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Social Relations
MODULE 45
MODULE PREVIEW
Prejudice still often arises from social inequalities, social divisions, and emotional scapegoating. Prejudice also
has emotional and cognitive roots.
Aggression is a product of nature and nurture. In addition to genetic, neural, and biochemical influences,
aversive events heighten people’s hostility. Aggressive behavior is also learned through rewards and by observing
role models and media violence.
Geographical proximity, physical attractiveness, and similarity of attitudes and interests influence our liking
for one another. Passionate love is an aroused state we cognitively label as love. Companionate love often emerges
as a relationship matures and is enhanced by equity and self-disclosure.
Altruism is the unselfish regard for the welfare of others. The presence of others at an emergency can inhibit
helping. The bystander effect is most apparent in situations where the presence of others inhibits one’s noticing
an event, interpreting it as an emergency, or assuming responsibility for offering help.
Conflicts are fueled by enemies forming mirror-image perceptions of one another, for example. Enemies
become friends when they work toward superordinate goals, communicate clearly, and reciprocate conciliatory
gestures.
MODULE GUIDE
Prejudice
♦Lecture: Racial Prejudice
♦Exercises: Measuring Stereotypes; Subtle Prejudice and the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory; Positions of Privilege and Institutional Racism;
Institutional Discrimination; Ingroup Bias; Belief in a Just World
♦Project: A Personal Cultural History
♦ActivePsych: Digital Media Archive, 2nd ed.: Hidden Prejudice: The Implicit Association Test; Being Gay: Coming Out in the 21st
Century
♦Videos: Modules 31 and 32 of Psychology: The Human Experience: Attitudes and Prejudicial Behavior and Ethnocentrism and Prejudice
Feature Film: Crash
1. Identify the three components and various forms of prejudice.
Prejudice is a mixture of beliefs (often overgeneralized and called stereotypes), emotions (hostility, envy, or fear),
and predispositions to action (to discriminate). Prejudice is a negative attitude; discrimination is a negative
behavior. Overt prejudice, such as denying children of a particular racial group the opportunity to attend school, is
discrimination that explicitly (openly and consciously) expresses negative beliefs and emotions. Subtle (implicit,
automatic) prejudice, such as that reflected in people’s facial muscle responses and in the activation of their
amygdala to viewing black and white faces, is an implicit (often unconscious) expression of negative beliefs and
emotions.
2. Discuss the social factors that contribute to prejudice, and explain how scapegoating illustrates the emotional
component of prejudice.
Prejudice often arises as those who enjoy social and economic superiority attempt to justify the status quo by
blaming the victim. Through our social identities we also associate ourselves with some groups and contrast
ourselves with others. Mentally drawing a circle that defines “us” (the ingroup) also excludes “them” (the
outgroup). Such group identifications promote an ingroup bias, that is, a favoring of one’s own group. Even
creating an “us-them” distinction by the toss of a coin leads people to show ingroup bias.
Facing the fear of death tends to heighten patriotism and produce loathing and aggression toward those who
threaten one’s world. Scapegoat theory suggests that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to
blame. To boost our own sense of status, it also helps to have others to denigrate.
3. Cite four ways that cognitive processes help create and maintain prejudice.
One way we simplify the world is to form categories. In categorizing others we often stereotype them,
overestimating the similarity of those within another group. We also estimate the frequency of events by vivid
cases (violence, for example) that come to mind more readily than the less vivid events involving the same group.
Third, impartial observers may blame victims by assuming the world is just and that people therefore get what they
deserve and deserve what they get (called the just-world phenomenon). Finally, hindsight bias may contribute to
the tendency to blame the victim.
Aggression
♦Lectures: Workplace Violence and the Conditional Reasoning Test of Aggression; Genocide; Do We Need to Vent Our Rage?
♦Exercise: Defining Aggression
♦Videos: Module 24 of The Brain series, 2nd ed.: Aggression, Violence, and the Brain; Program 24 of Moving Images: Exploring
Psychology Through Film: Social Rejection: The Need to Belong; Program 17 of Moving Images: Exploring Psychology Through Film:
Venting Anger: The Catharsis Hypothesis
♦Feature Films: In Cold Blood
♦Transparency: 163 Biopsychosocial Understanding of Aggression
4. Explain how psychology’s definition of aggression differs from everyday usage, and describe various
biological influences on aggression.
In psychology, aggression is any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy. This definition of
aggression has a more precise meaning than it does in everyday usage where an assertive salesperson or a dentist
who make us wince with pain may be described as “aggressive.” On the other hand, psychology’s definition
recognizes a verbally assaultive person or one who spreads a vicious rumor as aggressive.
