The Social Animal

I finished up chapter six.
Chapter six was about prejudice. It was mostly about four different causes of prejudice:

1. Economical and political competition or conflict
2. Displaced aggression
3. Personality needs
4. Conformity to social norms

The personality that the author talks about being most likely to be prejudice is the "authoritarian personality". The are the people that grew up with strict parents who instilled conventional values and strong obedience to authority; the stereotypical "white trash" in the south.

TOTAL READING TIME: 8 hr. 30 min.

Page: 205

The Social Animal

I finished up chapter five
Chapter five dealt with human aggression. The author first discussed whether aggression was an instinctive trait or a learned trait. There isn't a concise answer given, only that there is controversy about the topic. Then he talks about frustration being one of the main causes of aggression. He also explains how social learning can alter when aggression occurs. If someone accidentally frustrates you, you won't get as aggressive, opposed to someone you know or think did it purposely. Then he asks if aggression is necessary, going into the "survival of the fittest" idea; no real answer is given. He also talks about three possible ways to reduce aggression:

1. Constructive ways of "blowing off steam" (sports, weight lifting, such n such) -It was found that although it may give relief, this way doesn't really reduce aggression. {I disagree with this, if I didn't lift weights i think I'd be much more aggressive}
2. Fantasy (imagining yourself getting revenge n what not) - This way was found to be somewhat successful in reducing aggression.
3. Lettin loose (verbally or physically expressing full aggression) - The idea of the is it will "get it out of your system", but it was found that those who do this or more likely to hurt the same person again in the future. The cognitive- dissonance theory says that if someone hurts another person, he is likely to make himself dislike the person he hurt more.

I was a little disappointed with this chapter cuz I was hoping to learn more interesting stuff about actual anger and such, o well.

TOTAL READING TIME: 7 hr.

Page: 174

The Social Animal

I finished up chapter three and chapter four.
Chapter three finished with ideas about presenting an idea first or last in an argument (first if long period of time is between presentation & decision, second if decision immediately after presentation), discrepancy in an argument, and characteristics of an audience (females more persuasive than males). Chapter four was about Self-justification. A main idea stressed in this chapter is that man isn't necessarily a rational being, but it is a rationalizing being. Humans have a need to be right, or at least think they are right. So this chapter tells about the cognitive-dissonance theory and the wide range of areas it has affect on.
An example i came across, on meself, is when i decided to go a cheer leading competition rather than my church league basketball game this past weekend. The basketball game was obviously more important to me than the cheer leading competition, but i chose to go to the comp. This created dissonance with my cognition "the game is more important" and "I am missing the game for the comp.". Since I am a rationalizing being, I had to decrease this level of dissonance. Once the decision to miss the game was irrevocable, I began to lower the importance of the game in my mind. To make the two thoughts more consonant, I focused on the positives of the comp., while ignoring positives of the game. I also had external justification for my decision. Since my girlfriend wanted me to go see her comp., my dissonance wasn't as high as it could have been.
I am glad i can now include cognition, dissonant, and consonant in my everyday vocabulary; Yay reading.

TOTAL READING TIME: 6 hr.

Page: 140

The Social Animal

I finished up chapter two, and i am now in the middle of chapter three on page 69.

Chapter two finished up with idea of what are the chances of a person helping a stranger in trouble. The author tells a story about a woman in New York who was stabbed to death, while at least 38 of her neighbors watched her for 30 minutes being murdered from their windows. The reason they didn't help was due to the amount of people witnessing the murder. When there are more people around trouble, the less likely the person in trouble will receive help. Everyone conforms to the others who aren't helping. However, two factors will greatly increase the likelihood of assistance:

1. If the witnesses have no way to escape the situation (the people watching the murder had their homes to hide in to escape the situation)
2. If the witnesses share a feeling of common fate (people watching the murder felt protected in their homes)

Chapter three discusses communication and persuasion. So far it says that when persuading someone, having a combination of emotion (fear, anger, n such) and direction (what you want them to do) is most effective.

TOTAL READING TIME: 3 hr.

Page: 69

The Social Animal

I've started reading The Social Animal by Elliot Aronson today. I've read up to page 35.
The first chapter is an introduction into social psychology. It was a pretty dull chapter, but I got through it. The second chapter, which I am in the middle of, talks about conformity. He goes into detial about variables that can increase and decrease chances of conformity. He also talks about three types of conformity: Compliance, Identification, and Internalization.

• Compliance = Doing something motivated by a reward or punishment
• Identification = Doing something that a idolized person does or did
• Internalization = Doing something just to be right, for yourself

Reading this book'll probably take a tad longer due to the advanced vocabulary this author uses and the amount of information given on each page, so bear with me Strusz.

TOTAL READING TIME : 1 hr. 30 min.

Page: 35

Goals

My goals for this reading project is toto the following:

• Read more than Mr. Strusz
• Become smarter than I've ever been
• Learn about awesome stuff
• Read atleast 3 250-page books
• Read atleast 30 hours

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