Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
Easy as pieThere’s a great rock video out by a band named Cake that demonstrates the influence of persuadee participation perfectly. In the video, a man walks around a beach, asking real people to put headphones on and listen to the new song. They’re encouraged to comment on the song. This is a much more powerful advertising technique than if the man just walked up with a sign that read, “Check out Cake’s new song. In stores now!” The persuadees are participating in their own manipulation. It’s beautiful. I don’t know if the video makers were thinking this way, but if they were, they hit on a great persuasion technique!
Blaming the boob tubeI’ve watched violent television all my life, and I don’t consider myself a violent person. The research is clear though, the more violent a child’s television viewing is, the more aggressive the child is (Eron, 1987). There’s little denying it. Hearold in 1986, conducted a comprehensive review of over 230 studies and concluded that watching aggressive behavior leads to aggressive behavior. My question is, why is there so much violence on television? Do we get something out of it? Is it an emotionally arousing persuasion technique used by corporations to sell their goods? I don’t know, but I think we should look at reasons behind the inclusion of so much violence on TV.
Although most of us would like to think that we’re civilized, it’s hard to ignore all the violence and aggression around us. Some of the most horrific acts of aggression were committed in the twentieth century, not in some savage society in our remote past. Examples abound — Pol Pot’s Cambodian genocide, the Holocaust, Mao Tse-tung’s killing of 26 million people, and in recent years, the Rwandan civil war. These are mass atrocities, but every day, we’re confronted with smaller-scale, but nevertheless as horrible, acts of violence and aggression. Domestic violence, child abuse, murder, rape, and assault are all around us. Unfortunately, most of us have had some experience with at least one of these forms of violence and aggression. Why do we act this way? Why are we violent toward one another? Psychologists have searched for answers to these questions by studying
aggression,
a form of violence.
Aggression
can be defined as any behavior that is directed at and intended to hurt another person or persons. Two subtypes exist:
Hostile aggression:
Driven by anger and is and end in itself
Instrumental aggression:
Used to serve some other purpose, such as intimidation or extortion
Most of the theories about aggression ask why we commit hostile aggression. What if I can’t help it? Several theories exist.
Maybe I was born with a violent instinct and a genetic predisposition to act aggressively. It does seem that some children are born more aggressive than others. Freud felt that we are born with aggressive instincts, and genetic studies have shown that identical twins are more likely to be more equally aggressive than fraternal twins (Rushton et al, 1986).
Some research also shows higher levels of the hormone testosterone in both men and women convicted of violent crimes when compared to those convicted on non-violent crimes (Dabbs, 1988).
Our brains may actually have something to do with it as well. Specific centers in the brain seem to be implicated in producing and inhibiting aggressive behaviors. Individuals with severe damage to the frontal lobes of the brain have long been observed as having more difficulty controlling their aggressive impulses because this inhibition is seen as one of the functions of the frontal lobe. This difficulty with controlling aggression is a disinhibition process.
Maybe I’m just frustrated? I’m one of those drivers who gets angry when I’m stuck in traffic. Now, I don’t curse out my window at people or get into fistfights, but I sure do get frustrated. In 1989, Berkowitz found that sometimes frustration leads to aggression, and sometimes it doesn’t. When we get frustrated, we get angry, and when we feel angry, we’re predisposed to act aggressively. It’s like our bodies and minds are poised, or on alert, to act with aggression. The trigger comes when we make a cognitive evaluation of a situation and conclude that the person who is ticking us off did so on purpose. This scenario is likely to produce an aggressive response (Weiner, 1981). So if you step on my toes, you’d better hope that it was an accident.
Maybe I’m just a product of my environment? I may have learned how to act aggressively by watching other people do it. Albert Bandura would agree.
Social learning theory
holds that aggressive behavior is learned by observing others and by seeing them rewarded for such behavior. Little boys are often rewarded for being tough. We pay boxers tens of millions of dollars to beat people up. We reward aggressive acts on a regular basis in our society. What child wouldn’t see the benefits of aggression in such an environment?
Television violence has come under fire in recent years because of the dramatic increase in youth violence. Americans watch a lot of television. Even as far back as 1972, Gallup polls reported that Americans watch an average of seven hours of TV a day. I’m sure that number is higher today. Regardless of our opinions on violence and television, the fact is that there’s a lot of violence on the tube. In 1990, Gerbner found that seven out of ten programs contain violent scenes, with primetime programming containing five violent acts per hour. No doubt about it, we get a heavy dose of violent images from television.
I’ve always marveled at people like Mother Teresa who devote their entire lives to helping others. Her sacrifice was unquestionable. What drives people to help in this way? It certainly wasn’t money. I never saw Mother Teresa driving around in a Rolls Royce.
Altruism,
having concern for and helping other people without asking for anything in return, seems to have been a favorite topic among social psychologists. Maybe, they studied altruism with such zeal because it’s an integral part of our everyday lives. Nearly every day, we’re presented with a situation in which someone needs our help, even if it’s those sad, late-night commercials showing starving children in developing nations.
I think that most of us like to see ourselves as helpful people. If we’re not particularly helpful, then at least we’re willing to help in certain situations or when the need is severe. Hundreds, if not thousands, of studies conducted by social psychologists have investigated why, when, and who we actually help. Some of the findings are surprising, even shocking.
