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User:Melissadedrick

What is Social Psychology?
It is difficult to actually define ‘Social Psychology’. There is no definite, agreed upon definition. There are many varying definitions that all combine to contribute to the meaning of Social Psychology. Some of these definitions include:

 * 1) Human Behaviour in social context. (J. Neill, 2008)
 * 2) How the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others. (F. Allport, 1935)
 * 3) A joint function of personal and situational influences. (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008)
 * 4) Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact. (Wikipedia, Social Psychology )

What all of these definitions do agree upon however is the importance of our affect/feelings, behaviours, and thoughts/cognitions and how they shape and are shaped by our interaction in the social world. These interactions can occur between two individuals, an individual to a group, and a group to another group. The image below helps to demonstrate the many influences and interactions that surround social psychology.

There are 3 domains that Social Psychology is comprised of. These are:

 * Social Perceptions = How we interpret social objects.
 * Social Influence = Attitudes and behaviours brought about by others.
 * Social Interaction = How we interact with others in the social world.

Food for thought!
When setting out on this E-portfolio endeavour, James had a few wise words for us. Something in particular that caught my interest was … “Feel free to comment on other people’s postings. But don’t just do editing others pages anytime you feel like it. There’s a respect that needs to be shown for other people’s pages and contributions”. This got me thinking about socially accepted rules of behaviour online. Although we are participating in an online open forum like Wikiversity, which is an online free-content media which allows anyone to create or edit the content available, there seems to be an unspoken set of rules that those interacting with each other online are obliged to abide by.

So I did a bit of looking around on the internet regarding unspoken socially accepted behaviours online, and found an interesting blog on Problogger that had been written that addressed the idea, “What are the Unspoken Rules of Social Networks?”, by Daniel Scocco.

The post talks about social networks and what is and what is not expected in the behaviour of its users. Essentially, it comes down to the users needing to play under the rules of the community, ‘Usually these rules will encourage you to be active in the community and to actually help it grow’. So I guess in essence it’s like the saying goes, treat others as you yourself would like to be treated.

Just thought this was an interesting ‘social’ idea to think about! Melissadedrick 06:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Psyche
A persons psyche is their psychological mind, as opposed to the brain which is a physiological entity. It cannot be found in any one place in the brain but is a by-product of mental activity which happens through an individual learning and interacting with the environment. The psyche is influenced by factors both part of nature and of culture. These natural things include genes, hormones and brain structure. The cultural things include learned experiences that we’ve had from within our home and out in society.

Nature
Nature is – the physical world around us, include its laws and processes (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p. 32).

One of the ways in which some social psychologists have tried to explain our social behaviour is the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution, proposed by biologist Charles Darwin in the 1800’s, explains how change occurs in nature. How a type of plant or animal may evolve into a somewhat different kind of creature. As a result of these changes, some features may remain and others will disappear. This is known as natural selection. Natural selection is a process whereby those members of a species that survive and reproduce most effectively are the ones that pass along their genes to future generations (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p. 33). Therefore, natural selection chooses which traits will disappear and which ones will endure.

Culture
Culture is – an information-based system of abstract ideas which a group of people share.

These ideas may be common ways of doing things, ways of communicating between people, or ways of thinking about certain things.

Humans are both social and cultural animals. In other words, humans are animals which seek to connect with others and learn from others, preferring to live, work and play with other members of their species. Further, evolution has shaped the human psyche to enable the creation of culture and take part in this culture. This culture includes the division of labor, the deliberate sharing of knowledge, and being able to resolve conflict in different ways.

Human Social Life

 * Nature Says Go, Culture Says No

It’s the hedonistic part of our nature that tells us to go and give in to our impulses and wishes, to just give in to our automatic responses that are our survival or animal instincts. However, it is our culturally learnt self control and restraint that helps us to find a balance between meeting our needs and acting cooperatively and appropriately within the culture (following things such as moral codes and laws).

Cultural Evolutionary Theory
The notion of how humans acquire cultural rules and then balance these with their human impulses is an interesting one.

A paper by Brian Paciotti, Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd (date unknown) explores this in their research about cultural evolutionary theory. Cultural evolutionary theory links individual-level and society-level phenomena (p. 1).

The research offers many opinions and ideas on the mechanisms of the brain and how our natural actions are taught to be confined by our learned cultural rules. Some of the main points that are discussed include:

 * Research on conformity suggests that regardless of pre-existing habits, people are susceptible to the influence of others (p. 3).

 * An understanding of the intricacies of the human imitation in regards to their population-level effects is a major outstanding question (p. 4).

 * Co-evolutionary processes create innate “social instincts” that result in the capacity for individuals to function within group-level sets of cultural rules or social institutions (p. 4).

 * At the innate level, all humans share the same social psychology. At the cultural level, quite diverse institutions inform people who are in their groups, how members should be rewarded and punished, and how other groups should be treated (p. 5).

Melissadedrick 10:05, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The Self
The self is made up of three components:

 * Self knowledge or self-concept = includes self-awareness, self-esteem, self-deception
 * Interpersonal self = includes self-presentation, member of groups, relationship partner, social roles (gender, ethnicity, social identity), reputation.
 * Agent self or executive function = includes decision making, self-control, taking charge of situations, active responding.

The “self” is how an individual would describe themselves. Essentially, it is a pile of descriptives that we use to characterise somebody as different to somebody else. Can also include things such as what an individual may value or promote such as political or religious viewpoints.

What is the purpose of the “self”?

There are many varied theories and perspectives about the purpose and the function of the “self”. From a psychological stand point, the “self” is seen as a collection of cognitively-held beliefs that a person possesses about themselves. However, the “self” seems to extend beyond the physical self to include psychologically meaningful personal possessions and personal space.

The self is a very complex thing and has come to be seen as something which is:
 * Dynamic and changeable
 * Multiple/Plural
 * Hierarchical
 * Situationally and cognitively influenced
 * Culturally constructed

The Social Self
A large and significant portion of our “self” and its “behaviour” is socially directed and influenced. This is due to the fact that humans are group-based creatures and we seek out social contact with others of our species. Therefore, a lot of the behaviour that we engage in is directed into some sort of social context.

Because the “social self” is such a large and significant part of the “self”, it’s important for us to gain social acceptance. In order to be socially accepted we play these certain social roles where society creates and defines these roles which then individuals seek out and adopt these roles in order to pave their way and be accepted in society.

Self Constructs
There are ways in which to measure and study aspects of the self. This is through the operationalisation of these self constructs:

 * Self-Esteem
 * Self-Concept
 * Self-Efficacy
 * Self-Congruence

Self-Esteem The most commonly referred to self construct is self-esteem. It refers to global feelings of self-worth or self-value. Most of what makes up one’s self esteem doesn’t so much come from within, but is often based on and closely related to social comparisons (ie. Too fat/too thin, not smart enough).

Self-Concept We have a multidimensional, hierarchically structured domain of self-concept which includes concepts of physical self-concept, academic self-concept and social self-concept. There is a debate surrounding our projections of self-concept and whether the set of self cognitions we have flow from the top down (ie. Whether we have global self impressions which filter down into our specific aspects of self) OR whether we get our global impressions by the addition of all the specific contexts within which we see ourselves in.

Self-Efficacy Self-efficacy is the belief in ones ability to succeed at a given task. This may be ones belief in their capacity to perform well in a test or being able to create a rapport with children in a classroom.

Self-Congruence Self-congruence is where the sets of ideas and information that you hold about your actual self, your ideal self, and your personally experiences to create these ideas of self, must be congruent to each other. If there is a particular incongruence between any of these three aspects, then we will experience certain anxiety about ourselves.

Food for thought!
The Looking-Glass Self

The looking-glass self is one theory which addresses the notion of how people learn about themselves. This theory presents the idea that people learn about themselves by imaging how they appear to others. The term was coined by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902, who proposed that there are three components to the looking-glass self:

 * 1) You imagine how you appear to others.
 * 2) You imagine how others will judge you.
 * 3) You develop an emotional response (such as pride or mortification) as a result of imagining how others will judge you.

(Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p. 80).

This theory was influential in its idea that people learn about themselves from others. However, does this mean that if someone lived in total isolation and never met another person that you would never learn anything about yourself??

The notion of the looking-glass self has been studied and found to be both partly correct and partly incorrect. From studies just like George Herbert Mead’s in 1934, there is ample evidence to show that people greatly respond to the feedback that they receive from others. HOWEVER, if the looking-glass self really is the main source of self-knowledge, then you would think that the things that everyone else thinks about someone and how that person thinks about themselves would be pretty much the same!! But most research suggests that a person’s self-concept is often quite different from what other people think about them (Shrauger & Schoeneman, 1979).

Melissadedrick 00:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Social Thinking
Initially influenced by the movement of behaviourist thought, social thinking can otherwise be thought about as social cognition. The concept focuses on thoughts about people and social relationships in the world around you. Our social perception consists of what we create and store in our minds regarding our social world such as how we form impressions of people or how we come to learn why people do the things that they do.

