Chapter 1 Introduction to Social Psychology
Social Psychology and related disciplines
Social psychology and human values
The phenomenon “I knew it!”: is it possible to put an equal sign between social psychology and common sense?
How social psychologists work
Author's postscript. What prompted me to write this book?
PartI. social thinking
Chapter 2
Self-concept: who am I?
Conscious self-control
Predisposition in favor of one's self
self-presentation
Author's postscript. Two-Faced Truth: The Dangers of the Proud and the Power of Positive Thinking
Chapter 3 Social Beliefs and Judgments
How do we explain the actions of others
Construction of interpretations and memories
How do we judge others
Self-Fulfilling Beliefs
Author's postscript. Reflections on the Strengths and Weaknesses of Intuition
Chapter 4. Behavior and Attitudes
Do attitudes determine behavior
Does it define installation behavior?
Why actions affect attitudes
Author's postscript. Changing yourself through action
PartII. social impact
Chapter 5. Genes, culture and gender
Human nature and cultural differences
Gender differences and similarities
Evolution and gender: doing what nature intended?
Culture and gender
Author's postscript. Who are we? Creators of our social worlds or their creations?
Chapter 6
Classic Studies
When does conformity appear?
Why does conformism appear?
Who is conformist?
Resistance to social pressure
Author's postscript. Be a member of society and remain an individual
Chapter 7
Methods of Persuasion
Components of belief
Examples of Persuasion Research: How Cults Recruit Adherents
Persuasion Resistance: Inoculation of Attitudes
Author's postscript. Be open but not gullible
Chapter 8
What is a group
social facilitation
social laziness
Deindividualization
Group polarization
Group Thinking
Minority influence
Author's postscript. Are groups bad for us?
PartIII. social relations
Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Aggression: Harming Others
What is aggression?
Theories of aggression
Factors that provoke aggression
Decreased Aggression
Author's postscript. Reforming a Violent Culture
Chapter 11
Friendship
Love
Maintaining close relationships
Ending a relationship
Author's postscript. The art of loving and being loved
Chapter 12
Why do people help each other?
When do we help each other?
Who are we helping?
How to make helping more common?
Author's postscript. Bringing Social Psychology to Life
Chapter 13 Conflict and Reconciliation
Conflict
Reconciliation
Author's postscript. communitarianism

Modules. Applied Social Psychology
Module A. Social psychology in the clinic
How Clinical Psychologists Make Their Judgments
Social Cognition and Problem Behavior
Socio-psychological approach to treatment
Social support and well-being
Author's postscript. How to be happy?
Module B. Social psychology and justice
Witness testimony
Other sources of influence on judgment
Jurors as Individuals
Jury as a group
From laboratory to life: real jurymen and their imitations
Author's postscript. Psychological Science Shapes Critical Thinking
Module B. Social psychology and a secure future
global crisis
Social psychology of materialism and moderation
On the way to smart consumption
Author's postscript. Afterword
Glossary
Alphabetical index

Strictly scientific and human at the same time, this book is filled with facts and intriguing information that makes reading it not only informative, but also fascinating. It describes the fundamental principles of social thinking, social influence and social behavior, as well as a variety of experiments and recent research. The book will be useful not only to psychologists, but also to sociologists, philosophers, and political scientists.

WORD, St. Petersburg: Prime-Eurosign, 2002. - 512 p.

Social Psychology

David Myers

(David G. Myers "Social Psychology", 7th ed., 2002)

David J. Myers is professor of psychology at Hope College, Michigan. He is not only a brilliant teacher, but also an outstanding scientist: for his research on group polarization, the American Psychological Association (9th Division) awarded him the Gordon Allport Prize. His scientific articles have been published in more than two dozen journals. D. Myers - consulting editor of journals Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, author of dozens of books, including popular science.

Foreword

When I was first asked to write this textbook, I envisioned a book that should be both rigorously scientific and human, filled with proven facts and intriguing. It needs to be as compelling about social psychology as a forensic reporter is about an investigative story, and to do so, it needs to be both summaries of the most recent research on major social phenomena and how scientists study and interpret them. . The material should be presented in sufficient detail, but it should also stimulate thinking students - their willingness to delve into the essence of problems, analyze them and correlate the principles of science with what is happening in real life.

How should an author select material for a "sufficiently complete" introductory textbook in the discipline he is engaged in? Material that would be perceived as a whole narrative, but at the same time would not frighten away with its bulkiness, because it can be assimilated in parts? And I decided to present those theories and data that, on the one hand, are quite accessible to the average student, and, on the other hand, are not covered in other courses in sociology or psychology, and at the same time pay the main attention to the material that makes it possible to present social psychology in spirit of the intellectual tradition inherent in the humanities. A liberal arts education that addresses the masterpieces of literature and the greatest achievements of philosophy and science develops our thinking, broadens our horizons and frees us from the power of the moment. Social psychology can also contribute to the achievement of these goals.

Only a few of those who study psychology in their student years become professional psychologists almost all choose other specialties. By focusing on aspects of this science that are important from a humanistic point of view, its fundamental content can be stated in such a way that it will be useful to all students and will have a stimulating effect on them.

Social psychology is a true celebration of ideas! Throughout the history of mankind, human social behavior has been scientifically studied for only one century, the very one that has recently ended. If we take into account that we are only at the very beginning of the path, we can say that the results achieved do us credit. We have been enriched with important information about beliefs and illusions, about love and hate, about conformity and independence.

Although much in human behavior is still a mystery, social psychology can already partially answer many intriguing questions today:

Will people behave differently if they first accept new attitudes? If so, what is the most effective method of persuasion?

Why do people sometimes help and sometimes harm each other?

How do social conflicts arise and what needs to be done to ensure that its participants open their fists and shake hands?

Answering these questions—and that is my mission as the author of this book—allows us to better understand ourselves and the social forces that affect us.

How is the textbook structured?

The presentation of the main course is preceded by a separate chapter that introduces the reader to the methods of socio-psychological research. She also warns students that results that are already known can be taken for granted, and that social psychologists' own moral values ​​seep into the science they study. The task that the author set himself while working on this chapter was to prepare students for the perception of what was presented in the remaining chapters.

The book is structured in accordance with its definition of social psychology as the science of how people think about each other (Part I), influence each other (Part II), and relate to each other (part III).

Part I is dedicated social thinking, that is, how we perceive ourselves and others. It evaluates the accuracy of our impressions, intuitions and explanations.

Part II deals with social influence. By paying tribute to the cultural sources of our attitudes and by examining the nature of conformity, persuasion, and groupthink, we can better understand the hidden social forces that affect us.

Part III is devoted to manifestations of both negative and positive social relations (in the form of attitudes and behavior). It is structured in this way: a story about aggression is preceded by a presentation of material about prejudices, and a story about altruism is preceded by material about the mutual inclinations of people; it concludes with a consideration of the dynamics of the conflict and its resolution.

The practical use of the results of socio-psychological research is described both in each chapter and in the separate chapter "Applied Social Psychology", which consists of three independent modules: "Social Psychology in the Clinic", "Social Psychology and Justice" and "Social Psychology and Reliable future".

In this edition, as well as in the previous one, much attention is paid to different cultures, as can be seen, in particular, in chapter 6, which describes the role of cultural traditions; this is also evidenced by the use in all chapters of the book of the results of studies conducted in different countries. All authors are children of their culture, and I am no exception. And yet, thanks to acquaintance with the world psychological literature, correspondence with researchers living in different parts of the globe, and traveling abroad, I had the opportunity to introduce the world of social psychology to readers from different countries. The focus, as in previous editions, is on Fundamental Principles of Social Thinking, Social Influence, and Social Behavior as formulated on the basis of carefully conducted experimental studies. In the hope of expanding our understanding of the one family that is called humanity, I have sought to illustrate these principles with transnational examples.

Chapter 21

It seems that our behavior towards each other is becoming more and more destructive. While Woody Allen's prediction that "by 1990 kidnapping will be the predominant form of social interaction" did not come true, the scenes of violence in the 1990s horrified people around the world. In the United States, where an increase in the number of police officers and an economic recovery in the 90s led to a slight decrease in crime, reports indicate that the number of crimes committed annually reaches one million. Arming and maintaining the army in the world spends 1.4 million dollars a minute - and this is money that could be spent on the most urgent needs of our time: to fight hunger, to education, to protect the environment.

According to social psychologists, aggression is behavior aimed at harming another. This does not include road traffic accidents, causing pain during dental treatment, and unintentional collisions on sidewalks. This definition includes assault, direct insults and even ridicule if they are pronounced in an unfriendly tone or with a flash of emotion. When Iraqis massacred Kuwaitis by invading their country, and the Allies massacred 100,000 Iraqis by expelling them from Kuwait, the motives for action can be called instrumental - it was an easy way to take territory, but their behavior was nonetheless aggressive.

