Social Psychology Ch. 9-11

What demonstrates how the need to belong is a fundamental human motive?

human infants are equipped with reflexes that orient them towards people and they respond to and mimic faces

What is the pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships?

the need to belong

What is an example of a social anxiety disorder?

public-speaking anxiety

How is the need to belong correlated with quality of life?

People with a close network of social ties have higher self-esteem, greater life satisfaction, better physical health, and longer lives.

What is the desire to establish and maintain many rewarding interpersonal relationships?

need for affiliation

What increases our need for affiliation?

stress, celebration, fear, and loneliness

Why do people in fearful misery love company while those in embarrassed misery seek solitude?

stress sparks the desire to affiliate only when being with others is seen as useful in reducing the negative impact of the stressful situation

Why do people who are facing an imminent threat seek each other out?

to gain cognitive clarity - under stress, we adaptively affiliate with those who can help use cope with impending threat (misery loves miserable company)

What is satisfied when lonely people connect with others?

reaffiliation motive

What term is used by Rofe to explain why people affiliate?

utility

Where does shyness come from?

• inborn personality trait

• learned reaction to failed interactions

What are the negative consequences of shyness?

• negative self-evaluations

• expectations to fail in social encounters and self-blame

• fear of rejection

• self-imposed isolation

How does shyness differ culturally?

individualistic: weakness to overcome

collectivistic: socially appropriate and adaptive

What is a feeling of deprivation about existing social relations?

loneliness

What are the dimensions of loneliness?

intimate, relational, and collective

What type of loneliness is felt when someone wants but does not have a spouse, significant other, or best friends to rely on for emotional support, especially during personal crises?

intimate loneliness

What type of loneliness is felt when someone wants but lacks friendships from school and work and family connections?

relational loneliness

What type of loneliness comes from remote relationships and the social identities we derive from our voluntary associations (ex. clubs)?

collective loneliness

If loneliness is prolonged for an unhealthy period of time, what can occur?

physical and mental health problems (ex. depression, alcoholism, anxiety)

What refers to the Japanese form of social withdrawal where those afflicted live the life of a hermit and withdraw from intimate relationships outside of the family?

hikikomori

How is loneliness impacted by culture?

collectivists are at a higher risk for loneliness due to the greater importance placed on relationships

How have loneliness rates changed over time among American high school and college students?

decreased

What explanations do various psychological perspectives use for the occurrence of attraction?

• People are attracted to those with whom they can have a rewarding relationship (ex. attention, support, money, status, info)

• We are attracted to others we see as being willing and able to fulfill our various relationship needs

• Patterns of attraction are tied to mate selection to favor the conception, birth, and survival of offspring

What new innovation has transformed the way people meet?

online dating

What is an important rule about the attraction process?

People are most likely to become attracted to someone they have seen and become familiar with.

What necessary factors about the attraction process pertain to familiarity?

proximity and exposure

What is the phenomenon whereby the more often people are exposed to a stimulus, the more positively they evaluate that stimulus?

mere exposure effect

Who discovered the mere exposure effect?

Robert Zajonc

What experiment demonstrated the mere exposure effect?

selecting four women who looked like typical students and adjusting the number of times they attended a class - the more classes a woman attended, the more attracted students were to her

What have economists discovered about physical attractiveness?

physically attractive men and women earn more pay than peers who are comparable except for being less attractive

What pieces of evidence support that beauty is objective?

• when asked to rate attractiveness on a 10-point scale, strangers demonstrated a high level of agreement, regardless of the participant's age, gender, culture, or attractiveness

• “averaged” faces are judged as more attractive when composed of physical features associated with ratings of attractiveness (ex. smooth skin, youth)

• people are drawn to symmetrical faces because it is associated with biological health, fitness, and fertility (evolutionary psychology)

• babies show a nonverbal preference for faces considered attractive by adults

What is evidence for the argument that physical attractiveness is subjective?

• culture influences the ways people enhance their beauty differently

• ideal body size differs across cultures, especially with varying food availabilities

• racial groups view the attractiveness of body types differently

What can inflate/deflate our perceptions of someone’s beauty?

the likability of their nonphysical qualities (ex. competence, politics)

What did the study about attractiveness and color reveal?

men rated women more attractive in the presence of red than other colors because they are perceived as sexually receptive

Why are we drawn to those who are physically attractive?

• we derive pleasure from aesthetic appeals

• we believe another person’s beauty can make us seem more enticing

• the what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype

• good-looking people are associated with better qualities (ex. smart, successful, happy)

What is the belief that physically attractive individuals also possess desirable personality characteristics?

the what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype

What is an example of the what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype?

Disney: princesses are beautiful, villains are grotesque

T/F: Our brain has increased activity in the same region of the brain when seeing beauty and when seeing goodness.

True

Why does the stereotype of physical attractiveness equating to goodness endure, despite only being somewhat true?

attractiveness incites a self-fulfilling prophecy: when a person is attractive, people form more positive impressions of their personality and therefore act friendlier

What are the benefits of beauty?

more popular, more socially skilled, more sexually experienced, and more likely to attract a mate

What are the costs of beauty?

• people can’t tell if the praise they receive is due to talent or good looks

• the pressure to maintain one’s appearance can have unhealthy effects (ex. over-dieting and eating disorders)

T/F: People who are physically attractive are happier and have higher self-esteem than those who are unattractive.

False

When getting acquainted with someone, what factors influence our attraction?

similarity, reciprocity, and being hard to get

What does speed dating reveal about attraction?

the mere perception of similarity draws people together

What are the most relevant types of similarity when considering attraction?

