5 sexiest theories, 5 favorite social psychologists

Sexiest Theories

1. Self-Awareness

· Self-awareness theory states that attention on the self leads to a notice in self-discrepancies, which leads to an escape from self-awareness or a change in behavior (Duval, & Wicklund, 1972). To solve this, there are two ways of coping: (1) Shaping up, behaving in a way that reduces self-discrepancy or (2) Shipping out, by withdrawing from self-awareness.

· I think this theory is sexy because it forces a person to pay attention to him or herself and notice what he or she believes is wrong within him or herself. Then, when those discrepancies are noticed there are two ways that he or she can deal with not being his or her ideal self. He or she can either change or withdraw. I think this theory demands that a person own up to either be happy with his or her actual self, and if not, then he or she can change.

Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A Theory of objective self-awareness. New York: Academic Press.

2. Attribution Theory

· A set of two theories that describe how people explain the causes of behavior: personal attribution or situational attribution. Personal attribution is when the behavior is explained as a result of the person’s personality, and situational attribution is when the behavior is explained as a function of the environment or other external factors (Heider, 1958).

· This theory is sexy to me because it addresses the person’s perception of the person or situation. The attitude that the person has can be implied by which attribution is made. Say someone forgot to bring something to class. Well, a personal attribution can be made (the person is unreliable) or a situation attribution can be made (it must be a busy day). The personal attribution reflects negatively upon the person as opposed to the negative external factors in the situational attribution.

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.

3. Cognitive Dissonance

· Cognitive Dissonance is the theory that people are motivated to reduce the dissonance that results from the inconsistencies in thought (Festinger, 1957).

· Cognitive dissonance is sexy because it basically is a mind trick. The individual is making positive reasons for why he or she made the decision that he or she did, even when the alternative was just as, or more, appealing.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

4. Social Role Theory

· Social role theory states that small gender differences are magnified by the unequal social roles occupied by men and women. Social role involves three factors: (1) through a combination of biological and social factors, (2) masculinity vs. feminity and (3) dominance perception.

· I think Eagly’s social role theory is sexy because it points out the difference between genders, but points out that it is actually a small difference but socialization has taught us to make it bigger. Really, this would be sexier if everyone were more aware of this theory so that gender roles would cease to exist.

Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

5. Triangular Theory of Love

· This theory states that there are eight basic subtypes of love and can be derived from three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment.

· Intimacy is the emotional component

· Passion is the motivation component

· Commitment is the cognitive component

· This theory is complemented by a triangular diagram that can be used to determine which subtype of love is observed

· This theory is extremely sexy because it is (1) about love, (2) there are different levels of love identified, and (3) a diagram to help determine the level of love.

Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93, 119-135.

Sexiest Social Psychologists

1. Daryl Bem (Self-Perception)

· Bem is one of my favorite social psychologists because of his theory of self-perception. I have been interested in this side of psychology since research methods. If I am ever able to do a project on my own where I would try to do something dealing with self-perception because it is remarkable how much one can learn about oneself just by observing his or her own behavior.

2. Fritz Heider (Attribution)

· Heider is one of my favorite social psychologist because he is responsible for attribution theory and balance theory. I really like both of these theories, so I respect the person that came up with them.

3. Sternberg (Triangular Theory of Love)

· I am astounded that someone was able to come up with such an understandable and identifiable model of love levels. This theory just blows my mind.

4. Icek Ajzen (Theory of Planned Behavior)

· How applicable is this theory? Super. It makes a lot of sense and is so identifiable in everyday life that Azjen should be a household name when it comes to decision-making.

5. Leon Festinger (Cognitive Dissonance)

· Cognitive dissonance is such a sexy theory that it makes Festinger look amazing. In addition, he also came up with social comparison theory, which is also really sexy. Two sexy theories automatically merits favoritism.

All five of these social psychologists are in my top five because they have each made a contribution to social psychology that I find personally awesome. They have gathered information to form incredibly applicable theories.

