Behavioral Sciences: Social Thinking (10.1)

Interpersonal attraction

• Phenomenon of individuals liking each other

• Influenced by many factors:

  • Physical characteristics

  • Similarity

  • Self-disclosure

  • Reciprocity

  • Proximity

Attraction - physical characteristics

• Outward appearance

  • Golden ratio

    • Humans attracted to individuals with certain body proportions

Attraction - similarity

• Tend to be attracted to people more similar to us

• Most likely due to convenience

• People are also drawn to people who have their values and validate their choices

Attraction - self-disclosure

• Sharing one’s fears, thoughts, and goals with another person and being met with nonjudgmental empathy

• Deepens attraction and friendship

• Must be a reciprocal behavior

  • Sense of vulnerability

Attraction - reciprocal liking

• Phenomenon where people like others better when they believe the other person likes them

Attraction - proximity

• Physically being close to someone

• Convenience

  • Easier to communicate

• Mere exposure effect/familiarity effect

  • Tendency for people to prefer stimuli they are exposed to most frequently

Aggression

• Behavior that tends to cause harm or increase social dominance

• Physical actions, verbal/nonverbal communication

• Threat displays common in both animals and humans

  • Doesn’t always lead to violence due to withdrawal

Aggression (causes/benefits)

• Evolutionarily offers protection against perceived and real threats

  • Helps fight off predators

• Helps organisms gain access to more resources

  • Food, additional territory, mates

• Can also be the deciding factor for passing on genes (in cases with limited resources)

Aggression in the brain

• Amygdala

  • Responsible for associating stimuli and their corresponding rewards or punishments→ tells us whether or not something is a threat

  • When activated, increases aggression

• Prefrontal cortex

  • Higher-order brain structure that can hit the brakes on a revved-up amygdala

  • Reduces emotional reactivity and impulsiveness

  • Reduced activity linked to increased aggressive behavior

Aggression and hormones

• Aggression under hormonal control

• Higher levels of testosterone linked to more aggressive behavior

  • Not gender/sex specific

    • Some do speculate that higher levels of testosterone in phenotypical males can explain the trend that males are more aggressive → disproportionately commit more crimes

Cognitive neoassociation model

• Negative emotions heighten our aggressive responses

  • Ex: snapping more when tired, sick, frustrated, or in pain

  • Riots more likely to happen on hot days than cool ones

Aggression and exposure

• Exposure to violent behavior increases aggression

• Albert Bandura’s bobo doll experiment

Attachment

• Emotional bond between caregiver and child that begins to develop during infancy

  • Parental figures most common

  • Can occur with anyone sensitive and responsive during social interactions

• Studies started after WWII with orphaned children

  • John Bowlby — negative effects of isolation

  • Mary Ainsworth — infants need a secure base in the form of a consistent caregiver (first 6 mo→2 yrs)

Secure attachment

• Consistent caregiver (CG)

• Child able to go out and explore → knows there’s a secure base to return to

• Upset at CG’s departure; comforted by the CG’s return

• Trusts the CG will be there for comfort

  • Stranger can comfort but child will prefer CG

• Vital aspect of child’s social development

Insecure attachment

• Other attachment styles — deficits in social skills

  • Avoidant

  • Ambivalent

  • Disorganized

Avoidant attachment

• CG has little or no response to a distressed child

• Child shows no preference between stranger and CG

• Little or no distress when CG leaves; little or no relief when CG returns

Ambivalent attachment

• CG has an inconsistent response to a child’s distress

  • Sometimes has appropriate response; sometimes responds neglectfully

• Child cannot rely on CG’s response → cannot form a secure base

• Child expresses distress when CG leaves but has a mixed response at their return

• AKA anxious-ambivalent attachment

Disorganized attachment

• No clear pattern of behavior in response to CG’s absence or presence

  • Avoidance/resistance

  • Dazed, frozen, confused

  • Repetitive behaviors like rocking

• Associated with erratic behavior and social withdrawal

• May be a red flag for abuse

Social support

• Perception or reality that one is cared for by a social network

• Can be:

  • Emotional

  • Esteem

  • Material

  • Informational

  • Network

Emotional support

• Listening, affirming, empathizing with someone’s feelings

• Ex: “I’m sorry for your loss” condolence

Esteem support

• Affirming the qualities and skills of a person

• Boosting one’s confidence by reminding them of their skills

• Ex: “You’ll have no problem making up the work!”

