These notes may come in handy when you evaluate the survey studies in the human relationships option. For example Kidscape or the surveys related to interpersonal relationships.
The survey method The collection of self-report data from a target population (e.g. through interviews, questionnaires) Evaluation Strengths +If questions are standardized it is highly replicable +If sample is representative and sufficiently large, results are generalisable to its target population +A good way to determine individuals' values, beliefs and attitudes (people may be more honest if they have the chance to be anonymous) Weaknesses -The results may not always be generalized to other target populations -Can only discover relationships between factors but cannot infer cause and effect -May have some ethical issues (invasion of privacy, embarassment) -People may not be honest for values/beliefs and attitudes that are not socially desirable -The sample may not be representative because of non-response bias (those that choose not to answer the survey may have different attitudes to those that choose to answer it)
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Mr Cordray sent me this article. It may be used when explaining the sociocultural origins of violence
Celebrating Bin Laden's death: Ugly maybe, but only human It is about people in America celebrating the death of Usama Bin Ladin. The notion of revenge is very common one in human societies. It functions as a deterrent for those that may be considering violent acts. It can be hypothesized that so called "cultures of honor" are emphasizing revenge more than other cultures. Research has also suggested that humans seem to have an innate sense of fairness, and have a tendency to punish those that break social norms. The article explains the celebrations of Usama Bin Laden's death as a combination of anxiety release caused by the terrorist threat, group pressure, the reminder of death that is believed to intensify the attributes that are central to self worth (such as patriotism), and a natural urge for revenge. Here is an interesting article that may relate to culture and relationships.
Japanese teens and married couples losing sex drive About two years ago I read Erich Fromm's book The art of loving. I have it in case you would like to borrow it from me. The content of this book has some relation to the role of culture in the formation and maintenance of relationships.
In the book, Fromm claims that love is not only a pleasant emotion, but an art, which therefore requires knowledge and effort. Love is something we learn through experience, which leads to understanding, which leads to love. Fromm claims that true love is rare in modern society. According to him, this is because we live in a market society. The focus is not how to love, but to find someone who is attractive; has all the traits that are sought after at the "personality market". Love has nowadays become a commodity, an exchange of goods. (one may of course argue that the traditional arranged marriage is also a type of economic exchange) The development of the market society coincides with the development of romantic love, which has transformed the view on love from an art in itself to the art of finding someone to love. In more traditional societies, marriages were arranged and not based on romantic love and freedom of choice. Love was expected to grow after some time. Indeed, as that Indian study by Gupta and Singh that we talked about in class shows, love grows after a few years in arranged marriages, while it tends to decrease in marriages that originated from romantic love. According to the contemporary view of romantic love, it is easy to love, but difficult to find the right person to love. As the increasing number of failed marriages in modern society show, love is not that easy. Fromm claims that the need for love originates from anxiety. It is the realization of our separateness from others, that drives us to union with others. This need of love can explain many psychological phenomena, such as conformity. Fromm means that this need has gone too far in modern society, that there now is an increasing tendency to eliminate differences between people because of egalitarian values. Instead of accepting that we are different and respecting those differences, Fromm argues that we now want others to think and believe as we do. For Fromm, real love is to preserve one's own individuality, and at the same time bond and unite with another being. He relates true love to altruism, when he claims that love is primarily giving and not receiving. For him, giving is the highest expression of strength and it is those that refuse that are impoverished in terms of human power and freedom. In order to practise the art of love (it may take you a few failed relationships until you learn), Fromm recommends self discipline (I believe that you need to have worked with your own issues to a certain extent before you can have satisfying relationships), patience, concentration (the ability to be present in a relationship and enjoy the moments with your partner), a supreme concern for love ("love each other or perish", as Auden said. If you are not courageous, don't have faith and believe in love, how is a relationship going to last?), and last but not least humility (accept that you are not always right). In short, Fromm means that in order to love, we should develop our inner qualities and not only focus on consumerism and accumulation of wealth. Ling send me the following clip which illustrates the stages in a relationship well.
Strangers, again There are many models of how interpersonal relationships develop. An influental model is Levingers model. According to the model, relationships go through five stages: 1. Acquaintance – Becoming acquainted depends on previous relationships, physical proximity, first impressions, and a variety of other factors. If two people begin to like each other, continued interactions may lead to the next stage, but acquaintance can continue indefinitely. 2. Buildup – During this stage, people begin to trust and care about each other. The need for intimacy, compatibility and such filtering agents as common background and goals will influence whether or not interaction continues 3. Continuation – This stage follows a mutual commitment to a long-term friendship, romantic relationship, or marriage. It is generally a long, relative stable period. Nevertheless, continued growth and development will occur during this time. Mutual trust is important for sustaining the relationship. 4. Deterioration – Not all relationships deteriorate, but those that do tend to show signs of trouble. Boredom, resentment, and dissatisfaction may occur, and individuals may communicate less and avoid self-disclosure. Loss of trust and betrayals may take place as the downward spiral continues, eventually ending the relationship. (Alternately, the participants may find some way to resolve the problems and reestablish trust. 5. Termination – The final stage marks the end of the relationship, either by death in the case of a healthy relationship, or by separation. (taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_relationship) Maybe a model to consider if you answer a question related to how relationships change or end. Here are some sources that may be useful when you are revising, primarily for altruism.
