Social Psychology 2019

*This is a sensitive topic* *If discussing rape and the repercussions of it causes you stress, don't read this post* Rape is something we all know about, but don't want to think about. It is a common occurrence on college campuses to have cases of rape. Many people just brush it off as, oh it wasn't someone I know or they probably were drinking. It's this state of mind that makes the occurrence of rapes become a more normal thing. Over the past few years the number of sexual assault reported has gone up by over 4,000 cases. "T hese results seem to portray a dramatic upswing in sexual violence."-(Project Know) There are tons of sayings like "She should have worn different clothes, she shouldn't have gotten so drunk, she was probably asking for it." It's been my opinion that hearing these statements kind of makes things "ok" in the eyes of some people. These rationalizations make people feel better about hearing these thin...

Parents would never say that they have a favorite child, they would say that they love all their children equally; and while this may be true, how most parents raise their boys from their girls are not equal. The way parents and society raise boys verse how they raise girls is dramatically different and shapes both females and males into who they turn out to be. Boys are given guns and knifes to play with as children and girls are given dolls and cooking items. It is not just in the United States that these stereotypes are presented to both males and females but all throughout the world. ((n.d.). Retrieved from https://woodentoysforkids.wordpress.com/tag/violent-toys/) Boys are presented with stereotypes that say they must be the breadwinner of the house hold and they must be strong and they are not allowed to cry or show their emotions. With society telling boys how to behave they in-turn become more aggressive than females.  This article   does a great job of exp...

Video games are a growing form of entertainment. In fact, today they are the most popular form of entertainment around (D'Argenio, 2018). In the past, it seemed as though video games were an activity largely for children. Today, they have expanded to include a diverse group of people. Due to platforms accessible to a larger group of people such as iOS and Android, video platforms such as YouTube, and streaming services such as Twitch, video games are expanding into the mainstream. As a result of this popularity, games have begun to receive more attention from politicians and others in power. This is especially true given the violent nature of many popular games, which often include blood, gore, killing, and sometimes sexual content. These types of games have been targeted as potential causes for many issues occurring in society, including violence and aggression exhibited by people outside of games. For example, whenever a mass shooting occurs, there is interest in whether the...

Most often when people talk about aggression they are talking about how bad or wrong it is. In general aggression is defined as “behavior that is intended to harm another individual.” (kassin) While this definition definitely makes aggression sound bad or even evil, it doesn't have to be that way. Everybody has aggressors in their lives and everybody will experience aggression. It stems from emotions, and those emotions can tell us important things about ourselves if we can notice when we are feeling aggressive and respond appropriately. The struggle really lies in people learning how to rid themselves of these feelings in a non-destructive way. Types of Aggression There exists many different ways with which to classify aggression but the two that I will discuss are proactive and reactive aggression. Proactive aggression is “aggression in which harm is inflicted as a means to a desired end … aimed at harming someone for personal gain, attention, or even self-defense” (Kas...

With the constant growth of violence in the world each and every day, mass media only continues to enable subliminal and unconscious messages that can be linked with violence and sexual crimes towards women. It is important to note that these correlational findings are specific to violence laced content in particular. This is to say that non violent pornogrpahy will not replicate the same negative effect, and is far less likely to induce aggressive behaviors. However with exposure to heavily violent materials, multiple factors are working at once to produce dangerous results. The combination of high arousal, destructive thoughts, and dense negative emotional responses creates a perfect storm for harmful behaviors to develop. (Kassin, et. al, 2014 p.494) But why is the subject of cruelty, and force so appealing in the world of pornography? It is a structured, coordinated, and consensual fantasy made for the purpose of satisfying a target audience and to generate revenue. While it is...

We all have experienced the effects of bullying in our lives one way or another, whether or not they happened to us directly or we heard the horror stories from friends and family. You could even have just experienced it in the media where, in any fictional depiction of school one of the most prominent aspects is the bully. Bullying is a consistent aspect of school for children of all generations, just as consistent are the stark differences between the ways boys and girls bully one another. The differences are so clear in fact, that they easily fall into and make great examples of different types of aggression. It would make sense to start with the ways boys harass one another as studies suggest that they experience more frequently than the opposite gender. Boys tend to be the victims of physical violence far more often than girls and the actions don’t tend to be premeditated in any way. They are fueled by emotional turmoil and things such as establishing d...

As an emergency responder I have personally had experience with the phenomena known as the Bystander Effect.  The textbook defines this as “the effect whereby the presence of others inhibits helping,” (Kassin et al, p.426). Integrated from the earliest part of our training was the idea that when we needed help with something, we needed to pick out specific people and direct them to do the necessary task rather than leaving it up to the group to combat this issue.   I believe the textbook does an excellent job outlining the steps of the Bystander Effect.  It describes five of them: Noticing, Interpreting,  Taking Responsibility , Deciding, and Providing (Kassin et al , p.426)    Of these steps I believe that Taking Responsibility is where many people get lost when reacting to emergencies.  For events such as the Boston Marathon Bombing or our own Father’s Day Flood, it’s impossible not to notice that something is going on an...

On the fateful day of September 11th, 2001 at 9:42 AM the United States closed its airspace. All flights scheduled were cancelled, and any in the air were ordered to land in Canada or Mexico. Any that attempted to land in the U.S. would be shot down. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) quickly worked with Transport Canada to route these flights to their new destinations. The collaboration was named Operation Yellow Ribbon. To avoid more chaos at the biggest airports, they worked to find the closest places that could hold many large commercial planes. Gander was one of those towns. Gander began as a tiny airport in Newfoundland, Canada in 1935 as a refueling and emergency landing station for flights between New York and London. Then, during the second world war it became a military base, expanding in size. After the war the airport became open for civilians, and a town began to build around it. It was rather small and unnoticed until the day of the terrorist attacks. Thirt...

(Before you begin to read this blog post I would like to make it known that rape is discussed in this post and I understand if you chose not to read my post) If someone was in serious need of help and was only an arms length away, do you think you would help them? It is possible that you would try to help but there is also the chance that you decide not to but are unaware why. The decision to not help could be attributed to the bystander effect, which is a phenomenon that causes us to not intervene or help in an emergency situation due to the presence of others. The following video helps to explain the bystander effect. It shows real cases of how having people around you can affect your decision to help or not.   This video exhibits a very innocent example of how the bystander effect impacts people, but not everything in life is that simple.  A highly talked about example of the bystander effect happened at Richmond High School in 2009 (Chitale, 2009). A female studen...