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Before you begin to explore aggression and apply concepts from social psychology to it, it is important to examine one of the most fundamental social psychological concepts: construals. A construal is defined as the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world. The concept of construal has its roots in Gestalt psychology—a school of psychology that stresses the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people’s minds, rather than the objective, physical attributes of the object.

Social psychologists have found that two motives are of primary importance in determining human thoughts and behavior: the need to feel good about ourselves and the need to be accurate. Self-esteem is people’s evaluation of their own self-worth, or the extent to which people see themselves as good, competent, and decent. Most people have a strong need to maintain a high self-esteem. This need can clash with the need for accuracy, referred to as the social cognition motive, leading people to distort their perceptions of reality (e.g., by explaining their personal deficiencies in more positive ways) so as to preserve self-esteem. Such distortions are more “spins” on the facts rather than complete delusions.

Consider, for instance, a man who proposed marriage and had his proposal rejected in front of his girlfriend’s entire family. This person faces a conflict between the need to maintain self-esteem and the need to be accurate. What should he think about being rejected by his girlfriend? He could protect his self-esteem and assume it was not his fault at all that she said no, or he could try to get an accurate assessment of what happened (e.g., perhaps proposing in front of her family was a bad idea; perhaps his relationship was not as solid as he thought) so it will not happen again. Social psychologists study people's subjective construals of situations and how these construals are influenced by their self-esteem and social cognition motives.

An important application of this study is to better understand aggressive behavior, a social psychology topic that has far-reaching implications for individuals, groups, and society as a whole. One of the most important reasons for studying aggression is the goal of reducing violence. For example, individuals can be counseled to change the parameters of their situation, trained in communication and problem-solving skills, or provided with ongoing interventions such as anti-bullying programs. Social psychologists seek answers to questions such as: In aggressive situations, do people learn to be aggressive or is their behavior a function of their environment? Do some people have aggressive attributes and tendencies or do they become aggressive because of their unique situations? Are individuals from some cultures more aggressive than those from others?

A fundamental difference between social psychologists and lay people is the application of this construal approach in understanding how aggressive situations and other types of behavior arise. Social psychologists recognize and examine the power of the situation in influencing people. Lay people often cite the situation to explain their own behaviors, but they overlook the situation and instead cite personality to explain others' behaviors. This is termed the fundamental attribution error.

For this Discussion, you consider why some individuals are aggressive toward others and how aggression escalates or can be reduced. You will compare how social psychologists and lay people might each explain various types of aggressive behavior, and in doing so, apply many of the concepts you explored in the Learning Resources this week, including construals, the fundamental attribution error, and the sometimes competing motives of self-esteem and social cognition.

To prepare:

· Review Chapter 1 of the course text, Social Psychology, focusing on how social psychologists would view or attempt to explain a specific situation. Note the example about Edward Snowden on page 16.

· Review Chapter 12 of the course text, Social Psychology, focusing on aggression.

· Consider the following five social situations in which aggressive behavior is demonstrated and how social psychologists versus laypeople might treat each situation:

· A high school or college campus shooting

· An act of domestic violence or child abuse within a family

· Looting of shops and homes after a natural disaster

· Domestic or global terrorism

· White collar financial embezzlement

· Select one of the five aggressive behaviors listed above for your Discussion post.

By Day 3

Post a discussion of the following:

· How would you explain the aggressor's behavior if you had made the fundamental attribution error? In other words, provide a dispositional explanation for the aggressive behavior.

· Next, provide a situational explanation for the aggressor's behavior. What might be the aggressor's construal, or interpretation, of the situation? Examples of several social situations are described in Chapter 12.

· How is the aggressor's construal influenced by the self-esteem motive (the need to feel good about ourselves by justifying our behavior) orthe social cognition motive (the need to be accurate by acting on available information)?

· How could the aggressive act be explained by one of the following: the evolutionary view, or the influence of culture, or the influence of gender, orlearning?

· Based on your reading of Chapter 12, what would you suggest to prevent or reduce instances of this specific type of aggression, either at the individual level or at the societal level?

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Sommers, S. (2016). Social psychology (9th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

· Chapter 1, “Introducing Social Psychology”

· Chapter 12, “Aggression: Why Do We Hurt Other People? Can We Prevent It?”

Assignment: Social Psychology Research and Prosocial Behavior

As a student of psychology, it is important to fully understand how research is conducted, as well as the numerous issues associated with sound research. Two important research topics are validity and ethics. When a research study lacks internal or external validity, the results may be misleading. When practitioners then apply the results of the study to a real world situation, the impact may be ineffective, may achieve different results than expected, or may even be harmful. Addressing validity in research is essential.

Another important consideration in psychological research is ethics. Any research must be ethical in how it is conducted and how the results are used. A high level of ethics is especially critical when it comes to research involving human subjects, which is the case with most psychological research. Ethics in research involves honesty, objectivity, integrity, carefulness and competence, openness, respect for intellectual property, respect for privacy, confidentiality, responsible publication of findings, social responsibility, non-discrimination, legality, care of animals for those studies involving animals, and protection of the rights of human subjects.

This Assignment asks you to analyze a social psychology research article for validity and ethics. The skills practiced can be applied to a critique of any scientific research study. Then, you will use theory to explain how prosocial behavior is relevant to the topic of your selected research article.

To prepare:

· Review Chapter 2 in your course text, focusing on journal article analysis.

· While reading Chapter 11, reflect on how prosocial behavior can be used to address problems.

