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Social Psychology - Abstracts
Sociologyindex, Books on Social Psychology, Sociology
Books 2009, Journals, Abstracts, Bibliography, Syllabus
Social
psychology: the interplay between sociology and psychology.
Social Forces; 6/1/1995; Introductory extract - Thoits, Peggy A.
RESPONSE TO SEPTEMBER 11: ANXIETY, PATRIOTISM, AND PREJUDICE IN THE AFTERMATH
OF TERROR
Chris L. Coryn, Western Michigan University, James M. Beale, University of Texas,
Brownsville, Krista M. Myers, Indiana University, South Bend.
Abstract: In this study our P211 Methods of Experimental Psychology students and research
team specifically examined feelings of personal anxiety created by terrorist attacks and
ongoing conflict with the Middle East, patriotic attachment towards the United States, and
subtle and blatant prejudicial attitudes toward Arabic people following the events of
September 11, 2001. The design, hypotheses, instrument selection, data collection, and
analyses for this study were conducted by our students as a course learning tool. Our
students developed three distinct hypotheses and conducted analysis of these hypotheses,
with minimal assistance from our research team. Three hundred-one (174 female, 127 male)
students at Indiana University South Bend completed questionnaires for our study,
measuring levels of anxiety, patriotism, prejudice, and a variety of sociodemographic
factors. Four periods of data collection were completed during a period of 19 months
following the events of September 11, 2001. Hypotheses developed by our students were
tested using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) techniques. As predicted, anxiety
producing events (periods 1 and 4 combined) coincided with greater patriotic attachment
toward the United States and amplified prejudicial attitudes toward the target group;
Arabic people. No significant differences were found for either gender or our experimental
condition (support versus protest). - uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.9.12.html
MEN AND WOMEN PREFER RISK TAKERS AS ROMANTIC AND NONROMANTIC PARTNERS
Jonathan F. Bassett, Brett Moss, Southeastern Louisiana University
Abstract: Eighty-seven men and 219 women rated the desirability of either a low, moderate,
or high risk-taker as a partner in several contexts. Women were more selective than men in
all contexts. Men and women preferred risk takers as friends and short-term romantic
partners but only women preferred risk takers as long-term romantic partners. The observed
gender differences are consistent with predictions from the perspective of evolutionary
psychology. However, the findings also evidence the similarity in men and women's
interpersonal attraction criteria and point to the need for examining more proximal
mechanisms that might make risk taking an appealing attribute in another person. -
uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.9.10.html
FACIAL MAKE-UP ELICITS POSITIVE ATTITUDES AT THE IMPLICIT LEVEL: EVIDENCE FROM
THE IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST
Juliette Richetin, Jean-Claude Croizet, Université Blaise Pascal, CNRS, France, Pascal
Huguet, Université Aix-Marseille.
Abstract: Three experiments tested whether the use of facial make-up elicits positive or
negative implicit attitudes. Students in psychology, business, and aesthetics performed a
series of Implicit Association Tests (IAT) measuring the link between portrayed women
wearing or not wearing make-up and high versus low status professions, pleasant versus
unpleasant words, and positive versus negative personality traits. Results showed that
make-up was associated with positive traits and high-status professions at the implicit
level. They are discussed in relation with previous findings indicating a negative
influence of make-up on impression formation with exactly the same photographs and similar
subject samples. - uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.9.11.html
Social
psychology: the interplay between sociology and psychology.
Social Forces; 6/1/1995; Introductory extract - Thoits, Peggy A.
I will focus in this article on the point of greatest intersection between the disciplines
of sociology and psychology: social psychology. Within this broad interdisciplinary
tradition, sociologists and psychologists routinely cite and draw from each other's theory
and research. I will argue, however, that the direction of strongest influence has run
from psychology to sociology, rather than the reverse. This is in part because
sociologists generally devote their efforts to identifying which social phenomena have
effects on individuals while psychologists generally specialize in identifying the
mechanisms or processes through which social phenomena have their effects on individuals.
Consequently, sociologists often use, explicitly or implicitly, the work of psychologists
to fill in the missing links that tie society to the individual. This observation
fortifies Gove's argument that sociology is, or should be, an integrative discipline, a
point to which I will return below.
The Various Social Psychologies
According to Allport (1968), social psychologists attempt to understand how the actual,
imagined, or implied presence of others influences the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
of individuals. Allport's definition best applies to work within the discipline of
psychology - what House (1977) and Stryker (1977) have termed psychological social
psychology. The bystander intervention or "helping" literature provides a useful
example. This research shows that the more witnesses to an emergency (actual presence of
others), the less likely any one witness is to assist the victim (individual behavior)
(Latane & Darley 1970). However, this literature does not simply document the strength
or direction of social influences on behavior. The key word in Allport's definition is how
others affect the individual. The psychologist's goal is to identify the mechanisms or
processes through which others' actual or implied presence affects the person. Bystander
research shows, for example, that multiple witnesses to an emergency are able to
"diffuse responsibility" for taking action to other people. Diffusion of
responsibility is a mechanism that helps to explain noninterventions.
An alternative brand of psychological social psychology has flourished in recent years.
This is cognitive social psychology or the social cognition approach, which investigates
how people store and process information. Information is stored as prototypes, schemas,
scripts, and the like; information processing includes attending to cues, retrieving from
memory, and making judgments, inferences, attributions, and predictions about oneself and
others. Cognitions are loosely viewed as social in this approach because they are derived
from social experience and have consequences for subsequent interpersonal behavior. For
example, masculine and feminine schemas are presumed to be the products of traditional
sex-role socialization and to function as heuristic models for rapidly recognizing and
classifying one's own and others' behavior (Markus, Bernstein & Siladi 1982). The
emphasis in this branch of social psychology once again is on understanding mechanisms or
processes, in this case, the mental processes through which an individual's (socially
derived) cognitions have effects on his/her own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
My point here is that identifying processes or explanatory mechanisms (as well as
conditions under which individual-level phenomena occur) is the common thrust of both
psychological and cognitive social psychology. Because sociologists draw more heavily from
the psychological than the cognitive social psychological literature, I will contrast
briefly psychological social psychology with three sociological approaches: social
structure and personality, symbolic interactionism, and formal small-groups theory.
Social Psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how we interact
with, think about and influence other people. It includes such topics as group processes,
prejudice, love, and persuasion. Social psychology is similar to sociology in the topics
it covers, however, social psychology looks more specifically at individual or personal
explanations, whereas sociology looks at cultural explanations. - Dr. S. Pack.
Social psychological principles can be used:
To stop gang violence
To reduce discrimination
To reduce school dropout rates using social psychological principles
Reducing domestic violence using social psychological principles
Using social psychology to influence public policy
Resisting the appeal of propaganda (e.g., tv commercials)
Exploring the role of emotions, cognitions, and behaviors in advertising
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