social psych final

agression

behavior meant to harm or injure other person who is trying to avoid such treatment

bullying

denotes aggressive behaviour directed at victims who cannot easily defend themselves, typically in schools and at the workplace.

terrorism

politically motivated violence, intended to spread fear and terror among members of a society in order to influence the decision-making or behaviour of political agents

3 implications/characteristics of “Baron and Richardson’s (1994) definition of agression

1. agression is defined by the intention not the outcome

• If someone tries to hurt another person but fails (e.g., they miss when firing a gun), it’s still aggression because the intention was to cause harm.

• Conversely, if someone causes pain accidentally (e.g., a dentist giving a painful injection), that’s not aggression, because the goal wasn’t to harm but to help

2. requires the awareness of the potential to harm

If someone causes harm but didn’t realize or couldn’t reasonably foresee that their actions would hurt someone, it’s not aggression — it could be accidental or careless instead.

3. involves behavior that the target would like to avoid

Therefore, harmful acts that the target accepts or desires are not aggression.

Violence (in regards to aggression)

behaviours carried out with intention to cause serious harm that involve the use or threat of physical force (words are not violence)

all violence is aggression, but not all aggression is violence

types of aggression

physical

verbal

spontaneous

reactive aggression

direct (face to face)

indirect (relational agression)

relational aggression (indirect)

behaviour that is intended to harm the target person through damaging his or her social relationships, for example negative comments behind the person’s back.

motives for aggression

1. instrumental

2. hostile

instrumental aggression

aggressive behaviour performed to reach a particular goal, as a means to an end.

hostile aggression

aggressive behaviour motivated by the desire to express anger and hostile feelings.

challenges with studying agression

1. it is not ethical to create environments to study aggression

2. aggression, especially extreme aggression, is not very common, therefore, hard to study in a real-world example

theories of Agression (2 categories)

biological approaches:

• internal energy

• genetic makeup

• hormonal

psychological approaches:

• frustruation agression theory

• Cognitive neo association/ excitation transfer

• learning theory

• social information processing

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

early psychologists believed agression was innate

Freud proposed that aggression was an instinct in the service of the pleasure principle, meaning it arises when something blocks our drive for satisfaction

core idea: agression is driven by frustruation

originally frutration was defined as: the blockage of a goal-directed activity – increases the likelihood of aggressive behaviour

in 1941, miller redefined the theory, and clarified that frustration does not automatically cause aggression, but creates an inclination to respond aggressively

• Frustration leads to various possible outcomes—anger, withdrawal, problem-solving, aggression—depending on the situation.
  Whether aggression occurs depends on:

  • Personality (how prone someone is to aggression)

  • Environment (is the frustrator available?)

  • Consequences (fear of punishment, social norms)

some imortant terms related:

Displaced agression: When a person cannot express aggression toward the true source of frustration (because it’s too risky or inaccessible), they may displace it onto a safer or more available target

• frustrated individuals consistently displace aggression onto less powerful or more accessible targets.

• triggered displaced aggression model: when people are already frustrated, even minor provocations later can “trigger” an exaggerated aggressive response toward unrelated targets.
  

Cognitive-Neo association model

how unpleasant experiences automatically trigger emotional reactions, which can then develop into aggression or fear, depending on how we interpret the situation

More modern way of looking at how frustration and other factors influence aggression

a shift from only goal blockage being the main reason for frustration, to other triggers, such as any negative affect

Berkowitz expanded the model to include all aversive stimuli such as:

• Pain

• Loud noises

• Heat

• Stress

• Social rejection

produces negative emotions, this happens almost without thinking, like a reflex

(Primitive assocation reaction)

brain automatically activates  2 possible networks:

Agression-related thoughts and feelings

• memories of anger

• thoughts of striking back

• impulses to confront

→ leads to rudimentary anger

Escape-related thoughts and feelings

• avoidance

• withdrawl

• hide or flee

→ leads to rudimentary fear

after this, more elaborate thinking occurs:

If the aggression pathway continues →

Irritation, annoyance, anger

If the escape pathway continues →

Fear

The theory shows how aggression is not immediate, but the result of:

1. automatic negative feelings, and

2. our later thoughts about the situation.

excitation transfer theory (goes on top of Cognitive association model)

tries to explain why people get extra angry even when the anger doesn’t fully come from the situation they think caused it

Even neutral arousal (from exercise, caffeine, music, running, excitement, stress) can spill over into aggression if you misattribute the arousal

Key Idea: If you’re already physiologically aroused (heart racing, adrenaline up) from something else, that arousal can boost (“augment”) your anger — as long as you’re not aware of the original source.

