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Introduction
In this week's readings for Module 6, there is discussion about how people have
relationships with each other and helping others. In Chapter 9 of the Social Psychology book, it
talks about how people feel the need to belong, being with others, why people affiliate, and the
close relationships. Chapter 10 discusses the social psychology of giving and receiving help,
personal and interpersonal factors that predict whether a person will provide assistance to a
person in need, and the role of social ties in promoting helpfulness in others. (Kassin, 2020)
In the Theories of Social Psychology book, Chapter 9 discusses the Equity Theory and
how it was developed. This chapter also describes the theory, which is widely used for helping
people understand the way people develop, maintain, and dissolve interpersonal relationships.
(Chadee, 2011) In the other readings, discussion was about how people show their emotions and
how they feel about another person after the person has done something to them. The readings
also discuss how humans help others and how the gender of a person can be different depending
on how they are in the relationships and if altruism requires self-control. Relationships are so
important and that is why God designed us to be interactive, get to know others, and to
understand others.
Body
Need to Belong
The need to belong is how we as humans want to feel. We obsess about friendships,
hookups, romantic relationships, dating, love, sex, reproduction, sexual orientation, marriage,
and divorce. (Kassin, 2020) From the time we are born, we have reflexes that give us that feeling
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of needing to feel the need of wanting someone. The need to belong is a basic human motive, “a
pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and
significant interpersonal relationships.” (Kassin, 2020) When people feel that they have a
relationship with a person, they feel so much happiness. If that bond is broken, then the person
experiences sadness and anxiety. As humans, we spend a lot of time on our appearance and how
approachable we are because all we think about is how someone feels about us. This can cause
so much stress and anxiety in a person and cause other health issues. The need for affiliation is
the desire to establish and maintain many rewarding relationships. (Kassin, 2020) People have
differences in the need for affiliation by making sure to have that established, maintained
relationship or just want to be alone. Affiliating can satisfy us for other reasons too, as others
provide energy, attention, stimulation, information, emotional support and stress. (Kassin, 2020)
These reasons are why people seek to connect with others so that they have that sense of
belonging.
The Initial Attraction
Affiliation is the first step in the formation of a social relationship. (Kassin, 2020) We are
attracted more to some people than we are to others. We are more attracted to someone when
they are able to give us the attention that we seek and the help we need. People are also attracted
to people that are more like themselves but they also look at how a person's appearance is and
how the person's behavior is. Two different factors in the attraction process are the proximity
effect and the mere exposure effect. The Proximity Effect is the best predictor of whether two
people will get together and some of the most important social interactions still occur among
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people who find themselves living or working in the same place at the same time. (Kassin, 2020)
The Mere Exposure Effect is the phenomenon whereby the more often people are exposed to a
stimulus, the more positively they evaluate the stimulus. (Kassin, 2020) The two effects deal
with how people feel about being there and being familiar with the person that they are attracted
to.
Types of Relationships
Having a close relationship is very important to many individuals. When having a close
relationship, it can be more important to an individual than having success in school, or a good
career. Intimate relationships are a close relationship between two adults involving emotional
attachment, fulfillment of psychological needs, or interdependence. (Kassin, 2020) The
emotional attachment is when an individual has those feelings of attachment, how they feel
affection, and love. The feelings of attachment is how individuals have similar beliefs and
values. The affection is how an individual has desires that where they want to be held, cuddle,
and how they feel the connection with their significant other. There are many different ways
individuals feel love from the other person in their life, such as how they feel they belong. They
also feel love by feeling positive emotions and the love from a significant other can be shown
through how attracted they are to that person. Love is shown in different ways to the different
people that are in an individual's life. There are many types of relationships and the more
rewards in the relationship the better the relationship is. The exchange relationship is which
participants expect and have desires in their interactions. Communal relationships is a
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relationship in which the participants expect and desire mutual responsiveness to each other’s
needs. (Kassin. 2020) In a close relationship, people have attachment to another person and the
attachment can be secure or insecure. The attachment of a person happens in a way a person
typically interacts with significant others. (Kassin, 2020) Having secure attachment, helps
individuals to feel happy and positive about the relationship. When feeling insecure, this causes
an individual to feel upset, show negative behavior, and conflict happens in the relationship.