Check your balance.

According to Adams (1965), equity theory is the theory that people are most satisfied with a relationship when the ratio between benefits and contributions is balanced between both partners. In other words, you're happier in a relationship when what you're getting out of it is similar to the level of what your partner is getting out of it. More visually put:

(your benefits/your contributions) = (your partner's benefits/your partner's contribution)

The main point to understand from this theory is that there must be a balance. When one person is receiving more benefits than he or she is contributing, then he or she is being over benefitted; whereas the other partner is receiving less benefits than he or she deserves, then he or she is being under benefitted.

Honestly, I feel like most of my relationships I am the one that is being under benefitted. I am more willing than the person that I am in a relationship with, whether it be romantic or friendly, to contribute more. I feel like I am providing more rewards than I should be because I rarely see the contributions being reciprocated. I have a few friendships where our equity is balanced; however, I have yet to have a romantic relationship where it is. Because I have not had any romantic relationships balanced, this led to the termination of the relationship because we would both agree that we were on different levels. However, I am extremely grateful for my friendships where there is a balance of benefits and contributions. I just believe that in order to show appreciation for someone then there should be actions that demonstrate that. Whether these actions are verbal or nonverbal, I believe that there should be equal contributions and benefits because feeling resentment toward someone is no fun. For example, this past weekend I went out with a good friend of mine and he took amazing care of me and introduced me to all of his friends, which are now friends to me. He and I are always there for each other and treat each other to meals and gifts just because we like to show each other that we care and appreciate for each other. I think it's just nice to show someone appreciation. You can tell them all you want, but it doesn't mean anything if it isn't backed up by a kind act. I am happier in this friendship than other ones where there is little contribution and benefits because I feel like this friendship is more stable. We have invested time and money into each other that we won't get back. In addition to equal benefits and contributions, we have not yet had a negative experience with one another, so I think that says something about how we treat each other as well. We're totally balanced. :)

Adams, J. S. (1965). Equity in social exchange theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267-299.

Any ideas?

Osborn (1953) came up with a technique for groups that would allow them to come up with better ideas; this technique became known as brainstorming. Brainstorming can be defined as a group of people who are interacting with each other to come up with creative ideas for a task. This method of thinking encourages members of the group to speak openly and and freely without fear of judgment. Brainstorming requires that the group express all ideas that come to mind because the more ideas the better. In addition, there should be no criticism and ideas can build upon each other because the ideas belong to the group (Osborn, 1953).

In theory, brainstorming sounds like it would be a really useful technique to implement; however, research has shown that brainstorming is not a helpful a method as Osborn claimed. Research shows that groups are not as productive than individuals working alone (Mullen, Johnson, & Salas, 1991).

This concept can easily be applied to our University Programming Council (UPC) meetings. Last semester, we used to start all of our meetings off with a brainstorming activity. The chair would ask us to brainstorm PR ideas for next week's Friday Night Live (FNL) event. Our PR consists of all the banners and gimmicks you see around campus that advertise our upcoming event, just to help illustrate what we're being asked to do. Therefore, it is a good idea to get a council of 40 plus people to think about ideas, perhaps someone will come up with a PR idea that we have never done before that just sounds amazing. This unfortunately, has never happened. I think our chair was able to observe how inefficient this brainstorming activity was, so we cut that out of our agenda. However, when we did use to do it. It would waste a good fifteen minutes of our meeting where maybe a few people would contribute their ideas, sometimes people would communicate with others and come up with decent ideas, but there hasn't been any stellar ideas resulting from this activity. Most of us do not pay attention to "unimportant" parts of the meetings, whereas others are too quiet to share their ideas.