Biological factors

Philosophers have long argued about who a person is by nature: a good-natured and accommodating "noble savage" or, basically, an unruly, impulsive animal? The first view, usually associated with the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, places the blame for social evil not on human nature, but on society. The second view, which, in turn, is associated with the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679), considers social restrictions as necessary to curb the animal manifestations of human nature, which needs strict control. In our century, Hobbes' views that aggressive impulses are innate and therefore inevitable were shared by Sigmund Freud and Konrad Lorenz.

Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, believed that the source of human aggression is the redirection of the energy of the primitive death drive (which he called the "death instinct") to others. Lorentz, who studied animal behavior, saw aggression as an adaptive rather than a self-destructive behavior. But both scientists are unanimous that the aggressive energy has an instinctive nature. In their opinion, if it does not find discharge, then it accumulates until it explodes or until the right stimulus releases it outward, like a mouse from a mousetrap. Lorenz (1976), despite his busyness, took part in the discussion on the topic of whether a person has innate mechanisms for inhibiting aggression (those that make us defenseless). He was frightened by the armament of the "fighting instinct" without the availability of means of its inhibition.

The idea of ​​considering aggression as an instinct confirmed its complete failure when the list of all kinds of human instincts grew to the point that it began to cover almost all conceivable human actions. In addition, scientists have already begun to realize how much behavior varies from one person to another and from one culture to another. Obviously, physiological factors affect our behavior as successfully as education influences our character. Our experiences are interconnected with our genetically built nervous system.

Influence nervous system

Aggression is a complex behavioral complex; there is no “aggression control center” in the human brain. However, scientists have found - both in animals and in humans - parts of the nervous system responsible for the manifestation of aggression.

When these brain structures are activated, hostility increases; deactivation leads to a decrease in hostility. That is why even the mildest animals can be enraged, and the most ferocious can be tamed.

In one experiment, the researchers implanted an electrode into the brain of a dominant monkey, an area responsible for inhibiting aggression. With a remote control at its disposal, the little monkey learned to press the button that activated the electrode whenever the tyrant monkey began to behave threateningly. Brain activation is also seen in humans. So, after painless for the patient electrical stimulation of the amygdala (section of the cerebral cortex), she became furious and smashed her guitar against the wall. It was only by accident that she missed and therefore did not hurt the psychiatrist's head (Moyer, 1976, 1983).

Genetic factors

Heredity affects the sensitivity of the nervous system to pathogens of aggression. It is well known that some animals are bred to exploit their aggressiveness. Sometimes this is done for practical reasons (breeding of fighting cocks), sometimes for scientific purposes. Kirsti Lagerspetz (1979), a Finnish psychologist, took normal albino mice and divided them into two groups: aggressive and non-aggressive. By repeating this procedure for 26 generations, she produced one litter of incredibly ferocious mice and another of exceptionally calm mice.

Similarly, aggressiveness varies between primates and humans (Asher, 1987; Olweys, 1979). Our temperament - how receptive and reactive we are - is partly given to us at birth and depends on the reactivity of our sympathetic nervous system (Kagan, 1989). Questioned individually, monozygotic twins (who have identical genotypes) were more likely than dizygotic twins (whose genotypes differ, like normal siblings) to express similar opinions about their degree of "hotness" (Rushton others, 1986).

Biochemical factors

Chemical composition blood - another factor affecting the sensitivity of the nervous system to the stimulation of aggression. Both laboratory experiments and evidence from police stations show that drunk people are much more easily provoked into violent behavior (Taylor Leonard, 1983; Bushman Cooper, 1990; Bushman, 1993; Taylor Charmack, 1993). People who commit violence often: 1) abuse alcohol; 2) become aggressive on the background of intoxication (White others, 1993).

Under experimental conditions, subjects in a state of intoxication send stronger discharges of electric current to the “punished”. In the real world, nearly half of all violent and sexual crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol (Abbey others, 1993, 1996; Seto Barbaree, 1995). In 65 cases out of 100, the killer and / or his victim took alcoholic beverages (American Psychological Association, 1993). Alcohol increases aggressiveness, reducing a person's level of sanity, weakening the ability to foresee the consequences of actions taken (Hull Bond, 1986; Steele Southwick, 1985). Alcohol obscures individuality and removes inhibitions.

There are other biochemical influences; So, high level blood sugar can increase a person's aggressiveness. Although the hormonal influence is more pronounced in animals than in humans, drugs that lower testosterone levels in violent men reduce their aggressive tendencies. After reaching the age of 25, the level of testosterone in the blood of men decreases, and the number of “violent” crimes also decreases in parallel.

Prisoners convicted of unprovoked violence tend to have higher testosterone levels than those convicted of non-violent crimes (Dabbs, 1992; Dabbs others, 1995, 1997). It has also been observed that among normal adolescent and adult men, those with higher testosterone levels are more prone to delinquent behavior, drug addiction, and aggressive manifestations in response to provocation (Archer, 1991; Dabbs Morris, 1990; Olweus others, 1988). Testosterone can be compared to the energy of batteries. The increased consumption of the player's portable batteries will not make it play faster, while the player will play noticeably slower with low-powered batteries.

So, there are biological, genetic and biochemical factors that contribute to the emergence of aggression. But perhaps aggression is such a significant and integral part of human nature that it turns peaceful relations into just a pipe dream? The American Psychological Association and the International Council of Psychologists, in conjunction with other non-governmental organizations, unanimously endorsed a statement developed by a multinational team of scientists (Adams, 1991), which states: “It is scientifically incorrect to say that war and generally violent behavior, It is genetically inherent in human nature and that wars are caused by "instinct" - that is, in the end, they have some one simple motivation. As we will see later, there are real ways to reduce human aggression.

Psychological factors

Frustration and aggression

Warm evening. Tired and thirsty after two hours of class, you borrow some small coins from a friend and hurried to the nearest machine labeled "Soft Drinks." While the machine is swallowing change, you can almost taste the cold, refreshing cola. But here the button is pressed - and nothing happens. You press again. Then click on the coin return button. Nothing again. Then you already begin to beat on all the buttons indiscriminately and shake the machine with all your strength. And so, with unquenched thirst, you trudge back to your textbooks. Should your roommate be wary of you? Will you increase the likelihood that you will say or do something unpleasant to him?

According to one of the first psychological theories aggression, the answer will be: "Yes, it would be good for him to beware." “Frustration always leads to aggression,” wrote John Dollard and his colleagues (John Dollard others, 1939, p. 1). Frustration is everything that prevents the achievement of the goal (including a faulty vending machine with the inscription "Soft drinks"). Frustration intensifies when our purposefulness is very strongly motivated, when we expect to get satisfaction, but this is blocked.

As shown in fig. 21-1, the energy of aggression is not necessarily directed to the cause that caused it. Gradually, we learn to suppress the desire for direct retribution, especially when intemperance can lead to disapproval or even punishment from others. Instead of a direct response, we transfer our hostile feelings to more harmless targets. It is this displacement that is referred to in the old joke about the husband who scolds his wife, who yells at the son who kicks the dog who bites the postman.

[Incitement to aggression, Outward aggression, Direct expression of aggression, Frustration (goal), Other possible reactions (e.g. withdrawal), Inward aggression (e.g. suicide), Displaced aggression]

Rice. 21-1. classical theory frustration-aggression. Frustration creates motivation for the manifestation of aggression. Fear of punishment or condemnation for aggression directed directly at the root cause of frustration can cause the aggressive strike to be transferred to another target or even to oneself (according to Dollard others, 1939; Miller, 1941).

Laboratory testing of the frustration-aggression theory produced mixed results: sometimes frustration increased aggressiveness, sometimes not. For example, if the reasons for frustration were quite understandable, as in one of the experiments by Eugene Bernstein and Philip Worchel (Eugene Bumstein Philip Worchel, 1962), where the experimenter's assistant often interrupted the process of group problem solving, as his hearing aid constantly failed (and not just because he was inattentive), frustration did not lead to either irritation or aggression.

Realizing that in its original form the theory exaggerated the connection between frustration and aggression, Leonard Berkowitz (1978, 1989) revised it. He suggested that frustration causes irritation and emotional readiness to react aggressively. A person becomes more irritated if the one who caused his frustration had the opportunity to act differently (Averill, 1983; Weiner, 1981). A frustrated person is more likely to lash out when provoked. Sometimes the cork, with difficulty restraining anger, flies out of the neck and without provocation. In either case, however, stimuli associated with aggression increase aggression (Carlson others, 1990).

Berkowitz (1968, 1981, 1995) and others have found that a weapon in view is such a stimulus. In one experiment, children, after playing with toy weapons, were more likely to destroy a building made of blocks made by others. In another experiment, angry students at the University of Wisconsin sent their "offender" electric shocks of greater intensity when a rifle or revolver (presumably left oversight after a previous experiment) was in their field of view than when the "accidentally left objects" were rackets for badminton (Berkowitz Le Page, 1967). That is why Berkowitz was not at all surprised when he learned that half of all murders in the United States are committed with handguns and that if a weapon is kept at home, someone from the household is more likely to be killed than an intruder. “A gun not only allows you to commit a crime,” says Berkowitz, “it can also encourage you to commit a crime. The finger reaches for the trigger, but the trigger also reaches for the finger.

