《社会心理学》读书报告下
“我读过很多书，但后来大部分都被我忘记了，那阅读的意义是什么？”
答：“当我还是个孩子的时候，我吃过很多食物，现在已经记不起来吃过什么了。但可以肯定的是，它们中的一部分已经长成为我的骨头和肉。
从2017年的双11到12月21日，一个多月的时间读完了这本大部头，虽然内心有点小小的成绩感，但是书籍内容留存在脑海里的已经不多。尤其是，自己作死要看的英文版，印象更是寥寥。所以写这篇读书报告的时候不停地翻书试图回忆之前看书时候的所思所想。似乎想起来些东西，似乎忘记了很多。说实话，这本书并没有让我感到特别的惊艳，与它的厚度相比，内容充实度不太够，但也有所得。
Social Psychology by Divid G. Myers
Eleventh edition
We humans have a very long history, but social psychology has very short one - barely more than one century.
Social psychology explores the human world around us.
Social psychology is about people.
I have read this entire book, though not understood thoroughly. But the introduction to social psychology is complete. In the preface, the author offered his hope that this book " would be at once solidly scientific and warmly human, factually rigorous and intellectually provocative." I can tell that the goal has been achieved .
A knowledge of social psychology , I do believe, has the power to restrain intuition with critical thinking, illusion with understanding, and judgmentalism with compassion. In these 16 chapters, social psychology's insights have been assembled into belief and persuasion, love and hate, conformity and independence. I have glimpsed incomplete answers to these following intriguing questions.
How do our attitudes feed and get fed by our actions?
Our expressions of attitudes and our behaviors are each subject to many influences. Our attitudes will predict our behavior (1) if these "other influences" are minimized, (2) if the attitude corresponds very closely to the predicted behavior, and (3) if the attitude is potent. Under these conditions, what we think and feel predict what we do.
The attitude-action relation also works in the reverse direction: We are likely not only to think ourselves into action but also to act ourselves into a way of thinking. When we act, we amplify the idea underlying what we have done, especially when we feel responsible for it. Similarly what we say or write can strongly influence attitudes that we subsequently hold. Research on the "foot-in-the-door" reveals that committing a small act makes people more willing to do a larger one later.
Three competing theories explain why our actions affect our attitude reports.
Self-presentation theory assumes that people, especially those who self-monitor their behavior hoping to create good impressions, will adapt their attitude reports to appear consistent with their actions. The available evidence confirms that people do adjust their attitude statements out of concern for what other people will think. But it also shows that some genuine attitude change occurs.
Dissonance theory explains this attitude change by assuming that we feel tension after acting contrary to our attitudes or making difficult decisions. To reduce that arousal, we internally justify our behavior. Dissonance theory further proposes that the less external jusification we have for our undesirable actions, the more we feel responsible for them, and thus the more dissonance arises and the more attitudes change.
self-perception theory assumes that when our attitudes are weak, we simply observe our behavior and its circumstances, then infer our attitudes. One interesting implication of self-perception theory in the "over justification effect": Rewarding people to do what they like doing anyway can turn their pleasure into drudgery (if the reward leads them to attribute their behavior to the reward).
Therefore, if we want to change ourselves in some important way, it's best not to wait for insight or inspiration. Sometimes we need to act- to begin to write that paper, to make those phone calls, to see that person - even if we don't feel like acting.
What leads people sometimes to hurt and sometimes to conflict with others?
Three theories explain helping behavior. The social exchange theory assumes that helping, like other social behaviors, is motivated by a desire to maximize rewards, which may be external or internal. Thus, after wrongdoing, people may become more willing to offer help. Sad people also tend to be helpful. Finally, there is a striking feel-good/do-good effect: Happy people are helpful people. Social norms also mandate helping. The reciprocity norm stimulates us to help those who have helped us. The social-responsibility norm beckons us to help needy people, even if they cannot reciprocate, as long as they are deserving. Women in crisis, partly because they may be seen as more needy, receive more offers of help than men, especially from men.
Evolutionary psychology assumes two types of helping:devotion to kin and reciprocity. Most evolutionary psychologists, however, believe that the genes of selfish individuals are more likely to survive than the genes of self-sacrificing individuals. Thus, selfishness is our natural tendency and society must therefore teach helping.
In addition to helping that is motivated by external and internal rewards, and the evading of punishment or distress, there appears also to be a genuine, empathy-based altruism. With their empathy aroused, many people are motivated to assist others in need or distress, even when their helping is anonymous or their own mood will be affected.
However, whenever two or more people, groups, or nations interact, their perceived needs and goals may conflict. Many social dilemmas arise as people pursue individual self-interest to their collective detriment. When people compete for scarce resources, human relations often sink into prejudice and hostility. Conflicts also arise when people feel unjustly treated. According to equity theory, people define justice as the distribution of rewards in proportion to one's contribution. Conflicts occur when people disagree on the extent of their contributions and thus on the equity of their outcomes.
Conflicts frequently contain a small core of truly incompatible goals, surrounded by a thick layer of misperception of the adversary's motives and goals. Often, conflicting parties have mirror-image perceptions. When both sides believe " We are peace loving- they are hostile," each may treat the other in ways that provoke confirmation of its expectations. International conflicts are sometimes also fed by an evil leader-good people illusion.
How can we transform closed fists into helping hands?
Although conflicts are readily kindled and fueled by social dilemmas, competition, and misperceptions, some equally powerful forces,such as contact, cooperation, communication, and conciliation, can transform hostility into harmony. Despite some encouraging early studies, other studies show that mere contact (such as mere desegregation in schools) has little effect upon racial attitudes. But when contact encourages emotional ties with individuals identified with outgrip, and when it is structured to convey equal status, hostilities often lessen.
Contacts are especially beneficial when people work together to overcome a common threat or to achieve a superordinate goal. Taking their cue from experiments on cooperative contact, several research teams have replaced competitive classroom learning situations with opportunities for cooperative learning, with heartening results.
Conflicting parties often have difficulty communicating. A third-party mediator can promote communication by prodding the antagonists to replace their competitive win-lose view of their conflict with a more cooperative win-win orientation. Mediators can also structure communications that will peel away misperceptions and increase mutual understanding and trust. When negotiated settlement is not reached, the conflicting parties may defer the outcome to an arbitrator, who either dictates a settlement or selectes one of the two finals.
Sometimes tensions run so high that genuine communication is impossible. In such cases, small conciliatory gestures by one party may elicit reciprocal conciliatory acts by the other party. One such conciliatory strategy, graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction, aims to alleviate tense international situations. Those who mediate tense labor-management and international conflicts sometimes use another peacemaking strategy. They instruct the participants.
Answering such questions expands our minds. And, "once expanded to the dimensions of a larger idea," noted Oliver Wendell Holmes, the mind "never returns to its original size." Such has been the author's experience, mine too, and perhaps yours, as you become an educated person.
