Social Psychology Questions - Assignment Example

More Social Psychology Essay Questions Group dynamics and interacting with others The three components of Group dynamics are roles, norms and cohesiveness (Kassin et al, 2008). In a group, each individual works cohesively with a specific role to play and everybody in the group must stick to the stipulated norms that have been set for the members of the group to follow. Each individual in the group take up their social roles and the norms are the collective expectations by the group and these norms help define the social roles of each individual in the group. A group is set up with the aim of achieving some goals and each individual strives cohesively to achieve this goal. Every group has its own ideologies and values and these are the norms that each member of the group (individuals) must uphold in order to ensure the productivity of the group. The presence of other people in the group affects the way each individual behave in the group. The fact that the individual works in a group means that the lapses of a particular individual would not be easily identified as the individual works in a team. This is not to say that if an individual does not play the roles they are given very well that the group would not feel the impact. An individual that does not work as expected would reduce the overall productivity of the group (Kassin et al, 2008). A phenomenon called social loafing could likely occur when different individuals work in a group as there is a propensity that the individuals would be less productive and this is one of the few disadvantages of working in a group (Kassin et al, 2008). The presence of other people in the group could also affect their input as research has shown that individuals in a group do not work as hard as they do when they work alone. The way to reduce social loafing in a group is by simply identifying the contributions of each individual in the group. The presence of other people in the group would make the individuals perform well on easy tasks and perform badly on hard tasks (Kassin et al, 2008). The reason for this anomaly could be explained using the phenomenon called social facilitation and this could be explained by the fact that the presence of other people in the group would make the individuals to be aroused and this would definitely affect their performance (Kassin et al, 2008). This arousal would improve their performance on tasks that are easy and reduce their performance on tasks that are difficult and ordinarily they would have fared better on these hard tasks if they were working alone. Attraction and close relationships It is every desire and motive of every human being to form relationships with each other as this is a law of life and attraction. People find themselves attracted to other people and they would form relationships with people that they are attracted to. People are likely to form relationships when they discover that they would gain a lot from the relationship and would stick to this relationship if they benefit more from being involved in it than not being in it. People affiliate with other people when they have been stressed and they associate with these people in order to relieve their tensions. The desire of people to affiliate with a particular set of people is dependent on whether these people share their fate and aspirations. People are attracted to people that live close to them or people that they regularly come across (Kassin et al, 2008). Physical attraction could also be the reason some people affiliate with others as in the case of different gender relationship. The reason that some boys affiliate themselves with girls is that they find those girls physically attractive. A woman affiliates herself with a man if she finds out that the man is caring and financially capable to take care of their children in future and also if the man has interpersonal warmth. The law of attraction means that people of like minds and similar interest affiliate with themselves while people of diverse interests are less likely to associate with one another. Loneliness is a problem that is caused by an individual’s feeling of deprivation and the fact that the individual feels that he or she is all alone in the world. People that feel lonely have the impression that they have been ostracized from the society and they would likely not get involved with others. Loneliness could cause a great psychological problem to the person that has such feelings, hence people that have these feelings should try to interact or form relationships with other people as this would relieve them of their loneliness. The different types of close relationships are the one that exists between friends, siblings, romantic partners and parents and their children (Kassin et al, 2008). Parents show affection towards their children and cater for the needs of their children; siblings have a close knit-bond that keeps them together, while romantic partners are emotionally attached to one another. They are rewarding in the sense that these close relationships could yield a sort of emotional attachment, interdependence and the satisfaction of one’s psychological needs and this could be achieved through passionate love of one’s close relation. Helping others There are different perspectives that surround the help people give and receive. People that are closely related to us receive help from us due to some evolutionary factors. Evolutionary factors also makes people to give help to people that they have reciprocal relationships with, while these factors also cause help to be rendered to people that are members of a group. People also give help due to some certain egoistic factors as helping