Nor was Berkowitz surprised by the fact that countries where firearms are banned have lower homicide rates. England has four times less population than the United States and sixteen times less murders. There are 10,000 gun homicides a year in the United States, about ten in England. Vancouver (British Columbia) and Seattle (Washington) have the same population, climate, economy and crime rate. However, in Vancouver, where the purchase of firearms is severely restricted, homicides with firearms are five times less than in Seattle, and therefore the total number of homicides is 40% lower (Sloan others, 1988). After a law was passed in Washington that restricted the right to own firearms, the number of murders committed there with the use of firearms and the number of suicides dropped sharply, by about 25%. The changes did not affect other methods of killing and suicide, or neighboring areas that were not covered by this law (Loftin others, 1991).

The weapon not only provokes aggression, but also creates a psychological distance between the aggressor and his victim. As shown in Milgram's work on submission, being away from the victim makes it easier to be violent. It is possible to kill with a knife, but it is more difficult and less common; it's much easier to kill when you just pull the trigger while at a considerable distance from the victim.

Aggression: a learning process

Theories of aggression, based on the concepts of instinct and frustration, suggest that hostile impulses spill out internal emotions that naturally "push" aggression from the inside to the surface. Social psychologists believe that, in addition, a person learns to "push" his aggression out.

Fruits of aggression

Through our own experience and by observing others, we begin to understand that aggressiveness can be acquired. Under experimental conditions, obedient animals turned into ferocious fighters; on the other hand, repeated defeats lead to the formation of resignation to fate (Ginsburg Alice, 1942; Kahn, 1951; Scott Marston, 1953).

And we are also beginning to understand that aggression can be encouraged and rewarded. A child who succeeds in intimidating other children by his aggressive actions becomes progressively more aggressive (Patterson others, 1967). Aggressive players—those who are most likely to sit in the penalty box because of rough play—provide more points for their team than non-aggressive players (McCarthy Kelly, 1978a, 1978b). Canadian junior hockey players whose fathers approve of rough play exhibit a more aggressive style of play (Ennis Zanna, 1991). In these cases, aggression is a tool for obtaining a certain reward.

Collective violence can also be profitable. After the riot in Miami's Liberty City area, President Carter went there to personally assure the residents that he was interested in getting them federal assistance as soon as possible. As a result of the Detroit riot in 1967, Ford's car company increased the number of minority workers, which led comedian Dick Gregory to joke: “Last summer, the fire got too close to the Ford plant. Don't hit your mustangs, baby." As South African riots intensified in 1985, the government repealed anti-miscegenation laws, proposed the restoration of black "civil rights" (with the exception of the right to vote), and abolished the hateful passes that controlled black movements. The point here is not that people deliberately plan riots, relying on their instrumental value, but that sometimes aggression pays well. In any case, it attracts attention.

The same is true for acts of terrorism, through which people without influence and power grab everyone's attention. “Kill one, you intimidate ten thousand,” says an ancient Chinese proverb. In this age of global communications, killing one person can frighten 10 million, as happened in 1985 when a series of terrorist attacks claimed the lives of 25 Americans. This sowed more fear in the hearts of travelers than the 46,000 deaths that occurred as a result of road accidents. Consider also the bombing that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma in 1995 - it deafened literally all of America. If terrorism were stripped of what Margaret Thatcher called the "oxygen of glasnost", it would certainly decline, Jeffrey Rubin (1986) concludes. Here we recall the incidents that took place in the 70s, when naked fans flashed on the TV screens for several seconds, whirling through the football field. As soon as broadcasters decided to ignore such cases, they immediately stopped.

Learning Through Observation

Albert Bandura developed the theory of social learning. He was convinced that we learn to show aggression not only because it is beneficial - we also adopt it as a model of behavior by observing other people. Like most other social skills, we learn aggressive behavior by observing the actions of others and noticing the consequences of those actions.

According to Bandura (1979), everyday life constantly shows us patterns of aggressive behavior in the family, subculture and the media. Children whose parents often resort to punishment usually use the same aggressive forms of behavior in relations with others. Parents coerce their children into obedience by yelling, spanking, and slapping the back of the head, and thus teach a lesson in aggression as a problem-solving method (Ratterson others, 1982). Very often, such parents themselves were subjected to physical punishment in childhood (Bandura Walters, 1959; Strans Gelles, 1980). Although most abused children do not go on to become criminals or abusive parents, 30% of them do abuse their children's punishments: they punish them four times more often than the average parent (Kaufman Zigler, 1987; Widom, 1989) . Within the family, violence often leads to violence.

Social environment outside the home provides a wide range of aggressive behaviors. In communities where male macho style is admired, aggression is readily passed on to the next generation (Cartwright, 1975; Short, 1969). The violence-tinged subculture of teenage gangs shows adolescents patterns of aggressive behavior. In sports such as football, violence on the playing field is most often followed by violence among fans (Goldstein, 1982).

Richard Nisbett (1990, 1993) and Dov Cohen (1996) studied the impact of subculture using data on violence in cities in the American South inhabited by the descendants of Scotch-Irish shepherds, in the cultural tradition of which emphasized the "male honor" and aggressive defense of their flocks. Among those who inherited this culture, today there are three times large quantity homicides compared to white homicides in New England towns populated by well-bred and respectable Puritans, Quakers, and descendants of Dutch rural craftsmen. The cultural heirs of the shepherds are more approving of children's fights, more often become active supporters of military initiatives and advocate the acquisition of personal weapons.

So, people encounter aggressiveness both from their own experience and from passive observation of aggressive behavior patterns. But in what situations do the acquired skills get practical implementation? Bandura argues (1979) that aggressive actions are motivated by a variety of aversive experiences - frustration, pain, insults.

Aversive experience causes us emotional arousal. But whether we will behave aggressively or not depends on the expected consequences of the manifestation of violence. Aggression is more likely to manifest itself when we are excited and when aggressive actions seem safe to us and promise certain benefits.

Influence of the external environment

Social learning theory offers a perspective that will help us identify factors that influence aggression. Under what conditions do we show aggression? What triggers the mechanism of our aggressive reactions from the outside?

Researcher Nathan Azrin once set up the following experiment: the paws of rats - through attached electrodes - were subjected to painful electric shocks. Ezrin planned to turn on the current, and then, as soon as the rats got close to each other, stop the pain impulses in order to find out: would this reinforce their positive interaction? To his great surprise, the experiment failed, because as soon as the rats felt pain, they immediately attacked each other - even before the experimenter had time to turn off the current. The stronger was the discharge, respectively, and pain, the more violent was the attack.

Is this only true for rats? Researchers have found that individuals of a wide variety of animals subjected to the above pain effects show more cruelty to each other, the stronger the pain sensations caused in them.

Ezrin (1967) reported that attacking behavior in response to pain occurs

“in many varieties of rats. We also found that the shock caused similar attacks when pairs of individuals of the same species were locked in the same cage. This applies to certain species of mice, hamsters, possums, raccoons, monkeys, foxes, nutrias, cats, turtles, monkeys, ferrets, squirrels, fighting cocks, crocodiles, crayfish, amphibians and various kinds of snakes: boa constrictor, rattlesnakes, brown muzzle, black snake, etc. An attack as a response to an electric discharge is clearly seen in a variety of animals. In all studied animal species, an attacking reaction to pain stimulation was almost always observed and was instantaneous; in rats, for example, it occurred "with the speed of pressing a button."

Animals are extremely promiscuous in the choice of targets. They can attack members of their own species, other animals, cloth dolls, and even tennis balls.

Scientists varied and sources of pain. They found that an attack could be triggered not only by electric shocks, but also by intense heat and "psychological pain." For example, when hungry pigeons, trained to receive rewards in the form of grains after tapping their beaks on a special disk, did not receive anything in response, this caused them the same reaction as electric shocks. "Psychological pain" is, of course, the same as what we call frustration.

Pain increases aggressiveness in humans as well. Many of us can recall the reaction we had to an unexpected and severe bruise of the big toe or painful headache. Leonard Berkowitz and his collaborators demonstrated the emergence of an aggressive response by inviting University of Wisconsin students to hold one hand in either lukewarm or painfully cold water. Those who put their hand in the icy water reported growing irritation and annoyance, and that they were literally ready to heap curses on a neighbor who made unpleasant sounds. The results obtained allowed Berkowitz (1983, 1989) to conclude that not frustration but rather aversive stimulation is the main trigger of hostile aggression. Frustration is definitely one of the most important sources of discomfort. But any aversive event, be it an unfulfilled expectation, a personal insult, or physical pain, can lead to an emotional outburst. Even a painful depressive state increases the likelihood of aggressiveness.

