Prosocial & Antisocial Behaviour ch 17

Question 1

Describe the main finding from the study on seeking affiliation during stress (the electric shock study).

Answer 1

• Memory Test – for every wrong answer, they receive an electric shock – told half the participants that the shock would be painful, and the other half would be a mild shock
• They had to wait either alone or in a group until it was there time for the test – They got to chose
• Found that: People who were going to receive a painful shock chose to wait together (with people) and people who were going to receive a mild shock were more likely to chose to wait alone

Question 2

What are the factors involved in initial attraction?

Answer 2

1. Familiarity: We are attracted to people who are familiar: The more we run into people, the more we like them.
2. Similarity: We prefer people who are similar to us
   - Similar attitudes, beliefs, etc.,.
   - Dating apps capitalize on these ideas.
   - Validating to have someone who shares the same ideas, interests, and beliefs (feel smart, feel like a good person)
3. Physical attractiveness: We prefer people we find physically attractive
   - “good looking”
   - Important part of attraction for both men and women
   - “Halo effect” – people who are more physically attractive, seem to have people think they are very good in other aspects of life
4. Reciprocity: we prefer people who reciprocate liking

Question 3

Describe the main finding from the Westgate Study.

Answer 3

Students in residence were asked to name their three closest friends.
* Results (% close friends by neighbor type):
* Next door neighbors: 41%
* 2 Doors apart: 22%
* Opposite hallways: 10%
Proximity breeds likely, the more familiar we are to someone the more we tend to like them.
Proximity makes us more likely that we will have repeated exposure, people become more likable the more you are exposed to them.

Question 4

Describe the main finding from the study of TAs, familiarity, and liking.

Answer 4

Research assistants varied in how many times they visited/went to the class (ranged from 0 to 15 times)
Manipulated amount of exposure to these research assistance. At the end of the term they were asked to rate the attractiveness of these people.
The more frequently they attended the class, the more attracted they were rated. The more exposure, the more attractive they become.

Question 5

What is self-disclosure, and how does it impact relationship deepening?

Answer 5

The sharing of intimate information and feelings with another person
- We disclose to those we like
- We like those who disclose to us
- We like those to whom we have disclosed
Self-disclosure is a key component in building trust and if they disclose to you then it continues to build that trust in the relationship.

Question 6

Describe the main finding from the study in which heterosexual men and women sat face to face and asked and answered a series of increasingly personal questions

Answer 6

Given a set of questions, example question: how do you feeling about the relationship with your mother. Both people asked and answered the various questions. At the end of the study they rated how much they liked the other person.
- The main finding was that people were more likely to have a relationship and rank the person higher

Question 7

What is social exchange theory?

Answer 7

A relationship as a cost benefit calculation

reward: What are you getting out of the relationship

cost: Rewards must outweigh the costs, If the costs outweigh the rewards, the relationship typically ends

comparison level: People coming into a relationship with a past relationship, with this idea of what they think they now deserve.
- Expectations to what the rewards and costs will be and what they deserve in the relationship
- People who have satisfying past relations will have an expectation of high rewards and low costs and if they come from a non-satisfying relationship, they will expect lower rewards and higher cost levels.
- This comparison level is determined by past relationships, and what they are now okay with.

Question 8

What is Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love?

Answer 8

Different forms of love arise from intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Romantic love When you are falling in love- everything is really exciting (honey moon phase) – excitement, passion

Companionate love When that romantic love has kind of faded (1 year – 18 months) stable/milder/committed experience, being in love rather than falling in love

Consummate love – ideal intimacy and love that most couples do not always feel – theoretical/ideal circumstance – may experience this but is often short lived

Question 9

What is the bystander effect?

Answer 9

the greater the number of people who witness a crime, the less likely any one of them is to help

Question 10

What are the reasons that people sometimes fail to act in an emergency?

Answer 10

Diffusion of responsibility Feeling less responsible because other people are able to help.
The responsibility is “diffused” across many people.

Pluralistic ignorance Assuming that nothing is wrong because no one else looks concerned

Question 11

New York Apathy

Answer 11

• Death of a women, 30 people witnessed but no one did anything to help this women who was being attacked
• News may have been fake, it is true that no one helped, but we do not know how many people witness it, it made us question the society – people wondering what is going on with people living in the city.
• Proposed the by stander effect

Question 12

Latane & Darley (1970) – Study to test the idea of By stander effect

Answer 12

• Going to chat with 1-3 other people over an intercom
• The people who are going to chat with you are actually a confederate of the study (trained to act in a certain way)
• Person has a seizure and calls up for help (staged seizure) – trying to find out how long did it take the participant to step up and help
• The results found that if you were alone with the person over the intercom you were more likely to step up and help, the more people that were on the intercom the more time it took for the participants to respond to the seizure.
• Comparing alone, 1 other witness, 3 other witness to the seizure

Question 13

Aggression

Answer 13

any action carried out with the intent to harm another person.

