Social psychology (psychology)/Lost contributions

The following sections appear to be student contributions which, if you own them, should be moved to your e-portfolio page.

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Hi James. I think one of your students (using an IP address) managed to post a feedback comment to the wrong place. Text follows. --McCormack 11:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Week Four: Aggression and Antisocial behaviour; In the text book it was very interesting to read about the magnitude map, or the difference in outcome between the perpetrator and the victim. You never really think of it in this kind of depth, of course one always acknowledges the misfortune of the victim but hardly ever do we weigh up the victim's suffering in relation to the perpetrators' crime. A victim is a victim and a perpetrator a criminal. It was interesting for me to look at crime as loss or gain, loss on the victims' side and gain on the perpetrators' side. I also found the definition of relational aggression (when one intentionally harms someone's relationship with others) very interesting. Moreso, because I aggree that this would be more evident in females than in males. Females, when confronted with a potential competitor for someones' love or friendship will bide their time untill something happens that allows them to enforce the end of that particular relationship. I also aggree with the frustration-aggression hypothesis, that frustration and aggression go hand in hand. In my daily life I noticed this not only in others but myself also. If someone is in a bad mood, or dissasstisfied with an aspect of their life, then of course they are going to be more susceptable to aggressive acts (of course not necessarily violent acts.) Through this hypothesis I think that one can begin to understand aggressive acts such as stealing, vandalism, and other various delinquent behaviours that tend to occur at the lower end of the socio-economic strata due to frustration. Frustration (as defined in our textbook) seems to be more consuming than I first thought, the blockage or interference of a personal goal, that kind of setback, I think, can really damage a person and not surprisingly may lead to aggression or anti-social behaviour, who would want to be social when you're not able to reach your full potential for one reason or another. I guess this is one for Maslow's hierarchy of needs, how can someone reach self-actualisation if their basic needs are not met.

Although I did not get to see all of "Ghosts of Rwanda" it was very confronting. A good example of the frustration-aggression hypothesis,the Tutsi people who were the minority had begun to form a rebel army. It isn't any wonder why, when people are subjected to oppression such as they would have been, they rise up to defend themselves. I found it interesting, the Canadian General (i can't remember his name) was saying how after lodging written documentation stating the intelligence he had gathered, he felt a sense of "Bravado" like he was going to make a difference. I think that this false sense of hope was instilled in him, through his own culture, and also through the ignorance of the events that had previously taken place in this country he had never been too. It also seemed strange to me, that the UN sent a General who had never seen war or conflict (as they said at the start of the video I think) to deal with this delicate situation.

Oskar Schindler: A student observation
this could be shifted to a user's e-portfolio page, but is placed here for now Reading about prosocial I came accross an intriging story of Oska Scndler who managed to earn all the names connected with unlawfullness. In 1935 Oska sought work in Poland, and when Nazi German invaded Poland he joined the Nazi Party. This was to gain access to resources and benefits given to part-card holders.Reading through the story it appears Oska Nazis save Jews from being killed. Oska used the the Nazi system to defeat German.

It would be expected that after giving so much life to Jews Oska would have been hailed a hero. Yet some of the Jewish responsed seemed unsure why Oska did what he did for them. Others thought he was an adventurer seeking fame and recognition. Several responses were not any clearer since everyone thought he did what he did for self-interest. Despite the different views held about Schindler during World War II the single factor remains that he voluntarly risked his life to a small number of Jews.

The interpretation to this story is that there no logical reason for saving human life as it appears Schindler himself did not know. {Love has never been reasonable,yet is the most noble of emotions and is necessary for life itself to be]. So maybe kin selection(?) makes people want to save another human being in danger.