Uncomfortable surroundings can also cause aggression. Disgusting smells, tobacco smoke, air pollution can all be associated with aggressive behavior (Rotton Frey, 1985). The most studied environmental stimulus is heat. William Griffith (1970; Griffitt Veitch, 1971) found that, compared with students who filled out questionnaires in a room with normal air temperature, those who did it in a room that was too stuffy (with a temperature above 32 ° C) were more likely to say that that they felt tired, aggressive; in addition, they reacted more hostilely to the appearance of strangers. Further experiments have shown that heat also provokes vindictiveness (Bell, 1980; Rule others, 1987).

Does tiring heat lead to an increase in aggressiveness in the real world as well as in the lab? Let's turn to statistics.

Between 1967 and 1971, riots in 79 cities in the United States took place more frequently on hot days than on cold days.

Hot weather increases the likelihood of violent crimes. This was confirmed in Des Moines (Cotton, 1981), Dayton (Rotton Frey, 1985), Houston (Anderson Anderson, 1984), Indianapolis (Cotton, 1986), Dallas (Harries Stadler, 1988), Minneapolis (Cohn, 1993).

The greatest number of violent crimes is committed not only on hot days, but also in the hot season, in hot, stuffy cities and in the hottest areas. Western Europe(Anderson Anderson, 1996; Anderson Anderson, 1998). If indeed, as they say, we are in for a significant warming of the climate, then according to the predictions of Craig Anderson, Brad Bushman Ralph Groom (1997), in the middle of the twenty-first century, at least 115 000 serious offenses.

In dry Phoenix, Arizona, non-air-conditioned drivers are more likely to honk slower vehicles (Kenrick MacFarlane, 1986).

In major league baseball competitions from 1986 to 1988, games played in temperatures below 32°C were much tougher and more aggressive than games played in temperatures below 26°C. (Reifman others, 1991). The players in these matches were just ahead.

Attacking behavior

Attacks or insults from another person are an unusually strong causative agent of aggression. Experiments carried out in Kent state university Steward Taylor (Taylor Pisano, 1971), at Washington State University, Harold Dengenrink (Dengenrink Myers, 1977), and at Osaka University Kennichi Obuki and Toshihiro Kambara (Kennichi Ohbuchi Toshihiro Kambara, 1985), confirmed that deliberate insult or infliction of pain generates a retaliatory attack caused by the desire for revenge. In most of the studies mentioned, one of the participants in the experiment competed with another on the speed of reaction. After each series of tests, the winner determined the strength of the electrical discharges to punish the loser. Were the victors merciful to the vanquished, given that their roles were constantly changing? Nothing like this. The most common principle was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.

crowding

Crowding - the subjective feeling of lack of space - is another stressor. Crowding at the back of a bus, traffic jams, or overcrowding in a student dorm room creates a feeling of being out of control (Baron others, 1976; McNeel, 1980). Can this contribute to the manifestation of aggressiveness?

Stress experienced by animals in a crowded enclosed space increases the level of aggressiveness (Calhoun, 1962; Christian others, 1960). Of course, there is a noticeable difference between rats in a cage, deer on an island, and people in a big city. Yet there is no doubt that densely populated cities have more crime and people experience more emotional distress (Fleming others, 1987; Kirmeyer, 1978). Residents of densely populated cities, in contrast to residents of cities with smaller populations, are more likely to experience fear. The crime rate in Toronto is four times higher than in Hong Kong. But a much larger percentage of Hong Kong residents—four times as many as Toronto residents—report being afraid to go out (Gifford Peacock, 1979).

Decreased Aggression

We've been introduced to instinct theory, frustration-aggression theory, and social learning theory, and we've explored in depth the factors that contribute to aggression. So what's the bottom line? Can we somehow reduce aggression? What are the ways to control aggression? What does theory and research say about this?

Catharsis

“Young people need to be taught how to vent their anger,” Ann Landers strongly recommends (Ann Landers, 1969). “If a person is bursting with rage, you need to find a valve. We must give him the opportunity to blow off steam, ”the famous psychiatrist Fritz Perls echoes her (Fritz Peris, 1973). Both statements are based on the “hydraulic model”: the accumulated aggressive energy, like water held back by a dam, irresistibly strives to break out.

The concept of catharsis is usually attributed to Aristotle. Although Aristotle didn't actually say anything about aggression, he argued that we can purify oppressive emotions by "living" them, and that contemplating classical tragedies allows us to experience catharsis (purification). He believed that emotional arousal brings emotional release (Butcher, 1951). Later, the catharsis hypothesis was expanded to include emotional release, achieved not only through the contemplation of dramatic works, but also through the recall and "living" of past events, through external expression of emotions and through various actions.

Purification is beneficial for both the soul and the body. Even expressing anger can calm us down for a while, if it doesn't leave behind feelings of guilt or anxiety about the possibility of retribution (Geen Quanty, 1977; Hokanson Edelman, 1966). But prolonged anger is likely to breed new anger. For example, Robert Arms and colleagues report that Canadian and American soccer, wrestling, and hockey fans are more hostile after competition than before (Arms others, 1979; Goldstein Arms, 1971; Russell, 1983). Even war, and that, apparently, does not give purification from aggressive feelings. Statistics show that homicide rates tend to rise sharply after a war (Archer Gartner, 1976).

Experiments confirm the same thing: aggression leads to increased aggression. Ebbe Ebbesen and co-workers (Ebbesen others, 1975) interviewed 100 engineers and technicians shortly after they received warnings of possible layoffs. Some were asked questions that gave them the opportunity to express what they thought of their employer or immediate supervisor, such as this question: "Remember the times when the company clearly treated you unfairly." After the interview, the respondents filled out a questionnaire, where they were asked to mark the penalties that, in their opinion, the company and the authorities deserve. Did the previous opportunity to “blow off steam” reduce the level of aggression? On the contrary, hostility increased. The expression of hostility leads to increased hostility.

Isn't there something familiar about this? Recall that in chapter 9 we said that acts of cruelty create cruel attitude. Moreover, as we have seen in the process of analyzing the experiments of Stanley Milgram, the weak expression of an aggressive action can lead to the fact that the person who committed it refuses to see anything reprehensible in his act. People belittle the dignity of their victims, thereby justifying their aggressive behavior. If the anger can be vented the first time, the tension really subsides, otherwise the restraining principles weaken.

And yet, should we restrain aggression and aggressive impulses? Silently pouting is hardly more effective than taking out our anger on others, because in this case we still continue to play our grievances in memory, mentally conducting a dialogue with the offender. Fortunately, there are non-aggressive ways to express feelings and let others know how their behavior has affected us. You just need to replace the revealing statements that begin with the pronoun "you" with statements that begin with the pronoun "I", for example: "I'm angry!" or "When you say that, I get annoyed." In this case, you will express your feelings in a way that will make it easier for the other person to respond positively (Kubany others, 1995). You can be assertive without being aggressive.

Social learning approach

If aggressive behavior is acquired through learning, then there is hope that it can be controlled. Let us briefly consider the factors that contribute to the emergence of aggression, and think about how they can be countered.

Various aversive experiences, such as frustration of expectations and personal insults, are driven to the expression of hostile aggression. So it's best not to fill people's heads with unfulfilled dreams and vain hopes. Instrumental aggression is driven by an anticipated positive balance between reward and cost. This means that we must encourage in children the desire for cooperation and non-aggressive behavior. In experiments, children became less aggressive when their aggressive behavior was ignored and non-aggressive behavior was reinforced (Hamblin others, 1969).

But the effectiveness of punishment is very limited. In most cases, lethal aggressive actions were impulsive and abrupt - the result of a quarrel, insult or violent attack. Thus, we must pre-empt aggression, not wait until it occurs. We must learn non-aggressive conflict resolution strategies. If lethal acts of aggression were cold and instrumental, we might hope that by allowing the criminal to betray his aggressive intentions and then visibly punishing him, we would deter others from committing crimes. If this were the case, then states that have the death penalty would have fewer murders than states that have abolished the death penalty. But in our world, everything happens quite differently (Costanzo, 1998).

If we want peace, we need to nurture and encourage responsiveness and cooperation from an early age. It may be worth teaching parents how to discipline their children without using violence. Educational programs inspire parents to reinforce desired behaviors by using positive language ("When you're done cleaning your room, you'll go play") instead of negative language ("If you don't clean your room, I'll level you to the ground"). The implementation of one such “aggression replacement program” has reduced the number of re-arrests of juvenile offenders and teen gang members. Adolescents and their parents were taught communication skills, emotional self-control, and increased their level of reasoning about morality (Goldstein Glick, 1994).

