Page 533 - Understanding Psychology

Interpersonal Attraction
Reader’s Guide
Exploring Psychology
Alone and Safe?
The . . . story concerns a relative of a friend, who is an extremely wealthy indus- trialist. He, too, wanted to retire some- place safe from the congestion and crime of Europe. He bought a small island in the Bahamas, built a splendid estate, and sur- rounded himself with armed guards and attack dogs. At first he felt safe and com- fortable, but soon worries began to appear. Were there enough guards to protect him in case his wealth attracted criminals to loot the island? Yet if he strengthened the guards, wouldn’t he become increasingly weaker, more dependent on his protec- tors? In addition, the gilded cage soon became boring; so he fled back to the anonymity of a big city.
—from The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1993
s Main Idea
We depend on others to survive. We are attracted to certain people because of factors such as proximity, reward values, physical appearance, approval, similarity, and complementarity.
s Vocabulary
• social psychology
• social cognition
• physical proximity
• stimulation value
• utility value
• ego-support value
• complementarity
s Objectives
• Discuss why we need friends.
• List and explain the factors involved
in choosing friends.
Is it possible to isolate ourselves to remain safe and also remain happy? As the man in the excerpt above found out, isolation has a price. Being with other people may not be safe, but it is often preferable. That is why we choose friends. This topic is the concern of social psychology—the study of how our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and behaviors are influenced by our interactions with others. Social cognition, a subfield of social psychology, is the study of how we perceive, store, and retrieve information about these social interactions. Social psychologists might ask: Why did we choose the friends we have? What attracted us to
social psychology: seeks to explain how our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and behaviors are influenced by interactions with others
social cognition: focuses
on how we perceive, store, and retrieve information about social interactions
Chapter 18 / Individual Interaction 519