Having a relationship that a person can feel they are wanted, and can trust the other person in
their life helps them to live a life of happiness.
Helping others
Why do we help others? We help others because it helps us to feel better and others to
feel better. Prosocial behaviors are actions intended to benefit others. (Kassin, 2020) Helping
others can be a part of who we are because of relatives and genetics. When helping someone who
is not related to you, this is called reciprocity. (Kassin, 2020) When helping someone who isn’t
related to you is a good thing because more than likely you will get the help you need when
needed. There are times in an individual's life that they will need to help others that can become
a risk. Some individuals will take that risk to help others because they feel compassion and want
to bring that individual to safety. When an individual helps another individual there is that
feeling of feeling good but people also tend to help others because it helps to counteract how
they feel down. There is a cost of helping others or not helping and it is courageous resistance,
which is when an individual puts themself in a situation that can be dangerous to help the
individual get out of a dangerous situation. There are also times when there is a group of
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individuals and one person is in need of help and everyone does not make the move to help the
individual, which ends up in a bad way. This is called the bystander effect, whereby the presence
of others inhibits helping. (Kassin, 2020) People will notice that someone is in need of help and
then people in the group will mistakenly think of how they feel and think are not the way others
are feeling and thinking and everyone becomes very confused. As a human being in the
bystander effect, we always need to make sure that we notice what is going on, interpret the
situation as an emergency, and no matter what others think of us, step up and help the person in
need. God would want us to help others just as he helps us and with doing this, he blesses us.
Models and Influences
Who is likely to help? People who are likely to help are people that are honest, humble,
or who exhibit advanced moral reasoning to be more helpful. (Kassin, 2020) People that imitate
the behavior of how we should help and show that helping can be rewarded is how others learn.
Social influence is a way of helping and individuals do this by being in a situation to help and
they don’t want to be the only one that doesn't help, so they help. This is a type of behavior that
is called reluctant altruism, which is a result from pressure from peers or other sources of direct
social influence. (Kassin,2020) Interpersonal influence is when people are helped on how
attractive they are, if they are responsible for their predicament, if they help someone they get in
return, and the gender of a person. People will look at how attractive someone is before they help
them, and they look at how nice, sociable, or happy an individual is before helping them. When a
person feels that they can be blamed for the situation a person is in, then they are more than
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likely not going to help an individual. Always think before you make the judgment of not
helping someone because it could be a life saving situation.
Conclusion
In these chapters, it is discussed on how individuals seek relationships throughout their
lives. It can be at their workplace, internet on social media and dating apps, by living or being
around someone all the time. Relationships are a very important part of a human's life and a need
for them to have. Within relationships, there can be good ones and bad ones. The good ones are
the ones that work together, have trust, help each other, and give the attention and affection that
is needed. The bad ones are the ones where there is a lot of confusion, lack of trust, and not
feeling wanted by other people. Helping others is a very important thing to do but it can be a
hard thing for some people to do. People that help others, take chances of putting themself in
trouble but they want to help the individual to safety or to feel better about themselves. For some
people, it is a hard decision for them to help others because they look at how a person looks and
behaves. They also fear what others think of them and do not want people putting them down for
stepping up in the time of need. God put us all here on earth to be a part of someone’s life and to
help others. As it says in the King James Version, “Do unto others, as you would have them to do
unto you”. (KJV, Matthew 7:12)
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References
Kassin, S., Fein, S, & Markus, H. R. (2021). Social Psychology, 11th edition.
(pp. 354-455) Cengage Learning, Inc.
Chadee, D. (2022) Theories in Social Psychology, 2nd edition. (pp. 217-249)
Wiley Blackwell Publishing
King James Bible, (1769). Matthew, Chapter 7:12
Leary, M.R., Diebels, K.J., Jongman-Sereno, K.P., & Fernandez, X.D. (2015), Why Seemingly
Trivial Events Sometimes Evoke Emotional Reactions: The Role of Social Exchange Rule
Violations. The Journal of Social Psychology,155, 559-575.
https://doi:10.1080/00224545.2015.1084985
Rand, D.G., Brescoll, V.L., Everett, J.A. C., Capraro, V., & Barcelo, H. (2016). Social Heuristics
and Social Roles: Intuition favors altruism for women but not for men. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 145(4), 389-396. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000154
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037
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