Social Psych Test 4

Prosocial

• Doing something good for society

More Likely (prosocial)

• More likely to engage in prosocial behavior when their being watched

Satow (1975, Prosocial)

• Participants in a room and were either told they were being watched through a mirror or not being watched

• Told to do a task and were compensated for it 

• Asked to make a donation at the end of the study with their compensation

• If they thought they were being watched they donated 7 times more then if they thought they weren't 

Motivation (prosocial)

• When we feel like we are being watched the person watching us is more likely to accept us if we engage in prosocial behavior

Obligation (reciprocity)

• I have a debt to you so i feel obligated to fulfill that debt through prosocial action

Kunz and Woolcott (1976, Reciprocity)

• Sent christmas cards to 578 strangers

• Wanted to see how many people would send one back 

• 117 sent one back 

• Find it creepy to get mail from people you don't know 

Seeking help (reciprocity)

• A lot less likely to ask for help if we don't think we'll be able to repay it

Should be givers (fairness)

• Should be willing to give to other people especially those who we have a relationship with

• If we just take from a relationship we are more likely to be rejected 

Underbenefitted (fairness)

• Getting less then we feel like we deserve

• See a decrease in prosocial behavior

Overbenefitted (fairness)

• When we are getting more then we feel like we deserve

• Increase in prosocial behavior

Outperforming (fairness)

• Performing better than those around us 

• Makes us uncomfortable

• Fear being rejected for over performing

Morality

• Rules to encourage the best for others beyond yourself

• trolley problem

Morning morality effect

• People are more moral early in the morning after they just woke up rather than late in the day

Intuition (morality)

• We go with our gut feeling rather than logic or reason 

5 Pillars of Morality

• Disapproval of Harm

• Fairness

  Respect for legitimate authority

  Loyalty to group

  Purity/sanctity

Disapproval of harm (5 pillars)

• We don't approve of people or actions who cause harm to other people 

Fairness (5 pillars)

• Prefer for things to be fair when it comes to our perception of morality rather than over or underbenefitting anyone 

Respect for legitimate authority (5 pillars)

• Showing respect to an authority figure who has a reason to be an authority figure 

Loyalty to group (5 pillars)

• Loyalty to the groups that you belong too

Purity/sanctity (5 pillars)

• Quality of being virtuous or holy

Darley and Batson (1973, morality)

• Went to a seminary 

• All participants were students training to become priests 

• Told they were going to give a speech in another building on campus 

• For half of the participants they were told they were giving a speech about a parable about prosocial behavior

• Other half told they were giving a speech about being a seminary student

• Second variable was they were told that if they left now they'd either be early, on time, or late to their speech 

• While on their way to the other speech theyre given the opportunity to help someone, DV was how many stopped to helped the person

• Topic of the speech didnt matter, time pressure mattered

• When participants were told they were early, ⅔ of participants helped, on time that drops to 45%, late that drops to 10%

Cooperation

• Working towards common goals 

Altruistic punishment (cooperation)

• Agree to take a cost in order to punish someone who isn't cooperating 

Gossip (cooperation)

• Use gossip to pass information on to others 

• Generally for a common goal 

• May pass on that someone isnt cooperating 

Gender difference (cooperation)

• For same sex interactions, women are less cooperative

• If it is a mixed sex group, women are more cooperative

Trust

• Belief in the reliability and validity of a thing

Bell curve (trust)

• Best level of trust is in the middle 

• Don't wanna be too trusting because it leads to you being taken advantage of

• Not trusting enough leads to isolation

Group membership (trust)

• If we share group membership it is easier for me to trust you 

• Harder to trust outgroup members 

Ease (trust)

More that we trust someone easier to engage in proposal behaviors

Evolution (why help)

• We can't survive and thrive alone 

• Kin selection

Kin selection (evolution)

• More likely to help someone that we are biologically related to

• Identical twins more likely to help each other than fraternal twins 

(r x b) > c (evolution)

• r= relatedness, b = benefits you receive from helping, c = costs for you to help

• R x B needs to be higher than costs 

Empathy (altruistic)

• Amount your abe to put yourself in another persons shoes

Does it exist? (altruistic)