The first source is an RSA animate of a talk by Jeremy Rifkin. Jeremy Rifkin talks about how humans are biologically "soft wired" for empathy and that we can extend our empathy to others by extending our social identities to include the entire human race as well as other creatures. Rifkin claims that anti-social behavior, such as violence are secondary to our nature and are affected by sociocultural factors. His talk partly relates to biological factors for emotion - when other people are communicating their feelings, our mirror neurons create the same feelings in us. Therefore, when you are in need of help it is essential that you communicate your emotions to others as well as you can. The social identity theory (SIT) or kin selection theory may be arguments that can be used against his claim. As you all know, according to these theories, we have a tendency to "help and stick to our own kind" or our in-groups. One may ask if it our brains are capable of including all creatures on earth in our in-group in thought as well as in action. According to SIT our self identity is defined by this exclusion and inclusion of others. In his talk Jeremy Rifkin relates to research on mirror neurons. I think I showed you the first part of a documentary on mirror neurons a long time ago. Mirror neurons can be used as an example of how our biology influences our behavior as well as a biological factor influencing emotion. It is also a biological support of social learning theory. Speaking about social learning, I want to inform you that for dogs, barking and peeing with one leg lifted seems to be learned by imitation. As you might know, we taught our chihuahua Teddy not to bark and not to pee with his leg lifted (because I live in a condo and don´t want to disturb neighbors or have my walls spoiled) However, now when Teddy has seen other dogs lift their legs while peeing and heard them bark he is showing slight tendencies for these behaviors. Please do not use this last anecdote in any of your essays!!! If you are using Dan Batson´s empathy-altruism hypothesis as an empathy you may consider this article that is written by him: Empathic concern and empathy in humans It mentions a recent study by Batson where female participants read a story about Kayla who was being rehabilitated after a broken leg. Kayla was either a student, a child or a dog depending on the experimental condition. Interestingly enough, participants reported more empathic concern for the dog or the child than the student, implicating that empathic concern is more than just identification (because in that case participants who were students, should have identified more with Kayla the student) Another study than the Carol study that you all know of supporting Batson´s hypothesis is a study from 1983 where participants watched a confederate (unknowingly to participants) receiving electric shocks. They either watched him receive shocks over two trials or ten trials. After watching the trials participants had to answer questions about their emotional state. After filling out the questionnaire, participants were informed that the confederate had had a traumatic experience with electric shock during childhood and were therefore asked to take the remaining shocks in the confederate´s place. If participants had a high distress score as measured by the questionnaire they were more likely to accept the offer, supporting the view that we are more likely to help when we can empathize (which may be made possible by our mirror neurons). In regards to the "dog versus human" study I find it amusing that participants had more empathic concern for a dog than a full grown student, which may be because we a similar bonding with our pets as with our children. A study from 2003 has shown that when people pet their dogs, oxytocin is released in the dog as well as in the human. Oxytocin, which is another example of how hormones influence our behavior, is related to bonding, trust and helping behavior and is therefore a biological factor of altruism. More on oxytocin and bonding with pets can be read on this blog page (recommended to me by Chaya): Pampered pooch syndrome In regards to dispositional factors for altruism, Nicky sent me this link a long time ago: Oliner & Oliner This is the study of heroic rescuers that we have talked about in class. It may be used as an example of dispositional factors for behavior and maybe as part of an evaluation of bystander theories (even though there may be situational factors for bystanderism, some people may be less prone for bystanderism than others) The same may be used during evaluation of altruistic theories. There may of course also be social and cultural factors influencing both altruism and bystanderism. In an early presentation of altruism I mentioned the hypothesis of strong reciprocity, that states that we are more likely to help people in a group if a social norm of reciprocity and cooperation has been established. Conversely, if an egoistic norm has been established, we should be less likely to help others. We are also likely to punish those that break the social convention of helping. This behavior has been observed in humans as well as in animals. This possible "innate sense of fairness" has recently been observed in an interesting study on babies. Situational factors can also affect altruism. In one study, scientists compared survival rates of men, women and children between the sinking of Lusitania and the sinking of Titanic. The sinking went much faster for the Lusitania than the Titanic, and consequently more men and less women and children survived the Lusitania compared to the Titanic. The explanation is that because the sinking of the Titanic went so fast, men were more likely to follow their basic instinct rather than their internalized norm of allowing children and women to board the lifeboats before them. In a similar study, Dr Aguirre analyzed the records of a deadly nightclub fire and found that those who were alone in the nightclub were more likely to survive than those that were with friends or relatives (further support for SIT and kin altruism): How the men reacted as the Titanic and Lusitania Went Under Friends of mine, by the way, claim that feminism may eventually change the norm that women are to be saved before men if the lives of a group of people is at stake (as implied by the saying "women and children first"). But this is a new discussion in itself. It was when I was looking for some research to explain why relationships end or change that I came across Dr Rogge's research. Dr Rogge has conducted research that can predict breakups by exploring the participants' hidden/unconscious feelings to their partner:
Relationship test accurately predicts breakups Negative emotion, which is a factor that Gottman also emphasizes, therefore seem to be an important factor for the ending of relationships. However, even though negative emotion is a good predictor of breakups, these studies are only correlational. It may well be that there are other factors that have caused the negative emotions. As problems with communication is a major factor, Dr Rogge's recent research on 220 newly weds therefore shows some interesting results. According to the current data, finances is a more common problem than communication difficulties. As with most psychological phenomena, the reason why people break up is a complex matter. You may also want to look up the series The science of attraction if you want to learn more about the biological (e.g. smell), psychological (e.g. the halo effect) and social origins of attraction (e.g. familiarity). I have shown a few of the clips in class. The series are presented by Derren Brown. Derren Brown, by the way, is an illusionist who became famous for a TV series called mind control. He has made many entertaining programs where he has influenced people using psychological tricks, such as hypnosis and subliminal influence. Parts of these episodes can be found on Youtube. One social origin of attraction is, as you already know, familiarity. A long time ago Chaya recommended a blog article on this topic; Why familiarity breeds contempt. In the article, the author relates to research that familiarity only breeds liking to a certain extent. Studies show that familiarity only breeds initial liking, but if people are dissimilar to each other, being all too familiar with someone can actually breed disliking. Something you can consider when you evaluate research on the mere exposure effect. Similarity or perceived similarity is a psychological origin of attraction. Nicky sent me an interesting article on the topic some time ago; Why do couples start to look like each other? Studies have shown that couples in successful marriages are very similar to each other. However, these studies are only correlational, and it is therefore possible that being together can make you more similar to each other, for instance by acquiring similar habits. This "growing together" may be the reason why they say that dogs look like their owners. In one experiment, Zajonc demonstrated that partners tend to imitate each others facial expressions and thus may become more physically similar over time. If you want to see a documentary that relates to culture and relationships you can watch Louis Theroux's weird weekends - Thai brides This documentary was recommended to me by Ling and is about older western men that marry young Thai women through a dating agency. You may see some examples of cultural misunderstandings in the documentary, but foremost examples of stereotyping of Thai women. An interesting psychological phenomenon in regards to relationships is the "frenemy"; a friend or a partner that also is a competitor/rival and that you may have a dislike or even hate towards. The feeling is mutual, yet you stay friends/partners because of a mutual dependence on each other. How you can use this concept in any of your essays, I have no clue. The only situation I can think of is if you are talking about why relationships end. Dislike does not necessarily lead to the end of a relationship. One learning outcome of the biological level of analysis is to explain functions of at least two hormones in human behaviour. Two hormones that can be used besides adrenaline is testosterone and estrogen. Testosterone is related to libido, memory, depression, and aggression (you may therefore mention testosterone as a factor when you evaluate sociocultural explanations of violence). Estrogen is related to libido, depression, obsessive compulsive behavior, bulimia nervosa and memory.
There are age differences, socioeconomic differences and cultural and racial differences in regards to production of sex hormones. For instance, older people tend to have lower testosterone levels than younger men and people with a lower socioeconomic status tend to have higher testosterone levels than people with higher socioeconomic status. It is important to emphasize that the research has only found a correlation between certain behaviors and sex hormones. It is therefore likely that environmental (such as diet, stress), social (e.g physical labor) and cultural factors can alter hormonal production. Therefore, individuals with lower socioeconomic status may commit more felonies and be more likely to suffer from learning difficulties than individuals with higher socioeconomic status. Their higher testosterone production, however, may more be a symptom of their situation and not the cause of their behavior. Mr Cordray sent me an interesting article about a month ago that may interest you. It describes some new research findings that may seem a bit weird:
Social science palooza For instance, one study shows that we are more likely to break promises for those we love. This is because we are more driven by emotion than rationality when making these promises. This may be a study to consider when analyzing why relationships change (rule violations). There are also some interesting studies on emotion. Younger people are apparently better at reading emotion than older people (a factor you may consider if you write an evaluation for essays on emotion). Also, disgust seems to affect moral decisions. In one study participants were given a bitter drink and consequently more likely to register moral disgust when presented with different scenarios. Another study has demonstrated that home teams win more than away teams because the referee favors the home team while officiating. The referee is more likely to give more fouls to the away team the larger and louder the home team is. This is a classic example of conformity, and may be something you can mention if you answer a question on the topic. Speaking about conformity, a classic movie that illustrates minority influence is 12 angry men. Besides being a great movie, you can see all sorts of conformity and compliance techniques in it. Remember that consistency is the single most important factor for minority influence (some people may call it stubbornness). Last Christmas I read Natascha Kampusch's self biography "3,096 days". Natascha Kampusch is an Austrian woman who was kidnapped by a stranger at the age of 10 and then held in captivity by him for almost 9 years. I have the book in case you would like to borrow it from me. I have a few reflections on the book.
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AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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