"

Test – Module 11: Social Psychology

11.3 Group Dynamics and Behavior

Learning Objectives

  • Describe the results of research on conformity, and distinguish between normative and informational social influence.
  • Describe Stanley Milgram’s experiment and its implications
  • Illustrate when the presence of others is likely to result in groupthink, social facilitation, or social loafing
  • Describe attraction and the triangular theory of love
  • Explain the social exchange theory as it applies to relationships
  • Conduct a conformity study the next time you are in an elevator. After you enter the elevator, stand with your back toward the door. See if others conform to your behavior. Did your results turn out as expected?
  • Most students adamantly state that they would never have turned up the voltage in the Milgram experiment. Do you think you would have refused to shock the learner? Looking at your own past behavior, what evidence suggests that you would go along with the order to increase the voltage?
  • Explain the factors that influence human altruism, including reciprocal altruism and diffusion of responsibility.
  • Examine the relationship between romantic ties and the experience of pain or pleasure

Introduction to Group Behavior

What you’ll learn to do: explain how conformity, obedience, groupthink, social facilitation, social loafing, altruism, and attraction relate to group behavior

Four computer-generated people of different colors holding a piece of a puzzle and fitting the pieces together to make a circle.

The power of the situation can lead people to conform, or go along with the group, even in the face of inaccurate information. Conformity to group norms is driven by two motivations, the desire to fit in and be liked and the desire to be accurate and gain information from the group. Authority figures also have influence over our behaviors, and many people become obedient and follow orders even if the orders are contrary to their personal values. Conformity to group pressures can also result in groupthink, or the faulty decision-making process that results from cohesive group members trying to maintain group harmony. Group situations can improve human behavior through facilitating performance on easy tasks, but inhibiting performance on difficult tasks. The presence of others can also lead to social loafing when individual efforts cannot be evaluated. In this section, you’ll learn about each of these concepts as well as the influences that lead to helpful, prosocial behavior.

Conformity and Obedience

Conformity

Solomon Asch conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people. In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: a, b, and c (Figure 1). Participants were then shown a fourth line segment: x. They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group (a, b, or c) most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length.

A drawing has two boxes: in the first is a line labeled “x” and in the second are three lines of different lengths from each other, labeled “a,” “b,” and “c.”
Figure 1. These line segments illustrate the judgment task in Asch’s conformity study. Which line on the right—a, b, or c—is the same length as line x on the left?

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

How often do you think the true participant aligned with the confederates’ response? That is, how often do you think the group influenced the participant, and the participant gave the wrong answer? Asch (1955) found that 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group. Why would people give the wrong answer? What factors would increase or decrease someone giving in or conforming to group pressure?

The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

What factors make a person more likely to yield to group pressure? Research shows that the size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

  • The size of the majority: The greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform. There is, however, an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity. In Asch’s study, conformity increased with the number of people in the majority—up to seven individuals. At numbers beyond seven, conformity leveled off and decreased slightly (Asch, 1955).
  • The presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955).
  • The public or private nature of the responses: When responses are made publicly (in front of others), conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately (e.g., writing down the response), conformity is less likely (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

The finding that conformity is more likely to occur when responses are public than when they are private is the reason government elections require voting in secret, so we are not coerced by others (Figure 2). The Asch effect can be easily seen in children when they have to publicly vote for something. For example, if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority. In a different classroom, the majority might vote differently, and most of the children would comply with that majority. When someone’s vote changes if it is made in public versus private, this is known as compliance. Compliance can be a form of conformity. Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request. In Asch’s studies, the participants complied by giving the wrong answers, but privately did not accept that the obvious wrong answers were correct.

A photograph shows a row of curtained voting booths; two are occupied by people.
Figure 2. Voting for government officials in the United States is private to reduce the pressure of conformity. (credit: Nicole Klauss)

Now that you have learned about the Asch line experiments, why do you think the participants conformed? The correct answer to the line segment question was obvious, and it was an easy task. Researchers have categorized the motivation to conform into two types: normative social influence and informational social influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955).

In normative social influence, people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group. However, with informational social influence, people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous. What type of social influence was operating in the Asch conformity studies? Since the line judgment task was unambiguous, participants did not need to rely on the group for information. Instead, participants complied to fit in and avoid ridicule, an instance of normative social influence.

An example of informational social influence may be what to do in an emergency situation. Imagine that you are in a movie theater watching a film and what seems to be smoke comes in the theater from under the emergency exit door. You are not certain that it is smoke—it might be a special effect for the movie, such as a fog machine. When you are uncertain you will tend to look at the behavior of others in the theater. If other people show concern and get up to leave, you are likely to do the same. However, if others seem unconcerned, you are likely to stay put and continue watching the movie (Figure 3).

Photograph A shows people seated in an auditorium. Photograph B shows a person crowd surfing.
Figure 3. People in crowds tend to take cues from others and act accordingly. (a) An audience is listening to a lecture and people are relatively quiet, still, and attentive to the speaker on the stage. (b) An audience is at a rock concert where people are dancing, singing, and possibly engaging in activities like crowd surfing. (credit a: modification of work by Matt Brown; credit b: modification of work by Christian Holmér)

How would you have behaved if you were a participant in Asch’s study? Many students say they would not conform, that the study is outdated, and that people nowadays are more independent. To some extent this may be true. Research suggests that overall rates of conformity may have reduced since the time of Asch’s research. Furthermore, efforts to replicate Asch’s study have made it clear that many factors determine how likely it is that someone will demonstrate conformity to the group. These factors include the participant’s age, gender, and socio-cultural background (Bond & Smith, 1996; Larsen, 1990; Walker & Andrade, 1996).

Watch It

Watch the following to see a clip of the Asch experiment:

You can view the transcript for “The Asch Experiment” here (opens in new window).

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

Conformity is one effect of the influence of others on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Another form of social influence is obedience to authority. Obedience is the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

Stanley Milgram was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.” Milgram (1963) wanted to test the validity of this defense, so he designed an experiment and initially recruited 40 men for his experiment. The volunteer participants were led to believe that they were participating in a study to improve learning and memory. The participants were told that they were to teach other students (learners) correct answers to a series of test items. The participants were shown how to use a device that they were told delivered electric shocks of different intensities to the learners. The participants were told to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item—that the shock would help them to learn. The participants gave (or believed they gave) the learners shocks, which increased in 15-volt increments, all the way up to 450 volts. The participants did not know that the learners were confederates and that the confederates did not actually receive shocks.

In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them. The confederate learners cried out for help, begged the participant teachers to stop, and even complained of heart trouble. Yet, when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive (Figure 4). What makes someone obey authority to the point of potentially causing serious harm to another person?

