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The Balance Theory , developed by Fritz Heider in 1988, is based on the idea that people are attracted to others who are similar to them. For attraction to occur in a relationship, key factors include physical attractiveness, similarity, complementarity, familiarity, and proximity (McCroskey & McCain, 1974). When getting to know someone, we tend to find them more attractive the more we discover similarities between us (Heider, 1988). According to Heider, it's easier to maintain a relationship when there is a higher level of similarity. Based on Balance Theory , both people in a relationship need to agree or disagree on the same things in order to keep the relationship stable (Heider 1988). That doesn’t mean they have to share every opinion, but the severity of the disagreement matters (Heider 1988). For example, if one person likes Chinese food and the other doesn’t, that’s usually a minor issue that won’t affect the relationship. However, a disagreement on something more serio...

  The Breakfast Club (1985), both written and directed by John Hughes, is a film that follows five high school students: Claire Standish, Andrew Clark, Brian Johnson, Allison Reynolds, and John Bender. Each student is serving detention on a Saturday for all different complex reasons. Each student represents the most common high school stereotypes: the princess, jock, brain, basket case, and criminal. Initially divided by their social standing, they clash, but then reveal personal information at the end, ultimately leading to their connection through shared struggles. In a single day in detention, they explore identity, peer pressure, and personal growth, making it a great for social psychology analysis. Social psychology illuminates the dynamics of The Breakfast Club, revealing how different individuals perceive themselves and others under social pressures. This blog applies seven specific concepts from three distinct topic areas: attribution in which this blog will have fundamenta...

 The Norm of Reciprocity in simple terms is the "golden rule" we were taught in school. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". This norm is based off of the social influence, Conformity which has the lowest power of influence on someone (Kelman, 1958). Conformity is when you as the person yield to group pressure when there has been no direct request (Kelman, 1958). It sounds like it has some power to it but compared to others you will see it does not. The next in line of power is Compliance, it is when you follow a direct request from someone of your status, like a peer (Kelman, 1958). Peer pressure is an example of this. The final social influence in which it has the most power is Obedience (Kelman, 1958). This is following the direct request from someone that has authority over you, like your parents or your boss (Kelman, 1958). Compared to the others Conformity seems like nothing. The Norm of Reciprocity is not the only way people get you to follow ...

  The Theory of Planned Behavior is how social psychologist explain our behavior. Through our attitudes about said behavior, the subjective norm surrounding that behavior, and our control around the behavior (Ajzen, 1991). With those things in mind, they combine together to create intention of the behavior, and then with that it will lead to the action of the behavior (Ajzen, 1991). On the attitude portion of this model, it refers to a person's positive or negative thoughts of performing a behavior (Ajzen, 1991). For example, if someone believes that exercising regularly is good for health, they are likely to have a positive attitude towards it, and if someone believes that exercising is against their religion; you can presume that they have a negative attitude for it. With subjective norms, these are ideas about whether our peers approve or disapprove of this behavior (Ajzen, 1991). To keep going with the previous example, if your friends or family encourage you to exercise, you ...

 Why I chose this person: To be perfectly honest, when looking for someone who matched the criteria, I was looking for a hot minute. Finally, my light to the dark tunnel was Dr. Greenaway. But the reason I chose to stick with her was because she has done research on diversity and stereotypes as we were learning in class today. background: Valerie Purdie Greenaway is a social psychologist and professor at Columbia University, where she focuses on stereotypes, identity, diversity (Valerie Purdie Greenaway | Department of Psychology, 2024). She earned her Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University, in 2004 (Valerie Purdie Greenaway | Department of Psychology, 2024). She was awarded the Columbia University RISE (Research Initiative in Science and Engineering) award in 2013 for her approach to reducing racial achievement gaps (Valerie Purdie-Greenaway | Presidential Scholars, 2022). Research: Valerie Purdie-Greenaway studies how people's social identities and stereotypes affect their ...

Self-serving bias was first defined in 1958 by Fritz Heider. He states that self-serving bias is the tendency to credit ourselves for successes (internal factors) like being smart or being better than others. But we blame external factors like unfair conditions, or bad luck for failures to protect our self-esteem. (Heider 1958). Later a study was conducted by Miller and Ross in 1975, in which participants were given various task with different outcomes. The participants credited themselves for succeeding a task and when they failed, they blamed having unfair conditions (Miller & Ross 1975). This study confirmed that people protect their self-esteem by taking credit for success and shifting blame for failure (Heider 1958).  In a cross-culture study conducted by Amy Mezulis (2004), they found that is most Asian cultures see self-serving bias as unwelcome. Basically, meaning that most people in Asia see self-serving bias as stuck up or not respectful. In the United States we use s...