in this sense makes them feel good and they derive an appreciable amount of pleasure from helping others. People also help for some altruistic motives as they do not expect to be rewarded for rendering their help to their fellow human being. People that receive help are usually given this privilege if the person that gives them this help feels a certain amount of empathy for them. The situation that surrounds people actually influences the help they receive. Social psychologists have shown that when there are people present, it impedes helping as it makes it really difficult to identify the need to help or be helped. Living in a developed society and time pressure could also inhibit helping. Emotions also play a part in determining the help that people give or receive as research has shown that positive and negative moods influence helping in a way (Kassin et al, 2008). People that are in good moods would more likely render help than people that are in a really bad mood (Kassin et al, 2008). Another thing that makes people render help is due to their status in the society as they could be role models and are obliged due to the societal norm to fulfill the responsibility of helping others. Receiving help is dependent on some factors. Individuals that are attractive are more likely to receive help than unattractive individuals. People that look innocent in the sights of their helpers are more likely to receive help than those who are not. People would likely receive help from people they share similar characteristics with. The innocent victims that survived the earthquake in Haiti would likely receive help than people that are not in any serious need of help. Notable people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and President Obama are more likely to give help than people of insignificant status. Aggression Aggression is the deliberate act that a person carries out to harm another person. There are two types of aggression and they are distinguished and impulsive aggression (Kassin et al, 2008). Distinguished aggression is carried out to achieve a particular aim as it leads to some other end, while the impulsive aggression is carried out with no real aim to achieve some other end (Kassin et al, 2008). There is a wide variance of the patterns of aggression across cultures, gender and individual differences. Culture affects the rate or pattern of aggression on the sense that there are different cultures or subcultures that lay emphasis on the use of violence or aggression to improve one’s status in the society. Gender also play a role in determining the rate and pattern of aggression as experience has it that people of the male gender are more aggressive than people of the female gender; it is also common knowledge that serious aggressive acts are more likely to have been committed by people of the male gender. Research also has it that individual differences also determine the pattern or rate of aggression as there is a kind of aggression that is synonymous to people of particular ages as youths have been known to carry out most aggressive acts. The media plays a great role on aggression. The media changes the people’s orientation on aggressive acts as it is likely that the media representation of violent or aggressive behavior that does not involve sex could be imitated by children and adults. The kind of images that the media show to their audience could change the sensitivity and the attitude of the people towards violent or aggressive acts. Violent scenes shown by the media could be likely imitated by the audience, especially children and the youths, who are the most vulnerable people in the society. If the people are exposed to pornographic views, it could also influence aggressive behaviors, especially amongst the youths. If the media shows pornographic views that are either violent or non-violent, it could have a negative effect on the people viewing it and this also depends on whether the people shown in this pornography are either deriving satisfaction or not from this illicit behavior. Violence also occurs amongst close relationships and these are also referred to as intimate violence. Intimate violence exists amongst people within the same family or people that are having intimate relationships. Examples of intimate violence within close relationships are when a husband barters his wife or when partners or spouses are physically aggressive over each other. Sexual aggression amongst students in the same college is also a good example of intimate violence. Law Social psychology play a great role in law, especially in the selection of jurors and the way lawyers behave inside and outside the courtroom. In selecting jurors, the lawyers involve themselves in some sort of intuitive process and make use of some implicit personality theories and oversimplified conception as they select the jurors based on whether the person would be favorable to them. This means that the jurors are selected based on the individual sentiments or emotional attachment of the lawyers. The lawyers also appoint consultants that help them in carrying out the scientific jury selection process. These consultants make use of social psychology tools by finding the relationship between the attitudes and demographics towards a specific trial and these relationships are used as a guideline by the lawyers in selecting the jurors (Kassin et al, 2008). The first stage of the jury selection process is the identification of the potential jurors by the judge or lawyers on both sides. After identifying the potential jurors, the second stage is the selection of the representative sample that represents the interests of both parties. The third and final stage of the jury selection