Example:
You sprinted to class (your heart is racing).
Someone bumps you slightly.
You explode in anger ― not because the bump was so bad,
but because your body was already aroused and you misattributed it.

weapons effect

individuals who were previously frustrated showed more aggressive behaviour in the presence of weapons than in the presence of neutral objects

Direct reinforcement

when a person learns to be aggressive because other are rewarded(or not punished) for thier aggression

Examples:

• A child hits another kid and gets the toy → aggression “works,” so they learn to repeat it.

• Adults yelling during arguments and getting their way → reinforced behavior.

• In games, bragging, dominance, or violence earns status or attention.

social(observational) learning (bobo doll experiment)

People can learn aggression just by watching others act aggressively, even if they themselves aren’t rewarded.

2 conditions:

• adult was agressive

• without

the child would mimic what the adult would do

key takeaway: showing children aggressive behaviors will most likely learn from this, and mimic it

2nd study: video showing punished vs rewarded for agression

depnding on the video they saw, there were different outcomes

general aggression model (theoretical model)

1. Input variables(what begins the process)

• individual differences

• situational variables

feed into step 2

2. Present internal state

3 components that interact:

Accessible cognition (thoughts)

• aggressive thoughts

• aggressive scripts (“when someone disrespects me, I hit back”)

• interpretations of what is happening

Acesssible Affect (feelings)

• anger

• hostility

• irritation

Arousal

• physiological (heart rate, adrenaline)

• perceived (your interpretation of your own arousal)

3. Appraisal Processes

Now the person interprets the situation.

First: Automatic appraisal

Fast, unconscious interpretation:

• “He threatened me.”

• “She disrespected me.”

• “He’s trying to fight.”

This automatic appraisal often determines whether aggression happens immediately.

Then two possible paths:

Immediate reaction

If:

• the person is impulsive

• arousal is high

• situation feels urgent

• they don’t pause to think

Then they go straight into:
Begin new episode → aggressive behavior

Controlled reappraisal

If the person has time or cognitive resources to think:
They re-evaluate the situation.

Could be:

• calming down

• perspective-taking

• OR deciding to retaliate deliberately (“revenge”)

Controlled reappraisal can either increase aggression (planned revenge) or decrease it (self-control)

individual differences affecting aggression

• trait aggressiveness (easily angered or not)

• hostile attribution bias: bias towards how I think someone is acting towards me

• gender

situational influences affecting aggression

• alcohol

• heat (more tentative hypothesis)

  • living in a climate thats warmer (not experimental data, correlational)

• violent media (books says yes, but in class robert says that theres more data to consider)

violent media leading to agression

five pathways for which violent media can cause aggressive behavior

• increase in arousal

• priming agressive thoughts and feeling

• New responses (Imitation + Observational learning)

• aggressive knowledge structures

  • Long-term exposure builds internal frameworks that bias interpretation.

    1. normative acceptance

    2. hostile attribution bias :assume others have hostile intentions

• habituation

  • seeing aggression so often normalizes it/ feels less. shocking

Agression as a social problem

Psychological prevention (aggression)

catharsis

punishment

de-escalation via positive affect or prosocial behavior

3 goals of social influence

1. desire to be right :accuracy consistence

2. desire to belong: in grop identification

3. desire to be liked :social approval, harmony

social norms

belif systems about how (not) to behave that guide behavior but without the force of laws

2 types of social norms

descriptive social norms:

injunctive social norms:

broken windows theory

if theres a broken window in a building, assume that the other windows will be broken (if you have an area that is less tidy and nice it will invite further destructive behavior)

spread of chaos in a social environment

once one person does something, it makes it easier for others to join along

funnel effect

how social norms form:

peoples behaviors converge to a social norm, reaching a middle point over time

is it true endorsement though, or just compliance to be liked?

influence and various social levels

1. interpersonal (1 to 1)

