Slides prepared by
Randall E. Osborne, Texas State University-San Marcos, adapted by Dr Mark Forshaw, Staffordshire University, UK and Laura Smith, University of Bristol, UK
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• On any given day we interact with a variety of people
• We interact with them in a variety of contexts
• What determines with whom we choose to interact and how those interactions “ go ” ?
• The evolutionary perspective suggests:
– task of survival
– task of reproduction
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• Humans engage in interactions with each other that range from helping to hurting
• Aggression
• Frustration-aggression hypothesis
– impulsive aggression
– uncomfortable internal states temperature pain triggers
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• Regardless of conditions, though, not everyone is equally aggressive
• Single best predictor is gender
• Socialization?
• Testosterone?
• Culture?
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– Simplest solution to scarce resources
• Instrumental aggression; premeditated, for personal gain.
• Hostile aggression; spontaneous, response to unpleasant internal states
– Men commit more violent crimes
– Women tend more towards instrumental aggression and social harm (ostracism)
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• Cooperation — defined
• Prisoner ’ s dilemma
• Hypothesisconfirming bias
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• Deliberate attempts to generate a false belief to manipulate situations
• most common lies:
– Feelings and opinions
– Actions, plans, and whereabouts
– Knowledge, achievements and failings
– Facts and personal possessions
• Self deception helps you to better deceive others
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• Altruism — behaviour that benefits another without benefiting oneself
• Kin selection
– Behaving in a way that supports relatives
• Reciprocal altruism
– Helping another now, but expecting a return of the favour later
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• Serves 5 basic functions
1. Expressing intimacy
2. Establishing dominance and status
3. Expressing inner states
4. Regulating verbal communication
5. Directing the behaviours of others
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• Maintains and strengthens close bonds in intimate relationships
• Can be used to express dominance and compliance
• Interpersonal space; there are strict rules dictating proximity and contact norms
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• Used to express emotions
• Darwin believed emotional expressions to be universal
• Evidence suggests this is true of primary emotions, but there is more cultural variation in secondary emotions
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• Copy the behaviour of in-group members that we identify with
• Used as an act of affiliation
• Chameleon effect
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• We copy other peoples emotions, sometimes unintentionally
• Thought to be related to the mirror neuron system
• Example; we laugh at jokes more when others are laughing- use of canned laugher on sit-coms
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• Thin slicing; ability to interpret non-verbal communications from only a brief observation
– Improves with age and experience
– Females are better at thin slicing than males
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• Selectivity — women are more selective than men
– differences in reproductive biology
• Men produce billions of sperm, whereas women have far fewer ovae and are in labour for nine months
– socialization also plays a role
• ‘ Playboys ’ versus ‘ sluts ’
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• Attraction — caused by situational, physical, and psychological factors
• Situational
– proximity — mere exposure
• Physical
– attractiveness matters whether we admit it or not
• Psychological
– similarity
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• Some cultural universals in attractiveness
– inverted “ V ” shape for males
– hourglass shape for females
– bilaterally symmetrical face and body
– immature facial features for females
– mature facial features for males
– may be genetic predispositions to prefer these qualities
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• Only a few species have long-term, committed relationships
• Why are humans among them?
– our infants are born so immature?
• Around half the adult population in the UK is married
• England and Wales: around 42% of marriages ended in divorce
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• The idea that people marry for love is a recent invention
• Types of love:
– passionate
– companionate
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• Social exchange hypothesis
• Research shows this hypothesis is generally true with three additions:
– comparison level
– equity
– people will settle for less favourable outcomes when they have “ more invested ” in the relationship in terms of time, etc.
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• Happiness in long-term relationships can be predicted by parental attachments
– Secure attachments lead to greater relationship satisfaction
• Main cause of divorce - they feel they deserve better, or could get better from another
– Social exchange hypothesis
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• Drawing inferences from actions
• Situational attributions
• Dispositional attributions
• Kelley ’ s covariation model
– consistency (regularity)
– distinctiveness (generality)
– consensus (typicality)
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• Make dispositional attributions even when person ’ s disposition caused behaviour
• Fundamental attribution error
• Does differ from person to person and situation to situation and culture to culture
– situational causes are often not visible
• Actor-observer effect
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