Obedience

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Obedience

• Factors that increased/decreased obedience
• Making subject feel more responsible for their
  behavior reduced obedience
• Emphasizing pain of other subject reduced
  obedience
• Increasing physical presence of legitimate
  authority figure increased obedience
• Having other subjects stop obeying reduced
  obedience

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Attraction - Proximity

• We like those we are close to both physically and
  functionally
• Why does proximity work?
• It increases familiarity
• Often linked to similarity
• It makes others more available
• Cognitive consistency
• It's easier to be around others who we like,
  therefore we feel a need to get along with people
  we see often

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Attraction - Familiarity

• Simply seeing a person more frequently can
  increase our liking of that person
• This only works if our initial reaction is either
  neutral or positive
• Seeing a negative stimulus repeatedly simply
  makes us not like it even more
• Why does familiarity work?
• Repeated exposure increases recognition
• We assume that familiar others are similar to
  ourselves

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Attraction - Similarity

• Matching Principle
• The tendency to choose similar partners
• Friends
• Social class, educational level, and religious
  backgrounds
• Romantic partners
• Age, social class, ethnicity, and religion
• Why does the similarity effect occur?
• Similar others are easier and more pleasant to be
  around
• Expectancy-value Theory
• Maybe we deliberately select people for their
  similarity to us
• The reward for dating someone similar to us is
  highbut so is the probability that they will
  like us

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What does being physically attractive mean?

• Beauty is in the eye of the beholderfor the most
  part
• Walster et al (1966) Computer Dance study
• Used a computer service to match people for blind
  dates (but they were really randomly assigned)
• Physical attractiveness was the only significant
  predictor of liking

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What does being physically attractive mean?
(cont.)

• Halo effect of beauty
• Attractive people are judged more favorably on
  other traits than are less attractive people
• Pretty people are assumed to have better
• Social skills
• Intellectual competence
• Greater integrity and concern for others
• Is it true?
• Certainly not for intelligence or integrity but
  sort of for social skills

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Close Relationships

• Rusbults Investment Model

( )
Satisfaction
( )
Investments
Commitment
( - )
Alternatives
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Violence

• U.S. has highest murder rate in the world among
  developed countries
• More than 15,000 murders every year
• More than 92,000 reported rapes
• More than 7 million reported violent acts overall
• Every 5 minutes a child is arrested for a violent
  crime
• More than 50 of 5th graders report being a
  victim of violence (70 of those have seen
  weapons used)
• Guns kill an American child every 3 hours

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Aggression

• Aggression
• Behavior intended to injure another who is
  motivated to avoid it
• Assertiveness
• Behavior intended to express dominance or
  confidence
• Assertiveness is not aggression

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Biological Theories

• Aggressive impulses may be hereditary
• Twin studies
• Correlations of aggression higher among
  monozygotic twins than dizygotic pairs
• Aggression is associated with
• Low levels of serotonin
• High levels of testosterone
• Activation of the amygdala can lead to aggressive
  behaviors (though it still depends on situational
  factors)

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Gender Differences in Aggression

• Men use more physical, direct forms of aggression
• Mens aggression is more likely to do physical
  harm, and thus gets more attention
• Girls and women use more indirect forms of
  aggression (e.g., spreading rumors).
• There is no clear sex difference in reporting
  feelings of anger

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Gender Differences in Aggression

• Provocation The great equalizer?
• Men are more likely to attack physically when
  unprovoked than women
• What happens when people are irritated,
  frustrated, or threatened by another person?
• Bettencourt Miller (1996)
• Conducted a meta-analysis of gender differences
  in aggression
• Found that when provocation is involved, the
  typical gender difference in physical aggression
  is reduced or eliminated

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Physical Discomfort Aggression

• Heat
• Humidity
• Pain
• Noxious fumes
• Poverty
• Crowding

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Media Violence

• More TV sets in United States than toilets
• Media consumption is 1 pass-time among
  Americans, particularly youth
• 60-70 of all TV programs contain violence
• 70-80 show no remorse, criticism, or penalty
  for the violence
• By the time the average American child graduates
  from elementary school
• More than 8,000 murders
• More than 100,000 other acts of violence (e.g.,
  assaults, rape)

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Media Violence

• More recently, video games have become kids
  favorite form of media
• 90 of kids age 2-17 play regularly
• Majority of popular games are violent

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Grand Theft Auto
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Mortal Kombat
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Media Violence

• Since at least 1970, researchers have known of a
  link between violent media and aggression
• Weakened inhibitions against violent behavior
• Imitation of specific violent acts
• Aggression primed as a response to anger
• Desensitization to violence
• Overestimation of prevalence of violence in real
  life

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Common Responses

• 1. Thats all boloney. I play those games and
  Ive never killed anyone.
• 2. Maybe there is an effect, but its really
  small and meaningless.
• 3. Actually, my friends and I feel better after
  blowing off steam playing video games.