2. majority influence

3. minority influence

interpersonal influence (reciprocity and consistency)

door in the face

foot in the door

lowballing

majority influence

conformity Asch (expand on this)

minority influence

explained by source context elaboration model (explained on slide 13)

systematic processing: not infleunced by the group majority, and rather byt he argumentation

heurisitic processing: follow what the majority is saying, not much focus on actual argumentation

group polarization

tendency of groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the inicial inclinations of its members

thing about bungee jumping, you may not do it alone, an no one in a group will either, but when were all together

reasoning:

1. persuasive arguments

2. social comparison

3. self categorization

groupthink

conformity

people adjusting their behavior to what

obedience

prosocial behavior

behavior defined by society as beneficial to other poeple (exlcuding behavior motivated by professional obligations) that may be driven by egotistic or altrusitic behaviors

helping behavior

actions that are intended to provide some benefit to improve the wellbeing of others

altruismnehavior carried o

behaviour carried out to benefit otheres

why do people help? theories/models

• Empathy-altruism hypothesis

• negative state relief model

• Arousal: cost-reward model

Empathy-altruism hypothesis

either having high or low altruistic motivation (and possible escapes) leading to helping or escapting

1. theres an empathic emotion, which can be high or low

high→ altruistic (helping them for their sake, not for my own)

low→ egoistic (helping for my own sake, bot for theirs)

2. is there an escape?

in an altrusitic motivation, you will help no matter if theres an escape or not

in an egostisical motivation, of theres an escape, you will escape. only if you can’t escape, you will help.

response:

help or escape

negative state relief model

person observes a suffering victim →  person feels a negative emotion (sadness) → person helps to alleviate their own sadness

(only an egoistic response, only about your internal negative state, and wanting to get out of it)

much less emperical support for this model

Arousal: cost-reward model+ revised model

situational factors

You make cost/reward calculations, and decide if you want to help or escape

revised model

Depending on the bystander characteristics and the victim, it affects the model

helping based on in-group inclusion

instead of thinking of the “us” and “them” group, recategorize and think of it as a “we”, then the chance that a person will help is increased

helping based on in-group norms

the social norms in your in-group (for example a christian), this should increase the chance of helping the out-group.

bystander effect

the effect is less likely to be present in emergency situations

some dangerous situations can only be solved with coordination, and not individual effort (example. lifting a car off of a person)

5 stage decision making model of bystander intervention

1. Notice the event

2. interpret the event as an emergency

3. assuming responsibility

4. knowing how to help

5. implementing the helping behavior

smoke-filled room study

subjects filled out questionnaire (alone or in a group)

room begins to fill with smoke

DV: time the subject remained in the room before leaving to report the smoke

what causes step 2?

• ambiguity

• pluralistic ignorance

pluralistic ignorance: the state in which people mistakenly believe that their own thoughts and feelings are different from those of others (usually we think they are better), even though everyone’s behavior is the same.

what causes step 3: assuming responsibility

diffusion of responsibility: each bystanders sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of bystanders increases

example of difussion of responsibility

bystander effect in kids

• 60 children

• 3 conditions

  • alone

  • 2 bystanders (confederates)

  • 2 unavailable bystanders (theres a barrier helping picking up the waterbottle

a waterbottle drops, and we want to see if the child will get up to pick up the waterbottle

what causes step 4: knowing how to help

lack of knowlege or competence

example: cramer et al. 1988

• simulate a seizure

• participants were students or nurses

• participants were alone or with others

alone: both students or nurses have the same level of helping

with others: a student is much less likely to help than a nurse, as the nurse feels tjhat they are more competent that others to help in the situation

what causes step 5: implementing the helping behavior

cost of helping:

• personal danger

• legal problems

• audience inhibition (embarrasment)

• fear that others evaluate you negatively if you interevene

gender differneces in types of helping

women are more likely in helping for personal and emotional needs

men are more likely to help in risky, out of routine needs

short term helping vs long-term helping

To what extent is helping an important part of your identity (will increase long-term helping)

role identity→ volunteerism

pro-social personality as an enduring tendency

relationship between reason of helping and in/out group

empathy→ in-group helping

liking and warm (reward-related brain responses)→ out-group helping

why do we help strangers?

reciprocal altruism: altruism can be beneficial for our own survival if it is reciprocated (by the group)

is it always good to help?