Social Perception
Our social perception is created and influenced through different means:

 * Communication – both verbal and non verbal (body and facial language, dress, tone of voice)

 * Impression formation and management – which explains how we form initial social impressions through thinking about people in terms of social categories, stereotypes, schemas (which are structures of knowledge stored in the mind which represent information about a particular concept) and scripts (which are structures of knowledge stored in the mind which define situations and guide our behaviour according to that situation).

 * Attribution Theory – which explains how we form deeper social impressions based on observed behaviour.

The Duplex Mind
There are a lot of mind processes that occur regarding social cognition, both automatic/unconscious and conscious processes. We most often rely on our automatic processes when our system is under stress, when we’re tired, distracted by something else important etc. This can also be seen in research done on eyewitness testimony where one event is recalled by eyewitnesses in different ways due to the difference in perceptions of the event under significant stress. When not under stress, we are much more free and able to take time over processing information and use our conscious thinking processes.

Attributions
Attributions are the inferences people make about events in their lives and the causal explanations people give to their own, and to other peoples, behaviours.

We make these attributions to feel a sense of cognitive control, to be able to partly predict the future, and then this prediction gives some sort of a guide as to how to respond appropriately to the given event or behaviours.

Attributions can be explained by internal and external factors. The Correspondence Inference Theory explains attributions saying that a correspondent inference is made when a behaviour is made to correspond to a person’s internal beliefs. We are most likely to make such a correspondence with a behaviour when we perceive that behaviour to be freely chosen, intended, to have uncommon or unusual consequences, and has low social desirability. This correspondence describes the perception of behaviour to be internal. The Correspondence Bias, which would be to perceive the behaviour as having common consequences and be highly socially desirable, would be attributed to external factors.

Additionally, the actor/observer bias states that actors tend to attribute their behaviour to mostly external factors as we are fully aware and informed of what has contributed to our behaviour. We also are not able to see one’s self behaving. Observers are attributed with performing behaviour which is due to internal factors. This is generally because we are not aware and informed of contributed to their actions and therefore find it easier to attribute another’s actions to internal factors.

Heuristics
Heuristics are mental shortcuts or rules of thumb. They provide us with quick estimates about the likelihood of uncertain events.

The representative heuristic is the tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the extent to which it resembles the typical case. In making these judgements people rely on specific information, the representativeness of how much a particular event resembles the characteristics which are stored to identify that event.

The availability heuristic is the tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind. The ease with which these relevant instances come to mind is influenced by a number of factors: the actual frequency of the event, how noticeable the event is, how recent the event is, and whether attention was paid to the event. This also explains why people tend to overestimate the frequency of events such as dramatic deaths.

The simulation heuristic is the tendency to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by the ease with which you can imagine or mentally simulate an event. This explains why more easily imagined events are judged to be more likely. People tend to respond more emotionally to situations when they can easily imagine a different outcome.

Aggression
Aggression is any behaviour that intentionally harms another person who is motivated to avoid that harm. Extended from aggression, violence is aggression that has extreme harm as its goal. Aggression and acts of violence are often associated with antisocial behaviour, as this kind of behaviour damages interpersonal relations and/or is culturally undesirable. Ironically, aggressive acts very seldom achieve or produce the intended, desired consequences and therefore often bring about serious unintended consequences, mostly antisocial ones.

Aggressions: Innate or Learned?
Freud proposed that people have an innate instinct that causes them to behave aggressively. However, social learning theory enforces that aggression is not an innate drive but is a learned behaviour. Learning and cultural socialisation, where people observe and copy the behaviour of others around them, can either inhibit or encourage aggressive action. In essence, aggression is a product of both nature and learning.

Inner Causes of Aggression
In 1939 a group of psychologists published a book which proposed the frustration-aggression hypothesis. This hypothesis proposed that: “the occurrence of aggressive behaviour always presupposes the existence of frustration” and “the existence of frustration always leads to some form of aggression” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p. 299). This hypothesis was based on Freud’s ideas mentioned just above regarding human’s innate instincts, where we are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The frustration-aggression hypothesis deemed to explain that people became frustrated when their pleasure-seeking or pain-avoiding behaviour got blocked and so therefore acted out aggressively. However, it was soon after found that there can be aggression without frustration, and frustration without aggression.

Anger and unpleasant moods increase likelihood of aggression. Although anger does not directly cause aggressive behaviour, the belief that aggression can help get rid of anger effectively increases it.

There are three hostile cognitive biases:

 * Hostile attribution bias – the tendency to perceive ambiguous actions by others as aggressive.

 * Hostile perception bias – the tendency to perceive social interactions in general as being aggressive.

 * Hostile expectation bias – the tendency to assume that people will react to potential conflicts with aggression.

These concepts explain how people are much more likely to behave aggressively when they perceive ambiguous behaviours from others as stemming from hostile intentions than when they perceive these behaviours as coming from other intentions.

It has also been found in cultures and societies around the world that young men past the age of puberty commit the most violent acts and crimes.

External Causes of Aggression
The weapons effect is a concept which was coined in order to explain the phenomenon that people behave more aggressively in the mere presence of a weapon.

Following on from this idea, research in the area of aggression has shown that exposure to violent media increases aggression.

Environmental factors greatly contribute to increased levels of aggression. Hotter temperatures are associated with higher levels of aggression and violence. Also unpleasant environmental events such as loud noise, overbearing crowds, foul odours, air pollution, and second hand smoke can increase aggression.

Furthermore, lifestyle factors such as consuming lots of junk food and alcohol can lead to increased aggression.

Aggression and Society
Aggression is universal, however cultural rules restrict and govern aggression in different ways. These rules have been developed as a better way of surviving in a social world and offers ways of resolving conflicts and problems in a non-violent manner. However, there are people within society who chose to break these rules. Violent individuals typically think of themselves as better than other people, having grandiose or inflated opinions of their own worth. The term ‘’narcissism’’ describes the condition of thinking that oneself is superior, feeling entitled to preferential treatment, having low empathy for “lesser” human beings.

Ghosts of Rwanda
The television documentary ‘Ghosts of Rwanda’ chronicles the Rwandan genocide on 1993. Watching this was incredibly emotional and left me stunned. All I could think was that it showed to us the ultimate act of aggression and violence. The film covers the mass killing of hundred of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis and Hutus. Over the course of about 100 days, atleast 500 000 people were killed. The genocide was fuelled by a resurgence of civil war between the Hutu and Tutsi militias. This horrific event demonstrates the involvement of many aspects of social psychological phenomena such as prejudice, discrimination, altruism and particularly aggression. It also presents significant evidence for the concept of confirmation bias, related to issues of prejudice, whereby humans have the tendency to seek out information that confirms their own views, and to disregard evidence that is contrary to those views. Although there are psychological concepts which help to explain the reasoning behind such atrocious acts, you just cannot grasp how something so horrible can be done.

Prejudice
The term prejudice is defined as a negative feeling or attitude toward an individual based solely on his or her membership in a particular group (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p. 403). These prejudiced feelings can lead people to discriminate against others. Discrimination refers to the unequal treatment of different people based on the groups or categories to which they belong. Interestingly, sometimes discrimination can occur without prejudiced feelings. This might occur for logistical reasons such as holding a height requirement to go on a ride at the theme park. This may mean that this requirement might discriminate against children, short statured people, or the elderly, however no prejudice against these groups was part of this discrimination. One of the factors associated with discrimination is stigmas. Stigmas are characteristics of individuals that are considered socially unacceptable. These can include being overweight, mentally ill, sick, poor etc. Individuals with stigmas are often the targets of prejudice and discrimination. Even those who are merely associated with a stigmatised person can be discriminated against.

Stereotypes are beliefs that associate groups of people with certain traits. This refers to what we think and believe about various groups and can be either good or bad. Stereotypes are hard to change, even if they are constantly being disconfirmed. One of the reasons why we do this is that people tend to put exceptions to the rules into another category which is called a subtype. Subtypes are categories that people use for individuals who do not fit a general stereotype.

Most stereotypes are negative and most prejudices depict outgroups as inferior and as having bad traits. Outgroup members, or “them”, are people who belong to a different group or category than we do. In opposition, ingroup members, or “us”, are people who belong to the same group or category as we do.

Some more common prejudices are associated with race, ethnicity, religion, gender, weight, and sexuality.

Why does prejudice exist?
Stereotypes and prejudices are learned through socialisation. However research has shown that the tendency to hold stereotypes and prejudices may be innate. This stems from the tendency for humans to align with similar others and contest against different others. This contest includes forming negative stereotypes and discriminating against these others. Ingroup favouritism supports this idea where there are more favourable attitudes towards and preferential treatment of people in one’s own group.