If watching violent behavior lifts inhibitions and creates a desire to imitate, then we must stop showing particularly violent, inhumane stories in cinemas and television, that is, take measures similar to those taken against racist and sexist stories. We can also "vaccinate" children against the effects of violence shown in the media. Concerned that TV still "hadn't looked the facts in the eye and changed its programming approach," Eron and Huesmann (1984) told 170 children in Oak Park, Illinois, that television depicts the world in an unrealistic way, that aggression is not as common and not as effective as it is presented on the TV screen, and that aggressive behavior is undesirable. Bearing in mind the results obtained in the study of attitudes, Iron and Huismann invited the children to draw their own conclusions and express critical remarks. A re-examination of children showed that the violence shown on television had less effect on them compared to children with whom no prior interviews were conducted.

Pushing for aggression and aggressive incentives. This is suggestive of restricting access to handguns. In Jamaica, an anti-crime program was implemented in 1974 that included strict control of the sale of firearms, as well as the imposition of strict censorship on television and cinema, which restricted the display of scenes with weapons (Diener Crandall, 1979). Already next year, the number of thefts decreased by 25%, the number of non-fatal shots - by 37%. In Sweden, the production of military toys was discontinued. The Swedish Information Service (1980) formulated the national position as follows: "The game of war teaches you to resolve disputes by force."

Such proposals can help in the fight against aggression. However, given the many causes of aggression and the difficulty of controlling them, is it possible to share the optimism contained in Andrew Carnegie's prediction that in the twentieth century "homicide will be considered as disgusting as cannibalism seems to us today"? Since Carnegie said those words in 1900, about 200 million people have been killed. There is a sad irony that while we understand the nature of human aggression better than ever today, human inhumanity has hardly diminished.

Concepts to remember

Crowding is the subjective feeling of insufficient space per person.

Displacement - the transfer of aggression from the source of frustration to another target. Usually the new target is much more harmless or more socially acceptable.

Social learning theory is a theory according to which we learn social behavior through observation and imitation and under the influence of rewards and punishments.

Frustration - blocking purposeful behavior.

Chapter 22

From the 1960s to the 1990s, a continuous increase in the number of violent crimes was reported in many countries, especially among teenagers. What is the reason? What social forces led to such a rapid increase in violence?

Alcohol contributes to aggression, but total alcohol consumption has not changed significantly since the 1960s (McAneny, 1994). Could it be that the growing gulf between the power of wealth and the impotence of poverty was the cause of the increase in violence? Or the reproduction of scenes of violence and sexual coercion in works of popular culture? The latter question arises because the surge in physical and sexual violence has coincided with an increase in gore and overtly obscene scenes in the media. Is the observed relationship just a coincidence? What are the social implications of pornography (which Webster's Dictionary defines as erotic descriptions and images intended to arouse sexuality)? And what are the effects of reproducing scenes of violence in film and television?

Pornography and sexual violence

Repeated viewing of fictional erotic scenes has a number of consequences. First, the real-life partner's attractiveness may fade against such a background (Kenrick others, 1989).

Secondly, it may lead to the approval of extramarital sexual relations, as well as to the perpetuation of the idea that a woman in sexual relations should be subordinate to a man (Zillmann, 1989). A man begins to perceive a woman primarily as a sexual object, and a woman begins to perceive men as a kind of "macho" (Hansen, 1989; Hansen Hansen, 1988,1990; Lawrence Joyner, 1991). However, socio-psychological research focuses mainly on the depiction of sexual violence.

Here is a typical scene of a man forcing a woman to have sex: at first she resists and tries to fight back. However, gradually the woman comes into a state of sexual arousal, and there is no trace of her resistance. She eventually experiences ecstasy, begging for more. We've all seen or read non-pornographic versions of this sequence: she resists, he persists. A determined man hugs and kisses a woman despite her protests. At some point, her arms, which until then repelled the man, hug him tightly, and the resistance is drowned in a stream of unbridled passion. When Scarlett O'Hara, the heroine of Gone with the Wind, is dragged into bed, she protests and fights back, and wakes up singing in the morning.

Social psychologists report that showing such scenes where a man takes over a woman, suppresses her, and she is aroused at the same time, can: 1) distort the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bhow a woman actually responds to sexual coercion; 2) to increase the aggressiveness of men towards women - at least this is what happens when conducting experiments in the laboratory.

Distorted perception of sexual reality

Does seeing scenes of sexual violence really perpetuate the myth that some women approve of sexual violence, that "no" doesn't really mean "no" at all? To answer this question, Neil Malamuth and James Check (1981) had one group of University of Manitoba students watch two non-sexual films and another group two rape films. A week later, another experimenter found that subjects who watched rape films found sexual violence against a woman more acceptable than when interviewed before viewing.

It should be noted that films with scenes of cruelty produce a similar, only even stronger effect. Men who were shown pictures such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre became less receptive to violence and were more likely to speak unsympathetically about victims of violence (Linz others, 1988, 1989). After spending three evenings watching such films, people who took part in the experiment of Charles Mullin and Daniel Linz (Charles Mullin Daniel Linz, 1995) showed less concern about rape and cruelty. In fact, say Edward Donnerstein, Daniel Linz and Steven Penrod (1987), if one wants to get people to respond more calmly to all kinds of cruelty, then isn't the best way to do this is to show such films more often ?

Aggression against women

There is ample evidence that pornography can provoke a man into aggressive behavior with a woman. Correlation studies support this possibility. As John Court (Court, 1984) points out, the number of rapes increased dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s, when pornography spread to almost all over the world, except for those countries and regions where it was under control. (Japan is an exception, where violent pornography is acceptable but rape rates are low. This fact serves as a reminder of other factors to consider.) In Hawaii, rape rates increased nine-fold between 1960 and temporarily imposed restrictions on pornography, and then, after tightening these restrictions, increased again.

In another correlational study, Larry Baron and Murray Straus (1984) found that in 50 North American states, the number of sexually explicit magazines sold (such as Hustler and Playboy) correlated with rape rates. Controlling for other factors, such as the percentage of young people in each state, only confirmed the positive association. Alaska ranked first in sales of sex magazines and first in rape. Nevada was second on both of these parameters.

Sex offenders from Canada and America generally admit to being heavy users of porn products. According to William Marshall (1989), perpetrators of rape and those accused of child sexual abuse were much more likely to watch pornographic magazines and movies than those who did not commit sexual crimes. According to the US FBI, serial murders are committed by active users of pornographic products. The Los Angeles Police Department also reported that most child sex offenders often purchased pornographic material (Bennett, 1991; Ressler others, 1988). Of course, this relationship does not prove that pornography is the main cause of sexual violence. It may be that criminals' addiction to pornography is only a symptom, not the cause, of their mental disorder. In addition, directly opposite facts have been recorded: a number of studies have found that previous viewing of pornographic films and magazines is not associated with sexual aggression (Bauserman, 1996).

Although experiments conducted in laboratories allow us to study behavior only for a short time, they show causal relationships quite clearly. A joint statement by leading sociologists concluded: “Viewing violent pornographic material increases violence against women” (Koop, 1987). One of the authors of the statement, Edward Donnerstein (1980), in an experiment he conducted, divided 120 students at the University of Wisconsin into three groups and arranged for films to be shown: the first group - neutral in content; the second - erotic; and the third - aggressively erotic (with scenes of violence). Then the same students, believing they were taking part in a new experiment, had to "become teachers" to volunteer men or women and have the "students" memorize a nonsensical string of syllables. For the mistakes of the “teacher”, the “pupils” were “punished” with an electric shock, choosing the force of the blow themselves. Men who had previously watched a film with scenes of sexual violence sent discharges of much greater force, but exclusively to female “victims” (Fig. 22-1).

[Intensity of electric shocks, Women as an object, Men as an object, Neutral, Erotic, Aggressive-erotic, Movie]

Rice. 22-1. After watching an erotic film with scenes of violence, students sent stronger electric shocks than before viewing, and mainly to women. (According to Donnerstein, 1980).

If any of the readers are concerned about the ethical side of such experiments, then we hasten to assure you: the researchers are aware of how difficult the question of the admissibility of subjecting the subjects to such strong and ambiguous experiences is. It should be noted that the subjects decide to participate voluntarily and only after receiving comprehensive information about the nature of the experiment. Moreover, at the end of the study, the experimenters debunk the myths inspired by porn films. It is to be hoped that the exposure practiced in such cases is quite successful in countering the conventional wisdom that the victim of sexual assault experiences a state of euphoria. Judging by the results of studies by James Check and Neil Malamuth (James Check Neil Malamuth, 1984), conducted at the universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg, this is so. Those who, after reading the stories of sexual abuse, participated in the subsequent discussion of them, were less likely to believe in the myth that a woman experiences pleasure when she is raped. Several other studies have confirmed the effectiveness of such discussions (Alien others, 1996). For example, Donnerstein and Berkowitz (1981) noted that those students at the University of Wisconsin who, after viewing pornographic materials, participated in the discussion were less willing than other participants in the experiment to agree that "a brutal attack sexually arouses many women."

