How do human morals, ethics, and values influence social psychology? In other words, how do our personal interpretations influence how we think, feel and act in social settings? Personal interpretations influence everything that we do; how we think, act and feel in social settings. The word Schema is used to described the mindset that we use to organize our knowledge of the world around us. For instance, how we handle life’s shortcoming are based on our mindsets; if a person interprets every obstacle as a setback, it is likely that the person gives up and assumes every opportunity will ultimately lead to failure. Also, some cultural values might influence what a person looks for in a relationship; a man because of his cultural values might …show more content…
What influences develop this social self? How does this lead to upward or downward social comparison? Self-concept is a mental image of who you are as a person, the beliefs one has about oneself. According to the social identity theory, it is composed of two parts; personal identity as well as social identity. An example of personal identity would be personality traits; stubbornness, shyness, creativity, amiability. An example of social identity would the groups of people we interact with; friends, families, religions, cultures. Influences such as society, gender, age, relationships, and education. In terms of society, one’s self-concept might change based on what is praised by society. Gender might affect how strong one’s self-concept is; women might have a weaker self-concept because society has certain expectations of what they should be like. Depending on the strength of one’s self-concept, one might develop and upward or downward social comparison. For example, if one has a strong self-concept, it is likely to develop a downward social comparison; seeing oneself as superior to others. On the other hand, if one has a weaker self-concept, it is likely to develop an upward social comparison; seeing oneself as inferior to others. Note that it is also possible to have a strong self-concept or and not develop a downward social comparison. It is also likely to develop a downward social comparison when one has a weaker …show more content…
Priming occurs when one responds to a stimulus which depends on exposure to a past stimulus. An example of this would be a person who sees the word yellow will be slightly faster to recognize the word banana. This occurs because yellow and banana are associated with one’s memory. Also, priming is used to train a person’s memory. For example, the smell of a certain perfume might lead one to think of a specific word or color. This usually involves the workings of recalling that specific color or word tied to that specific scent. Define, explain, and give examples of self-fulfilling prophecies. An example of self-fulfilling prophecies is a placebo effect; if a person takes a medicine that is supposed to alleviate pain, the pain is lessened even if the medicine was not effective. Another example is the Harry Potter series; Voldemort would not have tried to kill Harry if he had not listened to rumors about a boy who will gain powers to defeat him. In him trying to kill Harry, he inevitably gave Harry the powers to later
Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect each other. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.
Negative priming is following. Two stimuli are presented to participants and they are asked to react only to one stimulus and ignore the other. The observed responses are slow if the item they have to respond to is the same as the item they have to ignore. The theory of negative priming holds that this slowdown is a result of the dual-process mechanism of selective attention where perceived information is activated and distracting information is prevented . Thus, the slowdown is the result of participant's trying to respond to an item that was prevented before the request.
“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come ‘true’” (“Self-fulfilling” 1). This is a complicated statement, but when broken down and compared to an example it is easy to understand. To do this, reference to the main character of The Tragedy of Macbeth, Macbeth, is extremely helpful. In the play, Macbeth murders many people to secure himself as king of Scotland because three witches told him that he could be king. Macbeth took this fortune telling as truth and immediately assumed that he would have to kill the king. He ruined his own life because he thought it was the only way to become king and he felt justified because of the prophecy.
The social comparison theory has been studied for years and defined as the philosophy that people need to turn to others for assurance of their own opinions and actions. In other words, people base their personal worth on how they compare to peers around them. This theory can support why it is human nature to be envious of others based on what they have. Individuals need to evaluate themselves in almost every aspect of life, including wealth, relationship status, and intelligence. These are some areas where most people their evaluations to determine how successful their life is at the current moment. In “A Theory of Social Processes” by Leon Festinger, he collects data based on this theory and presents certain hypotheses that can be supported through different experiments. Not only has it been shown in experiments, but also in everyday life. In a televised series, “That’s 70s Show” the main character, Eric Forman, has gone through a situation where he displayed the social comparison theory. Lastly, in personal experiences I have a friend that has encountered a cheating problem in his relationship that caused him to rethink about what he will do based on the consensus of his peers.
Society is focused around the principles of human values and thus these values define human beings as individuals. Values allow individuals the ability to contemplate decisions and ideals based on a given situation and how the individual feels in regard to the specific situation, whatever it may be. It is highly improbable that an individual will not evoke on specific personal values throughout any part of the day, because human values guide human actions. Positive values are values that conjure joy and satisfaction; Morality, Empathy, Honesty, Love, Knowledge, Faith, and Leadership. While negative values involve struggle and sadness; prejudgment, loathing, greediness, self-regard, etc.