In New York City, 1964, a woman named Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered outside of her apartment by a man with a knife. She struggled with the attacker and screamed for help for nearly 35 minutes. No one came to her aid. There were later reports by 38 of her neighbors stating that they had witnessed the crime and heard her screams, but they did nothing to help her.
What happened here? Why didn’t anyone help her? I’m sure that as you’re reading this you’re saying to yourself that you would have helped. When I first heard this account I thought, “What was wrong with those people?” Think about it though. What are the chances that all 38 people were cold, callous individuals who didn’t care about a woman being murdered within earshot? The chances aren’t good. The Kitty Genovese story illustrates the main point of social psychology — the power of the situation was a major factor in determining each individual’s behavior.
Before I introduce you to some of the main theories of why we perform altruistic acts, I want to conduct a little mini-experiment.
The next time you’re in a public place, try one of these out:
Experiment #1:
Drop five coins on the floor near a group of people and act like you don’t notice. Time how long it takes for someone to help you. Try to remember as much about them as you can.
Experiment #2:
Pretend to trip and fall in the same public place. Make the same observations.
If you performed these experiments, what happened? Who helped you? How long did it take? Do you know why they helped you? I know — it was probably because of your stunning good looks. Believe it or not, as I cover later in this section, attractiveness does make a difference.
Theories about why we actually help cover a wide range:
Social exchange theory:
Helping as a type of trading process.
Selfishness theory:
We help to get something out of it.
Genetic theory:
Helping is part of our genetic makeup.
Foa and Foa introduced
social-exchange theory,
the idea that helping is part of a reciprocal process of giving and receiving social “goods” such as love, support, and services. Each of us tries to minimize our costs and maximize our benefits, just like any good businessperson would do. In helping situations, if the benefit of helping is higher than the cost of not helping, we are more likely to help. This kind of makes sense if you consider that sometimes helping people involves putting ourselves at physical risk or serious inconvenience.
In the 1950s, Ayn Rand wrote
Atlas Shrugged,
a famous philosophical novel that promoted the “virtue of selfishness.” If each of us looks out for numero uno, all will be well. Rand was not alone in thinking that selfishness wasn’t all that bad. Similar to social-exchange theory, other social psychologists, including Carlsmith and Gross, have argued that helping behavior is driven by our own selfish interests. We give in order to receive. Some rewards are external, like praise and notoriety, and others are internal, like reducing negative feelings such as guilt.
These theories sound pretty cynical don’t they? I’m sure that the money I drop in the Salvation Army donation can on the street corner comes straight from my heart. But research does give some credence to these selfish theories. Krebsin found that men who showed the most physiological distress (increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and so on) were more likely to help someone than those who were less distressed. If we’re not bothered, I guess we don’t bother to help. Okay, I admit it. I only put money in the Salvation Army can so that nagging person ringing the bell will shut up! Or do I?
In 1991, Daniel Batson came to the rescue of our sense of goodness with his theory that we help people because each of us has a natural
empathy
for other people, especially those we’re attached to.
Hoffman found that even infants seem to possess the naturally ability to “feel for” others. They cry when they hear another baby cry. Are they just crying because the other baby’s crying is hurting their ears? No, it’s because they are in touch with the other baby’s pain. A lot of us can relate to feeling upset at the sight of another person’s misfortune. This natural empathy may encourage us to help.
But if empathy doesn’t take care of it, we always have our
social norms
for helping. Gouldner’s
reciprocity norm
holds that we should return help to those who help us. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. In turn, we don’t hurt those who help us. Never bite the hand that feeds you! There’s only one catch to this theory: Sometimes, people can get offended if you offer them help. If they can’t return the favor, they may feel demeaned by the offer. Reciprocity works best when it’s between equals.
How often do you help those people who stand on the side of the street holding the “Will work for food” signs? Do you feel a responsibility to help them? They’re hoping you do. Another norm (see “Playing Your Part” section at the beginning of the chapter), the
norm of social responsibility
holds that people should help others who need it. Weiner in 1980, however, found that we typically apply this norm only in situations in which we perceive the person needing help as not having caused the situation due to her own negligence or fault. If we think that the person only needs help because she “did it to herself,” we’re not likely to use the norm of social responsibility. Do you think that the guy standing with the sign on the side of the street made some bad choices or somehow screwed up? Ask him; you never know until you ask. You may be eschewing your social responsibility.
Richard Dawkins wrote
The Selfish Gene
in 1976 and proposed that people are altruistic because their genes compel them to be. The idea of
kin protection
states that genes promote altruistic behavior toward kin or family in order to ensure the survival of the group’s genetic makeup. Following this line of reasoning, I’m much less likely to help someone I don’t know. Why would I? They don’t share my genes. The more genetic material I share with someone, the more likely I am to help him or her. That’s it. Nothing fancy.
I empathize about your sympathySome people get confused between empathy and sympathy. Empathy involves a more personal understanding of someone’s suffering, and sympathy is more distant and impersonal. It’s kind of like imagining being in someone else’s shoes (empathy) versus feeling sorry for the person who’s actually in those shoes (sympathy).