A graph shows the voltage of shock given on the x-axis, and the percentage of participants who delivered voltage on the y-axis. All or nearly all participants delivered slight to moderate shock (15–135 volts); with strong to very strong shock (135–255 volts), the participation percentage dropped to about 80%; with intense to extremely intense shock (255–375 volts), the participation percentage dropped to about 65%; the participation percentage remained at about 65% for severe shock (375–435 volts) and XXX (435–450 volts).
Figure 4. The Milgram experiment showed the surprising degree to which people obey authority. Two out of three (65%) participants continued to administer shocks to an unresponsive learner.

Several variations of the original Milgram experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks (Milgram, 1965). For example, when the setting of the experiment was moved to an office building, the percentage of participants who delivered the highest shock dropped to 48%. When the learner was in the same room as the teacher, the highest shock rate dropped to 40%. When the teachers’ and learners’ hands were touching, the highest shock rate dropped to 30%. When the researcher gave the orders by phone, the rate dropped to 23%. These variations show that when the humanity of the person being shocked was increased, obedience decreased. Similarly, when the authority of the experimenter decreased, so did obedience.

This case is still very applicable today. What does a person do if an authority figure orders something done? What if the person believes it is incorrect, or worse, unethical? In a study by Martin and Bull (2008), midwives privately filled out a questionnaire regarding best practices and expectations in delivering a baby. Then, a more senior midwife and supervisor asked the junior midwives to do something they had previously stated they were opposed to. Most of the junior midwives were obedient to authority, going against their own beliefs.

Link to learning

Watch a modern example of the Milgram experiment here.

Group Behavior

Groupthink

When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around us. Whether it is due to normative or informational social influence, groups have power to influence individuals. Another phenomenon of group conformity is groupthink. Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of thought. This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

Dig Deeper: Groupthink in the U.S. Government

There have been several instances of groupthink in the U.S. government. One example occurred when the United States led a small coalition of nations to invade Iraq in March 2003. This invasion occurred because a small group of advisors and former President George W. Bush were convinced that Iraq represented a significant terrorism threat with a large stockpile of weapons of mass destruction at its disposal. Although some of these individuals may have had some doubts about the credibility of the information available to them at the time, in the end, the group arrived at a consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a significant threat to national security. It later came to light that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, but not until the invasion was well underway. As a result, 6000 American soldiers were killed and many more civilians died. How did the Bush administration arrive at their conclusions? Here is a video of Colin Powell discussing the information he had, 16 years after his famous United Nations speech, in which he spoke about how Iraq most certainly had materials to create weapons of mass destruction (“Colin Powell Says UN Presentation on Iraq ‘Fell on Me’,” 2017). Do you see evidence of groupthink?

Why does groupthink occur? There are several causes of groupthink, which makes it preventable. When the group is highly cohesive, or has a strong sense of connection, maintaining group harmony may become more important to the group than making sound decisions. If the group leader is directive and makes his opinions known, this may discourage group members from disagreeing with the leader. If the group is isolated from hearing alternative or new viewpoints, groupthink may be more likely. How do you know when groupthink is occurring?

There are several symptoms of groupthink including the following:

  • perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible—believing it can do no wrong
  • believing the group is morally correct
  • self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus
  • the quashing of dissenting group members’ opinions
  • the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views
  • perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members
  • holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others’ with differing viewpoints (Janis, 1972)

Given the causes and symptoms of groupthink, how can it be avoided? There are several strategies that can improve group decision making including seeking outside opinions, voting in private, having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views, conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan (Janis, 1972; Mitchell & Eckstein, 2009).

Group Polarization

Another phenomenon that occurs within group settings is group polarization. Group polarization (Teger & Pruitt, 1967) is the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group. That is, if a group initially favors a viewpoint, after discussion the group consensus is likely a stronger endorsement of the viewpoint. Conversely, if the group was initially opposed to a viewpoint, group discussion would likely lead to stronger opposition. Group polarization explains many actions taken by groups that would not be undertaken by individuals. Group polarization can be observed at political conventions, when platforms of the party are supported by individuals who, when not in a group, would decline to support them. A more everyday example is a group’s discussion of how attractive someone is. Does your opinion change if you find someone attractive, but your friends do not agree? If your friends vociferously agree, might you then find this person even more attractive?

Social Facilitation

Not all intergroup interactions lead to the negative outcomes we have described. Sometimes being in a group situation can improve performance. Social facilitation occurs when an individual performs better when an audience is watching than when the individual performs the behavior alone. This typically occurs when people are performing a task for which they are skilled. Can you think of an example in which having an audience could improve performance? One common example is sports. Skilled basketball players will be more likely to make a free throw basket when surrounded by a cheering audience than when playing alone in the gym (Figure 1). However, there are instances when even skilled athletes can have difficulty under pressure. For example, if an athlete is less skilled or nervous about making a free throw, having an audience may actually hinder rather than help. In sum, social facilitation is likely to occur for easy tasks, or tasks at which we are skilled, but worse performance may occur when performing in front of others, depending on the task.

A photograph shows a basketball game.
Figure 1. The attention of the crowd can motivate a skilled athlete. (credit: Tommy Gilligan/USMA)

Social Loafing

Another way in which a group presence can affect our performance is social loafing. Social loafing is the exertion of less effort by a person working together with a group. Social loafing occurs when our individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group. Thus, group performance declines on easy tasks (Karau & Williams, 1993). Essentially individual group members loaf and let other group members pick up the slack. Because each individual’s efforts cannot be evaluated, individuals become less motivated to perform well. For example, consider a group of people cooperating to clean litter from the roadside. Some people will exert a great amount of effort, while others will exert little effort. Yet the entire job gets done, and it may not be obvious who worked hard and who didn’t.

As a college student you may have experienced social loafing while working on a group project. Have you ever had to contribute more than your fair share because your fellow group members weren’t putting in the work? This may happen when a professor assigns a group grade instead of individual grades. If the professor doesn’t know how much effort each student contributed to a project, some students may be inclined to let more conscientious students do more of the work. The chance of social loafing in student work groups increases as the size of the group increases (Shepperd & Taylor, 1999).

Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult (Bond & Titus, 1983; Geen, 1989). Remember the previous discussion of choking under pressure? This happens when you perform a difficult task and your individual performance can be evaluated. In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety or physiological arousal (Latané, Williams, & Harkens, 1979). This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose (Zajonc, 1965). If the task is a difficult one, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project (Jackson & Williams, 1985). Given what you learned about social loafing, what advice would you give a new professor about how to design group projects? If you suggested that individuals’ efforts should not be evaluated, to prevent the anxiety of choking under pressure, but that the task must be challenging, you have a good understanding of the concepts discussed in this section. Alternatively, you can suggest that individuals’ efforts should be evaluated, but the task should be easy so as to facilitate performance. Good luck trying to convince your professor to only assign easy projects!

