Psych Unit 13 Pt. 2 Flashcards
Prisoner’s Dilemma
it relies on Game Theory to understand cooperation and competition
how it works:
- 2 prisoners are accussed of a crime
- if one confesses that person goes free, and the other one goes to jail
if they refuse to turn in the other person = cooperative
if they turn on the other person = defect
results:
*cooperation can be rare – people put their own self-interests above the group (especially because they can’t communicate with each other)
*cooperation is more likely to occur when the people interact with each other or are able to build trust
- you trust the other person less if they keep defecting
- some people do tit-for-tat – people become more aggressive than cooperative
Tit-for-Tat Strategy
it’s used in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and it starts by cooperating on the first move
- then in the following rounds, you mimic the opponent’s moves
- the strategy is effective for cooperation because it rewards cooperation and punishes defection
Altruism
The behavior of helping another person, without expecting anything return
- we do this even if it costs us something
Evolution Theory: when we help family members or someone in our in-group, we are promoting our own genes (trying to keep those genes alive for future generations)
* do it because of self-interest
Altruism Explanations: Selfishness
idea that helping benefits yourself
ex: researchers asked people why they donated blood
beliefs of personal benefit: having a a sticker that says “I donated blood”
beliefs of societal benefit: thinking people in society will need your blood
another ex: volunteering at a soup kitchen because you want to help people, but it will also make you feel good about yourself
- personal benefit: knowing they volunteered
- societal benefit: volunteering and thinking that the customers need their contributions
Altruism Explanations: Inclusive Fitness
want to help relatives to increase the likelihood that genes will survive
*we are more likely to do things for people who are related to us than not
higher rate of adoption for people adopting family members
alarm calls for squirrels:
- if a squirrel sees a predator, than they make an alarm call
- they try to protect the group – sacrificing themselves
**more likely to make the alarm call when their family members are around
ex: your sibling needs an organ donor and you’re a match, so you donate your organ
- you are more likely to donate an organ to your sibling because you want their genes to stay alive for reproduction
Altruism Explanations: Reciprocal Altruism
you help others so that they help you in the future
ex: blood for bats
- bats need blood to survive
- bats will give some blood to other bats so they survive, with the hopes that the bat they’re helping will give them blood in the future
*looking into the future
Kitty Genovese Studies:
Kitty was attacked by a man and no one helped her
because no one helped her it spurred psychological theories:
- bystander effect
- ambiguity
- cohesiveness
- diffusion of responsibility
Bystander Effect
as the number of people increases, the likelihood of people helping decreases
- this might happen because of confusion of responsibility – there’s so many people that people assume that someone else is helping
ambiguity:
- if it is more clear why someone needs help, then that person is more likely to get help
cohesiveness:
- we’re more likely to help people we’re related to
- we do more helping behaviors if the person needing help is in our in-group
ex: someone on a plane needs help – family member always does something
diffusion of responsibility:
- we assume that someone else has helped
- the larger the group, the less likely it is that someone actually helped
Diffusion of Responsibility
we assume that someone else has already called for help or given help
- the larger the group, the less likely it is that someone has helped
Sex Differences in Aggression
sexual dimorphism: differences between male and female aggression
- males tend to be more aggressive
sex differences in children:
- boys and girls are equally verbally aggressive
- boys are more physically aggressive
- girls use more indirect aggression (relational — manipulation, exclusion, spreading rumors)
ex: the burn book
Intrauterine Position Effect
natural testosterone exposure in utero based on the proximity to males or females (this happens when there is more than one fetus in one woman’s uterus)
- how the position of the fetus in utero can influence its exposure to testosterone based on proximity to male or female siblings – most research done in rodents
- male and female rodents exposed to higher levels of testosterone in utero made them more aggressive
Low Serotonin Levels on Aggression
lower levels of serotonin correspond with higher levels of aggression
- lower serotonin levels have higher rates of impulse arson (impulsively setting fires)
- low serotonin more likely to lead to animal abuse
Observational Learning on Aggression
do kids pick up aggressive behavior from adults?
Bobo Doll: kids were shown videos of an adult active aggressively towards the bobo doll
video 1: he was praised for hitting the doll
video 2: punished for hitting the doll
video 3: nothing happened
- when the kids saw aggressive behavior, they were likely to imitate the behavior
**kids can pick up aggressive behavior from adults
- if adults are violent towards each other, a child can pick that up
***the kids were more likely to be aggressive and mimic the behavior when they saw the adult doing it
Spanking Research
asked moms and dads to self-report how often they spanked their children at age 3
- when the kids were 5, they looked at their aggression
*being spanked 2 or more times by age 3 increased their risk of aggression
*greatest risk of aggression was when both parents spanked the child in the same month
Catharsis
the idea that we can release the aggression we have and see a decrease in our aggression once we release our aggression
Bushman Research:
- looked at someone’s level of aggression after making them angry
IV: activity type (pissed off the participant via the activity)
condition 1: rumination – think about how mad you are while punching the punching bag
condition 2:distraction – hit the punching bag but think about something else
condition 3: no punching bag
**participants who were in the rumination group were more aggressive than participants in the other 2 groups
**rumination makes people more aggressive
