There are many causes of bullying. See you text and the
weblinks for more information