• When you do a good action you feel better about yourself

• Questions as to whether true altruistic behavior exists

Personality differences

• Those that are high in agreeableness and conscientiousness tend to engage in prosocial behavior

Similarity

• The more similar we are to the person the more likely we are to engage in prosocial behavior

Dovido et al. (1997) (similarity)

• Went to a train station 

• Asked soccer fans to give a statement about what it means to be a fan 

• Then given an opportunity to help someone who was a fan of the same team, other team, or neutral team 

• Much more likely to help someone whos a fan of the same team, basically same odds helping neutral or opposing team

• Asking people not to speak about team identity rather about being a soccer fan they were more likely to help ingroup members or neutral fans

Gender difference (why help)

• Men are more helpful to strangers and in a crisis

• Women are more helpful in the family sphere, close others, and for long periods of time 

Beautiful Victims (why help)

• More likely to help an individual we find sexually attractive 

• Halo effect

Belief in a just world (why help)

• Good things happen to good people bad things happen to bad people

• If a victim is not the cause of the victimhood they are more likely to believe this

Schmidt and Weiner (1988) (victims deserve it)

• Had people go up and ask for notes from a missed class

• Either told the individual they needed the notes because they skipped class for the beach or that they had an eye condition and they couldn't see the board

• Those with the eye condition were more likely to be helped 

Emotions (why help)

• Positive emotions make us more likely to engage in prosocial behavior 

• Guilt is the exception 

Kitty Genovese

• Lived in ny was walking home from a bar and was stabbed by a man till she died

• Murder was then written out as the murder with 1000 witnesses 

• Bystanders heard her cries and didn't do anything

• Many did actually help 

Latane and Darley (1968 A) (why not help)

• Had people come into the lab and go into cubicles 

• Led to believe they were speaking with only one individual, 3, or 5 individuals 

• Only one person could communicate during the time period

• One of the people whose mic was live would have a seizure 

• 85% of the participants left to help 

• Bigger the group less people went to help

Bystander effect (why not help)

• As the number of people around you increases the likelihood of intervention decreases

• The less people there are around the more likely you are to get help

Diffusion of responsibility (why not help)

• Because responsibility is diffused through the group the likelihood of helping is decreased 

Environment (why not help)

• More likely to help in a small town as opposed to a big city 

• Small towns we know a lot of people so someone may help to preserve the help they may get from others in the future 

Urban overload hypothesis (environment)

• People get overstimulated by the stimulants in a big city

Latane and Darley (1968 B) (pluralistic ignorance)

• When your by yourself youd rather be wrong about there being an emergency than ignore it 

• When theres other people in the room you follow their lead

Steps to helping

• Notice something happening

  • If you never notice that someone needs help you wont help

• Interpret a meaning

  • Have to interpret the stimuli as a situation that requires your help

• Take responsibility

• Know how to help

  • Have to have the knowledge to be able to help in the situation 

• Provide help

  • Last step 

  • Enact your knowledge and help the person

Aggression

Intent to harm someone that doesnt want to be harmed

Displaced (aggression)

• Showing aggression towards someone or something because you can't show it towards the aggressor 

Direct (aggression)

The victim of your aggression is present during your act of aggression

Indirect (aggression)

• When the victim of aggression is not present during the act of aggression

Hostile (aggression)

• Thought of as hot or spontaneous aggression

• When youre pissed and you just want to aggress

Instrumental (aggression)

• Using aggression to achieve a goal

Relational aggression

• When you're trying to cause harm to someone's relationships

Bullying (aggression)

• Not something special to the us

Craig & Harel (2004); Katzer et al. (2009)

• In children in 35 different countries more than 1/10 reported being bullied

• Included cyberbullying which was reported at a much higher rate

Violence (aggression)

• Decrease overall as of recent 

• Non married women are 3 times more likely to be victims of violence than married women 

Instinct (theories of aggression)

• We are instinctively designed to be aggressive

Thanatos (instinct)

• Freud talked about this as part of the id

Lorenz (1966)

• Instinctual urges could build up and if there was no release it could lead to aggression

• Fan of catharsis 

Learning (theories of aggression)

• Through relationship with parents children learn how to relate to others

• Sometimes rewarded for aggressive actions

Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1962)

• Bobo doll study 

• They learned the aggressive actions and language then repeated it 

Coyne et al. (2008; 2012)