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Common Responses

• 1. Not all who play violent games/watch violent
  media become killers.
• True. Not all smokers die of lung cancer, either.
• The point is NOT whether exposure leads
  inevitably to criminal mayhem, but that the
  likelihood of aggression is increased

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Effects of VVGs(Bushman Anderson, 2001)
Findings from a meta-analysis
Correlation with VVG Exposure
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Common Responses

• 2. Effects are trivially small
• False. Effects are larger than many that we take
  for granted

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Common Responses

• 3. Playing violent games/watching violence
  allows people to vent feelings of anger
• False. Watching violence or engaging in virtual
  violence increases aggression
• Catharsis doesnt work!

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Media Industry Response

• 1. The media is simply holding a mirror to
  society.
• False. Real world is far less violent than the
  TV/Movie world.
• 0.2 of crimes are murders 50 of crimes on TV
  are murders
• Average of 7 characters are killed on TV each
  night
• If applied in reality, this proportion of murder
  would wipe out U.S. population in 50 days

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Media Industry Response

• 2. Were simply giving the public what they
  want.
• Maybe. But viewer interest is only one factor
  driving programming decisions
• Societal violence can be considered a hazardous
  by-product
• Also, most popular shows (Friends, Seinfeld,
  Bachelor) are not violent

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Media Industry Response

• 3. Violence sells!
• False. TV violence significantly decreases
  memory for commercial messages
• Bushman, 1998
• 19 of viewers will be less likely to remember an
  ad if it is embedded in a violent or sexually
  explicit show

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Prosocial Behavior (a.ka. Altruism)

• Prosocial Behavior
• Any act that helps or is meant to help others
• It doesnt matter what the helpers motivation is

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Evolutionary Theory

• Kin selection
• Gene survival is more important than the
  individuals survival
• By helping our relatives, we are giving our genes
  a greater chance of surviving, even if it harms
  our own life
• Parents behave more altruistically to healthy
  offspring to unhealthy ones (Dovidio et al., 1991)

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Social Exchange Theory

• We want to maximize our benefits and minimize our
  costs
• We examine the costs and rewards of helping and
  not helping
• 3 rewards of helping
• Reciprocity
• They will owe us when we need help (or at least
  it eventually balances out)
• Relieves distress
• We dont like to see others suffer
• Social approval
• Others like us more when we are viewed as helpful
  and increases our self-worth

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Gender and Helping

• Women are universally perceived as kinder, more
  soft-hearted, and more helpful (Williams Best,
  1990)
• But over 90 of Carnegie Hero awards go to men
  (for saving, or attempting to save, the life of
  another)
• Women
• Help those they already know
• Help in nurturing ways involving long-term
  commitment
• Men
• Help strangers in emergency situations
• Help in chivalrous, heroic ways

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Mood Helping

• People are more willing to help when they are in
  a good mood
• Isen Levin, 1972
• 84 of those who found dime helped, only 4 of
  those who did not find dime helped
• Why do good moods increase helping?
• Interpret events sympathetically
• Mood-maintenance
• Good moods increase self-attention
• People in a bad mood will help under certain
  conditions
• Negative-state relief hypothesis
• People help to alleviated their own sadness and
  distress

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Bystander Effect

• The story of Kitty Genovese (1964)
• Bystander effect
• The tendency to be less likely to help if others
  are also present
• Smoke-filled room study (Latané and Darley, 1968)
• IV
• left alone
• with 2 other real participants
• with 2 other confederates who pretended nothing
  was wrong
• DV Percentage of participants who reported smoke

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Smoke-Filled Room Study
80
Percent who report smoke
60
40
20
0
Alone
With 2 other real subjects
With 2 calm confederates
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Situational Influences5 Steps to Helping

• Step 1 Notice the Event
• In order to help, you must realize something is
  happening
• Often people are distracted and dont even notice
  (especially in large cities)
• Step 2 Interpret as Emergency
• If you see someone lying on the sidewalk, does
  that mean they need or want help?
• Pluralistic ignorance can play a role here
• Others not helping, must not be a problem

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5 Steps to Helping

• Step 3 Feel responsible
• Just because you notice someone in need of help,
  is that your problem?
• Diffusion of responsibility plays a role at this
  step
• Step 4 Know how to help
• If someone appears to need medical care and
  youre not a nurse or doctor, then what?
• If you cant offer appropriate help, you likely
  wont try

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5 Steps to Helping

• Step 5 Assess costs of helping
• You see someone in need of help, you feel
  responsible, you know what to do, but
• Could be highly dangerous
• Could make you financially liable
• Could embarrass you