Transcript Tue June 4th - Mrs. Harvey`s Social Psychology Class

Welcome!
Social Psychology
PSY450
Instructor: Briana (Seay) Harvey
Nature vs. Nurture
• Are you the way you are because of genetics?
• Or because of the way you were raised?
• Personality?
• IQ?
• Skills?
Nature vs. Nurture
• Twin studies
– Separated at birth or raised together
– Diseases
– Interests/hobbies
Nature Defined
• Nature – the physical world around us, including it’s laws and
processes
Culture and Human Social Life
• Culture – an information based system that includes shared
ideas and common ways of doing things
– In other words: what a large group of people has in common
Culture consists of shared
ideas
• Ideas
– Mental representations (thoughts) that
are abstract (i.e., they refer to more
than a single concrete thing) and that
can be expressed in language
– Example’s:
– Traffic signal
– Money
Culture
– Praxis
– Practical way of doing things (e.g., drive on the
right side of the road)
Praxis
Nature and Culture Interacting
the Social Side of Sex
Rooted in Nature
• Men desire more
partners than women
• Basic practices known to
most cultures
• Reason is reproduction
Cultural Differences
•Guam- law prohibits woman
marrying if she is a virgin
•Turkey-woman must be a
virgin and used to have to
submit to exam
•Indonesia- masturbation
penalty is beheading
•Lebanese- Men who have sex
with male animals get death
penalty but if female it’s fine
Nature and Culture Interacting
Virtuous Vegetarians
Nature
Culture
• Eating is natural & vital
• Some believe it is
immoral to eat meat
• Humans naturally eat
meat
• Religious reasons or
animal rights
Culture and Food Preferences
• Americans eat oysters but not snails.
• The French eat snails but not locusts.
• The Zulus eat locusts but not fish.
• The Jews eat fish but not pork.
• The Hindus eat pork but not beef.
• The Russians eat beef but not snakes.
• The Chinese eat snakes but not people.
• The Jale of New Guinea find people delicious.
Evolutionary Psychology
• Examines the evolution of human behavioral tendencies
– Based on the idea that evolution may “select” psychological and
behavioral traits that enhance the preservation and spread of one’s genes
– This has been helpful in understanding areas such as mating strategies
(e.g., the function of jealousy) and emotions
Evolution, and Doing What’s Natural
• Theory of evolution
– Theory proposed by Darwin to explain how changes occur in nature
– Darwin’s finches on Galapagos
Evolution
• Natural selection
– Process whereby those members of a species that survive
and reproduce most effectively are the ones that pass along
their genes to future generations
Human vestigiality
Vestigial: having lost all or most of their original function
through evolution.
• Tails
– present for a period of 4 weeks in fetal development
– 23 babies born with a tail
• Wisdom teeth, Appendix, ear muscles
• Appendix?
Criteria for natural selection
1. Survival – living longer
– “Survival of the fittest”
– Competition within species
BUT…survival in order to reproduce
2. Reproduction – producing babies that survive long enough
to also reproduce
•
Mutation – a new gene or combination of genes
– Can be helpful or harmful (Ex. Flu)
The Social Brain
Social Brain Theory
• Being social can increase survival &
reproduction
• In order to be social one needs a complex,
powerful brain
Social Animal
• Social Animal – seek connections to others and prefer to live,
work, and play with other members of their species
– Includes humans, but also many other animals
• Cultural Animal – evolution shaped human psyche to enable
humans to create and take part in culture
– Defining trait of what makes us human
Name each color…
Name each color…
Blue
Green Black
Red
Red
Black
Green
Blue
Red
Blue
Black
Green
Name each color (don’t read the word!)…
Red
Blue
Green
Black
Black Blue
Red
Green
Blue
Green
Black
Red
Automatic and Conscious
Thinking
• Stroop effect
– Conscious thought has difficulty overriding automatic
Review
• What was the IV in this experiment:
– Text (whether the word represented it’s color or not
• What was the DV in this experiment:
– The time scores from each classmate
• Was this a within or between subject design?
– Within: because each classmate was exposed to
both conditions
• Was it experimental, Quasi, or correlational
– Quasi
– Because I let people volunteer instead of randomly
selecting participants
Automatic Processes
• Effortless, unconscious, and involuntary
• Behaviors which are rehearsed enough to become routine:
– Counting 1 to 10
– Spelling your name
– Writing your address
– Walking
– Driving
Conscious Processes
• Intentional setting of the goals of processing and intentional
evaluation of its outputs
• Behaviors which require thinking/planning/override automatic
processes:
– Stroop Effect
– Playing a game
– Going on a diet!
Selective attention
• Are we always aware of our surroundings
or are we on autopilot?
The Duplex Mind
• Automatic system
– Outside of consciousness
– Simple operations
• Conscious system
– Complex operations
Decision making
• Unconscious (automatic) is better at
making complex decisions
(Dijksterhuis & Nordgren,2006)
• The conscious is better at simpler
decisions (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren,
2006)
Explaining the Psyche
• Psyche
– Broad term for mind, encompassing emotions, desires, perceptions, and
all other psychological processes
– Conscious AND unconscious mind
What is Consciousness for?
• Increased focus on role of automatic system
– Can learn, think, choose, and respond
– Has ideas and emotions
– Knows “self” and other people
• Consciousness focus on complex thinking and logic
Nature Says Go, Culture Says
No
• Nature – impulses, wishes, automatic responses
• Culture – teaches self-control and restraint
Inhibitions
Conscious Override
• Sometimes we need to override the unconscious
• Vital to life in culture because culture is full of rules about how
to behave: norms, guidelines, laws, morals, expectations
The Long Road to Social Acceptance
• Working to gain social acceptance
– Inner states help humans connect to others
– Human brain evolved to improve
interpersonal relations
– Think about the evolution of second order
emotions:
– Empathy, guilt
Pariah- someone who is an outcast
Humans “feel” others’ pain:
Selfish Impulse Versus Social
Conscience
• Nature makes us selfish
– Preservation of self
• Culture helps us resist selfish impulses
– Consideration of what is best for society
– Morality
Tradeoffs: When You Can’t Have It All
Tradeoffs – no choice that is clearly the best in every respect
•Time – Now versus Tomorrow
– Performance-enhancing drugs
•Sacrifice now – Payoff in the future
•Future Orientation (thinking ahead)
– Important aspect of cultural animal
Putting People First
• People get most of what they need from other people
• Culture as a “general store” of information
– Conscious processes rely on culture
• People look to each other first
– Conformity research!
The boy who was raised as a girl
Culture and Nature
• What does the case of “Little Brenda” suggest about culture and
nature?
• Innate versus socialized
Next Time…
• The Self..
• Self-Esteem
• Reality vs. Illusions