Once people start going out together the next filter is the similarity of attitudes and values. When people share similar attitudes and beliefs it makes communication easier and enable the relationship to progress. However, if they think differently and share few views about the world, communication may be difficult. At this stage people with different attitudes, values and interests may be filtered out and the relationship may not continue. Once a couple have become
We are more likely to form a relationship with those people who are associated with pleasant event e.g. we are more likely to like someone when we are in a happy mood opposed to unhappy. Support for this theory comes from Griffitt and Guay, they found that higher ratings were given when the experimenter had positively evaluated the participants, thus showing the importance of positive stimuli in relationship formation. Although, the reward / need satisfaction theory doesn’t take into account cultural and gender differences in the formation of romantic relationships. Lott suggests that in many cultures are more focused on the needs of others rather than receiving reinforcement.
Knowledge-related goals aim at knowledge acquisition, career planning, the development of new social relationships and other endeavors that will pay off in the future. Emotion-related goals are aimed at emotion regulation, the pursuit of emotionally gratifying interactions with social partners and other pursuits whose benefits can be realized in the present. When people perceive their future as open ended, they tend to focus on future-oriented/knowledge-related goals but when they feel that time is running out, their focus tends to shift towards present-oriented/emotion-related goals[1]. Research on this theory often compares age groups (i.e., young and old adulthood) but the shift in goal priorities is a gradual process that begins in early adulthood. Importantly, the theory
When I started my placements I was daunted by the prospect of having to contain clients with either avoidant, ambivalent or disorganised affects. Despite that and with time, I found it possible through practice and theory to improve my awareness of my process. Unfortunately the short term model does barely enable scratching the surface in this respect, I am intrigued with clients who say that they had a good childhood but they would be unable to articulate what that meant to them. Some clients are more psychologically minded than others, and six or twelve sessions is relatively a short time to enable this exploration after building a good working relationship. For example it might be helpful to be a nurturing parent, who is responsive and reliable, and work to create the space for a cooperative relationship.
The greater the potential benefit, the greater the chances are a person would socially invest time and energy into an individual in order to form a strong and sound relationship. People make these decisions according to the theory based on their individual satisfaction level within the relationship. Individuals typically have a high level of satisfactory when they’ve recognized that they are receiving more than they are giving, however, on the other hand, if an individual feels that they are giving more than they are receiving, they may decide that the connection is not fulfilling their needs and will begin to search elsewhere to find fulfillment.
Rather, they interpret observations and several preexisting prototypes of others to enable us to create a richly detailed impression of another. Thus, getting to understand how the process by which these prototypes are shaped, changed, shared across a group of people that constitute a culture and how individuals apply them in categorizing others is a critical to understand identity(Spears, Lea, & Lee, 1990). According to the Social Identity Theory, individuals do not have a
The extent in which individuals are influences can depend on self-esteem levels, and individual strengths from moral, values to self-identity. Daily influences may include common courtesy, or inappropriate agreements within group settings based on demands for consensus. Individuals are guided by internal compass’s, which form parameters of perceiving, that is what information is considered to be right or wrong according to individual social and value expectations. Many actions done by individuals are simply done to ensure a place for familiarity and acceptance, while avoiding exclusions. For many, the need for approval and acknowledgement may exceed values of authentic identity.
The three fundamental cognitive processes underlying social identity theory include categorization of our groups and other groups, identification of ourselves with the values and behavior of our groups, and comparison between us and other groups. The strength of Social Identity theory help explain our need to form social identities even only with minimum in common with the rest of the group. Tajfel’s (1971) ‘Minimal Group Study’ demonstrated this effect on Bristol schoolboys. The schoolboys were randomly assigned to two different groups, but they believed that they had been assigned to either of the groups because they had either over estimated or underestimated the dots shown on a screen. Tajfel found that the boys would try to maximize the difference between their group to the other group as a priority over gaining more points for their own group.
Social influence involves/includes the study of conformity, compliance and it also involves a bit of obedience. Social influence is the way a group or an individual changes your beliefs, interests, thoughts, and perception. Conformity is the act of following a group’s behaviours and attitudes to match the group’s norm. It is a study of social influence involving a change in beliefs, behaviour and personal thinking. One example is from Solomon Ach’s study; he made an experiment to ask a couple of very simple questions with a group of about 7 to 10 people.
“In social situations behavior adjusts to facilitate the area around a person. There are influences on social behavior but there is also the persons actions and whether or not these actions are socially acceptable behavior or not". There have been so many studies done on human social behavior, because there are many various behaviors and even more influences, such as genetic, environmental, religious, cultural, financial, educational, the list goes on and on. "Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others “ said American psychologist, Gordon Allport, . (Gupta, unknown) When people draw conclusions about behaviors they give it attributions."