Social Science Psychology 3906 Introduction Lets look at

Social Science… Psychology 3906

Introduction • Let’s look at social psychology and the study of culture • Big traditions in psychology • Mostly ignoring evolution (though not always)

Social Psych • A good question is why be social in the first place? • Many species are not social • Well it makes sense if there is predation risk (the selfish herd phenomenon) • Makes sense if food is patchily distributed and patches are large

Costs and benefits • Of course, the benefits of being social must outweigh the costs. • So say there is little predation, then there is little reason to hang out with others • Or if the patches you encounter are quite small • Our closest living relatives are social

EEA • What was life like then? • There would have been some predation yes • Food was patchy, but patches were probably large • Might have made good sense to be social to prevent others of our species from screwing us over

EEA • We probably lived in small bands • Perhaps 30 or fewer people per band • Varying degrees of relatedness (which is the key probably) • When hunter gatherers of today are looked it they tend to live like this, and they tend to be more social with people that are more related to them

Kinship • • Kinship and association Kinship and cooperation Kinship, aggression and homicide Proximate mechanisms?

Reciprocal Altruism • We are more likely to help if – We will get help in return – Cost is low – Payoff is high • Public helping, all other things being equal, is more likely • Though the singular hero effect is important here too

Ingroup bias and racism • As you probably know we favour own group, no matter what that group is, over other groups • We must understand this stuff, it may have deadly consequences • Bias becomes bigger when membership is more obvious • We look for ‘badges’

Race • Today not very useful as a ‘badge’ • But people of course still seem to care about the colour of another’s skin, the language they speak etc • When people are given a cue that is reliable about group membership, it changes • Educational ideas here, universal people

Culture • We started out with a discussion of culture and the folly of using it as an explanation • The social world does of course influence us greatly • Can we reconcile the SSSM and EP? • YES • EP is an explanation of how society influences us

Culture • EP does NOT deny cultural differences • But it does not play them up • It does not see them as the end of the explanation • Attractiveness and contrast effects

So what is the domain of EP? • We can only go after stuff that affects fitness • Some stuff probably has no fitness effect • However, some stuff is universal but seems on the surface to have no fitness effect • Music

Are we pessimistic? • If you believe in the naturalistic fallacy yes • EP is an environmental theory! • We can get new understanding of things like education, homicide and racism • This is an optimistic view!