The table below summarizes the types of social influence you have learned about in this module.

Table 1. Types of Social Influence
Type of Social Influence Description
Conformity Changing your behavior to go along with the group even if you do not agree with the group
Compliance Going along with a request or demand
Normative social influence Conformity to a group norm to fit in, feel good, and be accepted by the group
Informational social influence Conformity to a group norm prompted by the belief that the group is competent and has the correct information
Obedience Changing your behavior to please an authority figure or to avoid aversive consequences
Groupthink Group members modify their opinions to match what they believe is the group consensus
Group polarization Strengthening of the original group attitude after discussing views within a group
Social facilitation Improved performance when an audience is watching versus when the individual performs the behavior alone
Social loafing Exertion of less effort by a person working in a group because individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group, thus causing performance decline on easy tasks

Watch It

Consider examples of social influence and groupthink and review the concepts you learned previously about conformity and obedience in the following CrashCourse video:

You can view the transcript for “Social Influence: Crash Course Psychology #38” here (opens in new window).

The Bystander Effect and Altruism

Go to YouTube and search for episodes of “Primetime: What Would You Do?” You will find video segments in which apparently innocent individuals are victimized, while onlookers typically fail to intervene. The events are all staged, but they are very real to the bystanders on the scene. The entertainment offered is the nature of the bystanders’ responses, and viewers are outraged when bystanders fail to intervene. They are convinced that they would have helped. But would they? Viewers are overly optimistic in their beliefs that they would play the hero. Helping may occur frequently, but help is not always given to those in need. So when do people help, and when do they not? All people are not equally helpful—who helps? Why would a person help another in the first place? Many factors go into a person’s decision to help—a fact that the viewers do not fully appreciate. This module will answer the question: Who helps when and why?

A man walks arm in arm with an elderly man, while another woman approaches as if to offer help as well. Yet another woman walks by smiling at the altruistic behavior.
Figure 1. People often overestimate their willingness to help others in need especially when they are asked about a hypothetical situation rather than encountering one in real life. [Image: Ed Yourdon]

When Do People Help?

Social psychologists began trying to answer this question following the unfortunate murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 (Dovidio, Piliavin, Schroeder, & Penner, 2006; Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder, 2005). A knife-wielding assailant attacked Kitty repeatedly as she was returning to her apartment early one morning. At least 38 people may have been aware of the attack, but no one came to save her. Based on this case, researchers Latané and Darley (1968) described a phenomenon called the bystander effect. The bystander effect is a phenomenon in which a witness or bystander does not volunteer to help a victim or person in distress. Instead, they just watch what is happening. Social psychologists hold that we make these decisions based on the social situation, not our own personality variables. Why do you think the bystanders didn’t help Genovese? What are the benefits to helping her? What are the risks? It is very likely you listed more costs than benefits to helping. In this situation, bystanders likely feared for their own lives—if they went to her aid the attacker might harm them. However, how difficult would it have been to make a phone call to the police from the safety of their apartments? Why do you think no one helped in any way?

More recently, in 2010, Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed when he apparently tried to intervene in an argument between a man and woman. As he lay dying in the street, only one man checked his status, but many others simply glanced at the scene and continued on their way. (One passerby did stop to take a cellphone photo, however.)

Unfortunately, failures to come to the aid of someone in need are not unique, as the segments on “What Would You Do?” show. Help is not always forthcoming for those who may need it the most. Trying to understand why people do not always help became the focus of bystander intervention research (e.g., Latané & Darley, 1970).

To answer the question regarding when people help, researchers have focused on

  1. how bystanders come to define emergencies,
  2. when they decide to take responsibility for helping, and
  3. how the costs and benefits of intervening affect their decisions of whether to help.

Defining the Situation: The Role of Pluralistic Ignorance

The decision to help is not a simple yes/no proposition. In fact, a series of questions must be addressed before help is given—even in emergencies in which time may be of the essence. Sometimes help comes quickly; an onlooker recently jumped from a Philadelphia subway platform to help a stranger who had fallen on the track. Help was clearly needed and was quickly given. But some situations are ambiguous, and potential helpers may have to decide whether a situation is one in which help, in fact, needs to be given.

To define ambiguous situations (including many emergencies), potential helpers may look to the action of others to decide what should be done. But those others are looking around too, also trying to figure out what to do. Everyone is looking, but no one is acting! Relying on others to define the situation and to then erroneously conclude that no intervention is necessary when help is actually needed is called pluralistic ignorance (Latané & Darley, 1970). When people use the inactions of others to define their own course of action, the resulting pluralistic ignorance leads to less help being given.

Do I Have to be the One to Help?: Diffusion of Responsibility

Overhead photograph of a large crowd.
Figure 2. How does being in a crowd decrease someone’s chance of being helped? How does being in a crowd increase someone’s chance of being helped? [Image: flowcomm]

Simply being with others may facilitate or inhibit whether we get involved in other ways as well. In situations in which help is needed, the presence or absence of others may affect whether a bystander will assume personal responsibility to give the assistance. If the bystander is alone, personal responsibility to help falls solely on the shoulders of that person. But what if others are present? Although it might seem that having more potential helpers around would increase the chances of the victim getting help, the opposite is often the case. Knowing that someone else couldhelp seems to relieve bystanders of personal responsibility, so bystanders do not intervene. This phenomenon is known as diffusion of responsibility (Darley & Latané, 1968).

On the other hand, watch the video of the race officials following the 2013 Boston Marathon after two bombs exploded as runners crossed the finish line. Despite the presence of many spectators, the yellow-jacketed race officials immediately rushed to give aid and comfort to the victims of the blast. Each one no doubt felt a personal responsibility to help by virtue of their official capacity in the event; fulfilling the obligations of their roles overrode the influence of the diffusion of responsibility effect.

There is an extensive body of research showing the negative impact of pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility on helping (Fisher et al., 2011), in both emergencies and everyday need situations. These studies show the tremendous importance potential helpers place on the social situation in which unfortunate events occur, especially when it is not clear what should be done and who should do it. Other people provide important social information about how we should act and what our personal obligations might be. But does knowing a person needs help and accepting responsibility to provide that help mean the person will get assistance? Not necessarily.

