Social Psychology

1. Social Psychology David Myers 10e BY: LON Haidula

2. Chapter Five • Genes, Culture, and Gender BY: LON Haidula

3. How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? • Genes, Evolution, and Behavior • Natural selection • Process by which heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce in particular environments are passed to succeeding generations • Organisms have many and varied offspring • Offspring compete for survival in their environment • Certain biological & behavioral variations increase their chances of reproduction and survival in that environment • Those that survive are more likely to pass their genes to the next generation • Thus, over time, population characteristics may change BY: LON Haidula

4. How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? • Evolutionary psychology • Study of the evolution of cognition and behavior using principles of natural selection • We share: • food preferences • Answers to social questions • Whom should I trust and fear? Whom should I help? • When and with whom should I mate? We all rank others by authority and status BY: LON Haidula

5. How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? • Culture and Behavior • Culture • Enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next • Cultural diversity • Our behavior is socially programmed • One in ten Americans is an immigrant BY: LON Haidula

6. How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? • Culture and Behavior • Culture • “An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashed in a French tunnel, riding in a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was high on Scotch whiskey, followed closely by Italian paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles and is treated by an American doctor using medicine from Brazil” BY: LON Haidula

7. How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? • Culture and Behavior • Norms: Expected Behavior • Norms • Standards for accepted and expected behavior • Personal space • Buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies BY: LON Haidula

8. How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? • Culture and Behavior • Cultural Similarity • Universal friendship norms • Universal trait dimensions • Universal social belief dimensions • Universal status norms • Incest taboo • Norms of war BY: LON Haidula

9. How Are Gender Similarities and Differences Explained? • Gender • Characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, by which people define male and female BY: LON Haidula

10. How Are Gender Similarities and Differences Explained? Women Men • Describe themselves in more relational terms • Experience more relationship-linked emotions • More empathetic • Gravitate toward jobs that reduce inequalities • Focus on tasks and on connections with large groups • Respond to stress with “fight or flight” response • Gravitate toward jobs that enhance inequalities BY: LON Haidula

11. How Are Gender Similarities and Differences Explained? • Social Dominance • Men are socially dominant • Women’s wages in industrial countries average 77 percent of men’s • Men tend to be more autocratic; women more democratic • Men take more risks BY: LON Haidula

12. How Are Gender Similarities and Differences Explained? • Aggression • Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone • In the U.S., the arrest ratio of male to female is 10 to 1 • When provocation occurs the gender gap shrinks • Women are slightly more likely to commit indirect aggressive acts • Spreading malicious gossip BY: LON Haidula

13. How Are Gender Similarities and Differences Explained? • Sexuality • Men: • More often think about and initiate sex • Women: • Are more inspired by emotional passion BY: LON Haidula

14. Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally? • Gender and Mating Preferences • Men seek out quantity • Spreading genes widely • Women seek out quality • Protecting and nurturing of offspring BY: LON Haidula

15. Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally? • Reflections on Evolutionary Psychology • Evolutionary psychologists sometimes start with an effect and work backward to construct an explanation • Way to overcome the “hindsight bias” is to image things turning our otherwise • Evolutionary psychologists disagree with this theory BY: LON Haidula

16. Sample Predictions Derived from Evolutionary Psychology BY: LON Haidula

17. Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally? • Gender and Hormones • Gender gap in aggression seems influenced by testosterone • As humans age they become more androgynous • Mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics BY: LON Haidula

18. Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture Says? • Gender Role • Set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and females • Gender roles vary over culture • Gender roles vary over time BY: LON Haidula

19. Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture Says? • Peer-Transmitted Culture • 50 percent of individual variations in personality traits is by parental nurturing • The other 50 percent is peer influence BY: LON Haidula

20. What Can We Conclude about Genes, Culture, and Gender? • Biology and Culture • Biology and experience interact when biological traits influence how the environment reacts BY: LON Haidula