Evolution may have had a hand in instilling this readiness in us to form groups and hold prejudices against rival groups. The discontinuity effect suggests that groups are more prone to hostile competitiveness than individuals are. This has, it is thought, something to do with the evolutionary idea of realistic conflict theory which suggests that competition between groups over scarce resources leads to intergroup hostility and conflict.

Overcoming Stereotypes and Reducing Prejudice
People overcome prejudice by making conscious efforts to be fair and equal. The ‘’contact hypothesis’’’ proposes an initiative to help reduce prejudice and overcome stereotypes. The hypothesis proposes that regular interaction between members of different groups reduces prejudice. However, it does only work under extremely limited conditions whereby members of both groups must be of equal status, the contact must be positive, and the outgroup members must be seen as typical members of their group. This proposal deems to address the idea that prejudice stems from ignorance. According to this view, people who have very little contact with other groups have no information about them. This hypothesis suggests that if people could resolve ignorance by having more interactions and gaining first hand information about outgroups, then prejudice would diminish.

Stereotypes and Prejudice in Australian Society
A research study conducted by David Mellor (2003) from Deakin University, Australia looked at the racism experiences by Aborigines in Australia. The study, ‘Contemporary Racism in Australia: The Experiences of Aborigines’ came to find that the racism experience of Aboriginal people within Australia is severe and pervasive. Mellor found that there was substantial agreement among his interviewees that non-Aboriginal people hold negative stereotypes about Aboriginal people. He states that the stereotypes held are seen to be freely perpetuated in society by both individuals and the media. I think that due to the complete rejection of Australian Aboriginal history and culture which happened as a result of complete British invasion, the stereotypes and prejudice that exist in society are partly due to the issue of ignorance about the people and their culture. There is so much of a need to create a relationship with the Indigenous community of Australia, learn their history, learn about their culture, their stories, their thoughts, and them as people. They are one of the most over-researched people in the entire world. So why do we not seem to know anything about them??

The Need to Belong
Throughout the field of social psychology, much research suggests that Homo sapiens seem to need contact with other members of their species and experience a powerful drive to form and maintain relationships. According to social brain theory, the driving force behind the evolution of intelligence and the brain was the need to understand others so as to form and maintain these relationships. People usually form relationships easily and readily but are reluctant to let them end. Belongingness consists of two parts: regular social contact with others, and close, stable, mutually intimate contact.

Attraction

 * Ingratiation is what we actively do to try and make someone like you. These things can include giving someone a compliment or sending someone flowers.

 * Similarity is a significantly common cause of attraction. This describes how we tend to like those who are similar to us. These similarities can come from many factors regarding a particular person such as race, class, ethnicity, also values, beliefs, attitudes, political viewpoints, and physical attractiveness. It is also a lot easier for those who are similar to maintain and sustain their relationship as opposed to those who are dissimilar. A relationship of dissimilar people can sometimes lead to cognitively dissonant.

 * The Matching Hypothesis – states that people tend to pair up with others who are similar to them in physical attractiveness. People are naturally, thought of as a result of evolutionary processes, attracted to those who are more similar to themselves than those who are different or ‘exotic’. We tend to easily fall into liking those who are culturally similar to us.

 * Propinquity – being near someone on a regular basis causes attraction. However, it can also lead to conflict and friction.

Rejection

 * Ostracism refers to being excluded, rejected and ignored by others.

 * The initial reaction to rejection is often closer to numbness than to anxiety or sadness. Repeated experiences of rejection or social exclusion can create aggression in some people. Subsequently, aggression can lead to further rejection.

 * Among adults, the most common explanation for rejection is deviance. Among children, it is a lot more complicated. Children are rejected by their peers for three main reasons: because they are aggressive or violent, they are withdrawn or socially isolated, or they are different from other children in some way.

 * Loneliness and rejection have been proven to have a seriously negative affect on health.

Love

 * Passionate love or romantic love refers to having strong feelings of longing, desire, and excitement towards a special person.

 * Companionate love or affectionate love refers to a high level of mutual understanding, caring, and commitment to make the relationship succeed. This kind of love is important for a long, happy, stable and trustworthy relationship. Research has shown that married people and particularly happy married people live longer, healthier lives than single or divorced people.

Types of Relationships
Exchange relationships are those which are based on reciprocity and fairness, where people expect something in return. Each person does something for the other in the expectation of getting some direct benefit. An example of an exchange relationship would be between the family doctor and a regular patient. On the other hand, communal relationships are based on mutual love and concern without expectation of repayment. An example could be of two childhood friends who would give support without expectation.

There are four types of attachment which aim to explain how the style of interaction that is learned at childhood is carried on into adulthood and influences how we relate to others:

 * 1) Secure attachment – characterised by comfort with intimacy and no excessive fears of abandonment.
 * 2) Dismissing avoidant attachment – characterised by avoidance of intimacy and discomfort with close relationships, viewing partners as unreliable and uncaring.
 * 3) Fearful avoidant attachment – characterised by avoidance of intimacy and discomfort with close relationships, viewing the self as unlovable.
 * 4) Preoccupied or anxious/ambivalent attachment – characterised by excessive desire for closeness to the point of desiring to merge with the partner. Also has worry about abandonment.

Genetic Sexual Attraction
My topic for our social psychology essay assessment was about genetic sexual attraction. I researched and wrote about this phenomenon known as genetic sexual attraction. GSA has become remarkably widespread in both knowledge and research. It occurs where closely-genetically related adults form consenting intimate relationships. Dissimilar to the concepts of child and sexual abuse, genetic sexual attraction creates a situation where the relationships that develop are between adults. Moreover, the participants are adults who have been separated for many years since the birth of one partner, and although they are biologically related, in cultural and anthropological terms they have no kinship affinity (Greenberg, 1993, p. 6). The occurrence of GSA can be explained by many of the same socio-cultural causes associated with everyday attraction. Academic research shows that elements of similarity, proximity, and familiarity, are the most common reasons for people to become attracted and have intimate feelings. This is also true of those who experience genetic sexual attraction. Supporting the concept are findings of the matching hypothesis, which asserts that people are attracted to and form romantic relationships with others similar to them in physical attractiveness. The consequences associated with these kinds of taboo relationships include social, family and friend rejection, personal isolation and depression, and imprisonment. It was a really interesting topic and I recommend anyone who finds it interesting as well to read the article by Greenberg. I also watched a documentary about genetic sexual attraction called ‘Sleeping With My Sister’ where they interviewed couples who were blood-relatives who met later in life and fell in love. It was so interesting! I recommend having a little peak at it.

Groups and Prosocial Behaviour
In human evolution there is a natural tendency to form groups. Humans can use the power of cultura to form groups that can achieve more than individuals can. Groups provide many benefits such as safety in numbers, provide for each other ie. Food, services, and groups can accomplish tasks which would be too difficult for individuals alone.

Complementary roles, in other words the differentiation of roles in groups, produce better results and outcomes. Putting the nest interest of the group as a collective above those of the individual makes a more efficient running and satisfied group. The social facilitation theory states that the presence of others can make people perform better as there is an increase in arousal and so there is a tendency to perform given roles at a higher level.

How Groups Think
Groupthink refers to the tendency of group members to think alike. It is especially likely if the groups is similar and cohesive, has a strong leader, is isolated from other ideas, and has high self-esteem.

Prosocial Behaviour
Prosocial behaviour involves doing good for others and/or society. By obeying rules, conforming to norms, cooperating, and helping others, we can build relationships which allow society to function efficiently. Generally, we tend to behave better when others are watching us and are in public. The evolutionary theory of kin selection suggests that we prefer to help others who are related to us. This applies to those who, as addressed in previous topics, are part of our social group or cultural group also. Not only are we motivated to help those that are similar to ourselves, by our emotions also power this want to help. Altruistic helping is motivated by empathy. Our emotional response to the feelings of other helps us to be motivated to reduce other’s stress and distress. Positive moods also increase helping. Bad moods, such as those associated with guilt, can also promote helping.

Australian Zeitgeist
This week’s tutorial looked at the Australian Zeitgeist, the ‘spirit’ or the particular ‘vibe’ of the times for Australia. In essence, it describes the ethos of a cultural group of people during a particular era or time where some kind of socio-cultural transformation and progression is occurring. Hugh Mackay in his speech about Australian Zeitgeist raises many significant points and issues of how the Australian people as a society have grown and progressed through our history and how that has shaped the ideologies and the way we think and feel today. One of the ideas that he raises is in regards to the gender revolution in the 1970’s, where he voices how it transformed society’s view of women and therefore the home life and ideas about marriage and family. As a result of this gender revolution, our changed views about marriage have led to 45% of contemporary marriages ending in divorce. Our changed views on family and home life have been affected too where a lot of families are now being brought up in a broken home as a result of divorce. He speaks of these kinds of events which have led the Australian population to feel a sense of anxiety and insecurity in a time of such self-confessed self-absorption.

