Psychology 2065A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Shinto, Taoism, Social Capital
5 Jan 2019
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Monday, November 12, 2018
psychology of religion
community !
-places of worship;!
•buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam, jainism, juddaism, shinto, sikhism, taoism,
zoroastrinaism!
-dogs and depression!
•UK study found that 1 in 4 dogs are depressed!
•dogs need a daily walk and meetings with other dogs!
•vets say 4 hrs is the longest a dog can be regularly left alone, but 28% of people
think 6-10 hrs is ok!
•can lead to destructive behaviour and anxiety !
•over 50% of UK vets report increases in dog euthanasia in the past 2 yrs!
-the need for affiliation !
•early in psych, the need for affiliation was identified as a fundamental human
motivation ,along with achievement and power!
•affiliation is simply a pos. personal relationship !
•30s and 40s: 3 needs of being a human; 1 of the 3 was finding people you can
have a pos. interaction with!
•others are achievement motivation and power motivation (influence others in
environ)!
-religion offers affiliation !
•religion possesses the necessary conditions, primarily, propinquity!
•once you’re introduced to someone, and requirements of propinquity are met, the
rest will happen easily if you are compatible (friendship or otherwise)!
•religion inserts you into a welcoming (supposed to be) community!
- humans are uniquely cultural!
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Monday, November 12, 2018
•joint attention — you look for singles from others about what is interesting in the
environ., following people’s gaze!
•imitative learning — watching to see how something is supposed to be!
•linguistic symbols — can use language to communicate things broadly and set
things like social norms!
-social baseline theory!
•the primary ecology to which human beings are adapted is one that is rich with
other humans!
•the presence of others;!
-attenuates cardiovascular arousal!
-inhibits the release of stress hormones!
-reduces neural activation in the presence of threat!
-promotes health and longevity!
•the presence of others helps to conserve resources through the social regulation
of emotion — takes less mental energy to keep ourselves calm in the face of
threat, better than stressing out alone!
•other people are physiologically calming !
•Coan, Schaefer, Davidson 2006!
-16 highly satisfied married couples!
-shocking apparatus was applied to the woman’s ankle, and she was put into an
MRI!
-12 threat and 12 safety cues (red X vs. blue O) per block!
-3 randomized blocks; the partner block, the stranger block and the control block
(alone)!
-if she saw the red X it was a threat cue — 20% chance of being shocked !
-if she saw the blue O — she would not be shocked in the next little while!
-stress of anticipation !
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Monday, November 12, 2018
•at the end of each block they rated their bodily arousal to stress and
unpleasantness of the block !
•unpleasantness is highest when there’s not hand to be help, helps to have a
stranger hold your hand but not as much as a spouse!
-beyond just a group!
•religion doesn’t just offer us a chance to be around people instead of alone at
home, it offers us opportunity for relationships !
-propinquity !
•the proximity between people, either physical or psych!
•think of it as the probability that you will develop a relationship with someone !
•that is, the higher the propinquity, the higher the chances of developing a
meaningful relationship !
-bowling alone!
•book by sociologist Robert Putnam!
•details a decades long decrease in civic involvement across a number of domains!
•people are spending more time alone !
•even thought people are doing more things and getting involved — they don’t
spend that time with other people !
•makes us less than we could be by not spending as much time with others!
•religion solves this problem — fulfills the need for affiliation!
-social identity theory !
•categorization is very important !
•we categorize ourselves too !
•we have a quick and automatic response when we encounter something new —
categorize it !
•social identity is the portion of our self concept that is based group membership —
build an understanding of who we are by the groups we’re apart of!
-the groups in which we could describe ourselves and other members as ‘us’!
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Document Summary
Monday, november 12, 2018 psychology of religion community. Places of worship: buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam, jainism, juddaism, shinto, sikhism, taoism, zoroastrinaism. Social baseline theory: the primary ecology to which human beings are adapted is one that is rich with other humans, the presence of others; Reduces neural activation in the presence of threat. Shocking apparatus was applied to the woman"s ankle, and she was put into an. 12 threat and 12 safety cues (red x vs. blue o) per block. 3 randomized blocks; the partner block, the stranger block and the control block (alone) If she saw the red x it was a threat cue 20% chance of being shocked. If she saw the blue o she would not be shocked in the next little while. Beyond just a group: religion doesn"t just o er us a chance to be around people instead of alone at home, it o ers us opportunity for relationships.
