WEEK 11 Flashcards
What are the key elements to social influence?
obedience: compliance with authority
conformity: changing attitudes or behaviour to accommodate the standards of peers or groups
group processes: when people congregate, their actions tend to become patterned in various ways.
Freud theory towards aggression…
proposed that aggression is an instinctive biological urge that builds up in everyone and must be released. Sometimes, he said, the release takes the form of physical or verbal abuse against others. At other times, the aggressive impulse is turned inwards and leads to suicide or other self-damaging acts.
Genetic mechanisms, in relation to aggression…
There is strong evidence for hereditary influences on aggression, especially from animal studies.
In one study, the most aggressive members of a large group of mice were interbred. Then the most aggressive of their offspring were also interbred. After this procedure was followed for 25 generations, the resulting animals would immediately attack any mouse put in their cage. Continuous inbreeding of the least aggressive members of the original group produced animals that were so docile that they would refuse to fight even when attacked.
Research on human twins reared together or apart suggests that there is a genetic component to aggression in people as well
other research suggests that people do not necessarily inherit the tendency to be aggressive; instead, they may inherit certain temperaments, such as impulsiveness or emotional oversensitivity in social situations, that in turn make aggression more likely
Biological mechanisms in relation to aggression…
Hormones such as testosterone, the masculine hormone that is present in both sexes, may also play an important role in aggression. Aggressive behaviour increases or decreases dramatically with the amount of testosterone in the human bloodstream, especially in individuals who also have low levels of cortisol and serotonin
Criminals who commit violent crimes have higher levels of testosterone than those whose crimes are nonviolent, and murderers with higher levels of testosterone are more likely than others to have planned their crimes before committing them
pregnant women were given testosterone in an attempt to prevent miscarriages. Accordingly, their children were exposed to high doses of testosterone during prenatal development. Results show that these children grew up to be more aggressive than their same-sex siblings who were not exposed to testosterone during prenatal development
Another study found that girls who had been prenatally exposed to elevated levels of testosterone by virtue of having shared the womb with a male twin were more aggressive than girls who had a female twin
Learning and cultural mechanisms influencing aggression…
Aggressive behaviour is much more common in individualist than in collectivist cultures
Cultural differences in the expression of aggression appear to stem in part from differing cultural values.
For example, the Utku, an Inuit culture, view aggression in any form as a sign of social incompetence. In fact, the Utku word for aggressive also means ‘childish’
observational learning, including the learning that comes through exposure to violent television, does play a significant role in the development and display of aggressive behaviour
Reward or punishment can also alter the frequency of aggressive acts. People become more aggressive when rewarded for aggressiveness and less aggressive when punished for aggression
Following adult examples, learning to express aggression is especially easy for children who live in countries plagued by war or sectarian violence because they see aggressive acts modelled for them all too often.
Frustration-aggression hypothesis…
a proposition that frustration always leads to some form of aggressive behaviour
Generalised arousal…
the physiological arousal caused by jogging may increase the probability that you will become aggressive if, say, a passer-by shouts an insult. This is due to arousal from one experience carrying over to an independent situation, producing what is called excitation transfer. Therefore, the physiological arousal caused by jogging may intensify your reaction to an insult.
Malamuth study on pornography and sexual aggression…
Extensive exposure to pornography does not by itself make most men more likely to engage in sexual aggression. However, among men who are hostile towards women and have a history of sexual promiscuity, those who view a lot of pornography are much more likely to engage in sexual aggression.
Environmental influences on aggression..
One aspect of the environment that clearly affects social behaviour is the weather – especially
temperature.
High temperature is a source of stress and arousal, so it might be expected to correlate with aggressiveness. The results of many studies conducted in several countries show that many kinds of aggressive behaviours are indeed more likely to occur during hot summer months than at any other time of the year
What causes aggression?
Freud proposed that aggression is an instinctive urge that builds up in everyone
The evolutionary view is that aggression helped prehistoric people compete for mates, ensuring survival of their genes
Genetic influences include heredity and brain damage that causes defensive aggression
A biological mechanism for aggression is testosterone.
Drugs that alter central nervous system functioning are also influential
Effect of drugs – alter central nervous system functioning
Accumulated experiences (including cultural teachings) also affect aggressive behaviour
Learning and culture play a role; e.g., observational learning
Violent video games may increase aggression
Helping behaviour (prosocial behaviour)…
any act that is intended to benefit another person
Altruism…
an unselfish concern for another person’s welfare
Arousal: cost-reward theory….
a theory attributing people’s prosocial or helping behaviour to their efforts to reduce the unpleasant arousal in the face of someone’s need or suffering, while considering the costs involved
Before rushing to a victim’s aid, however, the bystander will first evaluate two aspects of the situation – the costs of helping and the costs (to the bystander and the other person) of not helping. Whether the bystander actually helps depends on the outcome of this evaluation. If the costs of helping are low (e.g., picking up someone’s dropped grocery bag) and the costs of not helping are high (e.g., the other person is physically unable to do this alone), the bystander will almost certainly help. However, if the costs of helping are high (e.g., when the task is to load a heavy box into a car) and the costs of not helping are low (e.g., when the other person is obviously strong enough to do the job alone), the bystander is unlikely to offer help.
Bystander effect…
a phenomenon in which the chances that someone will help in an emergency decrease as the number of people present increases
Why does the bystander effect occur?
One explanation for why the presence of others often reduces helping is that each person thinks someone else will help the victim. That is, seeing other bystanders allows each individual to experience a diffusion of responsibility for taking action, which lowers the costs of not helping. This diffusion of responsibility among all the witnesses leaves each witness feeling less obliged to help and thus lowers the perceived cost of not helping.
People often have difficulty speaking to strangers, particularly in an emergency, and without speaking, they have difficulty knowing what the others intend to do.