Environment
Environmental psychology is a recently new discipline which refers to the relationship between people and their environment, both natural and man made. The environment is so significant and important to our quality of life and overall survival.

Negative Environmental Influences

 * Human spatial behaviour

Density and Crowding – Density is where there are a lot of people in one space. Crowding is a subjective uncomfortable feeling or experience of being in a space with a high density of people.

 * Environmental Stressors

These stressors are environmental conditions that interfere with optimal human functioning. They can include: crowding, daily hassles and life events, noise, and temperature. Noise is one of the main environmental stressors that affect peoples mood and social behaviour.

 * Environmental Risks

Studies on peoples risk perception includes environmental risks such as natural disaster, diseases, pollution, food contamination, accidents, nuclear power, and terrorism. The risks which we tend to perceive as being the most risky, are the environmental variables which we can’t control and therefore it is something which should be greatly feared.

 * Environmental Design

Architecture and consumer design – we are constantly having to shape and reshape our surroundings and our environment.

These are some of the negative effects that the environment have on society. However, the environment is the most important source of our survival. Seeing as we know how important it is, why don’t individuals make more of an effort to look after their environment and make a few small changes for the better? Although we are now starting to promote initiatives to save the earth and many strategies have been put in place, it has taken years and years of activists protesting for the government and the media to act on behalf of the people. After all, politics and the media are the two most influential powers that we have. They are the one’s who set the agenda’s for society to think about and gain information about.

In relation to societies mental health, the research that has been conducted presents us with some shocking conclusions which relates depression, anxiety and loss of motivation on our environmental surroundings and how we feel about those surroundings.

Being only a new discipline I hadn’t really thought that far in depth about the environment and its negative effects not only on societies physical health but mental health as well.

title: User:Melissadedrick


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Well done
Good job on setting up your account,. Let me know if I can do anything as you go along. 'Official' Wikiversity welcome below. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! Jtneill - Talk - c 23:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

 Woof! My name is Jack(Russell). I am a dog and a Wikiversity mascot. I am pretty new around Wikiversity. Perhaps we can learn together! Tail wag...

Re: unspoken set of rules
I remember when I started editing the first pages on the group I had later a bad conscience and asked James about this. I think the "unspoken set of rules" also depend on your experiences (e.g. a small kid does not know some behaviour rules yet or normally I have not bad thoughts when being "intrusive" (not in the bad way, e.g. see Did you ever edit another user page than "yours" ?).) and the persons you are communicating with. One does not all treat same unfortunately.

>So I guess in essence it’s like the saying goes, treat others as you yourself would like to be treated. yes, "Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself" (Confucius) now kidding: e.g. What about a person who is a masochist ? -> should be then more in direction as: Categorical imperative

If you or others ever come in a situation where you think a user behaved bad, please tell, e.g. at Colloquium or Request custodian action see also: Category:Wikiversity policy, e.g. Civility or Ignore all rules (w:Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means), Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 11:32, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:Melissadedrick


text:
User:SteveHenry

Introduction
One of the earliest questions asked of us was to define  "social psychology" . What is social psychology? When I was first asked the question I answered with : "The study of human thoughts, feelings and behaviours within a social setting".

The text book for the subject, Baumeister and Bushman's (2008) Social Psychology & Human Nature describes social psychology under the broad description of : "the effect of other people (real or imagined) on thoughts, feelings and behaviours." Furthermore, this description is further refined into the ABC Triad :, Affect (how people feel), Behaviour (what people do) and Cognition (what people think about). It will be interesting to see if my own definition of social psychology will alter by the end of the unit. Now, having completed the unit, I feel that social psychology influences so many parts of human life and has tremendous importance for understanding and improving society.

The Social Self
It is intriguing to question how much of the inner self, or your personal beliefs about your Self, are displayed in social situations or whether the social situations determine the presentation of the social self, which alters depending on the situation. It seems almost paradoxical in nature if societal roles define the social identity and self, one could suggest the social self could define which social roles we choose to undertake.

Self and Memory
Would someone suffering retrograde amnesia essentially be the same person as before the onset or would they be a completely different person, or somewhere in between. Basically, this question ponders if the self is created through the environment, genetically inherit or a mixture of both. It is often noted the self is made up of all memories about one's self and their social experiences. But one could suggest genetic influence determine what we see our self as, or how we interpret the experiences into the formation of the self.

Knowledge Structures
I finding it interesting the effect the knowledge structures of schemas, scripts and stereotypes have upon daily life and society as a whole. Every concept covered in Social Psychology could be drawn back to schemas and scripts that have been developed. Society itself could be entirely dissected down to be no more than the accumulated schemas and scripts embodied by the members of the society. If a person's scripts and schemas conform with the rest of the society, that person can function equally as a member of that society. This is where the notion of culture shock can develop when the pre-developed knowledge structures do not fit with the current society. The person is required to develop new structures or alter previous ones in order to function in that society, or become relegated to the outer rim of the society. For example, tourists can be easily spotted due to their unusual action compared to the rest of the location, the area is new to the tourists who may be displaying exploring scripts whereas the local inhabitants are not.

Communication
As humans are a communal race, communication is incredibly important for the maintenance of society. In tutorials, we discussed how much emphasis we believe is put on Verbal or Non Verbal Communication. However, there are many contexts for differences in the percentage weighting. This includes face-to-face, where NVC could be rating higher than VC, aural only (eg phone call) where there is no visible NVC but differences in tone of voice can be heard and finally text, such as e-mail, SMS, and other written communication.

Disabilities and Communication
In further discussion, the notion of communication between those with disabilities and others arose. Stephen Hawking is unable to communicate with NVC such as body language, facial expression etc or using his own physical abilities but is still able to communicate via his computer and with such NVC ideas like the clothes he is wearing at a given time.

Furthermore, as the majority of non-verbal communicative actions are socially learned, it would be interesting to see the difference in NVC such as stance, and hand gestures between a person who was born blind and one that had lost his sight through disease or an accident. I would hypothesise the naturally blind person would not display much NVC other than universal signs (eg smile = happy) but would be highly intuitive in picking the slight changes in tone and other NVC in other people while the accidentally blind person would still display regular NVC.

Aggression and the Mass Media
Aggression and violence seem to be perpetuated in modern society, particularly through the mass media. After writing an essay on the topic of violence and aggressive behaviour in the mass media and its effect upon society, I began to notice how much violence is displayed on televison and that 90% of the television shows I watch regularly contain some manner of violence or aggressive behaviour. While much of the research, see Anderson and Bushman (2002), states the effects of exposure to violent material are quite dramatic, personally I do not think I'm a particularly violent person despite my heavy dosage of media violence.

Ghosts of Rwanda
One of the things I that struck me was one of the farmers comments after slaughtering his fellow countrymen was how he believed 'the Devil' had taken him over and turned him insane. As he had no other schema other than the religion had he been taught, and he didn't seem to take responsibility for his own actions, consistent with the self-serving attribution bias. The propagation of propaganda and recent sightings of Tutsis via the radio stations is similar to actions in Nazi Germany, and really emphasises the power mass media can have.

I also found it interesting the incidents in Somalia a few years previous to the Rwandan genocide, mainly the attacks by Somalian warlords upon UN peacekeepers and the Battle for Mogadishu during which two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, 17 US soldiers were killed with 73 wounded and approximately 700 Somali militia and civilians were killed. These events were dramatised in Ridley Scott's 2001 film Black Hawk Down. The loss of American lives and the failed operation to bring peace and order to Somalia heavily influenced President Clinton's decision to not send US peacekeeping forces into Rwanda. Perhaps the genocide could have been avoided or significantly hampered if a larger peacekeeping force had been sent into Rwanda, either US or UN, which had repeatedly asked for by the UN commander in Rwanda Roméo Dallaire.

The stories of altruism to come out of this tragedy are quite amazing, and really contrasts the two possible sides of a human being. While many are displaying what could be easily described as unquestionably evil, there are some other people such as Carl Wilkens and Mbaye Diagne risking their lives to rescue and protect others.

Stereotypes
Stereotyping is an essential part of the human cognitive process, created due to social categorisation, or grouping people based on similar characteristics. Today, the word stereotype is associated with negative, often untrue or exaggerated generalisations but it can be used in a positive light. For example, someone may state "Australians are good swimmers", while it is incorrect to assume everyone in the country can swim well, living on the world's largest island with the majority of the population on the coast gives access to a high number of beaches and opportunities to swim regularly. Stereotypes are created through socialisation, with both the group being stereotyped and members of your group which may promote these views. I also believe the media significantly effects the creation of stereotypes, for example: after the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks and even today, some 7 years on, the majority of Americans will stereotype anyone of Middle Eastern decent as a terrorist despite never actually having any social contact with them.

