Social Psychology Exam 3 Review Guide Chapters 10 11 and 12 Chapter 10 Helping Others Altruism is the motivation for acting with unselfish concern for the welfare of others such as instinctual actions or thoughtless behavior Behavior is seen as unselfish altruistic when it is costly or dangerous to the helper and when the helper does not expect to receive social reward for the action when self reward is not your primary goal Prosocial Behavior Helping cooperating rescuing or sacrificing for another person Done for the benefit of others and may be altruistically or selfishly motivated Egoistic motivated by the desire to increase one s own welfare ex Donation is recognized with an award statue resume booster When a person knowingly gives up a proposition of his or her time or resources that person will be seen as motivated by altruism It IS altruistic if someone gains the self reward of feeling good making someone else feel good but it is not altruistic if you expect to feel good by doing it If a person helps in order to get praise esteem or money they are NOT behaving altruistically Empathy focusing on victim s experience reactions and empathic concern that can only be reduced by knowing that the victim no longer suffers Only the costs to the victim not the helper are relevant Escaping the situation reduces personal distress but doesn t eliminate empathic concern Feelings of sympathy compassion and tenderness Personal Distress self orienting reactions ex Feeling alarmed troubled upset Diffusion of Responsibility Several people could potentially help so responsibility for helping is spread over them rather than concentrated on one individual Contributes to the bystander effect observed tendency for individuals who are among other onlookers to help less than those who are alone o Ex Kitty Genovese 28yo female bar manager in Queens attacked with a knife at 3am called for help but no one came out of 38 onlookers finally one person called the police after 45 minutes presence of others inhibits helping Explaining Prosocial Behavior 1 Empathy Altruism Hypothesis least selfish explanation person provides help because victim needs help and it feels good to help 2 Negative State Relief Model negative feeling from the situation or something else contributes to the person helping in order to boost their attitude and feel better 3 Empathic Joy Hypothesis help in order to make the other person feel good positive anticipated emotion ex Gift giving 4 Genetic Determination Model unconscious desire to help if we perceive the person as genetically similar to ourselves maximize survival of the same genes Chapter 11 Aggression Aggression is behavior that is intended to injure another person who does not want to be injured it is NOT assertiveness no intent to injure or unintentional doctor with a shot Forms Words deliberately saying something that you think know will be harmful Deeds actions reactions that revolve around a failure to act in order to hurt another person covert actions reactions ex Passive aggression failure to stop an action Extreme Acts shown in overt action reaction toward another person violence Emotions o Anger strong feelings of displeasure in response to a perceived injury o Hostility negative antagonistic attitude toward another person or o Both of these emotions are often but not always connected to group aggression Instrumental harm inflicted as a means to a desired end personal gain attention or self defense Emotional harm inflicted for its own sake often impulsive and in the heat of the moment but can be calm and calculated ex wanted to know what it felt like Cultural Differences Cultures vary drastically in how much their members show aggression USA o Recent decreases in violent crimes but continues to be a violent country to groups o Highest murder rate in industrialized nations o High in gun related violence usually involving individuals as opposed Middle East Africa Eastern Europe South America groups attack others in political ethnic tribal or institutionalized conflict Japan aggression involving children relatively common for businessmen to grope school children on public transportation Other genital mutilations feet binding adultery stoning prisons interrogation methods Nonviolence US Amish Hutterites Mennonites They oppose competition and endorse cooperation in all aspects of life Subcultures Ages 14 20 have highest rate in crime involvement as offenders and victims in the U S than any other group American population has been aging in recent years reason for drop in violent crime Number of teenagers expected to grow by about 1 a year through 2015 Murders are more often intra racial rather than inter racial African Americans live in a more violent America than Whites o 1 40 black men and 1 199 black women are likely to be murdered o 1 280 white men and 1 794 white women are likely to be murdered o In the U S murder rate is consistently higher in the South followed by the West Gender Differences Men are more violent than women Gender differences are stable over time and place men commit majority of homicides and are majority of murder victims Young boys show more aggression and prefer horror violent books than young girls It is not necessarily a stereotype that males are more aggressive than females Girls are responsible for more relational aggression or indirect forms of aggression Media More TV sets than toilets in the U S Heightened interest in warning labels of networks but some of the most violent TV shows have escaped these warning labels Chapter 12 Law Eyewitness Testimony Thousands are charged with crimes solely based on eyewitness evidence some of which are found inaccurate through DNA samples Eyewitness error is the most common cause of wrongful convictions Eyewitnesses are imperfect Personal and situation factors can influence their performance Judges juries and lawyers are not adequately informed about these factors Memory involves the encoding storage and retrieval of info and errors can occur in any of these stages Witnesses who saw a high stress emotional scene remember only central features of an event such as the culprit victim or weapon used Weapon focus effect tendency for the presence of a weapon to draw attention and impair a witness s ability to identify the culprit focus on the weapon not the person holding it People are more accurate at recognizing members of their own racial group than those of a race other than their own own race