Difficulty: Intermediate. Prerequisites: Chapters 1–9 (research methods, self-concept, attitudes, conformity, persuasion, group influence, prejudice).
These four chapters cover the major forms of social behaviour. Chapter 10 examines aggression (biological, frustration-based, and learned), Chapter 11 explores what draws people together and what sustains relationships, Chapter 12 asks why and when people help, and Chapter 13 addresses conflict and the conditions under which peace becomes possible. Together they form the "social relations" pillar of the course.
Aggression has biological roots but is heavily shaped by frustration and social learning. Attraction follows predictable patterns (proximity, similarity, physical attractiveness, reciprocal liking). Helping depends on the situation (bystander effect) as much as the person. Conflict arises from social dilemmas, competition, and misperception; peace is built through contact, cooperation, communication, and conciliation.
Aggression
Physical or verbal behaviour intended to hurt someone.
Physical aggression – hurting someone's body. Social aggression (relational aggression) – hurting feelings or relationships, including cyberbullying.
Hostile aggression
Aggression that springs from anger; its goal is to injure.
Instrumental aggression
Aggression that aims to injure as a means to some other end (e.g. gaining social status).
Frustration-aggression theory
Frustration (the blocking of goal-directed behaviour) triggers a readiness to aggress.
Displacement
Redirecting aggression to a target other than the source of frustration, typically a safer or more socially acceptable one. Sometimes called scapegoating.
Relative deprivation
The perception that one is less well off than others. Frustration arises from the gap between expectations and attainments.
Social learning theory
We learn social behaviour by observing, imitating, and being rewarded or punished (Bandura).
Neural systems, genetic predispositions, and biochemical factors (alcohol, testosterone, poor diet) all contribute. Biology and behaviour interact: aggressive behaviour can raise testosterone levels, which in turn facilitate further aggression.
Aversive experiences (pain, heat, overcrowding) increase aggression. Arousal from one source can be misattributed and fuel aggression (Schachter and Singer, 1962). Aggression cues, notably the "weapons effect" (the mere presence of weapons increases aggressive thoughts), prime aggressive behaviour.
Media violence affects behaviour through three pathways: arousal, disinhibition, and imitation. Prosocial media have the opposite effect.
Catharsis (venting aggression) does not reliably reduce it and can increase it. Social learning approaches (modelling non-aggressive behaviour, changing rewards) are more effective. Culture change has historically reduced rates of violence.
Need to belong
A motivation to bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing, positive interactions.
Ostracism
Acts of excluding or ignoring. Even brief ostracism triggers pain-related brain activity.
Proximity
Geographical (and functional) nearness. Powerfully predicts liking.
Mere exposure effect
Novel stimuli are liked more after repeated exposure.
Matching phenomenon
The tendency to choose partners who are a "good match" in attractiveness and other traits.
Physical-attractiveness stereotype
The presumption that what is beautiful is good.
Passionate love
A state of intense longing for union with another.
Companionate love
The deep affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined.
Secure attachment
Attachments rooted in trust and marked by intimacy.
Avoidant attachment
Discomfort with closeness. An insecure style.
Anxious attachment
Anxiety or ambivalence about closeness. An insecure style.
Equity
A condition in which outcomes from a relationship are proportional to contributions. Equitable need not mean equal.
Self-disclosure
Revealing intimate aspects of oneself. Reciprocal self-disclosure deepens relationships.
Proximity breeds liking through mere exposure and the anticipation of interaction. Physical attractiveness matters ("what is beautiful is good" stereotype), but both sexes find it similarly important when choosing actual dates. Similarity (especially attitudinal similarity) strengthens attraction; dissimilarity depresses it more than similarity enhances it. We like people who like us (reciprocal liking). The reward theory of attraction: we are drawn to those we associate with good feelings.
Sternberg's triangular theory: love combines passion, intimacy, and commitment. The two-factor theory of emotion explains passionate love: physiological arousal, whatever its true source, is labelled as attraction when a plausible target is present.
Passionate love fades; companionate love can grow.
Secure attachment predicts healthier relationships. Equity and perceived fairness matter for long-term satisfaction. Self-disclosure is both a cause and a consequence of intimacy.