The Costs and Rewards of Helping

The nature of the help needed plays a crucial role in determining what happens next. Specifically, potential helpers engage in a cost–benefit analysis before getting involved (Dovidio et al., 2006). If the needed help is of relatively low cost in terms of time, money, resources, or risk, then help is more likely to be given. Lending a classmate a pencil is easy; confronting the knife-wielding assailant who attacked Kitty Genovese is an entirely different matter. As the unfortunate case of Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax demonstrates, intervening may cost the life of the helper.

The potential rewards of helping someone will also enter into the equation, perhaps offsetting the cost of helping. Thanks from the recipient of help may be a sufficient reward. If helpful acts are recognized by others, helpers may receive social rewards of praise or monetary rewards. Even avoiding feelings of guilt if one does not help may be considered a benefit. Potential helpers consider how much helping will cost and compare those costs to the rewards that might be realized; it is the economics of helping. If costs outweigh the rewards, helping is less likely. If rewards are greater than cost, helping is more likely.

Why Help?

Finally, the question of why a person would help needs to be asked. What motivation is there for that behavior? Psychologists have suggested that 1) evolutionary forces may serve to predispose humans to help others, 2) egoistic concerns may determine if and when help will be given, and 3) selfless, altruistic motives may also promote helping in some cases.

Evolutionary Roots for Prosocial Behavior

Our evolutionary past may provide keys about why we help (Buss, 2004). Our very survival was no doubt promoted by the prosocial relations with clan and family members, and, as a hereditary consequence, we may now be especially likely to help those closest to us—blood-related relatives with whom we share a genetic heritage. According to evolutionary psychology, we are helpful in ways that increase the chances that our DNA will be passed along to future generations (Burnstein, Crandall, & Kitayama, 1994)—the goal of the “selfish gene” (Dawkins, 1976). Our personal DNA may not always move on, but we can still be successful in getting some portion of our DNA transmitted if our daughters, sons, nephews, nieces, and cousins survive to produce offspring. The favoritism shown for helping our blood relatives is called kin selection (Hamilton, 1964).

Cave drawings of people.
Figure 1. Evolutionary theory suggests that being a good helper was a benefit for survival and reproductive success. And we don’t just help our family members, reciprocal altruism has also been a benefit to our survival. [Image: TimJN1, https://goo.gl/iTQfWk, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://goo.gl/eH69he]

But, we do not restrict our relationships just to our own family members. We live in groups that include individuals who are unrelated to us, and we often help them too. Why? Reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971) provides the answer. Because of reciprocal altruism, we are all better off in the long run if we help one another. If helping someone now increases the chances that you will be helped later, then your overall chances of survival are increased. There is the chance that someone will take advantage of your help and not return your favors. But people seem predisposed to identify those who fail to reciprocate, and punishments including social exclusion may result (Buss, 2004). Cheaters will not enjoy the benefit of help from others, reducing the likelihood of the survival of themselves and their kin.

Evolutionary forces may provide a general inclination for being helpful, but they may not be as good an explanation for why we help in the here and now. What factors serve as proximal influences for decisions to help?

Egoistic Motivation for Helping

Most people would like to think that they help others because they are concerned about the other person’s plight. In truth, the reasons why we help may be more about ourselves than others: Egoistic or selfish motivations may make us help. Implicitly, we may ask, “What’s in it for me?” There are two major theories that explain what types of reinforcement helpers may be seeking. The negative state relief model (e.g., Cialdini, Darby, & Vincent, 1973; Cialdini, Kenrick, & Baumann, 1982) suggests that people sometimes help in order to make themselves feel better. Whenever we are feeling sad, we can use helping someone else as a positive mood boost to feel happier. Through socialization, we have learned that helping can serve as a secondary reinforcement that will relieve negative moods (Cialdini & Kenrick, 1976).

The arousal: cost–reward model provides an additional way to understand why people help (e.g., Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, & Clark, 1981). This model focuses on the aversive feelings aroused by seeing another in need. If you have ever heard an injured puppy yelping in pain, you know that feeling, and you know that the best way to relieve that feeling is to help and to comfort the puppy. Similarly, when we see someone who is suffering in some way (e.g., injured, homeless, hungry), we vicariously experience a sympathetic arousal that is unpleasant, and we are motivated to eliminate that aversive state. One way to do that is to help the person in need. By eliminating the victim’s pain, we eliminate our own aversive arousal. Helping is an effective way to alleviate our own discomfort.

As an egoistic model, the arousal: cost–reward model explicitly includes the cost/reward considerations that come into play. Potential helpers will find ways to cope with the aversive arousal that will minimize their costs—maybe by means other than direct involvement. For example, the costs of directly confronting a knife-wielding assailant might stop a bystander from getting involved, but the cost of some indirect help (e.g., calling the police) may be acceptable. In either case, the victim’s need is addressed. Unfortunately, if the costs of helping are too high, bystanders may reinterpret the situation to justify not helping at all. We now know that the attack of Kitty Genovese was a murderous assault, but it may have been misperceived as a lover’s spat by someone who just wanted to go back to sleep. For some, fleeing the situation causing their distress may do the trick (Piliavin et al., 1981).

The egoistically based negative state relief model and the arousal: cost–reward model see the primary motivation for helping as being the helper’s own outcome. Recognize that the victim’s outcome is of relatively little concern to the helper—benefits to the victim are incidental byproducts of the exchange (Dovidio et al., 2006). The victim may be helped, but the helper’s real motivation according to these two explanations is egoistic: Helpers help to the extent that it makes them feel better.

Altruistic Help

Photo of an older woman sitting on the sidewalk, reaching in her purse to give money to a monk.
Figure 4. A woman giving alms to a monk in Laos. [Image: Peter Nijenhuis]

Although many researchers believe that egoism is the only motivation for helping, others suggest that altruism—helping that has as its ultimate goal the improvement of another’s welfare—may also be a motivation for helping under the right circumstances. Batson (2011) has offered the empathy–altruism model to explain altruistically motivated helping for which the helper expects no benefits. According to this model, the key for altruism is empathizing with the victim, that is, putting oneself in the shoes of the victim and imagining how the victim must feel. When taking this perspective and having empathic concern, potential helpers become primarily interested in increasing the well-being of the victim, even if the helper must incur some costs that might otherwise be easily avoided. The empathy–altruism model does not dismiss egoistic motivations; helpers not empathizing with a victim may experience personal distress and have an egoistic motivation, not unlike the feelings and motivations explained by the arousal: cost–reward model. Because egoistically motivated individuals are primarily concerned with their own cost–benefit outcomes, they are less likely to help if they think they can escape the situation with no costs to themselves. In contrast, altruistically motivated helpers are willing to accept the cost of helping to benefit a person with whom they have empathized—this “self-sacrificial” approach to helping is the hallmark of altruism (Batson, 2011).