· Read the online article, "What Is Ethics in Research and Why Is It Important?" Focus on the expectations of ethics for the scientific community, how results are used in the real world, and related ethical issues.

· Choose one of the journal articles from this week’s Learning Resources to analyze (not Resnik's online article about ethics).

The Assignment (2–4 pages):

Analyze the article you selected by responding to the following questions:

· Briefly, what were the research method, the purpose of the study, and the main finding(s)? As this is a brief statement of the main finding(s), do not provide details such as means or other statistics.

· What potential threats are there, if any, to the study's external validity or generalizability? What about the study, if anything, enhances its external validity or generalizability?

· Do you have any concerns regarding whether the study was conducted ethically? Explain in terms of the information you learned in the assigned readings (e.g., informed consent).

· Recall this week's Discussion Spark about various prosocial behaviors. What prosocial behavior or act could increase understanding of, or provide support to someone dealing with the issues presented in your selected journal article? The prosocial behavior could be something described in the journal article, explored in the Discussion Spark, or a prosocial behavior that has not previously been mentioned in the course.

· What theory or concept described in Chapter 11 explains the motive for this prosocial behavior?

· What personal quality of an individual or situational determinant would increase the likelihood of this prosocial behavior occurring?

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Sommers, S. (2016). Social psychology (9th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

· Chapter 2, “Methodology: How Social Psychologists Do Research”

· Chapter 11, “Prosocial Behavior: Why Do People Help?”

· “Making a Difference With Social Psychology: Attaining a Sustainable Future” (pp. 456–461)

Assignment: Social Cognition and Perception

Social cognition is the study of the ways people think about themselves and the social world, including how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information. Two types of social cognition are controlled thinking and automatic thinking. Controlled thinking is thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary, and effortful, such as when you are weighing the pros and cons of an issue to make an important decision or are learning a skill for the first time. Automatic thinking is just as it sounds—thinking that happens without conscious thought—and it is this type of thinking that you will concentrate on this week.

Schemas, one example of automatic thinking, are mental structures that organize our knowledge about the social world and influence what we notice, think about, and remember. Schemas are important for making sense of the world. They help us to create continuity to relate new experiences to old ones and are especially helpful when information is ambiguous. We also engage in a second type of automatic thinking when we use mental strategies and shortcuts, or heuristics, that make judgments and decisions easier, allowing us to proceed with our lives and not turn every decision into a major hurdle. Examples of heuristics include availability, representativeness, and counterfactual thinking. Schemas and heuristics significantly influence our impressions of a social situation and facilitate our social cognition processes. Schemas are highly determined by the cultures in which we grow up, and they strongly influence what we notice and remember about the world.

Think back to this week’s Introduction. When you meet someone new, you no doubt use many different kinds of information available to you and process that information in a way that allows you to make sense of their behavior. You may see if a person fits into some group with which you are familiar and then try to make sense of the person's behavior in light of others in that group. In addition, you probably have your own goals for relating to the person, which also influence your impression. If your goal is to form a long-term relationship with the person, you will process the information differently than you would the information from a store clerk with whom you don't plan to have any kind of relationship.

The information you focus on, the strategies you use in processing the information, and the resulting impressions and preconceived ideas you form about a person make up what is called person perception. Since social psychology is all about relating to others, be it an individual or a group of people, person perception is an important topic.

In addition to understanding how people form impressions of others, it is helpful to dig deeper into why people might behave as they do. In doing so, you can more easily predict how people will behave and then control the environment accordingly. By having a better understanding of why people behave as they do, you also can understand your own emotions and feelings toward the situation, which impact your own future behavior. The simple question of "What causes what?" is essential in understanding those around you and your social environment. And, since it would be cumbersome to constantly ask the question "What causes what?"—people tend to ask and answer it automatically. The social psychology term for this concept is causal attribution. There are many related social psychological theories that you can use to understand why people behave as they do. This understanding in turn, helps you to better understand how people relate to one another and to the environment, predict behavior, and partly control social situations—all major goals of social psychology.

To prepare:

· Review Chapters 3 and 4 of the course text, Social Psychology.

· Review the article, "Person Perception" found in this week's Learning Resources.

· Watch the video on selective attention.

The Assignment (2–4 pages):

· Select one person’s behavior for each of the following two categories:

· A person you do not know and who you probably will not see again (clerk at the grocery store, etc.)

· A person you have known for some time and for whom you can remember your first impressions (acquaintance, friend, spouse, etc.)

· Briefly describe each person including his or her specific behavior at your first meeting, the context of your interaction with each person, and your first impression of each person.

· Explain whether you made external (situational) and/or internal (dispositional) causes for each person's behavior during that first meeting.

· Did you engage in automatic thinking or controlled thinking in forming your first impression of each person? Explain. What, if any, schemas or heuristics did you use?

· According to the information in this week's readings, how does your culture influence your impressions of others? For example, culture can influence the content of a particular schema (Aronson, Wilson, & Sommers, 2016, p. 70); culturally-specific display rules can influence your impressions (Aronson, Wilson, & Sommers, 2016, pp. 90-91); and culture can predict holistic or analytic thinking (Aronson, Wilson, & Sommers, 2016, p. 110).

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Sommers, S. (2016). Social psychology (9th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

· Chapter 3, “Social Cognition: How We Think About the Social World”

· Chapter 4, “Social Perception: How We Come to Understand Other People”

· “Social Psychology in Action 3: Psychology and the Law” (pp. 496–506 on Eyewitness Testimony)