M2 Lesson 1 - Social Influence, Genes, Culture, and Gender - How we influence one another (Chapter 4)

Natural Selection

Heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce are passed to ensuring generations.

Social animals join, conform, recognize social status.

Evolutionary Psychology

Study of the evolution of cognition and behavior based on principles of natural selection.

There has been enough time for variance in genes 

Variations have been recent, copious, and regional (N. Wade)

Culture

Enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Cultural diversity

Our behavior is socially programmed.

Norms

Expected behavior by a group.

Implicit rules for getting along.

Standards for accepted and expected behavior

• Expressiveness

• Punctuality

• Rule breaking

• Personal space

• Eye contact

Culture Similarity

Theory of the Mind

Universal friendship norms

Are shared cultural expectations of trust, loyalty, and mutual support that guide voluntary interpersonal relationships across human societies.

Universal Trait dimensions

Refer to the Big Five personality traits (often called the Five-Factor Model) which can classify human personality into five broad, continuous spectrums. 

The Five Core Dimensions (OCEAN): Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Universal Social belief dimensions

Cynicism, social complexity, reward for hard work, spirituality, fate control.

Often studied as “social axioms” - refer to the generalized beliefs people hold about how the world functions. 

Five pancultural (universal) dimensions using Social Axioms Survey: Social Cynicism, Social Complexity, Reward for Application, Religiosity / Spirituality, and Fate Control. 

Universal status norms (R. Brown)

Intimacy

Are shared rules and expectations that dictate how status - a person’s relative rank, prestige, or standing in a group - shapes behavior, power, and privileges across different societies. 

Aspects: Hierarchy and Prestige, Differential Latitude, Universal Values Connection, and Role Reciprocity. 

Gender

Characteristic, whether biological or socially influenced, by which people define male and female.

Females

• 70% more fat, shorter, weigh less

• More sensitive to smells and sounds

• More vulnerable to anxiety disorders, depression

Males

• Slower to reach puberty, die younger

• ADHD

• Commit suicide (the other sex try more but do not succeed)

Women

• Describe themselves in more relational terms.

• Experience more relationship-linked emotions.

• More empathic.

• Gravitate toward jobs that reduce inequalities.

Men

• Focus on tasks and on connections with large groups.

• Respond to stress with a “fight or flight” response.

• Gravitate toward jobs that enhance inequalities.

Men

Are more socially dominant.

Women

wages in industrial countries average 77 percent of the other gender.

Men

Tend to be more autocratic.

Women

Tend to be more democratic.

Men

Tend to take more risks

Aggression

Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone.

Women

Are slightly more likely to commit indirect aggressive acts (spreading malicious gossip)

Men

More often think about and initiate sex.

Women

Are more inspired by emotional passion.

Men

Seek out quantity (reproduce widely) (spreading genes widely).

Women

Seek out quality (wisely choose) (Protecting and nurturing offspring)

Testosterone

The gender gap in aggression seems influenced by?

Androgynous (mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics)

As humans age they become more?

Gender Role

Set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and females which vary over culture and vary over time.