Such experiments are justified not only from a scientific point of view, but also from the standpoint of humanism. In a carefully conducted nationwide survey, 22% of women reported having been sexually abused by men at one time or another (Laumann others, 1994). In a survey of 6,200 female students and 2,200 working women in Ohio, 28% of women reported that they had had episodes in their lives that fell under the legal definition of rape or attempted rape (Mary Koss others, 1988, 1990, 1993). Surveys conducted in other industrialized countries give similar results. About every fourth case of rape by previously unknown men and almost all cases of rape by acquaintances, the victims do not report to the police. Therefore, official data on sexual violence give a biased picture of the real scale of this phenomenon. In addition, many more women—half of all female college students surveyed (Sanberg others, 1985)—reported that they had been subjected to any form of sexual abuse (Craig, 1990; Pryor, 1987). Men whose sexual behavior is abusive and aggressive tend to be dominant, hostile towards women, and promiscuous (Anderson others, 1997; Malamuth, 1995).

Malamuth, Donnerstein Zillmann are among those who are seriously concerned that the risk of being sexually abused or abused by women is ever-increasing. Scholars warn against an overly simplistic view of the causes of such a complex phenomenon as violence. As in the case of cancer, we can talk here not about a single cause, but about a whole complex of them. In addition, scientists believe that watching acts of violence, especially sexual violence, can have anti-social consequences. Just as the majority of Germans tolerated offensive anti-Semitic publications, which eventually led to the Holocaust, so today, most people quietly swallow the distorted ideas about the nature of female sexuality propagated by popular culture, which ultimately leads to what is sometimes called " the Holocaust of Women” or the Holocaust of sexual abuse, abuse and violence.

Is there censorship? Most often, people support censorship in cases where human rights are trampled on (for example, in cases of child pornography, slander and misleading advertising). In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada legalized censorship of the distribution of pornographic materials, considering that they offend the equal rights of women. “If indeed, as they say, equality between men and women has been achieved, then we cannot ignore the threat posed by the distribution of certain types of materials depicting violence and degradation,” the court declared.

In the debate over which comes first, the rights of the individual or the rights of the collective, most Western nations favor the primacy of individual rights. As an alternative to censorship, many psychologists put forward the idea of ​​"educating mass consciousness." Recall how researchers have been successful in proving to the participants in the experiments the inconsistency of conventional wisdom about women's attitudes towards sexual violence. Is it possible, acting in this way, to cultivate the skills of critical perception of materials offered by mass culture? By opening people's eyes to the falsity of the pornographic myth of women, by drawing their attention to sexual abuse and violence, it is possible to counter the stereotypical notion that forced sexual intercourse gives women pleasure. “No matter how utopian and perhaps naive our hopes may seem,” write Edward Donnerstcin, Daniel Linz Steven Penrod (1987, p. 196), “we believe that the truth will still win. Reliable scientific data will convince people: not only the one who flaunts his body is humiliated, but also the one who looks at it.

Is this hope so naive? Judge for yourself: in the absence of a ban on cigarettes, the number of smokers fell from 43% in 1972 to 27% in 1994 (Gallup, 1994). Without any censorship of racist themes, the image of the African-American as a jester, childish and superstitious, once familiar in popular culture, is now practically out of use. Changes in public opinion have made playwrights, producers, and media executives realize that by developing such portrayals of minorities, they are doing something unworthy to say the least. In the same way, recently they finally realized that drugs are not such a wonderful thing, as it was presented in many films and songs of the 60s and 70s. People realized that drugs are dangerous. High school marijuana use dropped from 37% in 1979 to 11% in 1992. True, in 1996 there was a repeated surge of up to 22%. Anti-drug voices have become quieter, and some movies and songs have reverted to talking about drugs as something mysterious and attractive (Johnston, 1996). Shall we one day look with shame at a time when movies entertained people with scenes of exploitation and sexual abuse?

Imagine a scene from one of Bandura's experiments (Bandura others, 1961). A student of one of the Stanford preschools sits on the floor and enthusiastically makes something out of paper and plasticine. In the opposite corner of the room is an adult, and there is also a set of toy cars, a wooden mallet, and a large blow-up doll. After a minute of playing with the toy cars, the female experimenter gets up and beats the inflatable doll with all her might for almost 10 minutes. She beats her with a hammer, pinches, throws it on the floor and at the same time shouts: “Hit him in the nose ... Hit him ... Well, kick him properly! ... "

After the child watches this outburst of rage, he goes to another room, where there are a lot of entertaining toys. But after a couple of minutes, the experimenter intervenes and says that these are her best toys and she should "save them for other children." The frustrated child goes to the next room, where there are also many toys designed for both aggressive and non-aggressive play, and two of them are a Bobo doll and a wooden mallet.

If the children were not shown the adult model of aggressive behavior, they rarely showed aggression in the game or conversation and, despite the frustration, they played calmly. Those who had previously observed an aggressive adult were much more likely to pick up a hammer and hit the doll. Observation of adult aggressive behavior weakened their restraining principles. Moreover, the children often reproduced the aggressive actions and words of the experimenter. The aggressive behavior they saw reduced their inhibition and at the same time taught them a certain way of displaying aggression.

A television

If watching an aggressive behavior pattern can provoke children to become aggressive and teach them new ways of expressing it, does not watching violent scenes shown on television also affect them in a similar way?

Let's turn to some facts about television. In 1945, a Gallup poll asked, "Do you know what television is?" (Gallup, 1972, p. 551). Today in America, as in the entire industrialized world, 98% of households have a TV - those with bathtubs and telephones are far fewer. In the average family, the TV is on for seven hours a day: each family member has an average of four hours.

What types of social behavior are modeled during these hours? Since 1967, George Gerbner and his assistants (George Gerbner others, 1993, 1994) at the University of Pennsylvania have been watching TV during those evening hours when maximum amount viewers, and Saturday morning entertainment. And what did they find? Two out of every three programs featured violence (“acts of physical coercion accompanied either by threats of beating or killing, or by beatings or killings themselves”). What does this lead to? By the end high school a child watches about 8,000 murder scenes and 100,000 other violent acts on television (Huston others, 1992). Reflecting on his 22-year reckoning, Gerbner (1994) ruefully states: “There have been more bloodthirsty eras in the history of mankind, but none of them was so saturated with images of violence as ours. And who knows where this monstrous tide of observed violence will take us... seeping into every home through flickering TV screens in the form of scenes of impeccably choreographed brutality.

Does it matter that much? Does the TV show of crime stories encourage the reproduction of the behaviors that are shown in them? And perhaps, on the contrary, the spectator, participating in aggressive actions, is thus freed from aggressive energy?

The latter idea is a variant of the catharsis hypothesis, stating that watching a violent drama helps people release their pent-up aggression. Popular culture advocates often refer to this theory and remind us that violence predates television. In an imaginary argument with one of the television critics, a media advocate might make the following argument: “Television had no part in the wholesale extermination of Jews and Native Americans. Television only reflects our tastes and caters to them.” “I agree,” the critic replies, “but it is also true that with the advent of the television era in America, the number of violent crimes began to grow several times faster than the population. It seems to me, and you yourself are unlikely to think that pop culture only passively reflects tastes, without affecting the public consciousness in any way. But the defender does not give up: “The epidemic of violence is the result of many factors. Television even reduces the aggressiveness of people by taking them off the streets and thus providing an opportunity to give vent to their aggression without the slightest harm to others.

The influence of television on behavior

Do viewers imitate on-screen models of violence? There are many examples of the reproduction of crimes shown on television. In a survey of 208 prisoners, every 9 out of 10 admitted that they learned new criminal tricks by watching television. And every 4 out of 10 admitted that they tried to commit crimes they saw once on the TV screen (TV Guide, 1977).

Relationship of behavior with television viewing

Newspaper materials about crimes are not yet scientific evidence, so researchers use correlational and experimental methods to study the effect of showing violent scenes on crime. A large number of studies have been aimed at clarifying the question of whether television viewing predetermines the aggressiveness of schoolchildren. To some extent, this assumption was confirmed: the more violence in the transmission, the more aggressive the child (Eron, 1987; Turner others, 1986). The connection here is moderate, but it is constantly found, this is evidenced by studies conducted in the USA, Europe and Australia.

So, can we conclude that a diet of violent scenes provides abundant food for aggression? Perhaps you have already guessed that since we are talking about correlational studies, causal relationships can also work in the opposite direction. Perhaps aggressive kids prefer to watch aggressive programs. Or is there some third factor - say, a low level of intelligence, and it is this factor that disposes children both to prefer aggressive programs and to commit aggressive acts?

Researchers, testing such alternative explanations, study the influence of a “hidden third factor”. To do this, they alternately exclude all "suspected" factors. Thus, the English researcher William Belson (William Belson, 1978; Muson, 1978) conducted a survey of 1565 London boys, during which he found that, unlike boys who watched a small number of programs containing scenes of cruelty, those who saw them in large numbers (and especially with realistic rather than cartoon depictions of violence), there have been almost 50% more offenses in the past six months (saying, for example, "I broke the phone in a phone booth"). Belson (William Belson, 1978; Muson, 1978) studied 22 such "third" factors (eg, family size) that could also influence the development of aggressiveness. Comparison of "hardcore" fans of scenes of violence and watching them from time to time showed that the frequency of viewing is indeed the third factor that affects the manifestation of aggressiveness in children.