Biological influences on aggression operate at the genetic, neural, and biochemical levels. Animals have been bred
for aggressiveness, and twin studies suggest that genes also influence human aggression. Animal and human brains
have neural systems that, when stimulated, either inhibit or produce aggression. For example, studies of violent
criminals have revealed diminished activity in the frontal lobes, which play an important role in controlling
impulses. Finally, studies of the effect of hormones (e.g., testosterone), alcohol, and other substances in the blood
show that biochemical influences contribute to aggression.
5. Outline psychological triggers of aggression, noting the relationship between violent video games and aggressive
behavior.
A variety of aversive events, including physical pain, personal insults, and ostracism, evoke hostility. The
frustration-aggression principle states that the blocking of an attempt to reach some goal creates anger, which can
generate aggression. Aversive stimuli are especially likely to trigger aggression in those who have been reinforced
for aggression in the past. People can also learn aggression by observing models who act aggressively, for
example, in the family or in the media (watching violence or sexual aggression on TV or in film). Media depictions
of violence also trigger aggression by providing social scripts (mental tapes for how to act provided by our
culture). One aggression-replacement program has been successful in bringing down re-arrest rates of juvenile
offenders and gang members. To summarize, aggression is a biopsychosocial phenomenon.
Playing violent video games can heighten aggressive behavior by providing social scripts and opportunities to
observe modeled aggression. Recent studies have found that playing violent video games primes aggressive
thoughts, heightens arousal and feelings of hostility, and increases aggression. The studies also disconfirm the
catharsis hypothesis—the idea that we feel better if we vent our emotions.
Attraction
♦Lectures: What Is Beautiful Is Good; Physical Appearance and Election Success
♦Exercises: The Mere Exposure Effect; Assessing Friendship; The Pairing Game; Matching, the Contrast Effect, and Relationship
Satisfaction; The Passionate Love Scale; Love Styles; The Trust Scale; The Minding Scale; Solitude: Bane or Blessing?
♦Feature Films: Beauty and the Beast and Physical Attractiveness; Speed and the Two-Factor Theory of Passionate Love
6. Describe the influence of proximity, physical attractiveness, and similarity on interpersonal attraction.
Three factors are known to influence our liking for one another. Geographical proximity is conducive to attraction,
partly because of the mere exposure effect: Repeated exposure to novel stimuli enhances liking of them. Physical
attractiveness influences social opportunities and the way one is perceived. We view attractive people as healthier,
happier, more sensitive, and more successful. As acquaintanceship moves toward friendship, similarity of attitudes
and interests greatly increases liking. The factors that foster attraction are explained by reward theory: we like
those whose behavior is rewarding to us, and we will continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs.
7. Describe the effect of physical arousal on passionate love, and identify two predictors of enduring companionate
love.
We can view passionate love as an aroused state that we cognitively label as love. The strong affection of
companionate love, which often emerges as a relationship matures, is enhanced by equity, a condition in which
both parties receive in proportion to what they give. Another vital ingredient of loving relationships is mutual
self-disclosure, in which partners reveal to each other intimate details about themselves.
Altruism
♦Lectures: Case Studies in Helping; The Bystander Effect and Legislating Helping; Europeans Who Helped Jews Escape
♦ Exercise: Why Do People Volunteer?
♦Project: A Random Act of Kindness
♦Videos: Video Clip 40 of Digital Media Archive: Psychology: Takooshian’s Psychology of Bystanders
♦Transparency: 164 The Decision-Making Process for Bystander Intervention
8. Define altruism, and describe the steps in the decision-making process involved in bystander intervention.
Altruism is unselfish regard for the welfare of others. Risking one’s life to save victims of genocide with no
expectation of personal reward is an example of altruism.
The bystander effect is the tendency for any given bystander to an emergency to be less likely to give aid if other
bystanders are present. Research on the bystander effect indicates that to decide to help one must (1) notice the
event, (2) interpret it as an emergency, or (3) assume responsibility for helping.
Conflict and Peacemaking
♦Lectures: Five Dangerous Ideas; The Dual Concern Model of Social Conflict; The Jigsaw Technique
♦PsychSim 5: Social Decision Making
9. Discuss effective ways of encouraging peaceful cooperation and reducing social conflict.
A conflict is a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas. The spiral of conflict also feeds and is fed by
distorted mirror-image perceptions, in which each party views itself as moral and the other as unworthy and
evil-intentioned.
Research suggests that noncompetitive contact between parties of equal status may help reduce prejudice. More
important, the discovery of superordinate, or shared, goals that require cooperation can turn enemies into friends.
Communication, sometimes through a third-party mediator, also promotes mutual understanding. Finally, the
GRIT strategy suggests that reciprocated conciliatory gestures bring peace.