Jane Elliott's The Australian Eye
When I was first introducted to this learning scenario, I was under the impression people were going to be divided by their eye colour only, which is a rather arbitrary characteristic that people have no personal control over and works well as a euphemism for racial division. However, in the video we were shown of the Australian version of the scenario, participants were separated via skin colour or racial heritage. If for example, this scenario was run in the tutorials, we would still be able achieve the feelings of prejudice based on an arbitrary notion without it dissolving into running the scenario based on race, which seems to be at ends with the main point of running these programs.

Relationships and Social Disengagement
Relationships may be the defining characteristic of the human race, an essential part of society and maintaining mental health. I was interested to note that Hugh Mackay, during his speech on Social Disengagement mentioned more than 50% of all Australian households contain just one or two people and that the single person household is now both the most common and fastest growing household type. I believe proliferation of the Internet in particular has allowed for these single person homes to function as one can easily access all manner of social interaction tools on the Internet to maintain relationships with friends and family without needing to leave the house. Mackay mentions this in his speech suggesting we have begun to confuse data transfer with communication.

Established Relationships and Comfort Zones
The tutorial exercise designed to push the boundaries of interpersonal space and comfort by standing near another person at various distances and looking into their eyes is also heavily dependent on the relationship established with the other participant. If one has established a romantic relationship with the other person, this exercise would not have felt awkward. However, I believe undertaking this task with a friend of the same sex for example would be awkward because the social scripts and schemas suggest prolonged eye contact is sign of romantic interest as is gaining close proximity.

Groups and Leadership
It is often suggested humans define their identity through the groups they feel associated with and those they do not. Grouping influences all notions of race, nationality and overall society.

Social Facilitation and Loafing
After completing several group assignments and class presentations (often class presentations are group assignments), the concepts of social facilitation and loafing are observed regularly. Social facilitation, the tendency to perform well when others are present, often factors into class presentations. I personally feel I do better at presentations when undertaking them with a group, however this may be linked to social loafing, a decrease in performance when working in a group. When presenting in a group, I may feel less pressure on myself to do well as if I perform badly, the rest of the group may still be able to achieve a good mark. This example coincides with the Yerkes-Dodson Law which suggests as anxiety increase, performance also increases to a peak where further increases in anxiety result in reduced performance. Social loafing seems to be further facilitated by anonymity to the higher power, for example the marker of the group presentation. When a member of the group knows they can't be held individually accountable for their performance, such as achieving an individual presentation mark accompanying a group mark, they will have a reduced level of effort.

Groupthink
Groupthink occurs when members of a group conform to popular ideas rather than displaying individualistic thinking. Groupthink is an interesting notion for society, as much of modern society attempts to reduce individualism and urge people towards the popular idea. Fashion trends are a good example of this, when people are urged by others in the societal group to conform to a particular fashion in order to maintain popularity.

Learned Prosocial Behaviours
It is an interesting question to pose how much of prosocial behaviour can be genetically determined or if it is entirely developed through learning techniques such observational learning. Antisocial behaviour seems to be innate in children, for example snatching, and seems to be driven by the id or desire principle. One assumes once a child develops enough to understand the notion of rules and socially acceptable behaviour, can prosocial behaviour be fostered. The environment the child grows up in must have an effect upon displayed prosocial behaviours, as the majority of these behaviours are learned through observation, modeling, and social interaction.

The Biophilia Hypothesis
The biophilia hypothesis suggests humans have a genetic predisposition towards "lifelike" or nature processes. Initially, human society did embrace nature and its power over life through religion such as the pagans, or the native Americans. However, I think this hypothesis is completely disregarded by the time the Industrial Revolution began. The old adage: "the sins of the father will be revisited upon the son" comes to mind as the Industrial Revolution started the trend of burning fossil fuels in a crude manner. A trend that has continued on until very recently, when scientists have determined if human society doesn't start to care for the natural environment, the planet wont be habitable for future generations. Former US Vice-President Al Gore's controversial film An Inconvenient Truth bought this notion to the general public, who now may need to reestablish the biophilia hypothesis to reduce our impact upon the environment.

Australian Zeitgeist
The modern Australian zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, could be essentially defined within the term of globalisation and the consequent influence of, what Hugh Mackay calls the IT revolution. Globalisation is heavily supported by the proliferation of the mass media, allowing the American culture to spread globally to the point where Australia has become invested in the US culture. An example of this is the coverage of the US presidential elections here in Australia, it is mentioned so frequently, more so than Australian politics, I beginning to believe I should be voting in the upcoming election. It shows how much influence the election has over the entire world, especially for members of the Coalition of the Willing. Globalisation has also begun to influence the Australian language particularly in the pronunciation of the word new. Most young Australians now pronounce the word the American way without annunciating the N. Perhaps its only a matter of time before the Australian accent is dramatically altered.

Social Capital
Social capital, or the accumulated social "wealth" a culture can tap into, is required to maintain a healthy, civil society. This notion suggests social networks have value, much in the way as personnel have value to a company. One could argue previous generations were able to accumulate great amounts of social capital as they were more reliant upon social networks to facilitate daily life. Nazi Germany was able to gather a large quantity of social capital as following World War I, the German people were required to pull together to support themselves. Drawing upon the social capital, they were able to rebuild their country. However, the capital was further used to rouse the country behind the Nazi's fascist regime and lead the country on an attempt to conquer Europe. The need to accumulate social capital for a healthy society leads me to question if modern society is healthy when taking into account Hugh Mackay's comments regarding the amount of single person homes and the use of online social interactions. Can social capital be raised from these virtual interactions?

Social Disengagement
The overuse of the Internet to facilitate social interaction leads into the notion of social disengagement, characterised by individuals operating relatively autonomously with minimal interaction with social networks. Hugh Mackay has outlined how the country, and even the world, is slowly moving towards a more socially disengaged society. Perhaps it is the long term influence of capitalism, forcing the Western world to think about themselves and their own wealth, increasing personal gain by undertaking individual efforts to reap the rewards completely for themselves. Or perhaps we are becoming increasingly self-sufficient, without the need to fully integrate into the social group as was required in previous centuries to merely survive. This allows for greater individualistic thoughts and reduction in conformity, which may in turn lead to a better society. The flipside to this, is questioning how a society can actually function without adequate social interaction, would total social disengagement result in a country completely filled with individuals, only looking out for themselves.

Conclusion
The unit of Social Psychology covers nearly all sections of psychology, and gives a good overview of the different aspects of psychology while focusing the social dimension of these different sections. I found social psychology to be an interesting subject to study, particularly because human interactions form the basis for society and the behaviours govern these interactions links back to the wider psychological field. Watching Ghosts of Rwanda was perhaps the most influential part of this unit for me, the haunting documentary of the tragedy really demonstrated the two bipolar extremes of human nature. Overall, social psychology is well integrated into the broader psychology course allowing students to draw upon previously attained knowledge and then expanding it.

The E-Portfolio
The e-portfolio was an unusual choice for an assessment item. It is, perhaps, the beginning of really utilising information technology into all manner of academic courses. However, regularly updating the portfolio was often difficult for me with other assignments and commitments taking precedence. Often, my tutorial notes were just scribbled in my notebook and weren't updated online until weeks later. I can see the advantages of setting a completely online assessment task, that can be access by all participants but for it to work most effectively, all users need to be frequently active in their participation. Furthermore, some topics that I didn't find particularly interesting but I still felt like I needed to comment, which many lead to some inane discussion. Perhaps, in future iterations of the unit, the use of online assessments would better integrated into the overall unit and have a greater uptake of usage by students.

title: User:SteveHenry


text:
User talk:SteveHenry

Well done
Good job on setting up your account,. Let me know if I can do anything as you go along. 'Official' Wikiversity welcome below. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 23:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

 Hello Social psychology (psychology)/Participants/Welcome, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To get started, you may

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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! Jtneill - Talk - c 23:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

 Woof! My name is Jack(Russell). I am a dog and a Wikiversity mascot. I am pretty new around Wikiversity. Perhaps we can learn together! Tail wag...

