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Social Psychology
Prosocial behavior, as the name suggests, is behavior that is ultimately beneficial to others. Any act that is carried out with an end to helping someone else instead of oneself is prosocial behavior. If the behavior involves no gain to the individual, and in fact, may involve a personal cost, this behavior is considered altruistic. There is some debate over whether true altruism exists, or if even seemingly unselfish behavior is really motivated by a desire to impress, or feel good about oneself.
The motivations for an individual's behavior are complex and varied. After the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York in the 1960s, researchers became very interested in the effect of bystanders on the willingness of a person to offer aid. Genovese's murder was witnessed by 38 individuals and not one even phoned the police.
Research carried out by Latane and Darley in 1970 elucidated the so-called "bystander effect," where they discovered that people are actually less inclined to offer assistance the more bystanders there are. Latane and Darley (Aronson et al., 2002) identified five steps that were critical to the decision to offer assistance. Firstly, a person must notice the event and interpret it as an emergency. They then must assume responsibility, have the knowledge of how to assist and finally, the individual must implement the decision. If any of these steps does not occur, the person will not offer assistance.
In an emergency situation such as a mugging, Latane and Darley's research found that you would be better off, the fewer the number of bystanders. In interpreting an event as an emergency, the presence of other bystanders who are not reacting, dissuades an individual from perceiving the event as an emergency ("pluralistic ignorance"). Furthermore, a bystander is...
A variety of theories have evolved to explain the phenomenon of aggression in our society. Many view the foundation of aggression research to be Bandura's examinations of observational learning with children who learned aggressive behavior towards a doll. Aggression research is particularly relevant in a time with so much media violence, on television, video games and movies.
Cognitive neoassociation theory is one way that aggression may be viewed. This theory is usually attributed to research done by Leonard Berkowitz and is called a "priming effects perspective" (Brennan, 2002). This theory posits that an individual's exposure to a certain stimuli may activate related thoughts or feelings. The person is thus "primed" by the exposure. The individual's associations between that "priming" aggressive stimuli and other thoughts or memories may then predispose the person to act aggressively. "Watching a violent film can 'prime' hostile or aggressive thoughts...these hostile thoughts may automatically trigger in the viewer other hostile thoughts, feelings and possibly even behavioral action tendencies." (Brennan, 2002).
The prevalence of aggression in society is supported by studies done on cognitive neoassociation. Research done with undergraduates primed with violent movies demonstrated their tendency to then act more aggressively compared to an unprimed control group. The implications of this theory are important when one considers the ongoing debate into media violence.
Like the "bystander effect" discussed…
Bibliography
Aronson, E., Wilson, T., Akert, R., & Fehr, B. (2002). Social Psychology. Upper Saddle
River: Prentice-Hall.
Brennan, R. (2002). A Multidisciplinary approach to the effects of violence in motion pictures.
Retrieved, May 6, 2004 from Web site: http://cct.georgetown.edu/thesis/RichBrennan.pdf
Social psychology is a very broad field that takes in the many varieties of group dynamics, perceptions and interactions. Its origins date back to the late-19th Century, but it really became a major field during and after the Second World War, in order to explain phenomena like aggression, obedience, stereotypes, mass propaganda, conformity, and attribution of positive or negative characteristics to other groups. Among the most famous social psychological studies
Example The same group of competitive students, after college acceptance letters have been mailed, goes together on a senior trip, for one last time. A a. Social facilitation: Students are on their best behavior for the period before the trip, because they know that any infraction may result in its cancellation, which will injure the entire group. A b. Co-actors: The student senior class as a whole feels a sense of unity, because it is
A model that stresses the fact that people in a generally bad mood or situation will seek out pro-social behaviors, i.e. To help others to make him or herself feel better. (Berkowitz 185) Though this theory has often been contested, not simply because it tends to negate altruism but because people in bad moods tend not to seek out the doing of good deeds, (Berkowitz 186) these two examples
.." As well as having problem with self-expression both of which affect the individual's interpersonal communication. For example, the child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) may be "inattentive, impulsive, hyperactive - or any combination of these." (Stanberry, 2002) the work of Stanberry (2002) states that there are three elements of social interaction which include the following three: Social Intake - noticing and understanding other people's speech, vocal inflection, body language,
Theoretical Perspective of the Biological Approach to Personality Psychology Personality is defined as a person's exceptional deviation on the general evolutionary design for human temperament. A personality trait refers to a durable disposition to act in a certain manner in different situations. Personality traits represent some of the most significant sets of individual disparities in organizations. It is the comparatively set of psychological characteristics that differentiates one person from another. People
Activities to Reduce Inappropriate Behaviors Displayed by Children With Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities The purpose of this dissertation study is to test the effectiveness of an everyday activities-based protocol (Holm, Santangelo, Fromuth, Brown & Walter, 2000) for managing challenging and disruptive behaviors of 13- to 23-year-old residential students (male and female) with Autism who live at Melmark Homes, Inc., of southeastern Pennsylvania, and attend school or adult day programs.