Stable marriages correlate with marrying after 20, similar backgrounds, stable income, dating for a long while, and religious commitment. The detachment process (the "mate ejection module") is a recognised psychological pattern.
Altruism
A motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for self-interest.
Social-exchange theory
Human interactions are transactions that aim to maximise rewards and minimise costs.
Reciprocity norm
An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.
Social capital
The mutual support and cooperation enabled by a social network.
Kin selection
Evolution has selected altruism toward close relatives to enhance survival of shared genes.
Bystander effect
A person is less likely to help when other bystanders are present.
Moral exclusion
Perceiving certain people or groups as outside the boundary within which one applies moral values and fairness.
Social-exchange theory frames helping as a cost-benefit calculation: we help to increase positive emotion (the "helper's high") or reduce negative emotion (guilt). Guilt is a particularly reliable motivator. Exceptions: anger and deep grief suppress helping.
Social norms drive helping through the reciprocity norm and the social-responsibility norm (we should help those who need it, regardless of whether they can return the favour).
Evolutionary psychology points to kin selection and reciprocal altruism. Empathy, the vicarious experience of another's feelings, enables genuine altruism beyond self-interest.
The bystander effect is one of the most robust findings in social psychology. In Latane and Darley's smoke-filled room study, people alone noticed the smoke in under 5 seconds; people in groups took about 20 seconds. Bystanders inhibit helping through diffusion of responsibility, pluralistic ignorance, and evaluation apprehension.
Helping increases when someone else models it (prosocial modelling), when time pressure is low, and when the person in need is perceived as similar.
Reduce ambiguity and increase personal responsibility (personalized appeal, making eye contact, introducing yourself by name). Guilt and concern for self-image motivate helping after a transgression. Socialising altruism through moral inclusion, modelling, and prosocial media all have positive effects. Cialdini (2003) found that emphasising positive norms ("most visitors leave the wood alone") is more effective than emphasising penalties.
Conflict
A perceived incompatibility of actions or goals.
Social trap
A situation in which parties pursuing self-interest become caught in mutually destructive behaviour (e.g. prisoner's dilemma, tragedy of the commons).
Tragedy of the commons
A shared resource collapses when individuals each consume more than their share and the cost is dispersed among all.
Mirror-image perceptions
Reciprocal views held by parties in conflict: each sees itself as moral and the other as aggressive.
Superordinate goals
Shared goals that necessitate cooperative effort and override group differences.
Bargaining
Seeking agreement through direct negotiation.
Mediation
A neutral third party facilitates communication and offers suggestions.
Arbitration
A neutral third party studies both sides and imposes a settlement.
GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension reduction)
A strategy (Charles Osgood) designed to de-escalate tensions through announced, repeated conciliatory acts.
Social dilemmas (prisoner's dilemma, tragedy of the commons) arise when individual rationality leads to collective harm. Competition for scarce resources almost always intensifies conflict (realistic group conflict theory). Misperception, including mirror-image perceptions and simplistic thinking, entrenches disagreements.
Five strategies: regulation, small group size ("small is beautiful"), communication, changing the payoffs, and appealing to altruistic norms.
Contact – desegregation alone does not change attitudes. Contact reduces prejudice when it involves equal status and genuine friendship.
Cooperation – common external threats and superordinate goals foster cohesion. Cooperative learning (e.g. jigsaw classrooms) improves racial attitudes.
Communication – bargaining, mediation (turning win-lose into win-win), and arbitration. Perspective-taking and inducing empathy decrease stereotyping and increase cooperation.
Conciliation – GRIT works by announcing cooperative intent, making repeated conciliatory acts, and maintaining equality of power. Real-world evidence supports all three principles.
The bystander effect explains why emergency training programmes teach people to point at a specific individual and say "You, call 911." The "Bringing in the Bystander" programme has been effective in changing attitudes toward intervening in sexual assault situations. GRIT's principles of announced cooperative intent and repeated conciliation have been applied in diplomatic de-escalation. The matching phenomenon and mere exposure effect explain much of how online dating algorithms work.