Similarly, Leonard Eron Rowell Huesmann (1980, 1985) found that 875 eight-year-old children's exposure to violent films was correlated with aggressiveness, even after statistically eliminating the most obvious third factors. In addition, when they reexamined these same children at 19 years of age, they found that exposure to violent films at 8 years of age moderately predicted aggressiveness at 19 years of age, but aggressiveness at 8 years of age did not predict exposure to violent films at 19 years of age. This means that aggressiveness follows viewing, and not vice versa. These results were confirmed in subsequent studies of 758 Chicago adolescents and 220 Finnish adolescents (Huesmann others, 1984). Moreover, when Eron and Huismann (1984) turned to the protocols of the first study conducted with children of eight years of age and found data on those who were later convicted of a crime, they noted the following: scenes of violence were more likely to commit serious crimes (Figure 22-2).

[Severity of criminal offenses committed under 30, Low, Medium, High, TV viewing frequency at age 8]

Rice. 22-2. Television viewing by children and criminal acts committed by them at a later age. The fact that eight-year-old boys regularly watched violent television programs foreshadowed serious criminal offenses committed by them by the age of thirty. (Adapted from Eron Huesmann, 1984.)

Everywhere, with the advent of television, the number of murders increased. Between 1957 and 1974, between 1957 and 1974, between 1957 and 1974, the number of murders committed in Canada and the United States, during the period of television broadcasting, was committed as in previous and subsequent years. In those census regions where television arrived later, the wave of murders also picked up later.

AT South Africa where there was no television until 1975, a doubling of the number of homicides was recorded after 1975 (Centerwall, 1989). And in sports fields in rural Canada, levels of aggressiveness have almost doubled since the spread of television (Williams, 1986).

These works once again remind us that a modern researcher using the results of correlation studies should be especially careful in making assumptions about possible causal relationships. Indeed, between the observation of scenes of violence and the manifestation of aggression, there may be random connections generated by random third factors. However, fortunately, the experimental method allows you to control these extraneous factors. If we divide a random sample of children into two groups and show one group a film with scenes of violence, and the other a film without such scenes, any subsequent differences in the manifestation of aggressiveness between these two groups will be due to a single factor - that they are up to looked at this.

Conducted experiments

In the pioneering experiments of Albert Bandura and Richard Walters (1963), children watching adults beating an inflatable doll were sometimes replaced by watching the same action of an adult, but filmed on film, with much the same effect. Later, Leonard Berkowitz and Russel Geen (1966) found that angry students who had previously watched violent films were more aggressive than those who were equally angry but had previously watched non-violent films. . These laboratory experiments, coupled with public concern, prompted the submission of 50 new studies conducted in the early 70s to the commission at the US General Medical Administration. Individually and collectively, these studies have confirmed that seeing violent scenes increases aggression.

In later experiments by a group of researchers led by Ross Parke (1977) in the United States and Jacques Leyens (1975) in Belgium, feature films were shown to the inmates of a number of children's correctional institutions: some - "aggressive", others - quite peaceful . The results confirmed that a prolonged display of violence leads to increased aggression in the audience. Compared to the week before the films were shown, the number of fights in the cottages where the boys lived who watched the films with scenes of violence increased dramatically.

Chris Boyatzis and colleagues (1995) found similar results when they showed students elementary school episodes with scenes of violence from the TV show "The Great Ranger" ("Power Ranger"), which is very popular with children. Immediately after viewing, during the first two minutes, viewers performed seven times more aggressive actions compared to the control group. Just as in Bandura's experiments with the Bobo doll, the boys often imitated clearly the aggressive actions they had just seen - for example, the jumping kick used in karate. In Norway in 1994, a five-year-old girl was stoned, kicked and left to freeze in the snow by her playmates, apparently imitating actions they had seen on a television show. After the incident, this show was banned in all three Scandinavian countries (Blucher, 1994).

Evidence convergence

Various methods have been used to study the influence of television on everyday behavior and many people have taken part in them. Susan Hearold (Susan Hearold, 1986), Wendy Wood and his colleagues (Wendy Wood others, 1991), comparing the results of correlational and experimental studies, came to the following conclusion: watching films containing antisocial scenes is indeed associated with antisocial behavior. This impact is not overwhelming; at times it takes an implicit form, which allows some critics to express doubts about its existence (Freedman, 1988; McGuire, 1986). In addition, the aggression elicited in such experiments is not insulting or beating, as a rule, it is limited to pushing at breakfast, insulting remarks and threatening postures.

Nevertheless, the convergence of evidence is impressive. “We cannot help but conclude,” concluded a special commission of the American Psychological Association in 1993, “that the observation of scenes of violence leads to an increase in the number of cases of violence.” This is especially noticeable among people with aggressive tendencies (Bushman, 1995). Violent scenes have a special impact when they are committed by a credible, lovable character and their actions not only go unpunished but are even justified by the plot (Donnerstein, 1998). Watching scenes of violence often creates the conditions for the emergence of antisocial effects - though not always. When unattractive characters go unpunished or when victims of the Holocaust are shown - for example, in the movie "Schindler's List" - this is unlikely to inspire anyone to violent acts.

Why does watching television affect behavior?

We know from experiments that prolonged viewing of violent scenes affects human thinking in two ways. First, it makes people less sensitive to cruelty. Most often in such cases, they say: “I don’t care at all.” Secondly, it distorts the viewer's perception of reality. People begin to exaggerate the frequency of violence and experience greater fear. But why does watching scenes of violence affect behavior? Based on numerous studies, it can be concluded that television and pornography are not the main causes of social violence, just as synthetic sugar substitutes are not the main cause of cancer. Rather, it is about the fact that television is one of the reasons. But even if it's just one ingredient in a complex recipe for making violence, it, like synthetic sugar substitutes, is potentially controllable. Having obtained the coincidence of correlational and experimental evidence, the researchers wondered why the observation of scenes of violence gives such a result.

Consider three possible explanations (Geen Thomas, 1986). First, social violence may not be caused by the observation of violence per se, but by the arousal that occurs during the observation (Mueller others, 1983; Zillmann, 1989). As noted earlier, arousal tends to transform into something: each type of arousal leads to a particular kind of behavior.

Secondly, watching violence usually disinhibits the viewer. In Bandura's experiment, an adult, by hitting a doll with a hammer, thereby demonstrated the admissibility of such outbursts of aggressiveness, which led to a weakening of the restraining principle in the child. Observation of the manifestation of violence leads to the activation of thoughts associated with violence (Berkowitz, 1984; Bushman Geen, 1990; Josephson, 1987). Listening to songs that endorse sexual abuse inspires young people to become more aggressive (Barongan Hall, 1995; Johnson, 1995).

The depiction of violence in the media also encourages imitation. Children in Bandura's experiments repeated the characteristic behavior that they observed in reality. The broadcast industry should always be aware that what is shown on the TV screen encourages viewers to imitate what they see: television advertises a behavior pattern. Television critics agree: they are extremely concerned that television programs contain four times as many acts of violence as tenderness, and that television most often simulates an unreal world. Critics like to cite the case of two Utahs who watched the movie Magnum Force three times, in which women were killed with the poisonous liquid cleaner Drano, and repeated what they saw on television a month later. They killed three people by forcing them to drink Drano (Bushman, 1996).

If the relationship styles and problem-solving patterns modeled by television truly trigger imitation mechanisms, especially among young viewers, then the formation of prosocial behavior must be socially beneficial. Fortunately, this is true: television really teaches children lessons not only in bad, but also in good behavior. Susan Hearold (1986) cited statistics from 108 studies that compared the effects of viewing prosocial and neutral programs. She found that “if a viewer watched prosocial programs instead of neutral ones, then the level of prosociality of his behavior increased (at least temporarily) from 50% to 74%, that is, he could already be called a real altruist.

In one such study, Lynette Friedrich Aletha Stein (1973; Stein Friedrich, 1972) showed preschoolers daily episodes from the television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for four weeks in a row as a preschool program. educational program aimed at the social and emotional development of children). Throughout this period, the children were more willing to cooperate with and help others. In later surveys, those children who had watched four television programs of Mister Rogers were able to express their prosocial mood both in tests and in games with dolls (Friedrich Stein, 1975; Coates others, 1976).

Concepts to remember

Catharsis - emotional release. The internal impulse to aggression is weakened when a person "releases" aggressive energy, either through aggressive actions or by creating imaginary pictures of his aggressive behavior.

