Social Psych Exam 4 Concepts

Aggression

Any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed

Violence

Aggression intended to cause extreme physical harm, such as injury or death

What age range is most aggressive

Toddlers age 1-3

Internal factors that matter in aggression

• Age

• Gender

• Personality traits related to aggression

• Hostile cognitive biases

All violent acts are ______ but not all aggressive acts are _____

aggressive; violent

Alcohol _____ rather than _____ aggressive behavior

increases; causes

Catharsis shows what kind of effect when reducing aggression?

The opposite effect

Attractiveness halo effect

The tendency to associate attractiveness with a variety of positive traits

Mere-exposure effect

preference to prefer stimuli that have been seen before novel ones

Factors that influence attraction include:

• Similarity

• Proximity

• Familiarity

• Reciprocity

Perceived vs. received social support

High levels of perceived support buffer against stress; if the received support is unwanted, it backfires

The “magic formula” for keeping relationships working:

5 positive interactions : 1 negative interaction (5:1 ratio)

The goal of positive psychology

identify and enhance the human strengths and virtues that make life worth living

3 important topics of human flourishing

• Gratitude

• Forgiveness

• Humility

Forgiveness is

letting go of negative thoughts, negative behaviors, and negative feelings toward the offender

Feeling grateful, thankful, and appreciative =

feeling more loving, forgiving, joyful, and enthusiastic

Humility

having an accurate view of self (not too high or low) and a realistic appraisal of one’s strengths and weaknesses, especially in relation to other people

Prosocial behavior

social behavior that benefits another person

Bystander intervention

The phenomenon whereby people intervene to help others in need even if the other is a complete stranger and the intervention puts the helper at risk

Men and women are basically

equivalent when it comes to helping, but it depends on the situation

Altruism

a motivation for helping that has the improvement of another’s welfare as its ultimate goal with no expectation of any benefits for the helper

An example of cultural relativism with aggression would be

Foot binding/circumcision

The Baumeister Ostracized study consisted of

• You were picked vs. no one picked you

• Blast of adverse white noise given to those who did not pick you vs. other people

The Bobo Doll studies consisted of

• Kids who observe aggressive adult behavior and directly copy it

Aggressive media doesn’t make you more aggressive but

desensitizes you

There is a difference between

frustrating experience vs. true aggression

An example of anger management would be

Double breathing technique known as the “physiological sigh”

The best measure about whether or not the student wanted to see the other person again in the Welcome Week Hatfield et al. studies was

physical attractiveness

Where does bias come from?

Nature vs. nurture (culture)

Symmetry (in attractiveness) is

cross-cultural

Partners of identical twins are

not particularly similar (situationally based)

Proximity

• How close, physically, are you to the person?

• Promotes more interactions

Familiarity

• Mere exposure effect

• The more you see something/are familiar with it… the more you will like it in the long run

Similarity

• Better chance of a relationship (romantic OR platonic)

Equity/perceived equity

• Are you getting out of the relationship what you are putting in?

Social support

• Friends at work

• OSO’s = other significant others…friend

• Men vs. women after losing spouse (women fair better)

Reciprocity example we used in class

Aron & Aron 36 questions—self disclosure reciprocity

Reactance

when things are challenged, instead of obeying authority it makes us want that thing more

“Spark” does not…

predict reliability, loyalty, kindness, emotional stability, or support

“Big secret” in Gottman’s Love Lab study was

Be nice to each other.

Given that “fighting is bad” is a myth, it’s more about

how you fight

Newlyweds who fight more are

more likely to stay together

“Being romantic” is

better than “believing romantic”

Those in Pennebaker’s Expressive Writing study who wrote about more traumatic things

went to the student health center less

There is

a genetic component to happiness

Religion and political leaning in positive psych is

correlational (there are other factors involved)

Mirror neurons

we are “wired” to help

In the experiment with the puppets,

babies showed a preference to the character who exhibited traits of helping

Personality has

influence on prosocial behavior

The general finding with donating is that

poor give more than the wealthy

Social responsibility norm

• Attributions about why they are in that situation come into play

• Is it their fault vs. outside of their control?

In the Miller Candy Wrapper study,

• Being praised about how neat you are mattered/worked more than asking to be neat

• In an elementary school setting

What students participated in the Good Samaritan study

Theology students

In the Good Samaritan study,

those who were late for the talk decided the talk was more important than the guy who needed help and passed him up

The rule of the bystander effect is that

MORE IS NOT BETTER!

Diffusion of responsibility

“somebody must have already done something/not my duty”

It is better to be around

less strangers than more when in dangerous situations

In experiments that test the bystander effect,

The participant is more likely to get help when alone, but not when in group setting…