Although there is still some controversy about whether people can ever act for purely altruistic motives, it is important to recognize that, while helpers may derive some personal rewards by helping another, the help that has been given is also benefitting someone who was in need. The residents who offered food, blankets, and shelter to stranded runners who were unable to get back to their hotel rooms because of the Boston Marathon bombing undoubtedly received positive rewards because of the help they gave, but those stranded runners who were helped got what they needed badly as well. “In fact, it is quite remarkable how the fates of people who have never met can be so intertwined and complementary. Your benefit is mine; and mine is yours” (Dovidio et al., 2006, p. 143).

Link to Learning

See this excerpt from the popular TV series Friends episode for a discussion of the egoism versus altruism debate.

Think It Over

  • The next time you see someone needing help, observe your surroundings. Look to see if the bystander effect is in action and take measures to make sure the person gets help. If you aren’t able to help, notify an adult or authority figure that can.
  • What do you think is the primary motive for helping behavior: egoism or altruism? Are there any professions in which people are being “pure” altruists, or are some egoistic motivations always playing a role?

Attraction and Love

Forming Relationships

What do you think is the single most influential factor in determining with whom you become friends and whom you form romantic relationships? You might be surprised to learn that the answer is simple: the people with whom you have the most contact. This most important factor is proximity. You are more likely to be friends with people you have regular contact with. For example, there are decades of research that shows that you are more likely to become friends with people who live in your dorm, your apartment building, or your immediate neighborhood than with people who live farther away (Festinger, Schachler, & Back, 1950). It is simply easier to form relationships with people you see often because you have the opportunity to get to know them.

One of the reasons why proximity matters to attraction is that it breeds familiarity; people are more attracted to that which is familiar. Just being around someone or being repeatedly exposed to them increases the likelihood that we will be attracted to them. We also tend to feel safe with familiar people, as it is likely we know what to expect from them. Dr. Robert Zajonc (1968) labeled this phenomenon the mere-exposure effect. More specifically, he argued that the more often we are exposed to a stimulus (e.g., sound, person) the more likely we are to view that stimulus positively. Moreland and Beach (1992) demonstrated this by exposing a college class to four women (similar in appearance and age) who attended different numbers of classes, revealing that the more classes a woman attended, the more familiar, similar, and attractive she was considered by the other students.

There is a certain comfort in knowing what to expect from others; consequently research suggests that we like what is familiar. While this is often on a subconscious level, research has found this to be one of the most basic principles of attraction (Zajonc, 1980). For example, a young man growing up with an overbearing mother may be attracted to other overbearing women not because he likes being dominated but rather because it is what he considers normal (i.e., familiar).

Similarity is another factor that influences who we form relationships with. We are more likely to become friends or lovers with someone who is similar to us in background, attitudes, and lifestyle. In fact, there is no evidence that opposites attract. Rather, we are attracted to people who are most like us (Figure 1) (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). Why do you think we are attracted to people who are similar to us? Sharing things in common will certainly make it easy to get along with others and form connections. When you and another person share similar music taste, hobbies, food preferences, and so on, deciding what to do with your time together might be easy. Homophily is the tendency for people to form social networks, including friendships, marriage, business relationships, and many other types of relationships, with others who are similar (McPherson et al., 2001).

A photograph shows a bride and groom in a wedding ceremony.
Figure 1. People tend to be attracted to similar people. Many couples share a cultural background. This can be quite obvious in a ceremony such as a wedding, and more subtle (but no less significant) in the day-to-day workings of a relationship. (credit: modification of work by Shiraz Chanawala)

But, homophily limits our exposure to diversity (McPherson et al., 2001). By forming relationships only with people who are similar to us, we will have homogenous groups and will not be exposed to different points of view. In other words, because we are likely to spend time with those who are most like ourselves, we will have limited exposure to those who are different than ourselves, including people of different races, ethnicities, social-economic status, and life situations.

Once we form relationships with people, we desire reciprocity. Reciprocity is the give and take in relationships. We contribute to relationships, but we expect to receive benefits as well. That is, we want our relationships to be a two way street. We are more likely to like and engage with people who like us back. Self-disclosure is part of the two way street. Self-disclosure is the sharing of personal information (Laurenceau, Barrett, & Pietromonaco, 1998). We form more intimate connections with people with whom we disclose important information about ourselves. Indeed, self-disclosure is a characteristic of healthy intimate relationships, as long as the information disclosed is consistent with our own views (Cozby, 1973).

Attraction

We have discussed how proximity and similarity lead to the formation of relationships, and that reciprocity and self-disclosure are important for relationship maintenance. But, what features of a person do we find attractive? We don’t form relationships with everyone that lives or works near us, so how is it that we decide which specific individuals we will select as friends and lovers?

Researchers have documented several characteristics in men and women that humans find attractive. First we look for friends and lovers who are physically attractive. People differ in what they consider attractive, and attractiveness is culturally influenced. Research, however, suggests that some universally attractive features in women include large eyes, high cheekbones, a narrow jaw line, a slender build (Buss, 1989), and a lower waist-to-hip ratio (Singh, 1993). For men, attractive traits include being tall, having broad shoulders, and a narrow waist (Buss, 1989). Both men and women with high levels of facial and body symmetry are generally considered more attractive than asymmetric individuals (Fink, Neave, Manning, & Grammer, 2006; Penton-Voak et al., 2001; Rikowski & Grammer, 1999). Social traits that people find attractive in potential female mates include warmth, affection, and social skills; in males, the attractive traits include achievement, leadership qualities, and job skills (Regan & Berscheid, 1997). Although humans want mates who are physically attractive, this does not mean that we look for the most attractive person possible. In fact, this observation has led some to propose what is known as the matching hypothesis which asserts that people tend to pick someone they view as their equal in physical attractiveness and social desirability (Taylor, Fiore, Mendelsohn, & Cheshire, 2011). For example, you and most people you know likely would say that a very attractive movie star is out of your league. So, even if you had proximity to that person, you likely would not ask them out on a date because you believe you likely would be rejected. People weigh a potential partner’s attractiveness against the likelihood of success with that person. If you think you are particularly unattractive (even if you are not), you likely will seek partners that are fairly unattractive (that is, unattractive in physical appearance or in behavior).

Link to Learning

Learn more about attraction and beauty at The Noba Project website.

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

We typically love the people with whom we form relationships, but the type of love we have for our family, friends, and lovers differs. Robert Sternberg (1986) proposed that there are three components of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment. These three components form a triangle that defines multiple types of love: this is known as Sternberg’s triangular theory of love (Figure 2). Intimacy is the sharing of details and intimate thoughts and emotions. Passion is the physical attraction—the flame in the fire. Commitment is standing by the person—the “in sickness and health” part of the relationship.