Material support

• AKA tangible support

• Any type of financial or material contribution to another person

• Ex: making a meal for friends after losing a loved one

Informational support

• Providing information that will help someone

• Ex: doctor providing informational support to patients; explain their diagnoses, potential treatment options, and risks and benefits of those options

Network support

• Gives a person a sense of belonging

• Ex: group hug; group activities; shared experiences

Benefits of social support

• Reduced psychological distress such as anxiety and depression

• Those with low support:

  • Higher levels of major mental health disorders, alcohol and drug use, suicide ideation

  • Higher mortality risk from different diseases

  • More likely to get colds and recover slower

Foraging

• Seeking out and eating food

• Biological influence

  • Hunger → hypothalamus

    • Lateral promotes hunger

    • Ventromedial promotes satiety

  • Genetics

    • Some species forage together; others engage in solitary foraging

• Psychological influence

  • Learned behavior — learn through observation

  • Spatial awareness, memory, decision making

• Social influence

  • Animals learn to hunt by watching others

  • Wolves hunt in packs with strict rules regarding order

Mating system

• Organization of a group’s sexual behavior

Monogamy

• Exclusive mating relationship

Polygamy

• Exclusive relationships with many partners

Polygyny/polyandry

• Polygyny — exclusive relationships with many females

• Polyandry — exclusive relationships with many males

Promiscuity

• A member of one sex mating with others without exclusivity

Humans and mating

• More flexibility in our systems than other species

• Influenced by both biological and social factors

• Formal relationships correspond with mate choice

• Mating may or not be associated with social relationships

Mate choice

• AKA intersexual selection

• Selection of mate based on attraction

Mate bias

• How choosy members of the species are while choosing a mate

• Evolutionary mechanism aimed at increasing the fitness of the species

• Direct benefits — provides material advantages, protection, emotional support

• Indirect benefits — promotes better survival in offspring

Phenotypic benefits

• Observable traits that make a potential mate more attractive to the opposite sex

• Usually indicate increased production and survival of offspring

• Ex: males that appear more nurturing→ promote survival of offpsring

Sensory bias

• Development of a trait to match a preexisting preference that exists in the population

• Ex: male fiddler crabs build pillars around their territories to attract mates because these crabs see uneven horizons as a source of food

Fisherian/runaway selection

• Positive feedback mechanism in which a particular trait that has no effect or a negative effect on survival becomes more and more exaggerated over time

• Trait deemed sexually desirable → passed on

  • Increase in attractiveness of trait, therefore more likely to be passed on

• Ex: bright plumage of a peacock

Indicator traits

• Traits that signify overall good health and well-being of an organism, increasing its attractiveness to mates

• May or may not be genetic in nature

• Ex: female cats attracted to shiny coats of males

  • Dull coats could be genetic or could be a sign of malnutrition/infection

Genetic compatibility

• Creation of mate pairs that, when combined, have complementary genetics

• Provides a mechanism for the reduced frequency of recessive genetic disorders in the population

  • Reduces probability of offspring being homozygotic for disease-carrying allele

Altruism

• Form of helping someone to benefit them at some cost to oneself

• Can be motivated by selflessness, but can also be motivated by egoism or ulterior motives (public recognition)

Empathy

• Ability to vicariously experience the emotions of another

• Can influence helping behavior

Empathy-altruism hypothesis

• One explanation for the relationship between empathy and helping behavior

• One individual helps another when feeling empathy for them, regardless of the cost

• Heavily debated theory — conceptions that some will only help when the benefits outweigh the costs

Game theory

• Attempts to explain decision-making behavior

Evolutionary stable strategy

• When adopted by a given population in a specific environment, natural selection will prevent alternative strategies from arising

• Strategies are inherited traits passed along with the population, with the object of the game being becoming more fit than competitors

Hawk-Dove game

• Access to shared food resources

• Hawk is a fighter; dove will avoid fighting to share food

• Hawk/hawk = one wins and one loses

• Hawk/dove=hawk will win

• Dove/dove=neither fights and they share the food

• Equilibrium point where hawk/dove strategies can coexist as evolutionary stable strategies

• Represents pure competition between individuals

Strategic four alternatives

• Altruism

  • Donor provides a benefit to the recipient at a cost to the donor

• Cooperation

  • Both donor and recipient benefit by working together

• Spite

  • Both donor and recipient negatively impacted

• Selfishness

  • Donor benefits while recipient negatively impacted

Inclusive fitness

• Measure of an organism’s success in the population

• Based on number of offspring, success in supporting offspring, and ability of offspring to then support others

• Ex: sacrificing self to protect offspring→ ensure passing of genes to future generations

• Promotes the idea that altruistic behavior can improve the fitness and success of a species