Prosocial behavior - positive, constructive, socially useful behavior; the exact opposite of antisocial behavior.

social psychology

David G. Myers

McGRAW-HILL, INC.

new york st Louis San Francisco Auckland Bogota

Caracas Lisbon London Madrid Mexim

NewDe,hi Paris San Juan Singapore SyXy Tokyo ToronTo

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

and graduate students of psychological faculties,

as well as students of psychological courses

disciplines in the humanities faculties

St. Petersburg

Moscow Kharkov Minsk 1997

David Myers

David Myers Social Psychology

Translated from English by V. Gavrilov, S. Shpak, S. Melenevskaya, D. Viktorova

Chief editor V. Usmanov

Editorial Manager M. Churakov

Scientific editor A. Sventsitsky

Literary editors M. Shakhtarina,

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The original layout was prepared by M. Shakhtarina

BBK 88.5 UDC 159.9:301

Myers D.

Social Psychology/ Transl. from English. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 1997. - 688 p.: ill. ISBN 5-88782-141-8

David Myers' textbook "Social Psychology" has educated more than one generation of American students. The fifth edition of this fundamental work appeared in the USA in 1996. The author's lively language, a review of a wide range of theories and hypotheses, a variety of experiments - all this will attract the attention of not only students of humanitarian faculties, but, of course, will interest psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers.

© 1996,1993,1990,1987,1983 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

© Translation into Russian by S. Melenevskaya, V. Gavrilov, D. Viktorova,

S. Shpak, 1996.

© Cover, publishing house "Peter Press", 1997.

Published by arrangement with the original publisher, McGraw-Hill, U.S.A.

Prepared for publication by Piter Press under a license agreement with McGraw-Hill, USA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright holders.

ISBN 5-88782-141-8

ISBN 0-07-044377-7

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Signed for publication on 20.10.97. Format 70X100 "/16. Conventional sheet sheet 55.9. Additional circulation 10,000 copies. Order No. 960.

Printed from transparencies at the Printing Yard State Enterprise of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Printing.

197110, St. Petersburg, Chkalovsky pr., 15.

CHAPTER 1

in Social psychology and related sciences .............................................. .....thirty

Social psychology and sociology .............................................................. ..thirty

Social Psychology and Psychology of Personality....................................31

Levels of Explanation .................................................. ......................31

Summary................................................. ...............................................33

■ Social psychology and human values...............................................33

Obvious influence of values ​​.................................................................. .............34

The Veiled Influence of Values ​​.............................................................. ...34

Subjective aspects of science .................................................................. ..........34

Veiled Values ​​in Psychological Concepts.......................36

You can not connect "is" and "should be" .................................38

Summary................................................. ................................................38

■ "I knew it!": Isn't social psychology

analogue of common sense? ......................40

Summary................................................. ...............................................46

■ Social psychology: how it's done .............................................. ......46

Correlation Research: Finding Natural Relationships..........46

Confrontation: relationship - causality..................................................47

Poll................................................. .........................................49

Non-representative samples .................................................................. ....fifty

Sequence of questions .................................................................. ....51

The right to choose an answer ............................................................... .................52

Formulation .................................................. .........................52

Pilot study: search for cause and effect.......................53

Control: Manipulating Variables...............................................53

random distribution: the great equalizer...............................55

Ethics of Experimental Research...................................................56

Explanation and Prediction: Using Theories.......................................................58

From laboratory to life .............................................. .................60

Summary................................................. .................................................60

PART 1. SOCIAL THINKING ____________________________62

CHAPTER 2. "I" IN THE SOCIAL WORLD ............................................. .................64

■ Self-concept ............................................... ................................................. ....64

Self-knowledge .................................................. .................................67

■ Social psychology

Explanation of our behavior .................................................................. ........67

Forecast of our behavior ............................................................... .............68

Wisdom and Fallacies of Introspection...............................................69

I and culture .............................................. ...................................71

Summary................................................. ...............................................73

■ Self-efficacy.................................................................. ...............................................74

Locus of korgtrol .................................................. ...................................74

Learned helplessness - self-determination.......................................75

Collective Efficiency .................................................................. ............77

Summary................................................. ...............................................79

■ Predisposition in favor of one's Self .............................................. .............79

Explanations of Positive and Negative Events...............................................................79

Can we all be above average? ....82

Unrealistic optimism .................................................................. ................83

False consensus and uniqueness .............................................................. ......85

Other tendencies in favor of one's self .............................................. ..86

Motivation of self-respect .................................................................. .................88

Reflections on self-efficacy and favoritism

my self ................................................ ...............................................89

Predisposition in favor of one's Self as an adaptation ............................... 90

Predisposition in favor of one's self as a bad adaptation ........... 91

Summary................................................. ................................................93

■ Self-presentation.................................................................. ...............................................94

False modesty .................................................................. .........................94

Obstacles we create for ourselves...............................................................95

Impression management .................................................................. ...............96

Summary................................................. ................................................98

CHAPTER 3

■ Interpretation of others............................................................... ...................................100

To whom to attribute the cause: to a person or a situation .............................. 100

Assumed features .................................................................. ................ 102

Attributions of common sense ............................................................... ......... 103

Information integration .................................................................. ............. 104

Why we study attribution errors............................................................... 104

Fundamental attribution error............................................................... 105

The Fundamental Attribution Error in Everyday Life..........107

Why do we make an attribution error?...................................................109

Perspective and Situational Awareness .............................................. 109

Cultural Differences .................................................................. .... 2

How fundamental is the fundamental attribution error? 2

Summary................................................. ................ ] 5

■ Our judgments of others............................................... ...............................U5

Intuition: Our Potential for Inner Knowing.................................................115

The power of intuition .................................................................. ............. j j g

Limits of intuition .................................................................. ...................... 117

Constructing Interpretations and Memories..............................................118

Perception and interpretation of events...............................................119

Persistence of beliefs .................................................................. ................. 122

Building memories .................................................................. ..123

Revamping Legacy Installations.............................................. 124

Reconstruction of Past Behavior...............................................126

Reconstruction of previous experience .................................................................. 127

Arrogance in judgments .............................................................. ..........128

Cure for self-confidence .................................................................. ..... 131

Heuristic................................................. ................................... 132

The heuristic of representativeness .................................................................. .... 132

Ignoring Basic Evaluation Information..............................................133

Availability of heuristics .................................................................. ............... 134

Illusory thinking .................................................................. ................... 136

Illusory relationship .................................................................. ............ 136

Illusion of control .................................................................. ................... 138

Gambling .................................................................. ....................... 138

Return to the mean .................................................................. ................. 138

Mood and judgment ............................................................... .................... 140

Summary................................................. ......................................... 142

■ Beliefs of Self-Realization............................................................... .........................143

Teacher Expectations and Student Behavior.................................................144

What we expect from others is what we get. .... 145

Summary................................................. ......................................... 147

■ Conclusions................................................... ................................................. .........148

Summary................................................. .........................................152

CHAPTER 4. BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDE.................................................................. .............153

■ Do settings determine behavior? .............................................. .......... 155

Are we all hypocrites? ................ 155

When do attitudes actually predict behavior?

Reducing Social Influences on Expressed Attitudes .......... 157

Reducing Other Influences on Behavior....................................................158

David G. Myers is Professor of Psychology at Michigan Hope College. He is one of those teachers whom the students themselves call "outstanding". Myers loves to teach, and this passion permeates all of his work written for a wide audience. He has published articles in twenty journals and has written or co-authored nearly a dozen popular books, including The Pursuit of Happiness (Avon, 1993) and The American Paradox (Yale University Press, 2000).

Myers' research work was highly commended: for his work on group polarization, the Ninth Section of the American Psychological Association awarded him the prestigious Gordon Allport Award. Science articles Myers are published in more than 20 journals, including Science, American Scientist, Psychological Science, and American Psychologist. He serves science and as a consulting editor for the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In his spare time from teaching and research, David Myers heads the Humanitarian Relations Commission in his hometown, with his help the city's Community Assistance Center was founded, providing support to low-income families; lectures of the scientist sound in numerous university and religious audiences. David and Carol Myers have three children: two sons and a daughter.

Books (4)

Social Psychology

The book, at the same time strictly scientific and humane, is filled with facts and intriguing information, which makes reading it not only informative, but also fascinating. It describes the fundamental principles of social thinking, social influence and social behavior, as well as a variety of experiments and recent research.

Studying Social Psychology

Myers' book is a masterpiece of teaching art: in a fascinating way, the reader gets acquainted with the science of human behavior in society, quickly and reliably memorizes concepts, facts, theories, studies methods and experiments. The academic course of social psychology outlined in this book is assimilated effectively and easily.

Intuition

How reliable is our intuition? Can we rely on it when shopping in a store, choosing a companion, hiring employees, or evaluating our own abilities?

The prominent American psychologist David Myers skillfully shows that intuition, while awakening amazing insight in us, at the same time can sometimes lead us into a dangerous delusion.

Based on current data psychological science, Myers discusses strengths and weak sides the use of intuition in cases where judges and juries evaluate the veracity of testimony, when psychologists and psychiatrists reveal a tendency to crime, when managers decide to hire new employees.