2008-04-23 - Social psych

Puckett does 4 energy drinks a day. 20 oz of coffee in the morning. Coke at 10. 4 of the monsters before bedtime.

Social psychologists are biased, and we know - again - mostly about western cultures and not the eastern cultures. The other thing is that, is it can be species-biased as well. Humans tend to have primate behavior, we're primates, and so we tend to assume that all animals have primate behavior, and this is not true. Training horses or dogs - that's a big mistake, especially with meeting a dog. When meeting a primate, you stand up straight, you reach out, touch, it's ventral to ventral. Somebody you know? You can touch, hug, or maybe even approach from behind. They greet by ventral-to-ventral contact. And if you do that to a canine, if you look at them straight in the eye, you're telling them that you will eat their dinner and challenge them. So if you have kids that are using primate social behavior to the dogs, well. Yeah, not good. Subordinate dogs groom dominate gods. So licking you is subordination. And if you yell at your dog, it will yawn. Humans yawn as a social behavior, it's not because there's lower oxygen, it's not because you are tired, it's a signal that we are members of the group. So if I yawn, then yep, other people are yawning in the room. You do not yawn when you are tired. Yawns are contagious. Yes, it actually lowers your blood pressure, it calms you down, you actually think you are tired, this is to get the people accepting each other. The reason if I am doing primate-human behavior, well, you can't assume that your behaviors are universal at all. Your family has your own culture. Your extended culture will even have a different culture from your core family. School, work, friends, different sets of friends have different cultures. So this is all very generalized. You can apply it. For example, talking with your family versus talking with your friends, do you use the same subjects, vocabulary, same tones and inflections? Hell no. This is all applicable in only a very general way.

Social psychology is the study of how groups and cultures shape our perceptions, attitudes and behaviors. In sociology, you focus on the group. And we really look at the situational factors influencing positive and negative factors. We will be looking at how people can be manipulated. Alex is still yawning.

  1. Person perception - how do you draw your perception? What puts it all together so that you make that conclusion? 70% of your communication is nonverbal - we think that we are verbal, but this is not really true - the medium and method matters. So when you think that a conversation is going poorly, then start reading the signals. You can turn it around. You can make a difference with your physical response to communication. Notice how you yawn if others start yawning, or if you scratch, others start to tingle and need to scratch. Ever cross your legs, and then see somebody nearby do this? This is the chameleon effect. There's a branch of pop psych called NLP - neurolinguistic programming ... the leader of that little movement has been in prison for five times because he's been manipulative and so on, but otherwise it's interesting. Cold reading (of facial expressions). Schemas, stereotypes, illusory correlation - occurs when people estimate that they have encountered more confirmation of an association between social traits that they have actually seen, like people see what they expect and overestimate how many times they see it. A stereotype is a blame, so it's not like a schema. A stereotype is causational and tends to be negative. Illusory correlation can be personal, so it can lead to bias and prejudice and can be based on experience.
  2. Attribution procs
    1. Attribution - an inference about the cause of somebody's behaviors, due to the cause of events, and an individual's behavior, so this could be made up from fantasy. You can do self-blame. The best way to get over attribution, is to ask them. So see Fritz Heider (1958) - attribution theory. The internal dispositions v. external dispositions are the same thing as situational/dispositional. There were also Jones, Davis, Kelly and Weiner, created 2 types: internal attribution, ascribing the cause of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities and feelings; external attribution ascribes the cause of behavior to situational demands and environmental constraints.
      1. Internal v. external blame
      2. Kelley's covariation model - how do we come to the conclusion of attribution? (1) Consistency, like failing one test then the attribution is likely to be external or situational (you were tired, you had too much on your plate). High frequency tends to be individual, while low frequency means blaming a certain thing. (2) Distinctiveness - behavior unique to the specific target, like failing beautifully. (3) Consensus: if everybody blames the test, then it's situational. Yeah, right. That's not quite true.
  3. Some other stuff I missed.
  4. Situational attribution
  5. Dispositional attribution (describing it to character, tending to be less tolerant ....)
Fundamental attribution error - we make errors in attributions based on information that we have at the time, and we make generalizations on it. For example, you would think Puckett is always extraverted because of how she is in class, but in other situations she's quiet and calm. Defense attribution - is a tendency to blame victims for their misfortune. Self-serving bias - the tendency to say that you were the one who is just that smart and talented. You fail? It's the environment. You do something good? It's you, right? Sure. Sure it is. This is not about revising biases, it's about the immediate biases that people tend to make. So is it their fault if somebody gets rape?