helping can bolster power differentials

• powerful group’s helping can harm when offering a specific type of help

Dependent-oriented help vs autonomy-oriented help

exmple: foreign aid

types of relationships

• exchange vs communal

• horizontal vs vertical (think about hierarchy)

• voluntary vs involuntary (don’t forget your autonomy)

Disclosure

self disclosure

Disclosure reciprocity

sharing can increase liking

importance of relationships

increase wellbeing: psychological and physiological:

• offer social support (emotional and instrumental)

• fundemental need to belong

cyber ball (fundemental need to belong)

a social psychology experiment that uses a virtual ball-tossing game to study the effects of social exclusion. Participants are either included in the game or excluded by computer-generated players who stop throwing them the ball. Research shows that exclusion, even in this artificial setting, causes negative emotions and can activate brain regions associated with physical pain, highlighting the fundamental human need to belong.

• leads to physiological pain response

attachment theory (mostly for romantic)

development of secure att

diffferent attachement styles

secure

avoidant

dimentional model: avoidance and anxiety  (look at slide 7 of week 13)

The benefits of physical attractiveness

appearance matters, but why?

• symetric faces

• atraciveness is seen as positive, but then this trait is generalized to other domains that are unrelated

• atracctive people tend to be more extroverted (biological link, or people think that they must be friendly, and come up to you, therefore making you more friendly) (nature vs Nurture)

romantic partners thend to resemble eachother, bothb in attractiveness and on a wide aeeay of specific characteristics, including physical traits, age, education, race, religion, mental abilities, personality traits, and social attitiudes

psychological attraction: often a mismatch of who we think we like vs who we actually like (similar with the traits in a partner)

3 most important

proximity: the closer physically you are, allows people to get to know eachother more

familiarity: mere exposure effect

similarity: reinforcement, rewarding by validation

what determines relationship satisfaction and stability?

equity theory: 2 partners, both have costs and rewards,  ratio between costs and rewards has to be equal for both parties

even if rewards are over costs, doesnt mean the relationship is stable

the investment model: satisfaction, quality of alternatives, investments

thoughts and behaviors that enhance relationship functioning

forgiveness

willingness to sacrifice

relationship superiority

average rating of attractiveness of others is lower for those that are in a relationship vs singles

Start of ch 13: group performance

Diemensions of group tasks

Unitary group tasks
all members have to perform the same task

divisible group tasks

allowing for the assignment of different subtasks to different members

additive tasks

working on different task, that when are all added up together, creates a singular total final result

• divisible

disjunctive tasks

best members individual performance

conjunctive tasks

weakest members individual performance

actual group performance= group potential-process losses+process gains

key variable is the important of group goals

coordination losses

diminished performance of a group when indivisual contributions aren’t optimally coordinated

ringelmann effect:

in physical tasks the average performance od indivisual members decreases with increased group size

production blocking:

• when people generate ideas in ain interacting group, at any given time only one personal can articulate their idea, other members are “blocked”

motivational losses

• social loathing

• dispensability effect

• sucker effect

social loathing

reduces effort due to individual contribution not being identifiable

“i do less beacuse i think i can get away with it”

dispensability effect

Reduced effort because individuals’ contribution seems to have little impact on performance

“I do less because i think it has low effect on performance”

sucker effect

occurs if group members anticipate other group members effort will be lowered, redcuded effort to avoid being exploited

motivational gains

• social competition

• social compensation

• kohler effect

social competition

group members want to outperform eachother during tasks in which individual contributtions are identified

• additive, disjunctive(best), and conjunctive (weakest)

social compensation

stronger group members increase effort to compensate for weaker members suboptimal performance

• additive and disjunctive (best)

kohler effect

weak members work extra hark that they would indivisual to avoid responsibility for a weak group performance

• conjunctive (weakest)

losses and gainsin individual capability

losses and gains: improvements or impairments in individual ability to perform a task de to social interaction

• cognitive restriction

• cognitive stimulation

cognitive restriction

idea mentioned by another group member makes people focus on the category this idea belongs to , at the expense of generating ideas from other categories

cognitive stimulation

Idea mentioned by anther group member stimulates a cognitive category one would otherwise not have thought of

group learning

learning process that cannot occur when done individually

individual to individual

group to individual

group to individual in group

group to group