Definitions
The definitions are helpful, but they are I think already available? e.g., Aggression/Keywords, Prejudice/Keywords, Prosocial behavior/Keywords. So, you could just link to them if there are the same. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 04:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Internal wiki links
Hi Steve, your portfolio is really coming along - keep it up and let me know if I can do anything. A little tip is that you can use internal linking styles for wikipedia links. For example, see this change I made. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 01:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:SteveHenry


text:
User:Dskrzecz

One man's dictator can be another man's saviour
Radovan Karadzic, Bosnian Serb wartime leader who has been accused of war crimes, has been arrested in Serbia. According to theaustralian.news.com.au, Karadzic “waged a barbaric campaign of "ethnic cleansing" in the early 1990s... and no doubt that he is one of the monsters of the 20th century”, and yet he has been considered by some as a hero of the 1992-1995 war following Bosnia’s independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In view of the 43 months siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the massacre of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, rape camps and other ‘cleansing campaigns’ it is interesting to read that some would still consider him a hero. This reminds me of several Iraqis in a couple of documentaries I’ve seen about the war in Iraq who have said that they miss Saddam Hussein. Not for his dictatorship, but because under his rule they had an identity and a country that was run by their own people (more or less) rather than the chaos that Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East is now. The Middle East conflict and the historical-socio-geo-political issues involved are so much more complicated than I am able grasp at the moment, however it is interesting to note that despite undertaking terrible actions, some people can be hailed as saviours or heroes. What does that say about the current wars/conflicts? What legacy will the current war in the Middle East leave? I guess, if nothing else, this just highlights the obvious point that various people have, and will continue to have, different world views. I guess a differences of opinion is one thing, but an opinion or belief that someone is willing to die or kill for is another. I wonder where does one stop and the other begin?

If leadership is "the ability to make people do what they don't want to and like it", as the lecture slides suggest, the implications of such situations can be (and have been) quite phenomenal. I don't think this unit covered much on followership, unless I've missed it. The reason I bring this up is in order for people (leaders) to lead others, there has to be a group of people willing to be led and willing to follow the leader. Leadership qualities and environmental factors aside, I wonder how do aspects of followership affect leadership. (I tried to google the term, but nothing handly come up). Leaders can influence people to engage in social changes for the better (i.e.: Gandhi, the Reverend Desmond Tutu ,) or for worse (Hitler , Stalin , Karadzic, Jim Jones , David Koresh etc...).

I was also watching "Enough Rope" interview last night with Imran Khan, who mentioned that General Sharif wanted to get into politics just for the sake of power. What is it about leadership that attracts different people for different reasons? Khan wants to make a positive difference, Sharif just wanted power. How does "positive leadership", involving integrity, honesty and vision morph into rigid and authoritarian dictatorship types of leadership? Is it the inherent personality traits coming through, or is it more the consequence of the environment?

Product of the environment or inherently bad?
The social psych textbook mentions Saddam Hussein as an example of what a “clearly aggressive” dictator is. Although it is undeniable that some of his governing methods were despotic and cruel and he terrorised his people, I just wonder again about whether Hussein was inherently evil or the product of his environment, in which case who knows whether someone else would have acted any differently. I don't know Iraq's history very well, but like most other Middle Easter societies, it has experienced decades of social disruption and either internally or externally-led warfare. Is it fair to assume that maybe (and I'm not excusing what Hussein did) Hussein was more the product of his environment than being inherently "bad"? If Hussein grew up in a different Iraq, would he had become the dictator that we now know him for? Is it too far fetched to wonder whether he might had become a great leader rather than a despot? If the circumstances in which Hussein grew up are the same, if not worse, in Iraq now, what does that say about the potential of history repeating itself?

Similar things can be asked about Hitler. It is undeniable that he instructed and implemented horrendous plans to exterminate a whole race, and it boggles the mind of how people who otherwise would not harm anyone, would comply with his demands. However, at the time that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Germany was recovering from its defeats during WWI, unemployment was high while public morale was low… Hitler was responsible for one of the most significant infrastructure developments in Germany thus managing to instill a sense of national pride again, amongst other things. And he managed to find scapegoats (the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc) for all the bad things that had happened to the Germans as a nation. I guess this is taking the fundamental attribution bias to the extreme. I know this is oversimplifying how WWII started. However, had the social context been any different, would Hitler even had managed to gain any support or any position of power? Would WWII ever have happened? Or was it inevitable and Hitler was ‘in the right place, at the right time’, so to speak?

Fallible model of communication
One of the things we covered during the second tute was the "Fallible Model of Communication". The model proposes that communication begins with an idea someone holds in their mind, which is then translated into spoken word, that is then conveyed verbally to another person, who then interprets the message in their own mind. Sounds simple enough, yet so many minor glitches (such as inability to accurately translate mental image into spoken word or the message getting mangled up in the process of conversion from verbal to mental images) can build up to such extent where you might want to tell someone about an apple, and they end up thinking you're talking about going to the moon. Sounds far fetched, yet the communication process can be a particularly delicate one. Although the model mentions the feedback loop, I wonder how often and to what extent is it actually used? How often to we stop and ask to clarify? Or do we mostly just try to fill in the blanks ourselves based on our previous knowledge?

We also talked about mental short cuts, schemas, scripts, priming and framing that allow for quicker and more efficient information processing, as there is just too much information in our environment to coherently pay attention to everything at once. So... given that we have tendencies to take mental and verbal short cuts, given that we can mostly only hold one view (rather two opposing views) of a situation at once, given that we generally don't have time or don't make the effort to go back and clarify, it's a wonder that things are not in a worse state of disarray then they are now. Or maybe, it should not be surprising at all.

The Duplex Mind model tells us that conscious processing of info is slow, deliberate, effortful, and the automatic processing is the opposite: quick and effortless. It also suggests that we are cognitive misers. I guess we can't stop to ponder all the aspects involved in every situations, as then we might never cross the street or get out of bed, and yet maybe taking the 'easy mental road' too often may not be a good idea either... It was also interesting to note how much of our social interaction is non-verbal and it effects on our communication. It's interesting to think that despite the complexities and intricacies of (verbal) language, all the non-verbal cues make such a significant impact on how we perceive and interact.

Also, in regards to effective communication, I wonder about self-censorship and the various contexts that it occurs and the repercussions. Or benefits. Is it "wiser to be silent and thought a fool, than speak and remove all doubt?" Does "silence give consent"? Is "silence golden when you can't think of a good answer"? Should we "enjoy the silence"? . Or should we be able to speak our minds and thoughts, albeit at least a bit diplomatically and thoughtfully? Be a 'whistle blower', and potentially change a bad working condition, but also experience the wrath of a scorned boss? Make a statement about the political situation with a hope for a change, despite have a good sense that the political situation will not change? As Baumeister and Bushman say, is it because no-one is willing to express any doubt, we get the impression that no-one has any doubt either?

Self-censorship
Is "self censorship" the same as "self monitoring"? Do we do both or either/or in order to fit in, to be included, to feel part of a group, even if it means that we sometimes hold our own opinions to ourselves? I would suggest that in our culture the term "to fit in" tends to have negative connotations, as it refers ideas such as conforming and normalising, and these generally have been seen as bad things, particularly when we tend to perceive ours as an individualist society.If you conform, that means you cannot think for yourself, that you are a drone that follows the orders of others. But if you want to be "normal" (ha!! someone should write a thesis on what actually is normal!), that means that you do conform to at least some social norms: work, study, personal hygiene, how and what we say at certain social situations, etc. At times, if there is someone who is perceived as not "normal" they tend to be ostracised and excluded (think about people with chronic mental health issues or disabilities, artists such as the Dadaists, people who abuse drugs/alcohol, etc) who are vilified and on the fringes of society. And the most interesting aspect of this is that when something or someone is perceived as different or seen as challenging the status quo, if people are exposed to it often enough, mainstream society is most likely to appropriate it and "normalise" it. I think this is a bit like the mere exposure effect, but I'm not 100% sure. The best example I can come up with is Elvis Presley. He begain his career as a teenage rebel, and with time he become a caricature of his former self. Personal problems notwithstanding, Elvis the performer was... I can't think of a better word than appropriated by mainstream culture. The opposite has been said about The Beatles. They started as a clean-cut group of boys who went to openly use all sorts of hallucinogenics and other narcotics and opposed the Vietnam War, which was very controversial at the time.

We all conform to certain norms, such as driving on the right side of the road, the way we engage in different roles in relation to different people in our environment, when we get up and when we go to bed... I wonder, whether we want to be "unique... just like everyone else"... Whether we want to be loved (whatever love means to you), acknowledged, validated, accepted and comforted... and we do what we can to meet those needs? Even if it means conforming and "normalising", even if we don't want to...

How much does the need to belong influence our behaviour? I guess it would be a combination of seeking social acceptance and wanting to avoid rejection and social exclusion. The need to belong seems to have a paramount impact on our social interactions, even if we perceive ourselves part of an individualistic society, where self-reliance and independence are heralded as important personal attributes. So... whether we are bothered if we 'fit in' or not depends on whether we have control over it- whether its my our own choice or not?

"Ghosts of Rwanda" reflection.
After reading the Wikipedia link, I'm more confused, bewildered and disorientated than before...

If the Tutsi were cruel to the Hutu, back in the day, does that explain the animosity? Does it explain what might have motivated the Hutu government to put an "extermination plan" into action? Does it explain the extent of the genocide? Although the documentary mentioned that the Hutu were planning on complete annihilation of the Tutsi, did it become more of "mob mentality", where "if you kill once... to lessen the effect of this on the psyche.... you kill again... Because part of you needs to kill"? (I think that was Gromo Alex who said that, and I'm not sure whether I'm paraphrasing correctly...)