Individualism - put personal goals ahead of groups. Collectivism - put group goals ahead of personal goals. Collectivist cultures may promote different attribute biases than individual cultures. Collectivist cultures are less prone to the fundamental attribution error.

Key factors in attraction: physical attractiveness, matching hypothesis, similarity, reciprocity, romantic ideals, perspectives on love, Hatfield & Berscheid - passionate vs. companionate love. Sternberg - intimacy and commitment. Hazen & Shaver -- love as attachment. Evolutionary perspectives - mating profiles. This is interpersonal relations. This is just the menu. Physical attractiveness. Too bad we can't go rate hotness. Why do people match up and why? Similarity theory. Reciprocity theory. Romantic ideals. Love. How do you do scientific studies on love? Compassionate versus passionate love. Different cultures have different measures of attractiveness. That's not a guy - that's a woman, from Kenya. Cultural transplants do, in fact, adopt the hotness standards. Time period is also cultural - ideals of beauty change over time, even in culture. However, the mere exposure effect - as you are exposed to ideals, you will actually become more attracted to them. So say you're going on a missionary trip to Kenya, well, first you might not like it, but after exposure, it's easily culturally transplanted, very easily. Western culture think that baby-faced people tend to be more honest and more likable, more helpless and naive, and that's why Ted Bundii - a mass murderer - are baby-faced, this is what makes us trust them, and they know it and use it. Babyfaced.

Interpersonal attraction - dislike, friendship, admiration, lust love. Physical attractiveness - first factor, more important for females. Dislike for somebody is actually an attraction. You can see kids out on the playground fighting, but then they are going out and still fighting and at that point it's some kind of foreplay or something. Heh. So, contact exposure, "is she hot?" - even men hiring women. The first few seconds with women, it's "is he rich?". "At least we're looking at the person." - Dakota. "Well, not all of it. Only bits." - Puckett.

Matching hypothesis - males and females of approximate equal physical attractiveness are likely to select each other as a partner (Feingold '88). So, like Donald Trump, with really hot women. But what they look at is that it is very weird for people to be outside of classification of hotness. It's unusual for hot to date not-hot.

Similarity effects - married/dating, couples are similar in age, race, religion, and among friends, income, education. It's safer, emotionally, to date somebody that you think is like you. To the point where people used to outlaw inter-racial marriages ... yeah. Then there's attitude similarity - similarity does cause liking (Byrne '97) - this was the proving, not the hypothesis itself. Oh, and they smell right - pheromones - such as that company. You can actually see that somebody is not compatible via smells.

Reciprocity effects - involves liking those who show that they like you. Individual perception of romantic partners seem to reflect ideals rather than reality. If you think somebody likes you, you will like them. So, you know that whole thing about being aloof if you like somebody? That doesn't work. Yes, there has to be some kind of chase, sure, but you have to send the right messages. "I only like it if it's going to run away." - Puckett. There has to be a chase.

Passionate love - is a complete absorption in another with sexual feelings with agony and ecstasy. This is not what you want for that long-term relationship. You don't want a rollercoaster. Passionate love has a tendency to merge personalities. Like couples that are dressed the same. They have lost themselves in each other. Like Borg or something. Staford wives. You are doomed to fail, according to science, if you can only talk about that person and so on. Once it becomes two-merged, you're entering the realm of codependency and need a therapist, but if it's passionate without being interconnected that way, it can last. Compassionate love / companionate - warm, trusting, tolerant affections, no zing and the relationships don't last. Kind of like them and they are friends. Companion love is where you have the intense affection, deep and passionate, intermittent. Affection and love is the one that lasts, they say. Coexists, but not merged as a being. Passionate love doesn't really involve intimacy with them (knowing them a lot). The relationship usually self-destructs when that falls out. Companionate love is not asexual, it's just not "only sexual". Passionate love is that sexual attraction but not necessarily with sex. Compassionate love is friendship, not sexual, it's intimacy and connection building.
  • Interpersonal attraction
  • Attitudes
  • .....

