Comment and give an opinion about the topics below: please use your own words.
Attraction and Relationships
Particularly in this country, we tend to have idealized notions of friendship, attraction, and love. But the social psychologists who initially began studying interpersonal relationships and interpersonal attraction did not. They tended to take a more economics approach to relationships. Students who encounter these economic approaches sometimes reject them immediately because they dont match our typical worldview of relationships. Although recent research, as your book discussed throughout chapters 11 & 12, demonstrates that there is much more than interpersonal economics to human relationships of all kinds, lets consider some of these early theories briefly here and try to take from them something that will help us in real life.
Social Exchange Theory
Social exchange theory plainly takes an economic approach to relationships. It suggests that we weigh our happiness in a relationship by keeping tabs of costs and benefits. Before we go on, do you think people actually do this? Hmm
Have you ever made a list of the pros and cons of a potential romantic partner? Have you ever been sick of a friend who never seems to give back to you, but always needs your support? Simply substitute the language of costs and benefits here, and think about if similar examples apply.
If we admit that there is more to relationship than economics, we can consider how much of relationship is basically economical. What do you think? I expect that we can all think of situations in which we weigh costs and benefits of relationships, but how much do we do so? Maybe its not even always done intentionally or consciously. Do you tend to have a feel for how much your current relationship, or maybe your last relationship, is/was equal? Isnt wanting relationships to be equal or fair really considering the costs and benefits?
But social exchange theory doesnt stop there. It further suggests that we not only consider the ratio of costs and benefits, but that we consider comparison levels. That is, we dont just think about the cost/benefit ratio of our current relationship in a vacuum, but we compare them to others we know. Is your relationship more equal or more beneficial than your best friends current relationship? How about compared to your parents relationship?
Lets take it another step, and consider comparison level of alternatives. Now, we are not talking about comparing our relationship to others relationships, but comparing our relationship with other potential relationships that we think we could have instead. How much are you putting into your current relationship versus how much are you getting out of it? Now, think about an alternative partner- maybe someone you know who is attractive and you could potentially be with if you were not with your partner. Now imagine what your relationship would be like with this person, and compare that to your current relationship. If you were with the other person, would you be putting more or less into the relationship? Would you be getting more or less out of it? Thats a comparison level of the alternative.
Even though social exchange theory is in the language of economics, we can find some truth there. All of us, now necessarily intentionally or always consciously, keep tabs about whether our relationship is equal or fair. We all get frustrated when it feels like we are putting in more than we are getting out of a relationship. And we compare our relationships to others as well as compare our partners to potential other partners. As I said, this isnt the only thing that we think about in relationships, but it is one thing.
The shifting nature of Love
Keeping tabs of costs and benefits and making constant comparisons often characterizes the early stages of relationships. But things change over time. We can consider how love shifts in Sternbergs model of love, and when we track happiness and passion in marriages over time. We can think of how physical attraction and the feeling of euphoric being in love shape early stages, but become less important over time. After developing trust, intimacy, and friendship, the later stages of a relationship only vaguely resemble how it all began (at least in our culture). Relationships often run into trouble when one or both people hold the idea that the relationship will never leave the passionate in love stage. Relationships tend to grow much stronger when people accept the fact that they shift, or grow over time. Certainly all relationships do not grow in the same way or into the same thing, but overwhelmingly the research in social psychology says that relationships change over time.
Baumeister and Bushman discuss some underlying motives for relationships, as well as gender differences in what is attractive and what is important. They discuss predictors of initial attraction, and cultural differences in love, friendship, and attraction. All of these details are important, but what I most hope that you take from our study of interpersonal relationships and attraction is that there is much more to human relationships than our cultural ideals. We have realistic concerns of cost/benefit (particularly early on), underlying motives for what is attractive and what we want from a relationship, and our relationships shift over time. There are both universal and culture-specific patterns to relationships, and understanding both help us better understand the social psychological approach to studying interpersonal relationships and attraction.
Stereotyping, Prejudice, & Discrimination from the Social Thinker
To properly understand the nature of stereotypes and prejudice, it is important to remember our view how the social thinker perceives the self and others. Now we will extend this discussion beyond single individuals to how the social thinker perceives groups of people. (Please note: students often find it helpful at this point to quickly review the learning guide on the Social Thinker that was assigned early in the class.)
Before we proceed, lets try a simple exercise: Take a moment to write down (or at least think of) at least 5 groups of which you are a member. These can be formal groups, informal groups, or anything- just 5 groups of which you are a member.
