Social Psychology Test 4- The Need to Belongo Belongingness is a Basic Need Fundamental and powerful human need Need both regular social contact and stable relationships with mutual concern Attraction : anything that draws two or more people together, making them want to be together, and possibly to form a lasting relationship Social acceptance : a situation in which other people have come to like you, respect you, approve of you, and include you in their groups and relationships Rejection (social exclusion) : being prevented by others from forming or keeping a social bond with them; the opposite of social acceptance The need to belong is defined as the desire to form and maintain close, lasting relationships with some other individuals- This drives people to affiliate, commit, and remain together, and it makes them reluctant to live alone.o Two Ingredients to Belongingness The need to belong has two parts- People want some kind of regular social contacts- People want the stable framework of some ongoing relationship in which the people share a mutual concern for each other Some people want more friends than others, but most people seem to thinkthat having about four to six close relationships is enougho Not Belonging is Bad For You The need to belong is called a need, rather than a want, because when it is thwarted, people suffer more than just being unhappy Loneliness is hard on the body, impairing its natural powers including the immune system and its ability to recover from sickness or injury- Attraction: Who Likes Whom? Ingratiation : what people actively do to try to make someone like them People like good-looking, friendly people who are similar to themselves in important ways, and they like people who are nice to themo Friendship is Good! How do we get it? Similarity Propinquity Reciprocity (Social Rewards) Physical Attractivenesso Similarity, Complementary, Oppositeness Two old clichés make opposite predictions about who likes whom. - “Birds of a feather flock together” – suggests that people mainly likeothers who resemble themselves- “Opposites attract” – suggests that people are drawn to people dissimilar to themselves In any case, decades of research by social psychologists have produced a clear and definite winner in this battle of clichés. 1- Opposites do not attract very often.- Birds of a feather are the ones who end up flocking together and staying together.- Similarity is a common and significant cause of attraction Experiment: Chartrand & Bargh (1999)- Confederate and participant engaged in interaction- Confederate mimicked participant’s body language (or not)- How much did participant like confederate?o Participant liked the confederate more when he/she mimicked his/her body language People who are high in self monitoring (the ability to change one’s behaviorfor different situations) seek to maximize each social situation, whereas those low in that trait pay more attention to permanent connections and feelings rather than fluctuating ones. The matching hypothesis states that people tend to pair up with others whoare equally attractive- This is especially true among lovers, but it is also true among friends There is some evidence that matching is driven more by rejecting dissimilar others than by liking similar others The attraction to similar others is probably social rather than culturalo Social Rewards: You Make me Feel Good Reinforcement theory : the proposition that people and animals will perform behaviors that have been rewarded more than they will perform other behaviors The two themes of ingratiation research confirm the importance of interpersonal rewards A first broad strategy for getting someone to like you is to do favors for that person- By definition, favors bring benefits to the recipient, and therefore favors make the person feel positively toward the person who did the favor. The second broad strategy involves praise.- Most people feel good when they receive a compliment, so if you want someone to like you, you will probably be tempted to give thatperson plenty of compliments o Tit for Tat: Reciprocity and Liking Reciprocity is also important in liking. - Having someone like you is powerful at a deep, gut level: it is hard to resist liking that person in return Why should trustworthiness be the single most important trait for social appeal?- When you form a bond with someone, you expect to do positive things for that person.- Trustworthiness means that you can expect the other person to reciprocateo Mere Exposure The propinquity effect:- Proximity2- The more we see and interact with people, the more likely we are tobecome friends with them. People like those who are similar to them, who like them back, and who make them feel food. People sometimes like others based on nothing more than familiarity – they grow to like people whom they encounter on a regular basis- Propinquity : being near someone on a regular basis- Sometimes physical closeness isn’t as big a deal- Functional distance has taken on a new form Experiment: Moreland & Beach (1990)- 4 women enrolled in class- Each showed up different amounts of time (0, 5, 10, 15)- How attractive? - How similar? Social allergy effect : the idea that a partner’s annoying habits become more annoyingo Looking Good What is beautiful is good effect : the assumption that physically attractive people will be superior to others on many other traits People are more likely to seek out friendships with physically attractive people. Appearance does matter Experiment: “Welcome week” study (1966)- Matched first-year students for dance- Personality and aptitude tests- Asked to evaluate dates- What predicted interest? Experiment: Eagly et al. (1991)- Physically attractive people are seen as more:o Sociableo Extravertedo Popularo Likableo Happy- Rejection Ostracism : refers to being excluded, rejected, and ignored by otherso Effects of Rejection: Inner Reactions Rejection sensitivity : a tendency to expect rejection form others and to become hypersensitive to possible rejection Not all rejection produces an immediate wave of emotional distress, however.- The initial reaction to rejection is often closer to numbness than to anxiety or sadness (MacDonald and Leary)- Rejected, excluded animals lose pain sensitivity (Panksepp)- Social
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