process is the voir dire and in this stage, the prospective jurors are examined before the trial by the lawyers on the opposing sides to remove any case of bias and the judge is also involved in this pretrial examination process (Kassin et al, 2008). The perception of justice inside and outside the courtroom depends on the accuracy of the judge and the accuracy of the evidence presented in the courtroom. A judge that is biased in his judgments would be heavily criticized outside the courtroom and the people in the courtroom would not be satisfied with their judgments especially if it is not in their favor. Cases presented in the courtroom would most likely have people supporting both the defendants and the plaintiffs in the courtroom, and the perception of justice by the people in the courtroom would depend on whose side they are in. The decision to sentence a defendant is solely taken by the judge and these decisions could be controversial. People tend to protest against decisions they feel is not fair as they claim that there is no universal punishment as the sentences given by the judges are not usually consistent from one judge to the other. It is pertinent to note that the reaction of people to justice is not always dependent on whether they win or lose a case, but also on whether the judge has been fair enough and if the procedures that the judge used to achieve the result have been satisfactory to them. Business Business is not only influenced by economic factors as business also has its social side. Social psychological has a wielding influence on business and this shall be explained in this section. The first step involved in the development of a productive business is unarguably in the area of personnel selection and this area now makes use of social psychology in making employment decisions. Employers usually use the customary recruitment interview techniques in making decisions on whether or not to recruit a prospective employee but this has now been replaced by social methods as the traditional method have not been effective (Kassin et al, 2008). Due to the lapses of these traditional employment interviews, social psychology methods have been developed to make the employment decisions more effective. Centers that the prospective employees would be broadly assessed to see if they would fit into the working system have been provided as one of the alternatives to the traditional method. Socially structured interviews and standardized tests have been developed as an alternative to the traditional method. The standardized tests used by the human resource management in selecting their personnel is structured to determine the cognitive or thinking ability of the prospective employee and it is also used to determine if the person is an extrovert or an introvert. Social psychological factors also have an impact on the economic decisions made in a business or organization. Factors such as attribution, conformity and social comparison influence economic decisions (Kassin et al, 2008). Key investors in business are usually influenced by the amount of attributions they get as these help them to make decisions on whether to continue laying their stakes on the business or not. An example is the attributions made by some investors on the increasing and decreasing stock prices and these attributions have a wielding influence on the prices of the stocks. Health The kinds of event that people undertake either have a positive or negative effect on their physical and mental health. Social psychologists have proven that negative activities are usually more stressful than rewarding and positive activities. As a result of the stress that comes with engaging in negative activities, it affects the physical and mental health of the individuals that involve in these activities. Generally, stress has a negative effect on the physical and mental wellbeing of an individual. The body responds to stress in three ways. The body initially reacts to the stress they pass through and after this, the body resists this stress and if the body is not successful in resisting the stress, the body breaks down. This means that the stress the individual passed through have been successful in exhausting the individual and what follows is either physical or mental illness. The effect that stress has on one’s life depends on the kind of life changing activity that the person undergoes. Let’s assume that Frank just lost his bid on a juicy contract after spending so much money, the effect of this loss could take a toll on the mental health of Frank and this shows the effect that negative life changing stress have on someone’s health as it would have a harmful influence. People that engage in positive life changing activities might not be negatively affected by these things as it might not have a negative effect on their health. Someone that is getting engaged, even though this could be stressful would actually derive satisfaction from this engagement and this would help the person pull through the event successfully without feeling any negative impact on their health. A situation where someone moves into a new apartment is not a harmful stress and this is not likely to have any negative effect on the health of that person (Kassin et al, 2008). When people derive satisfaction in what they do, they tend to be happy. People generally derive pleasure from activities that are not too stressful and are rewarding. When people are in full control of their lives, they would definitely be happy and this would result in better health for such individuals. Reference Kassin, S., Fein, S. & Markus, H. (2008). Social Psychology. Seventh Ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Read More