• Had participants watch kill bill, mean girls, and a non aggressive film but a thriller

• Gave participants an opportunity to aggress

• Found that those who had watched either of the aggressive sounds aggressed more for a longer period of time 

• More likely to give negative ratings to the confederate

Anderson et al. (2010)

• Found there is a relationship between violent video games and violent behaviors and thoughts

Culture (learning)

• Different cultures have different perspectives when it comes to culture

Culture of Honor

• Culture where insults are perceived as  threat and lead to more aggressive behavior

Cohen, Nisbett, Bowdle, & Schwarz (1996)

• Participants bumped into in the hallway before the study, either called the participant an asshole or nothing

• Dependent variable was when a different confederate played a game of chicken where they walked toward the participant and observed how close they were before the participant moved out of the way 

• Half of the participants from the south half from the north

• Southern subjects moved out of the way more than the northern participants

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

• When we are experiencing frustration it leads to aggression

• Frustration leads to hostile aggression

• Berkowitz (1989)

  • Specifically, frustration leads to hostile aggression

Emotion (causes of aggression)

• Most negative emotions are correlated with aggression

• Guilt is not correlated with aggression

Self-control inhibition (causes of aggression)

• Anything that somewhat limits your self-control

Hostile attribution bias (causes of aggression)

• We have a tendency to think that aggressive actions say more about who a person is

• We are more likely to make internal attributions for aggressive actions

Hostile perception bias (causes of aggression)

• Tendency to perceive neutral stimuli as aggressive

Hostile expectation bias (causes of aggression)

• We assume others will respond aggressively

Individualist vs. collectivist (causes of aggression)

Individualist cultures are more likely to show aggression

Social influence (causes of aggression)

• We want others to aggress 

• We try to influence them to do the aggressive behavior

Quality of reward (social influence)

• If the reward > the punishment we are more likely to do the aggressive action

Low retaliation (social influence)

• If likely to get a negative response from the aggressive action, we are less likely to do it

Weapons effect (social influence)

• When we are exposed to weapons, we are more likely to aggress

Berkowitz and lepage (weapons effect)

• Left a bunch of tennis rackets OR guns on the table

• Participants given opportunity to deliver electric shocks to a confederate

• Found those who were exposed to the guns gave higher voltage and longer shocks 

Turner, layton and simmons (weapons effect)

• Had a motorist purposefully stall out at a red light

• Measured how long it took the person behind them to honk their horn

• Half of the participants had a shotgun mounted on the back window

• Other half had nothing

• Those who saw the shotgun honked quicker

Temperature (causes of aggression)

• The hotter it is, the more likeliness of aggression

Biology (causes of aggression)

Testosterone correlated with aggression

Raine (biology)

• Compared convicted and unconvicted murderers

• Found the prefrontal cortex was 14% smaller in convicted murderers

Pardini (biology)

• Men who were more aggressive have smaller amygdalas

Kin (causes of aggression)

• Less likely to murder/abuse if you are biologically related

Frisell (kin)

• Preschoolers who were living with a step/foster parent were 70-100x more likely to be fatally abused

Alcohol consumption (causes of aggression)

• Makes it easier for people to aggress 

• Particularly true for men

Age difference (characteristic differences)

• Children show highest level of aggression in developmental timespan

Gender difference (characteristic differences)

• Men more likely to use physical aggression

• Women slightly more likely to use relational aggression

• No difference for verbal aggression

Fight or Flight (characteristic differences)

• Men more likely to engage in this

Tend or befriend (characteristic differences)

• Women more likely to engage in this

Crime (characteristic differences)

• No known society where women commit more violent crime than men

• 90% of the time it is more likely the man is the perpetrator of a crime

• Men are more likely to use weapons, women more likely to use poison

Domestic violence (characteristic differences)

• Women in heterosexual relationships are lightly more likely to use physical violence

• Men are more likely to cause bodily/permanent harm

Personality differences

• People more Type A tend to be more aggressive

Dark Triad

• When present, are very correlated with aggression

• Narcissism

• Machiavellianism

• Psychopathy

Narcissism (dark triad)

• Focus on the self

Machiavellianism (dark triad)

• Manipulativeness