Diagram shows a triangle. The interior of the triangle is labeled, “Consummate love; intimacy + passion + commitment.” The peak of the triangle is labeled, “Liking; intimacy.” The left side of the triangle is labeled, “Romantic love; passion + intimacy.” The right side of the triangle is labeled, “Companionate love; intimacy + commitment.” The bottom left corner of the triangle is labeled, “Infatuation; passion.” The bottom side of the triangle is labeled, “Fatuous love; passion + commitment.” The bottom right corner of the triangle is labeled, “Empty love; commitment.”
Figure 2. According to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, seven types of love can be described from combinations of three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. (credit: modification of work by “Lnesa”/Wikimedia Commons)

Sternberg (1986) states that a healthy relationship will have all three components of love—intimacy, passion, and commitment—which is described as consummate love (Figure 3). However, different aspects of love might be more prevalent at different life stages. Other forms of love include liking, which is defined as having intimacy but no passion or commitment. Infatuation is the presence of passion without intimacy or commitment. Empty love is having commitment without intimacy or passion. Companionate love, which is characteristic of close friendships and family relationships, consists of intimacy and commitment but no passion. Romantic love is defined by having passion and intimacy, but no commitment. Finally, fatuous love is defined by having passion and commitment, but no intimacy, such as a long term sexual love affair. Can you describe other examples of relationships that fit these different types of love?

Taking this theory a step further, anthropologist Helen Fisher explained that she scanned the brains (using fMRI) of people who had just fallen in love and observed that their brain chemistry was “going crazy,” similar to the brain of an addict on a drug high (Cohen, 2007). Specifically, serotonin production increased by as much as 40% in newly in-love individuals. Further, those newly in love tended to show obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Conversely, when a person experiences a breakup, the brain processes it in a similar way to quitting a heroin habit (Fisher, Brown, Aron, Strong, & Mashek, 2009). Thus, those who believe that breakups are physically painful are correct! Another interesting point is that long-term love and sexual desire activate different areas of the brain. More specifically, sexual needs activate the part of the brain that is particularly sensitive to innately pleasurable things such as food, sex, and drugs (i.e., the striatum—a rather simplistic reward system), whereas love requires conditioning—it is more like a habit. When sexual needs are rewarded consistently, then love can develop. In other words, love grows out of positive rewards, expectancies, and habit (Cacioppo, Bianchi-Demicheli, Hatfield & Rapson, 2012).

Link to Learning

Watch this TED talk by Helen Fisher to learn more about the brain in love.

Photograph shows a couple embracing and kissing next to a waterfall.
Figure 3. According to Sternberg, consummate love describes a healthy relationship containing intimacy, passion, and commitment. (credit: Kerry Ceszyk)

Social Exchange Theory

We have discussed why we form relationships, what attracts us to others, and different types of love. But what determines whether we are satisfied with and stay in a relationship? One theory that provides an explanation is social exchange theory. According to social exchange theory, we act as naïve economists in keeping a tally of the ratio of costs and benefits of forming and maintaining a relationship with others (Figure 4) (Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003).

An illustration shows a balance scale, with one side labeled “positives or benefits” appearing heavier than the other side, which is labeled “negatives or costs.”
Figure 4. Acting like naïve economists, people may keep track of the costs and benefits of maintaining a relationship. Typically, only those relationships in which the benefits outweigh the costs will be maintained.

People are motivated to maximize the benefits of social exchanges, or relationships, and minimize the costs. People prefer to have more benefits than costs, or to have nearly equal costs and benefits, but most people are dissatisfied if their social exchanges create more costs than benefits. Let’s discuss an example. If you have ever decided to commit to a romantic relationship, you probably considered the advantages and disadvantages of your decision. What are the benefits of being in a committed romantic relationship? You may have considered having companionship, intimacy, and passion, but also being comfortable with a person you know well. What are the costs of being in a committed romantic relationship? You may think that over time boredom from being with only one person may set in; moreover, it may be expensive to share activities such as attending movies and going to dinner. However, the benefits of dating your romantic partner presumably outweigh the costs, or you wouldn’t continue the relationship.

Think It Over

  • Think about your recent friendships and romantic relationship(s). What factors do you think influenced the development of these relationships? What attracted you to becoming friends or romantic partners?
  • Have you ever used a social exchange theory approach to determine how satisfied you were in a relationship, either a friendship or romantic relationship? Have you ever had the costs outweigh the benefits of a relationship? If so, how did you address this imbalance?

Psych in Real Life: Love and Pain

Relationships and Health

One of the greatest medicines in the world doesn’t come in pill form and it can’t be injected with a syringe. No surgery is required. It is other people.

An impressive amount of research from psychology and medicine supports the claim that having a strong social support network— supportive friends and family—is associated with maintaining both physical and psychological health and recovering quickly and effectively from physical and psychological problems. Loneliness and isolation are risk-factors to leading a healthy, happy life.

The goal of scientific psychology is to understand the deep underlying causes of psychological and behavioral factors. Evidence that there is an association between health and social support is the beginning—not the end—of scientific investigation. We want to know why such a relationship exists. This curiosity is not simply an academic exercise. Treatments can only be improved and targeted to specific needs if we understand how they work.

Correlations can identify interesting relationships (e.g., there is a positive correlation between a person’s amount of social support and success in recovering from physical and psychological problems), but they usually cannot provide strong evidence for why that relationship exists. That is the job of experiments.

When you design an experiment, you must often create a very specific situation to test and explore your ideas. We have been talking in grand terms about “social support networks” and “mental and physical health,” but individual experiments typically cannot work on such a broad scale. Instead, the experimenter tries to find a single simple type of social support that can be manipulated in the laboratory and a single simple element of health that can be measured and studied in the laboratory. One disadvantage of this sharp focus on a specific situation in experiments is that a single experiment—even a single set of related experiments—is unlikely to fully identify the causes we are looking for. Experimental evidence typically accumulates slowly, over long periods of time, filled with apparent contradictions that can take time and effort to sort out.

holding hands photo
Figure 1. Does holding a loved one’s hand decrease your experience of pain?

We are going to look at two experiments from different research teams that take a similar approach to trying to understand if social contact influences a health-related experience—in this case, pain—and how such an influence might work (i.e., what might be the causal mechanisms?).

Experiment 1: Love and Pain

Sarah L. Master and her colleagues[1] conducted a simple experiment that they published in 2009. Their subjects were healthy college students who volunteered to participate in an experiment that tested the idea that contact with a romantic partner can reduce our experience of pain.