• demographic (ex. age, education, race, religion, height, intelligence, socioeconomic status)

• attitudes (commonly seen in newly married couples)

• attractiveness

• subjective experience (ex. same humor)

What did Milton Rosenbaum propose about the role of attitudinal similarity in attraction?

dissimilarity between individuals triggers repulsion and the desire to avoid someone

What is the proposition that people are attracted to others who are similar in physical attractiveness?

matching hypothesis

What created the false notion that “opposites attract”?

the complementarity hypothesis - people seek others whose needs “oppose” their own

What is a mutual exchange between what we give and receive — for example, liking those who like us?

reciprocity

What did Elliot Aronson and Darwyn Linder’s experiment about reciprocity reveal?

people like others more when their affection takes time to earn than when it comes easily

What is the tendency to prefer people who are highly selective in their social choices over those who are more readily available?

hard-to-get effect

What is the caveat to the hard-to-get effect?

we are turned off by those who reject us because they are committed to someone else or have no interest in us

What does the fear of being single cause?

men and women often settle for less attractive/responsible people

Why do forbidden romances make people want each other more?

psychological reactance - people are highly motivated to protect their freedom to choose and behave as they please

How do mate selection preferences differ between men and women?

women are highly selective (biologically limited) and men are far more promiscuous (biologically unlimited); however, men can be restricted by their pursuit of fertile and faithful partners (ensure paternity)

According to the evolutionary perspective, who will men and women pursue?

men will pursue younger women (fertile), and women will pursue older men (financially secure)

What is a sexually selected mating signal that humans engage in where males flaunt their resources to attract women?

conspicuous consumption

What did Joshua Ackerman’s study on “I love you” reveal?

while most people believe women would be the first to say “I love you” in a relationship, based on recalled relationships and current relationships, men were more often the one who said it first

How do men and women experience jealousy differently?

men are often most upset by sexual infidelity (risks his paternity), whereas women are often more upset by emotional infidelity (risks financial support)

What did the cross-cultural research on women’s access to wealth reveal?

the more economic power women had, the more important male physical attractiveness was to them

What are the arguments against gender differentiation in jealousy?

• men could get jealous about sexual affairs because they assume their wife’s feelings are also involved (not just paternity)

• men and women get equally more upset by emotional infidelity when asked to recall past relationship experiences

• women desire physical attractiveness as much as men when considering short-term casual sex partners

What are the basic components of an intimate relationship?

feelings of attachment, affection, and love; fulfillment of psychological needs; and interdependence between partners, each of whom has a meaningful influence on the other

What is a close relationship between two adults involving emotional attachment, fulfillment of psychological needs, or interdependence?

intimate relationship

What are the components of Bernard Murstein’s stimulus-value-role (SVR) theory?

the stimulus stage, the value stage, and the role stage

What stage of the SVR theory is sparked by external attributes such as physical appearance?

stimulus stage

What stage of the SVR theory is attachment based on similarity of values and beliefs?

value stage

What stage of the SVR theory says that commitment is based on the enactment of such roles as husband and wife?

role stage

What is the critical issue in any theory about the stages of relationships?

sequence

What often changes the sequence of stages in intimate relationships?

rewards

What is a perspective that views people as motivated to maximize benefits and minimize costs in their relationships with others?

social exchange theory

According to social exchange theory, what are the rewards between intimates?

love, companionship, consolation in times of distress, and sexual gratification

According to social exchange theory, what are the costs of a relationship?

work to maintain relationship, conflict, compromise, and sacrificed opportunities

What is the average expected outcome in relationships?

comparison level (CL)

What term describes people’s expectations about what they would receive in an alternative situation?

comparison level for alternatives (CLat)

What is something a person puts into a relationship that he or she cannot recover if the relationship ends?

investment

What element of the social exchange theory often traps people in abusive relationships?

investments

What is the theory that people are most satisfied with a relationship when the ratio between benefits and contributions is similar for both partners?

equity theory

What describes a system in which people in relationships keep a tally of costs and benefits in order to detect and then repair possible imbalances?

trust-insurance system

What is a relationship in which the participants expect and desire strict reciprocity in their interactions?

exchange relationship

What is a relationship in which the participants expect and desire mutual responsiveness to each other’s needs?

communal relationship

Where do exchange relationships usually exist?

between strangers, casual acquaintances, or business partnerships

Where do communal relationships usually exist?

close friends, romantic partners, and family members

What is the way a person typically interacts with significant others?

attachment style

In what attachment style do people find it relatively easy to get close to others and are comfortable depending on others and having others depend on them?

secure

T/F: Attachment styles are fixed from birth to death.

False

What are the primary love styles?

eros (erotic love), ludus (game-playing, uncommitted love), storge (friendship love)

What is a theory proposing that love has three basic components — intimacy, passion, and commitment — that can be combined to produce eight subtypes?

triangular theory of love

What are the three basic components of love?

intimacy, passion, and commitment

What is the emotional component of love, which involves liking and feelings of closeness?

intimacy

What component of love is the motivational component, which contains drives that trigger attraction, romance, and sexual desire?

passion

What component of love is the cognitive component, which reflects the decision to make a long-term commitment to a loved partner?

commitment

What is romantic love characterized by high arousal, intense attraction, and fear of rejection?

passionate love

What is a secure, trusting, stable partnership?

companionate love

What is the process whereby arousal caused by one stimulus is added to arousal from a second stimulus, and the combined arousal is attributed to the second stimulus?

excitation transfer

How does the two-factor theory of emotion understand passionate love?

a heightened state of physiological arousal AND the belief that this arousal was triggered by the beloved person

What is an example of excitation transfer?

men were more likely to call an attractive woman who crossed a scary bridge than those who crossed the stable bridge

How do passionate love scores change over time?

they peak, but then slowly decline

How do companionate love scores change over time?

they are consistent

What characterized companionate love?

high levels of self-disclosure

What are revelations about the self that a person makes to others?

self-disclosure