Social Psychology is the scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in social situations. Morals, values, prejudices, discrimination, and peer groups, are just some few examples of social psychology. The three articles that I chose represent how social psychology is present in our daily lives. Why Don’t Moral People Act Morally describe a research experiment representing how self interest overpowers morality. Homophobia in physical education and sport provides evidence proving that there are still homophobic prejudices within students. Finally, The Importance of Positive Attitudes of Athletes expresses the idea that a better attitude improves self performance.
Why Don’t Moral People Act Morally was an article written by Daniel Batson and Elizabeth Thompson. The authors explained to their readers that moral hypocrisy and overpowered integrity are reasons as to why people tend to act immorally. Hypocrisy is defined as individuals wanting to appear moral, but avoid taking the actions to be morally just. A research experiment was conducted, in which participants had to assign themselves and another participant two different tasks. One task was more desirable and consisted of positive consequences, while the other had negative consequences. 70-80% of the research participants chose to give themselves the positive consequence, which is not the morally right choice.
After this, the participants were offered to use a coin and let the coin figure out the tasks. The people who decided to use the coin, an estimated 90% still gave themselves the task with the positive consequence. They flipped the coin to appear fair, but then self interest would overpower their morality and the participants would overrule the judgement of the coin and give themselves the task they wanted. In the final study, the researchers told their participants that the negative consequence will now be an electrical shock. With this being said, only a quarter of the participants let the experimenters flip the coin, another quarter flipped the coin themselves choosing the positive consequence, and the rest just picked the positive consequence. When put in these situations, morality was pushed aside. The participants moral standards were tested with these experiments, and hypocrisy and weak integrity caused them to go against their morals. In each experiment, more than half of the participants chose to give themselves the positive consequence even though that was immoral. The results showed that a person intends to act morally, but initial intent is overpowered by self interest, especially in a case where the sacrifice of being moral does not benefit him/herself (Batson and Thompson, 54-57).
In my opinion, this article was very insightful. No one really thinks about their beliefs or standards when self interest is involved. Many people believe they follow their morals, but this experiment proves not only to the researchers, but the participants as well that morality gets thrown away when people want to be in favor of themselves. The authors and their experiment, was conducted very efficiently. I liked how the researchers used different tasks, such as the shock theory and coin toss to get a more accurate result about individuals morality. I agree with the research that was conducted because I believe the participants should learn from their decisions on whether they chose the more positive reward or not. I think people need to be more aware of their decisions, becoming more selfless. This experiment was very eye opening.
Homophobia in physical education and sport: The role of physical/sporting identity and attributes, authoritarian aggression, and social dominance orientation is an article written by Kerry O’Brien, Heather Shovelton, and Janet Latner. The research was conducted to examine between physical and non physical education student, their levels of homophobia. People who are either gay or lesbian appear to be associated with specific personality traits, which may threaten straight male and female’s physical identity and self esteem. The researchers used 409 university students, splitting them up between athletic abilities ((199 were physical education majors (65 in which were elite athletes), 210 were non-athletes)). The researchers conducted this experiment using a paper and pen questionnaire, in addition to an aggression scale and a social dominance orientation scale. These scales were used to measure authoritarianism and participants thoughts on themselves, such as dominance, attractiveness, etc. Researchers also asked participants to rank how important athletics were to them, while assessing their physical attributes.
After all of these tests were conducted, the results proved that physical education students were more prejudice towards both gays and lesbians. Results also showed that athletic identity and social concept (evaluations on one’s own self) had a positive correlation with homophobia. Researchers suggested that prejudices towards lesbians and gays are formed from physical characteristics. Heterosexuals, may become threatened by homosexual physical components and personality traits. (O’Brien, et al. 891-898).
In my opinion, I believe this would have been a better experiment if they thought of another idea rather than a bunch of surveys. People could be untruthful in surveys, which is a reason for why this research experiment could not have been valid. Also, they only researched people from one university. I agree with the researchers idea to try and understand the reason for homophobia in students, but the sample size was based off of one university, which does not give good enough credibility. The researchers still do not truly know the reason for this prejudice, they hypthosized that hexosexual students are threatened, but there is no definite facts. We need to end prejudice, I think that this was a start in getting people more involved in understanding how prejudice and homophobia are still in today’s society, but researchers need to use a much bigger sample size, more tests that are not all survey based, and to try and conclude using factual evidence on why homophobia exists more in athletes than non-athletic students.
The Importance of Positive Attitudes of Athletes is a magazine article written by Elizabeth Quinn, explaining why having a positive attitude as an athlete is beneficial. One of the most important things for an athlete to be successful in today’s society is to remain positive. This is definitely not as easy as it looks when things become very competitive. A few setbacks due to injuries, errors in practice or game play, in addition to long days of training can easily shift your mood. The way to get an edge over people who may seem better athletically, is to take the first step of having a positive attitude. Being able to stay mentally tough goes a long way. You must keep those self- limiting beliefs away because your true potential is all based off how strong you are mentally. One way to stay mentally tough is to improve your mood. The article suggests to not dwell on the problems or issues getting you down. A way to fix this is to do something that makes you happy. This can be listening to music, hanging with a friend, going for a walk or even imagining something that makes you smile. Another way is simply taking that break or timeout. Negativity tends to stem off of things we hear or read about that are happening in the world around us. It is important to keep up with news that is current but do not let it succumb to the events that are going on. The world is not always the coziest place, but you should get cozy with a magazine or read an inspiring article about any athlete, just like this is actually inspiring me to become a better athlete using these tips that I am learning. Lastly the article mentions talking to yourself. Research is continuing to grow about how positive self-talk make a difference. Thoughts create beliefs that drive actions is what sport psychologist are saying. Positive self-talk comes in many different forms. It can be reciting a speech or mantra or even a simple single word phrase. Visualization exercises tend to put the picture in your mind of what you want to happen, and it is known that if you can think it, you can do it. (Elizabeth Quinn, 2018)