Participants

Master and her colleagues recruited heterosexual couples to participate in their study.[2] The women were the actual subjects in the study. Their male partners participated as part of the experimental manipulation. The participants were in stable, long-term (defined here as longer than 6 months) relationships.

Pain Induction

Before the experiment began, each woman was tested to find her personal pain experiences for thermal stimulation (i.e., heat), which was produced by a medical device called a thermode. Different people experience and report pain very differently, so calibration of the thermal stimulation to the individual’s pain experience was essential. The thermal stimulation during the experiment was adjusted to the point at which the subject reported a “moderate” level of discomfort (10 on a 20-point discomfort scale) when the heat was applied. This means that different people experienced different objective amounts of heat, while the subjective “discomfort” should have been approximately the same. The heat stimulus was delivered to the soft inside of the right forearm[3], and each one lasted for 6 seconds.

Experimental Conditions

There were seven conditions in the experiment.

In three of the conditions, the woman held something in her hand as she experienced the painful thermal stimulation. She held either:

  • The hand of her partner (who sat behind a curtain, and—except for his hand—was not visible).
  • The hand of a male stranger (who was also behind a curtain).
  • An object: a squeeze ball.

In three other conditions, the woman looked at a picture on a computer screen in front of her. She saw either:

  • A picture of her partner taken while the woman was being prepared for the experiment.
  • A picture of a male stranger (similar age and matched for ethnicity with the woman’s partner).
  • An object: a picture of a chair.

One control (or baseline) condition:

  • The woman looked at a fixation cross on the computer screen.

The figure below shows summarizes the organization (technically, the “design”) of the experiment.

Image showing the possible conditions during the experiment. The girl either held the hand of her partner, of a stranger, or held an object, or looked at a picture of the partner, a stranger, or object.

Procedure

The woman received twelve thermal stimulations in each condition. The order of presentation of conditions was randomized for each woman.[4] There was a 20-second break between stimulations. After each stimulation, the subject rated how “uncomfortable” the stimulus was on a 21-point scale.

Results

The results in this study are not shown on the original 21-point scale. To take account of individual differences, the control condition (i.e., looking at a fixation cross on a computer screen) the experimenters found the difference between each person’s average control condition unpleasantness rating and her rating for each condition. For example, imagine that one participant has the following average “unpleasantness” ratings (on the 21-point scale):[5]

The results from one person's pleasantness ratings. When holding the hand of a partner, she scored a 9. A stranger, 14, and an object, 12. When viewing her partner's picture, an 8, a stranger an 11, and object 11. The control was a 10.

The control rating (10) is then subtracted from each of the treatment ratings. This becomes the score that is analyzed (called a “difference score”). This method allows each woman to have a different general pain level (in the example, it is “10” but another person might have “6” or “12” as her average). The difference score looks at each person’s change from her personal baseline under the various conditions. Here are the difference scores for the example above:

A participant's ratings as compared to the original control. When holding her partner's hand, the score is -1. It is +4 for a stranger and +2 for an object. It is -2 when viewing her partner's picture, -1 when looking at a stranger and -1 when looking at an object.

For the difference scores, a positive number means that the experience in that condition was more painful than it was in the control condition. A negative number means that the experience in that condition was less painful than it was in the control condition. The exact number used indicates how much more or less painful the experience was.

Before we show you the actual results of the experiment, we’d like you to predict what you think happened in this experiment. Use the figure below. The zero baseline is the control condition. Your predictions are about the six treatment conditions. You can click and drag on a bar to move the bar up, if you think that condition was more painful for the subject than the baseline control. And you can move a bar down if you think that condition was less painful than the baseline control condition.

Try It

The initial screen below shows all six of the treatment conditions as a tiny bit more painful than the baseline control. Make your predictions based on your own theory about the possible positive or negative effects of holding the hands of a person you love or of a stranger, or looking at a picture of a person you love or a stranger while you are in pain. Remember that zero baseline control is still very painful, so zero does not mean that there is no pain.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/oerfiles/Psychology/interactives/love_pain.html

Click HERE to see the actual results from the experiment.

Actual results show that holding hands of a partner reduced pain by .5, but holding hands with a stranger increased it by 1.5 and holding an object increased to almost 1. Looking at a picture of a partner reduced pain by 1, looking at a picture of a stranger increased it by .25 and looking at an object increased pain by .1.

Try It

Let’s use these results to rank the order of the conditions in terms of their effect on pain. Drag the condition name on the right into the appropriate box next to the rank order number on the left.

Conclusions

These results suggest that there is something special about a person we love—or at least someone we like. Dr. Master noted that looking at a picture of a loved one may be slightly more beneficial than holding his hand, though this difference did not quite reach statistical significance. Holding a stranger’s hand exaggerated the pain experience by a considerable amount, so it is clear that (in the context of this experiment) human contact alone is not enough to relieve pain.

Dr. Master make a practical suggestion: If you are going to have a painful medical procedure, bringing a picture of someone you love may be helpful in reducing the pain. In fact, based on comparison of the hand holding and picture viewing conditions, you may actually be better off bringing a picture than bringing the actual person to the painful procedure.

Here is her final conclusion: “In sum, these findings challenge the notion that the beneficial effects of social support come solely from supportive social interactions and suggest that simple reminders of loved ones may be sufficient to engender feelings of support.” If you think back to the introduction to this activity, we said that our goal was to find out how and why social support leads to better health outcomes. As we cautioned you, this experiment doesn’t even come close to answering that question. However, it does take us one little step in the right direction, suggesting that “social support” may be more complicated than just having people near us or even a group of friends. “Social support” may involve triggering certain cognitive (mental) processes, such as memories and emotions, that are associated with strong positive relationships. That is for future research to clarify.

Experiment 2: Reducing Pain in the Brain

A completely different group of researchers, led by Jarred Younger[6] at the Stanford University School of Medicine used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to view the brains of people in an experiment very similar to the one you just studied. Just as in the previous study, they used heat to produce pain, though the location was at the base of the thumb on the palm of the left hand. They used two levels of heat, which they labeled as “moderate” and “high”. They only tested picture-viewing; there was no hand holding in this study.

Details of the Experiment

Younger and his colleagues tested both females and males by scanning their brains as they looked at pictures of romantic partners or mere friends. There was also a control condition explained below.

Each person brought to the experiment several pictures of his or her romantic partner. Only participants who reported being “intensely in love” and who scored at a very high level on the Passionate Love Scale (a standardized measure of passionate love) were included in the study. The participants also brought some pictures of a friend or acquaintance of the same gender and attractiveness as the romantic partner. In the experiment, the participants used the same procedures that were used in the other study you read. When looking at the picture, they were asked to focus on the picture and think about the person in the picture (romantic partner or friend).