    • 2008-04-24



    Love as attachment (Hazan & Shaver) - children to parents, adults to their partners. We mistake love when we really mean attachment, connection. The way we attach with our parents has a lot to do with all of our relationships. Romantic love is an attachment process and it follows the same process as infants. You will have one of three-types of attachments, the same as when you were an infant, but you can relearn this, yes.
    1. Anxious-ambivalent attachment - high level of anxiety of the infant with the caretaker, this is the separation anxiety. The pushing away of mom when she's around is the ambivalent. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. When they are around, you don't want them, you can't attach.
    2. Secure attachment - more committed, satisfying, interdependent, have high self-esteem. Healthy. Open, vulnerable, not overly-clinging, and not overly-repulsive.
    3. Avoidant attachment - never bond with caretakers engage in casual sex because it's only physical w/o vulnerability, have depression and eating disorders. Shallow, short relationships. Not willing to be intimate. Long term shallow relationship, never really connect.
    Evolutionary attraction? Are good looks influence attraction & are indicators of reproductive fitness? Men tend to seek youthfulness and attractiveness in their mates (species survival). Wome emphasize prospective mates' financial potential & willingness to invest material resources in children (species survival). Reflected in courtship. Vary depending on whether seeking short-term or long term relationships. We've looked at the average span of relationships across the world - we tend to last about three years in any one relationship. Patterns of relationships tend to go in 3-yr cycles. You meet, you mate, you have a baby, the weening age, you don't need the mate - you go on to another mate, so you want to spread your genes as far as possible for genetic strength. Re: rules of societies about staying together forever, there's still 3 yr cycles. Ducks and wolves - once they mate, that's their mate, they will die of loneliness. So, now, if you look at hu relationships where it says 'manonogy' has 3 yr patterns, first child then next child 3 years later, and then they buy a new house 3 years later, it's a tendency in long-term relationships in western cultures, like 3 yr projects. When they don't have that project, they start diverging.

    Aggression is a relationship. Isn't that special? Just like love is a relationship. Aggression means any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy. The intention has to be there. Sometimes aggression just means 'more energetic than the group normally stands'. Frustration-Aggression Principle - both of them want something, their aggression level rises when they can't get what they want. The blocking of attempt to achieve a goal, creates anger, which can generate aggression. Stuff like date-rape (desire for sex is blocked, frustration increases, aggression towards the person blocking sex). This is very common in college age people, because there's a maturing that happens, where you learn to accept 'no' - none of us like 'no' but it's a hallmark of 'no' and adhere 'no' and accept it, work with it. How are toddlers with 'no'? They are going to get in a tantrum. 82% of rapes are by somebody you know. As temperature soars, so does aggression. Divorce rates, domestic abuse and so on is higher during the heat waves. So, well, the part of town with high crime, that's typically the people without air conditioning.

    Attitudes, attitude change - your attitude only changes when your subjective interpretation of the stimulus changes really, so you are in total control of your attitude. Theories of attitude change: learning theory, dissonance theory, self-perception theory, elaboration likelihood model. The more aware of your attitude shifts, the more controlling of your responses you can become. An attitude - are positive and negative evaluations of "objects of thought", social issues, institutions, people, you're adding it up and creating a decision, this is creating an attitude. The beliefs to attitudes (1) cognitive (your beliefs), (2) affective (emotions), (3) behavioral component (predisposition, knee-jerk reaction). If you can change your attitude about something, you can change your attitude. You can change your thoughts, which can change your attitude. So are attitudes ... your approaches/strategies? Nah, it's a *conclusion* of an evaluation. So there are different approaches to attitude change (cognitive, affective, behavioral) - so if you go see a cognitive psychologist, you might not be getting anything out of it. And when somebody says "change your attitude" - they really mean change your behavior.

    Stereotype is also an attitude.

    Prejudice - an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. Involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action. This is taking action on cognitively feeding stereotypes. Nonaction can be just as bad.
    Stereotype - a generalized (sometimes accurate, but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people. This is a group.
    Sometimes stereotypes and prejudices are self-affirming, or self-fulfilling.



    Four elements in changing attitudes - factors in persuasion - source, receiver, message, channel. The source is the person who sends the communication. Receiver whom the message is sent. Message is the information transmitted by the source. The channel is the medium through which the message is sent. Order of importance for credibility: Similarity, physical attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, expertise. Political psychology - study on Tuesday - you strip the photos from the platforms, people don't pick the people they thought they liked .... Hm. Puckett used to live in Colorado -> Santa Cruz, CA -> Austin.