Students assume catharsis ("venting") reduces aggression. Research shows it often increases it.
Students think the bystander effect means people do not care. It is about diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance, not apathy.
Students confuse passionate love and companionate love. Passionate love is intense but temporary; companionate love is deep and enduring.
Students assume GRIT means unilateral disarmament. It does not. GRIT maintains equality of power; it de-escalates through announced, reciprocated, graduated steps.
⚠️ Know the difference between hostile and instrumental aggression, with examples.
⚠️ Understand the three explanations for why media violence increases aggression (arousal, disinhibition, imitation).
⚠️ The bystander effect and its underlying mechanisms (diffusion of responsibility, pluralistic ignorance) are heavily tested.
⚠️ Know Sternberg's three components of love (passion, intimacy, commitment) and the three attachment styles.
⚠️ Be able to explain the Four Cs of peacemaking (contact, cooperation, communication, conciliation) with examples.
⚠️ Understand why equal-status contact and superordinate goals matter for reducing prejudice (connects back to Ch. 9).
True or False: Catharsis is an effective way to reduce aggression. (False. It often increases subsequent aggression.)
Fill in the blank: The finding that a person is less likely to help when other bystanders are present is the ________ effect. (Bystander.)
True or False: Passionate love tends to strengthen steadily over the course of a long relationship. (False. Passionate love tends to fade; companionate love can grow.)
Fill in the blank: A shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort is called a ________ goal. (Superordinate.)
True or False: In the prisoner's dilemma, both parties always benefit by cooperating. (True, in the long run. Mutual cooperation produces the best joint outcome, though individual defection can tempt short-term gain.)
Q: A woman collapses in a crowded shopping centre and nobody helps for several minutes. Explain this using the bystander effect.
A: The large number of bystanders creates diffusion of responsibility (each person assumes someone else will act), pluralistic ignorance (everyone looks calm, so each person interprets the situation as non-urgent), and evaluation apprehension (fear of overreacting in public). Fewer bystanders would likely have produced a faster response.
Q: How does the two-factor theory of emotion explain passionate love?
A: The two-factor theory holds that emotion = physiological arousal multiplied by a cognitive label. If someone is physiologically aroused (e.g. from exercise, a scary bridge) and attributes that arousal to an attractive person nearby, they may experience the arousal as romantic attraction, even though the true cause was something else entirely.
Q: What is GRIT, and how does it work to reduce conflict?
A: GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension reduction) is a de-escalation strategy proposed by Charles Osgood. One side announces a cooperative intent, makes a small conciliatory gesture, and invites reciprocation. If the other side reciprocates, the first side makes a slightly larger concession, and so on. Equality of power is maintained throughout, which protects against exploitation.
Aggression (Ch. 10) draws on frustration-aggression theory and social learning theory, both of which connect to the discussion of attitudes and behaviour in Chapter 4. The bystander effect (Ch. 12) is a group influence phenomenon that connects directly to social loafing and deindividuation in Chapter 8. Superordinate goals and equal-status contact (Ch. 13) are the practical antidotes to the ingroup bias and realistic group conflict discussed in Chapter 9.
Aggression, hostile aggression, instrumental aggression, physical aggression, social aggression, cyberbullying, frustration-aggression theory, displacement, scapegoating, relative deprivation, social learning theory, Bandura, weapons effect, media violence, prosocial behaviour, catharsis, need to belong, ostracism, proximity, mere exposure, matching phenomenon, physical-attractiveness stereotype, similarity, complementarity, reward theory of attraction, passionate love, companionate love, Sternberg, two-factor theory, secure attachment, avoidant attachment, anxious attachment, equity, self-disclosure, altruism, social-exchange theory, reciprocity norm, social capital, kin selection, empathy, bystander effect, Latane, Darley, diffusion of responsibility, prosocial modelling, moral exclusion, moral inclusion, conflict, social trap, prisoner's dilemma, tragedy of the commons, mirror-image perceptions, superordinate goals, contact hypothesis, cooperation, jigsaw classroom, bargaining, mediation, arbitration, GRIT, Osgood, conciliation