One thing that caught my attention was what Joyce Leader, the Ambassador in Kigali, who said: " It's hard to believe of something so awful... being so meticulously carried out...". This reminded me of something I read in Elie Wiesel's novel "Night" about the Holocaust... No-one in his village believed the stories of systematic extermination of the Jews in the concentration camps. That's why no one in his village or anyone in his family decided to evacuate or flee or save themselves. It was just too hard to believe... Does this mean that we are inherently optimistic, always believing the best of our fellow human beings? Thus far history has shown that humans are capable of horrific acts, and despite this we still opt for believing that such circumstances are the exception rather than the rule. And maybe we are inherently good, though the bad things tend to occur on the greater scale, hence attract more attention.

Phillipe Gaillard of the Red Cross said: " If you shut up, when you see what you see... morally and ethically you cannot shut up. You need to speak..." Are morals and ethics something that we as a community (local, national, international) agree on, or it is something, some standards, that we each individually set for ourselves? Again, I'm confused about this concept of speaking up, as evidenced in the documentary, people did speak out, people did not follow orders and stayed back in Rwanda, tried to salvage something of the situation (some humanity, perhaps?) And despite this, no help came forth. Was that because the countries that were asked to intervene had 'no interests' in Rwanda, were more individualistic, more concerned about their well being than warranted stepping out of their comfort zone? Is it fair to ask why didn't America or other European countries intervene if we are not willing to help someone in our own neighbourhood? How many of us would be willing to help someone when this would mean an inconvenience for us? I wonder whether whatever is happening on a global scale is also happening on a more intimate, local scale too... And whether we really should be surprised at all...

Why was it that only the 'little people', the people actually in the thick of it, attempted to help others in Rwanda? Like the Adventist Church guy (sorry, can't remember his name, Carl...?) said, we are inherently capable of extreme good and extreme evil... So whether we are good or evil is a result of our circumstances, as they elicit our response? One man's saint is another man's sinner...

Regarding leadership, it was interesting that none of the world leaders took any action, hid behind bureaucracy, failed to act, and did not or would not say sorry (sounds familiar?). I understand that under the Security Council guidelines certain rules of warfare engagement need to be maintained, even if the 'other guys' are not playing by the rules, you have to, or at least should try to, because otherwise everything will fall into chaos. So in order to do so, bureaucratic system needs to be engaged, and this has proven to be fallible time and time again. I have noticed that all systems (political, religious, local, international) are based on this ideal model of what things should look and function like, which unfortunately is hardly ever attainable. Why? Maybe because people are "people"... "only human?"... Because of corruption, inadequacies, flaws... Like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which ever (natural/synthetic) system we exist in is trying "self actualise", and we can diffuse some of our cognitive dissonance whereby we know what we have potential to grow, evolve and develop, but if things don't work out, then thats alright, because "we are only human". And that woman! That wouldn't say whether its genocide or not?! That was just ludicrous!! Why is that when 3000 to 4000 people die as a result of an attack in a predominantly White country (as horrific and terrible it is, no one is denying that), that's considered worse or acted quickly upon than a systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of others, who are not of the same race? Who makes these rules of whose life is more important? And Kofi Annan saying this should never be repeated... That's what they said after WWII... It's what they will say after each war and genocide. Never again. Until next time...

But "the ideal" needs to be there in order to have something to live up to, maybe to keep pulling wool over peoples eyes, or maybe because we need to maintain hope (or delusion?) that things could be better, that we cannot be capable of such atrocities, that it's only 'the others', never us, because to admit to ourselves that we are just like them, or we could be under similar circumstances, would that be too confronting and interfere with our schemas of how much more civilised than those 'devils' are?

Was this whole disaster just a matter of an observer/bystander effect blown up to a colossal scale? Do we do try to wait things out to see how they work out before we intervene (or interfere)? If something of the same scale was happening somewhere right now, what would be do? Does it only matter if it something is happening to us, or people like us?

Jane Elliott "Blue eyed/Brown Eyed Experiment"
The Blue eye/Brown Eyed experiment (The Australian Eye) was pretty interesting to watch for several reasons. I guess it's the sort of experiment or exercise that can be used in any situation, not only regarding racial or sexist issues, to try to assist people to at least think and feel from a different perspective, to break down stereotypes and stigma. I guess that would be something like contact theory, where through no longer identifing 'the others' as a faceless mob, they are 'humanised' by being treated as individuals? As one lady indicated in the clip, it's easy to intellectualise the injustice, but it's another thing to live or experience it (would that be something like aversive racism, when people like to maintain the self image of fair and just, and to (consciously or not) justify cognitive dissonance between the perceptions of self and actually having negative feelings towards 'the others'? How politically correct... Is that worse than overt racism?)

It seems that prejudice tends to occur through lack of time or consideration or through our need to be 'cognitive misers', to maintain a sense of control of our environment (that's simplifying the situation but still...) As Melisah said in the lecture, considering everyone as individuals would be just too time consuming and inefficient... nothing would get done. Is it then a necessary evil? I think it was mentioned in the tutorial that stereotypes don't necessarily need to be a negative concept, it is only when it is over-utilised or over-generalised then that's when things can go a bit pear shaped. Or when people struggle for resources, in terms of realistic conflict theory, where the resources as perceived as scarce, which can increase between group competition. But how does this explain the Cronulla riots? Or why Camden council wouldn't let a Muslim school being build?

One thing that we as a group reflected on in the tutorial was how quickly and easily the Blue eyes conformed, how quickly and easily the Brown eyes engaged in vilifing behaviours, and yet many of us mentioned that 'we couldn't do that... that this (aggressive behaviours) wouldn't happened to us...". We reflected that under certain circumstances, when we knew that it's for scientific good/knowledge, the others would be debriefed, etc, then maybe we could, but even then we wouldn't feel comfortable...I hope so, but I still wonder... I wonder whether the people being allocated the prison or guard roles in the Standord prison experiment thought the same....

Culture mapping and Culture shock
The idea of 'culture shock' seemed a rather theoretical rather than an applied one in today's tutorial. That is until someone mentioned in the tutorial that it's possible to experience culture shock just by moving cities or states. Seems odd enough to think about, as we are all living in the same country, with similar values and social schemas, and yet for a while after moving cities or interstate we might feel completely out of depth, like we did in fact just land in another country.

Take Sydney and Canberra for example. The two cities could not be more different, so what would someone moving from the hustle and bustle of Sydney think when they first arrived in Canberra? The pace of this town (and I do really think that Canberra is really just one big country town, except for a few more bureaucrats and international students running around :O) ), its endless roundabouts, quiet and almost deserted streets at night, is a polar opposite of Sydney, a place that seems to be forever lit up. I guess you need to adapt, sink or swim. Also, it may also depend on how much a person is attached to the previous schemas and ways of doing things, how much are they are willing to abandon some of those old habits and adapt into the new environment. I guess this might be similar to what immigrants from completely different cultural backgrounds (India, Africa... anywhere that hasn't been completely Westernised yet) go through when they move countries: how much do I keep of my old traditions, customs and habits and how much do I take on from this new culture, the new home...

Culture mapping was also an interesting exercise. It highlighted how much of our social interactions, our roles and social cues, we take for granted. If most of our social interactions are culturally relevant, and we either don't take the time or don't have the cognitive space to take the time to learn about other people's culturally sensitive social interactions, no wonder the world is in so much trouble. What I find interesting though (and I know this seems pretty obvious) but how much of the international world is becoming very much Westernised and how Western ideologies are permeating other societies and cultures. I don't pay as much attention to Polish news as much as I would like to, but when I do happen to watch the news, I'm dumbfounded at how much of the English language has been appropriated in Poland, and how it becomes part of the normal, every day use. Maybe some of that may be unavoidable, especially with increased access to the Internet and its applications, which may not be easy to translate into other languages (for example, prior to the 'technological revolution', I don't think Poland has an equivalent word for 'email', etc...). So if the language/s that we use to communicate are changing due to the social influences, if different cultures (either through interest or necessity) are changing their traditional forms of communication to suit the changing times, does that mean that soon we will become one homogeneous group of people who are pretty much indistinct from one another? (Culture mapping would become a breeze then!) If the language that we use to define ourselves and our cultures is changing, does that mean our definitions and identities will also change? No wonder people are reacting strongly to this, with their cultures being eroded and substituted with foreign concepts, loosing their identity... In some circumstances being too traditional may be seen as too rigid or inflexible, and adaptability to new environments increases the chances of survival, but there is something to be said for maintaining an ethnic identity... I guess that kind of leads to issues such as immigrants being required to "assimilate" or "adopt" Australian way of life, and experiencing difficulties with maintaning their traditional customs...