Without the council sharing or paying attention, brainstorming activities were identified as inefficient and not helpful, so we took them off the agenda. Most people socialized during their brainstorming time, so people were not contributing, which is a factor in this technique's lack of effectiveness. Brainstorming can also be good because it can build cohesion, but it did not do that for our group. Our group is already really cohesive because we spend out Thursday nights and Friday nights together planning and executing all kinds of events.

The way we have solved this problem now, is that the small group that is in charge of the week's event emails ideas to their chair or talk about it on PR work days. When there isn't as much pressure from people watching and they have had time to think about it.

Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 40, 659-665.

Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied imagination. New York: Scribner.

Like a BAWSE

Obedience is the act of changing your behavior (either to be defiant or submissive) when under the influence of someone in a position of power (Milgram, 1963).

Most people have grown up holding true to their morals and ideals, but when someone of power is pressuring you to do something that violates those morals and ideals, will you comply, or will you stand true? It is generally assumed that people will stick to their morals because they know what is right and wrong, but in Milgram's (1963) shock experiments, this was not the case. Participant's were asked to administer an electric shock of increasing voltage to a person in a different room; however, the person would only receive the shock if he or she answer the question wrong. Therefore, there was the chance that he or she could get all the answers correct, but that was not the case here. The learner, the person in the adjacent room receiving the shocks, was a confederate. An experimenter would sit in the same room with the participant to monitor. The confederate would answer the first few questions correctly, but then it would decline from there. The participant would have to begin conducting the shocks to the learner, again each one greater in voltage than the one before. Once the participant became aware of the learner's discomfort (e.g., through grumbles and exclamations), the participant would sometimes object. The moral conflict was easily observed, but the experimenter would continue to encourage the participant to continue with the experiment, and he or she would despite all the mental conflicts (Milgram, 1963).

Regardless of the participant's moral beliefs, he (back in the day it was always men) would continue to administer the shocks. Why would someone want to continue hurting someone? How is this possible? How can you live with yourself? Well, there are a few factors to take into consideration to understand why:

Who: Participant shocking an innocent human being

Closeness of authority: the experimenter was in the same room as the participant, continually encouraging the participant to continue

Closeness of learner: The poor learner is in the adjacent room. We cannot see him, but we can hear him.

These factors are important to consider because they are ones that we innately take into account when we are being told to perform a task. Who is giving the direction? Is it your boss? Is it the boss's assistant? Is it perhaps an intern? People are going to be more likely to obey direction from the boss and the boss's assistant than they are going to from an unpaid employee. Also, where is the authority figure in relation to you? Is he or she on the phone giving this instruction or right in your face? There is more pressure to follow direction when the person is close by watching you rather than when he or she is far away unable to watch your every move. Also, where is the person you are performing the task on? Who is the intended audience? If they are in the room with while you are performing your task you are definitely going to feel the pressure and want to do your best, but if they aren't able to watch you, who says you have to do everything perfectly?

One would generally think that a person who is firm in his or her moral beliefs would refuse to continue with a study such as Milgram's famous electric shock series. However, when you are under the pressure of someone that you feel is an authoritarian figure, you have been trained to not dissent. Let us watch some examples of someone obeying someone who is in a position of power:

In this first example we have professional staff asking a student to perform a task. Who is the authority figure? The professional staff member, Hector, is asking Amber, the student worker, to perform office duties as well as a personal errand. Because he is standing right there and in the office, she has to obey him. He is able to see everything that she is doing and can punish her if she does not follow his orders.

In this example, Amber is taking instruction from Hector over the phone. Hector has asked Amber to perform all the same duties as the previous example, but because Hector is not around to actually check if she has done it or not. Because Hector will not be around to see if she is doing her duties, Amber has taken on the attitude that she will not do what he has asked. Her face at the end just beautifully shows this attitude. In other words, this is an illustration of someone dissenting.

We have seen different examples of obedience, and essentially it is when a person chooses to alter his or her behavior (to comply and be submissive or to dissent) when being given instruction by a position of authority.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social psychology, 67, 371-378.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.

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