More often than not, the outcomes of events that occur in a person’s life is the product of the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. It is that which “occurs when a person’s expectations of an event make the outcome more likely to occur than would otherwise have been true” (Adler and Towne, Looking Out, Looking In 66). Or restated, as Henry Ford once put it, “If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right!” This brief research paper touches on the two types of self-fulfilling prophecies, those that are self-imposed and those that are imposed by others. Additionally, it gives a discussion on how great of an influence it is in each person’s life, both positively and negatively, and how it consequently helps to mold one’s self-concept and ultimately one’s self.
McNamara, T. P. and Holbrook, J. B. 2003. Semantic Memory and Priming. Handbook of Psychology. 445–474.
Myers, D. G., (2009). Self-Concept: Who Am I?. In M. Ryan(Ed.), Exploring social psychology (pp. 23-33). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
Today, you can observe someone and see how much of their cultural background influences them when deciding or they are acting on morals. Culture is made up of many aspects such as knowledge, beliefs, morals, law and habit. Culture is not an innate ability rather, it’s something people learned. In “Being Weird: How Culture Shapes the Mind” Ethan Watters explores a work of an anthropologist Joe Henrich, who uses a game called “ultimatum game” with small communities to tell whether they have the same universal human behavior. The way people learn their culture is through observing. Culture defines people’s world, it is how they should act, guide their behavior and perceptions throughout their lives.
In this paper I will be discussing the importance and necessity of having a strong self-concept. Also, I will be examining and thoroughly analyzing the in-depth concepts that help contribute to or compose your own self-concept. The ideas that I will be discussing in-depth are: self-esteem and it’s effect upon our lives, impression management and how society could fall apart without it and the ways that our society benefits from reflected appraisals.
The self-concept is about people, it focuses on how people can be influenced in order to be motivated. It deals with people’s perceptions and it is also concerned with beliefs such as the beauty, commitment, and the way people observe themselves. Rogers (1953) said that people are aware of their self-concept, because it exists in their conscious.
Social psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, and the effects on the individual. It is "The scientific investigation of how people's thoughts, feelings and behavior are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others." (Carmen Grillo, September 19) Social psychology has three faces, these three faces being its central objects of inquiry.
The idea of childhood experiences was studied in 1874 by a scientist named Ernst van Brucke whose key concept is known as the “psychodynamic perspective,” which links human behavior to feelings and emotions and their relation to childhood experiences. Another association to childhood or past experiences and the way they shape the feelings of thought and behavior comes from “Freuds theory of psychoanalysis,” in his assumption that our mental life is “unconscious” (courses.lumenlearning.com). From the “behavioral perspective,” our behaviors occur through our experiences and the environment. Norms are considered behavior which is acceptable in a certain group. What may be acceptable in one culture may be the complete opposite of another. Socialization is the process that an individual acquires to conform to norms which can be language, social skills, and values (businessdictionary.com). Therefore, the things that are important in a culture are based on values, beliefs and norms which shape our behaviors in society.
In explaining Cultural Relativism, it is useful to compare and contrast it with Ethical Relativism. Cultural Relativism is a theory about morality focused on the concept that matters of custom and ethics are not universal in nature but rather are culture specific. Each culture evolves its own unique moral code, separate and apart from any other. Ethical Relativism is also a theory of morality with a view of ethics similarly engaged in understanding how morality comes to be culturally defined. However, the formulation is quite different in that from a wide range of human habits, individual opinions drive the culture toward distinguishing normal “good” habits from abnormal “bad” habits. The takeaway is that both theories share the guiding principle that morality is bounded by culture or society.
Our social influences have such a big impact on our behavior throughout our lifespan. Human interaction greatly impacts human behavior. As individuals, we behave certain ways at different times and places. Our social influences can alter or shape actions, speech, attitude, etc. In the world of psychology social behavior is in everything that we do, even when the time comes that you find yourself alone at home, and no one is around. Social psychology is the actions that we take, words we speak, whether with others or not, and knowledge we have. Attitude is a relatively enduring and general evaluation of an object, person, group, issue, or concept on a scale ranging from negative to positive (Encylopedia.com). Throughout