SOCPSY 1Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Nationstates, Steven Pinker, Murder Of Kitty Genovese

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Social Psychology
• Course: SOCPSY 1Z03
• Professor: Paul Glavin

Document Summary

We over estimate the power of dispositions rather than situational. Men in the military must be able to desensitize themselves from the enemy to successfully kill the target. Kitty genovese: was stabbed in the street, 37 people watched or heard the murder yet chose to not act. Aggression is any behaviour intended to harm another person that the target person wants to avoid. Altruism is helping that is intended to provide aid to someone else without expectation of any reward. This is not a social exchange where you stretch my back and i stretch yours. It"s the intention of helping and accepting that there will not be a reward following the act. The good feeling that may result is the reward. Freud: we have an innate urge to destroy the things around us. Mutations cause advantages and disadvantages and the beneficial traits are carried on for another generation.