Question 14

What factors contribute to aggressive behaviour?

Answer 14

1. alcohol
2. discomfort (hot days, hungry)
3. frustration

Question 15

Frustration aggression hypothesis:

Answer 15

Frustration yields discomfort and makes us more prone to aggression.

Question 16

What is social learning theory?

Answer 16

We learn to be aggressive by observing aggression in others.

Question 17

Social learning theory Example: Bobo doll studies by Albert Bandura

Answer 17

• If the child watched the adult interact with the inflatable doll aggressively, the child was more likely to play with the doll aggressively later on.
• The adult was inspiration for the child to act aggressively

Question 18

Prejudice

Answer 18

A negative attitude towards a group of people

Expressed as:
- Beliefs – stereotypes about a group
- Emotions – feelings about a group
- Actions – discriminatory behavior towards a group

Question 19

Resume study with the only difference being the name on the resume

Answer 19

• Exact same resume, but the “white sounding name” gets more than twice as many call backs as those with an African American study name
• Harder name to pronounce – less call backs
• Female name in science – less call backs

Question 20

What are the three different types of prejudice?

Answer 20

Explicit Prejudice
Symbolic Prejudice
Implicit Prejudice

Question 21

Explicit Prejudice

Answer 21

When someone openly expresses negative attitudes towards a group

Question 22

Symbolic Prejudice

Answer 22

Expression of prejudice through the support of prejudice ideas or policies

Question 23

Implicit Prejudice

Answer 23

AKA Implicit bias
We hold biases/prejudices with little to no awareness of them.
These are learned from exposure to cultural information/content. We learn these biases from cultural information.
* More men named John run big companies that ALL women - this is an implicit prejudice

Question 24

Describe what happened during the four stages of the Sherif et al. (1961) Robbers cave study.

Answer 24

This study looked at: Could they create prejudice; could they reduce prejudice through contact?
* 11 year-old boys at camp in Robber’s Cave National Palr
* Split into two groups: Rattler’s and Eagles

reating prejudice:
1. Stage 1: only do activities with own group (increases ingroup identity)
2. Stage 2: engage in competitive sports with prizes for winning team (competing for scarce resources).
End of stage 2: competition creates outgroup prejudice:
Boys name-called boys in other groups.
At the end of stage 2 the boys wanted little or nothing to do with being friends with people in the other groups. Preferred to be friends with there in group (rattlers wanted to be friends with rattlers and same with the Eagles)
Pathways to prejudice reduction
3. Stage 3: Mere contact: arranged lunchtime seating assignments so that boys from each team were intermixed.
This did not work – this did not reduce the prejudice.
4. Stage 4: Conditions for positive contact:
- Create situations that made the groups believe they have equal status between the groups
- Common goals between the groups
- How they did this: the campers were told the water supply was broken, each group had tools that the other group did not have so both teams needed to work together to fix the water supply. Each group brought something different to the table to achieve this common goal.
- Then they had to work together to bring a truck in that was stuck in the mud that had all the food for the campers.
- Equal status and common goal was found in all these scenarios

Question 25

Describe the main finding of the Sherif et al. (1961) Robbers cave study.

Answer 25

• Hostility between groups declined.
• New friendships formed
• Caveat: ingroup identification was difficult to entirely
  People were still loyal and preferred in group at the end of the study, although the outgroup friendships did increase after positive contact. However at the very end of camp all the boys voted to ride home on one big bus rather than 2 separate buses separating the two groups.
  Contact is helpful when the conditions are right. When you feel like there is competition, prejudice will come out

Question 26

Why are friendships such a powerful way to reduce prejudice?

Answer 26

Individuating information - (self-disclosure) have enough time to get to know someone in a deeper way. Get to know about the person – hopes, dreams, goals, go beyond knowing as just the stereotype and look at them as a person

Commonalities – find common goals, desires, beliefs between you and the person which can lead to noticing the common humanities. Same worries, anxieties, want the same things in the future, we start to see the similarities with people with different backgrounds.