As discussed in Chapters 13 and 14 of your book, when we begin to consider how the social thinker categorizes and perceives groups of people we necessarily discuss stereotyping. As your book suggests, the term stereotype can be thought of as a generalized belief about a group. Thus, although we commonly think of stereotyping in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and other more loaded social topics, we can also hold stereotypes about any group. We can stereotype families, clicks in school, careers, towns, and any other group you can think of. When I think of 5 groups of which I am a member, I can think of my family, my profession (psychology), my basketball team, my ethnicity and gender, and my group of friends. Considering these groups, I could quickly think about stereotypes about redneck families in the southeast U.S., professors, jocks, white guys, and hippies. Someone who knew my group memberships could think of me with any of those stereotypes. If you can generalize some belief about a group (which, as the book discusses is a normal categorization process in social thinking) then you have stereotyped. One of the major points from this section of the course, though, is that stereotyping is not the same thing as prejudice or discrimination. See the book for further detail of these definitions.
Stereotypes are part of our categorization process in social thinking. Can you imagine what it would be like if we couldnt make these categorizations? No mental shortcuts involving people? Can you imagine the immense amount of mental resources we would be using all the time without categorization shortcuts? Social thinking would certainly be much more demanding on our cognitive systems.
Ingroups and Outgroups
When we perceive groups, we naturally tend to favor our groups over others. Think about the social thinking biases that we have for the self and others, and extend this logic to groups. We naturally tend to see our groups more positively as a result of these processes. Thus, we see general tendencies such as:
Ethnocentrism (ingroup favoritism)
Outgroup homogeneity (thinking that people in other groups are more similar to each other than are people from your ingroup)
Simplistic outgroup view (overgeneralizations)
Exaggerated differences between groups
Can you think of an example from real life for each of these tendencies?
Why do these group perception biases happen?
If you cant answer these questions, be sure to read chapters 13 & 14.
In addition to the automatic categorization mentioned processes above, your book also discusses the role of social identity and other motives. Your book provides an excellent discussion of how and why we make group generalizations and compare our groups to others. Within your textbook, look for the of the 1950s study by Sherif, which is often called the Robbers Cave study (because thats the name of the state park where it was conducted). This is a classic study done with a boys camp on how groups can form easily, and how group identity can predict a number of group competition behaviors. As this study shows, tt turns out to be very difficult make the two groups come together as one when they initially disliked each other, and this can only occur under specific conditions. When the researchers started this study, they imagined that creating harmony between the groups would be so difficult. The results were a surprise then, and continue to surprise many students of psychology today.
Heres a podcast of a social psychologist, Michael Britt, describing this study and its relation to conflict resolution (note: you have to wait for a few minutes before he actually starts talking about the study).
http://www.thepsychfiles.com/2007/06/episode-20-conflict-resolution-a-classic-psychological-studyLinks to an external site.
As with the other forms of social thinking, your text demonstrates how specific motives lead to certain behaviors. I will keep the present lecture short because Chapter 13 of your book provides an excellent discussion. As you read and learn about how the social thinker perceives groups, maintain your focus on why this happens in addition to what happens.
Traditional versus Modern Racism
Compared to decades past, we less frequently hear of overtly racist or prejudice behaviors these days (although they do still occur). If we dont see it happening overtly, does that mean prejudice and discrimination has gone away in our country?
Social psychologists would say, no. Rather than having gone away, research in social psychology suggests that prejudice has simply shifted from overt to more subtle forms. Your book does a good job of discussing key research on Modern Racism. In addition I have listed some of the ways in which Modern Racism exists today, but appears invisible:
People not willing to express racist views
People less likely to act on their prejudice
Racists feelings more likely to be manifest when discrimination cannot be construed as racists, such as:
Interpreting ambiguous behaviors or inferences
Making assumptions about others
Making attributions for behavior
Racist feelings tend to be exhibited in opposition to policies and programs that might favor minorities
So if the list above characterizes the new form of racism, have things gotten better socially in our country? Why or why not?
We can also think about racism (or sexism) from an alternative perspective of understanding what privilege means. Please read the article on Canvas by Peggy McIntosh titled, White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Even though this article was written more than 25 years ago, the point remains true. As you read what the author carries in her invisible knapsack please take a few minutes to think about what is the same now? And what has changed? What else do peoples knapsacks carry that are different than in 1990 (before the invention of smart phones, social media, etc.).
Recall all the way back to one of our first learning guides, on the Self. Remember when I said that the Self serves as a filter and a reference point? (If not, quickly look at that learning guide again.) Now think about the different filters and reference points for two people: one who has lived life since birth with privilege and another who has lived without such privilege. Think about how these two people automatically see the world differently and make different assumptions about others based on their learned reference points.