Relationships
If from the beginning, humans are 'wired' to want and thrive on social interaction, if we really are 'social animals', it's interesting to reflect on disorders such as autism and schizoid personality disorders, where the element of 'others' or the need for others can be almost non-existent. Whatever factors contribute to the development of these disorders, ultimately individuals who fit the criteria just don't need human contact to be happy. Others around them can struggle with that, especially parents and siblings, who might be used to sharing hugs for comfort in tough times or when expressing joy and love, rough play as kids... I guess this sort of ties back with what was discussed in an earlier tutorial, of how much of our communication can be non-verbal (i.e.: tactile, physical contact, body language, etc) and how important it can be when that's not readily available. I wonder whether or how such disorders are diagnosed or treated in collectivist societies, where apparently the recovery rate of disorders such as schizophrenia are higher than in Western countries. Also, I wonder if we are indeed an individualistic society where we prize independence and self-reliance, when people who become (or are) the epitome of self-reliance and independence from any others, either by choice or circumstances, are found to be 'strange' and discomforting... Is it because they are too far off on the spectrum from 'normal' behaviour, or is it that maybe we are not as independent as we like to think we are...

As it was mentioned by Bryony on my social talk page, support is one of the better predictors of recovery in any health related issues, and the textbook argues that even religious hermits depend on regular social visits from certain others (although I wonder about that. The book didn't actually mention who those 'others' are meant to be, and I would have thought that an affinity with a Higher Being is what sustained religious hermits ; that being a hermit was to, infact, isolate oneself from society, but anyway...) and the example of San Quentin prisoners in solitary confinements suggests that extreme deprivation of interpersonal contact can be extremely stressful. Failure to satisfy the need to belong can result in significant health problems, even death. So, I guess, we are social beings after all.

Community involvement
If money and time was not an issue, our tutorial group decided that we would adopt a Scandinavian model of parental leave subsidised by the government, whereby approximately 80% of the parent's income will be paid for the government so that at least one parent could stay at home following the birth of a child. The payment would also be contingent on the parent attending a 'family care center', which would be staffed by health professionals (such as nurses, doctors, counselors) that would assist the parents with caring for the child, assist with 'parenting classes' etc. The center would also be similar to a drop in center, where parents can come with their children to socialise, replicating the extended family unit that existed in previous generations (grand parents and uncles helping with child rearing...). We proposed that this sort of a plan would reinforce parental responsibility for child rearing, create/foster greater sense of community interconnectedness, that could have longer lasting effects, like better socialisation skills, less stress (including testosterone hormone production).

Another group had a good idea about having short info breaks between programs on TV introducing what legislation and policy the government has introduced each day. This highlighted the fact that not many of us are actually diligently involved in politics- whatever is shown on the news each day is really a farce of what real politics are like... Having these unbiased and purely informational info segments (30 sec to 1 min long...) could really make people a lot more aware, informed and willing to participate in the political life in their culture. Maybe this could really make a difference in decreasing apathy and lack of interest in politics. Despite its failings, maybe our political system is in pretty good condition. If we choose to, we tend to have freedom of opinion (although can someone explain to me how did NSW government pass a legislation around World Youth Day where it was going to be an offense to wear an anti-Catholic t-shirt, as to avoid 'annoying' the pilgrims? . Can you imagine if Muslims tried to pass such legislation? Are there any Muslim representatives in local, state or federal governments?) We tend not to be persecuted for opposing or satirising the government, etc, so may be it is because, in some aspects, we have it pretty good in Australia, we don't always feel a need to fight for it, unlike in other societies, where freedom of speech is not a given right? Maybe we don't know what we have until we loose it? (Knock on wood we don't loose it, although with the new internet laws coming through, who knows...).

Prosocial Behaviour
First of all, is "bad stronger than good"? This question has been popping up in many places lately. Why is "bad" more salient, more news-worthy, more focused on? Why is it that more "bad" news, such as wars, conflicts, deaths, accidents, tragedies, etc, get reported with more frequency and more interest that "good" stories? Is it because there is more "bad" in the world than "good"? If that is the case, then why do we generally assume that people are "inherently good", when it becomes obvious that we tend to be much better at being "bad" to one another. There are "good" things that happen in our lives, I'm sure, like having a coffee with a friend, reading a good book, spending time with friends and family... And yet, whenever something "bad" happens, we spend more time talking and thinking about it; it is easier to come up with five "bad" things that have happened recently than three "good" things; we remember the "bad" aspects of past friendships/relationships than "good"; we don't always like hearing others "good" news... I tend to hear most international news in terms of what wars/famines/tragedies have occurred in those areas in the most recent times, not what festivals have occurred, what "good" things have recently happened (and look, I had no problems rattling off "bad" things that could happened, and had trouble coming up with "good" possibilties. Why?) (Another thing: when I was updating one of the first entries to this portfolio about good and bad leaders, again it was much more difficult to remember people who have attempted to change some things for the better, and much easier to recall those who are remembered for their bad leadership...)

If the "bad" things that can and do happen take up most of our consciousness, no wonder when something "good" or prosocial happens, everyone is amazed. And we are no longer so surprised when "bad" things happen. Is it delusion to consider that maybe people are "inherently good" and good things do happen, although these are not as marketable and news-worthy, so they are more difficult to find and subsequently more valuable? (You know the adage, nothing worthwhile comes easily?).

On a tangent thought... What James mentioned about his trip to America and being asked my a homeless person to "move on" because he was hurting his "business" after he tried to have a conversation with him and offered him food/drink was pretty ironic. I wonder whether it is likely that this could have been a "business" to this guy, this is how he learnt to survive, and you can be prosocial only up to a certain point, before someone decides they don't really want your 'prosocial behaviour". I guess this would be an example of the homeless guy's "cost-benefit" model, where the "cost" of loosing money outweighed the "benefit" of some companionship and attention from another person.

John Butler talking about being reminded of the good things

Environmental Psychology
In the "Relationship" post I mentioned how severelly isolated prisoners can experience profound distress/stress as a result of  their socially deprived environments. The Oskamp and Schultz reading for this topic mentions the flip side of this, whereby prisoners who are held in high density (that is, high number of people in any given space) areas have reported higher blood pressure and other related ill-health problems. So it would seem that too little as well as too much social interaction can be bad for you. The common theme that seems to be coming through both of these findings is the aspect of control: people tend to adapt and manage situations better when they at least think they can control some aspects of their situations. The Oskamp article mentions that you don't have to be actually in control of the situation, just hold a perception of such. I guess for all our wiles of being sophisticated, civilised, evolved beings, ultimately things come down to how much can we control our environments, including how we try to harness nature and our immediate environments, such as our homes, work, suburb and cultural designs. If we feel out of control, if we can't group or categorise things efficiently enough, our anxiety and fear can become overwhelming.

I've seen Alain de Botton "Architecture of Happiness" book around and never really gave much thought to the impact of architecture or architectural psychology on the human psyche. While in some part thanks to the Kerrigans the notion that our homes are our castles has permeated our (at least Australian) culture, I have never really considered the psychology of infrastructure and architecture. The lecture and the readings have pointed out though how much social constructions such as buildings can influence our social interactions. Think about shopping malls vs. independent stores, chain coffee stores vs. smaller, independent coffee shops, suburban homes vs. inner city flats, etc. The houses/flats we rent/own/live in, the shops that where we get our groceries, the shopping malls or shopping strips where we spend our time can, and do, significanlty influence how we see ourselves (e.g.: urban vs. rural), how we interact and form in-groups and out-groups (e.g.: northern vs. southern suburbs), how we spend our time and money (e.g.: Borders vs. Paperchain), and the cost and benefits of these. Architectural psychology becomes even more pronounced when we compare how various cultures and societies live, how they form connection to their homes, what they homes look like, if they don't have any homes (nomadic tribes or displacement due to war), etc. To consider things more locally, the way Canberra is expending, the new suburbs being build, how will they support the future generations? What will the new sububs look like? More "leggo-land", more uniform buildings and structures? I hope not.

One of the biggest investements that most of us will take up in our life times is that of a morgage, or owning our own homes. It's the "Australian/Americam dream". What is it about our homes that makes them so important? I guess it's the people that fill it (our family and friends), how we decorate it and furnish it (modern, eclectic), do we make it a 'home' or just a place we are passing through, where we buy it and our mortgage repayments will influence how we spend our time and remaining money. How much time we spend indoors and whether we venture into the 'wild' and engage in any leisure activity outside of the home, all can contribute to how we see ourselves and others.

Final thoughts
I think this has been a particularly good unit. It has defintely made me think and rethink a lot about individual,social and cultural situations and contexts and how we all try to make sense of things. The 'environmetal psychology' topic was a new perspetive that I have not considered before, so I would definitely say that this unit has opended up few more 'doors of perception' for me. One thing I would say is that I wish that the assesments weren't all due at the end of the semester, but apart from that I really enjoyed this unit. Cheers James.

title: User:Dskrzecz