For a third control or baseline condition, the experimenters wanted to see if looking at the picture was merely a distraction from the pain. In this distraction control condition, the participant was given a category name (e.g., animals, fruits, actors, politicians) and was asked to say aloud as many examples of that category as possible (ANIMALS: dog, bear, salmon, eagle, etc.).

Goal of the Experiment

The experimenters were interested in a very specific hypothesis. They wondered if thinking about someone we love intensely activates our brain’s reward system. This is a group of structures deep in the center of the brain surrounding some neural structures called the basal ganglia (see figure below). Among their reward-related activities is their production of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which they transport to regions throughout the brain. Dopamine is an important part of the pleasure and learning experiences associated with rewarding activities.

Basal ganglia, located in the center of the brain, surrounding the thalamus.
Figure 2. The basal ganglia play an important role in producing dopamine in the brain.

Because they were interested in testing the idea that the reward system might be activated by viewing someone we passionately love, the experimenters focused their brain scanning on the reward system areas shown above. However, they also looked at other brain areas, so they could determine if the reward system was more strongly associated with pain reduction than other areas.

Results of the Reward System Experiment

By now, you should have the idea that things are seldom simple in the world of science. First, the basic results from the first study you read about were found here as well. Participants reported significantly less pain when they looked at a picture of their romantic partner than when they looked at a stranger. Unfortunately (if you wanted simple results), almost exactly the same reduction in pain was found in the distraction control condition.

The figure below shows the results. These researchers used an 11-point pain scale (0=no pain, 10=worst pain imaginable), so the numbers cannot be directly compared to those in the first study. However, higher numbers mean more pain, so the results can be understood easily.

Pain ratings for those when looking at images of either a partner, acquaintance, or distraction in moderate or strong heat. In moderate heat and looking at the partner, the rating was 2.4. An acquaintance as 3.7, and a distraction as 2.4. With strong heat, the partner was 6.2, acquaintance 7.2, and distraction 6.2.

These results alone suggest that looking at pictures of someone we love may be nothing more than a distraction from the pain. However, this experiment was different than the first one because it had another dimension: the brain scans. What did they indicate?

Brain Imaging Results

The brain images add an interesting dimension to our understanding of pain and pain relief. When participants were looking at pictures of their romantic partner, the reward regions of the brain were very active. In fact, there was a strong correlation between the amount of activity in this region and the level of pain the person reported: more activity was associated with less pain.

Two images of brains, the first, showing the area in the center around the thalamus and hippocampus where activity occurred while holding a partner's hand. The right shows areas in the frontal and occipital lobes in the cerebellum where it was active while subjects were distracted.
Figure 3. These cross-sections of the brain show the general areas where researchers were focused during the experiment. The figure on the left shows the brain region responding when the subject held her partner’s hand. The figure on the right shows the regions of the brain activated when the subject was distracted.

If the reward systems (in the figure above, the red circle in the brain on the left) were also activated by the distraction task, then we are back to the idea that looking at our romantic partner is just a way of distracting ourselves. But that is NOT what they found. Activity in the reward regions of the brain were not strongly correlated with pain relief during the distraction task. However, other regions of the brain did have a strong relationship to pain relief in the distraction condition (see the blue circles on the brain to the right in the figure above). These are brain areas involved in memory, language, and making choices—exactly the systems that are active when we think about words that fit a particular category.

Conclusions

This study by Jarred Younger and his colleagues suggests that there may be multiple ways to reduce our experience of pain. The two approaches studied here (touching someone we love in Experiment 1 and generating words in Experiment 2) may produce similar analgesic effects: both result in less pain. But in terms of underlying causal mechanisms, such as the brain systems involved in reducing pain, very different things may be taking place.

This is not the end of the story. Finding a brain region associated with some experience is not an explanation; it is simply a first step in finding how a brain system works. Finding two sets of brain regions which both produce the same effect suggests that our explanation of how pain reduction is accomplished by the brain is not going to be simple.

Finally, if you were hoping to find out if there were sex differences in the effects we discussed, unfortunately the experimenters felt they did not have enough subjects to reliably test to see if men and women differ in their response to pain or in the regions of the brain associated with pain reduction. Perhaps one of you will conduct the experiment that answers those questions!

General Conclusions

We started this exercise with a discussion of social support and health. People with stronger social support networks tend to have better health outcomes. When we asked how this works, we zoomed in on a very specific type of social support: a romantic relationship, which involve deep and complex connections between two people. It would be reasonable to suggest that this type of relationship might have the potential to produce the strongest possible form of social support.

Both experiments showed that social support in the form of touching someone we love (or seeing a picture of that person in the first experiment) can reduce pain, when compared to control conditions. The second experiment points to the brain’s reward system as a possible source of pain relief. We still don’t know the brain mechanism that produces the pain experience; it is possible that we fully feel the pain, but the positive feelings associated with the person we love balance out the negative experience of pain. Or perhaps the reward system can actually turn down the intensity of the pain experience, so we really feel less pain when we are with those we love. The scientists of your generation will have the opportunity to explore these mysteries.

Licenses and Attributions (Click to expand)

CC licensed content, Original

  • Modification, adaptation, and original content. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution
  • Modification and adaptation, addition of link to learning. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution
  • Psychology in Real Life: Love and Pain. Authored by: Patrick Carroll for Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

CC licensed content, Shared previously

All rights reserved content

  1. Sarah Master was then a graduate student at UCLA and is now a research associate with a Ph.D. at UCLA. Several of her co-authors are major figures in the field of health psychology. For example, co-author Shelly Taylor is one of the founders of the field of health psychology. ↵
  2. Researchers must often decide between restricting characteristics of their subjects to simplify factors influencing the results versus opening the experiment to a broader range of subjects to improve generalizability and representativeness. Restriction of the participants in this study to heterosexual couples does not imply that couples with other gender identities or sexual orientations are either unimportant or uninteresting. ↵
  3. Alternating among three different locations on different trials. ↵
  4. The randomization procedure was a bit more complicated than this explanation suggests. See the original paper if you want to know exactly what they did. ↵
  5. As any doctor will tell you, getting a valid and reliable rating of pain is notoriously difficult. Master and her colleagues used a scale (the Gracely Box Scale) that is widely used in research and has been extensively validated. ↵
  6. Jarred Younger, Arthur Aron, Sara Parke, Neil Chatterjee, and Sean Mackey. (2010). Viewing pictures of a romantic partner reduces experimental pain: Involvement of neural reward systems. PLoS one, 5 (10), e13309. ↵
definition

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

General Psychology Copyright © by OpenStax and Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book