 This is part three of lecture one in this part. We're going to talk about perspectives in social psychology So social psychology is a discipline within psychology But also within social psychology there are different schools You could say different views on the ways in which we try to explain human behavior and there's various different perspectives I'm going to zoom into three of them in this part of the lecture Evolutionary perspective the social cultural perspective and the social learning perspective So let's start up with a perspective that you're probably already familiar with. It's the evolutionary perspective so the basic idea of the evolution theory and the evolutionary perspective on human behavior is that the The way that we behave today the social behavior will demonstrate the way we treat other people the way we look at each other In social situations That's all explained in terms of genetic factors that are adapted over centuries to improve the chance of either Survival so it helped us to stay alive or reproduction. So it helped us to reproduce to have children and Give our genes to the next generation So of course, you're all familiar with this guy over here. His name is Charles Darwin He is definitely the founding father of evolution theory and the basic idea of Evolution theory is the concept of natural selection and with natural selection We mean that this is the process in which important features that are beneficial for either survival or reproduction are Passed on to future generations. So are passed on to offspring This idea of natural selection is really quite old already Just like Charles Darwin. He lived centuries ago But it's still a very helpful and explaining behavior and also explaining the way that we look today So so what I look like today is also the the consequence of of an adaptation over centuries and this Idea of natural selection of course not only applies to humans it applies to all animals and the beauty of evolution theory is that it's something that you can study yourself as well So let me now give you an example of an experiment that you could personally do in which you can test the basic idea of natural selection the only thing you need is well quite a big backyard and Time I would say like two years of your time. Then you can do the following experiment So this is the guppy experiment and in this guppy experiment You just buy a lot of guppies little fish and you spread them over ten different ponds In your backyard so you have to dig ten ponds So you need quite a big backyard and you spread these guppies Over these different ponds, but you vary the ponds. They are not all identical. There's differences There's two major differences. First of all The soil varied so you can have five ponds With five fine sand as soil so on the on the bottom of the ponds There's fine sand and five of the other ponds have pebbles So it's a different soil doesn't really affect the guppies. They are happy in both ponds But it's just a difference in surroundings and then there's another difference and that is that in some ponds you introduce a Predator, which is a carp the carbs are really really fond of guppies. So they eat the guppies Then you just wait and see what happens Specifically you wait one and a half years, which is many many many many Generations for guppies because the guppies don't live very long So one and a half years later you come back to your backyard and you see what happens and Specifically you're gonna watch the guppies and you're gonna see did they change did they adapt based on their surroundings? And I can promise you if you don't have the time to actually conduct this experiment I can tell you what happens and if you don't believe me you can do it yourself So there's two different things that happens first of all. There's a difference between the ponds with or without the carp Let's first look at the ponds with the carp. So with the predator. What happened there? The appearance of the guppies changed. Okay So what did the guppies started to look like in these different ponds? So what you will find is that in the ponds with the fine sand as a soil The guppies develop small brown dots And in the ponds with the pebbles they develop bigger brown dots So camouflage so they created an appearance in which it would be harder for the carbs to catch them and eat them So this is a very great example of how evolution works So the guppies that happen to have a certain appearance which worked as camouflage Had a higher chance of actually staying alive in these ponds with the carp. So therefore this Appearance of having for example small brown dots in the fine sand soil That helped them to survive and this is what this feature is passed on to future generations So then you might be wondering but what about the ponds without the carp? So if there's actually no chance of being eaten you have quite a good likelihood of staying alive Will your appearance then also change? So do you think that the guppies still Basically adapted themselves to the surroundings and develop brown dots In different forms No, they didn't they didn't really adjust their their appearance based on the soil, but they did still Change their appearance What did they do actually the male guppies developed very bright colors? They really actually did the complete opposite of camouflage. They made themselves stand out Why did they do so? Well to become irresistible for the female guppies So only the male guppies change their appearance making very bright colors to be attractive for the females So if you're not focused so much on staying alive, then you're focusing on the other attributes of the evolution theory Which is reproduction you want to have the highest chance of getting your your genes to the next generation So the male guppies did so by developing very bright colors So I think this is a very cool experiment in which you can really see how Evolution is changing in this case guppy appearance But it also applies to humans So how can evolution and the idea of natural selection and evolution theory help us to explain human behavior? Well, first of all, we know that people actually have a lot in common with other animals And this is also something that evolution theory would expect So think for example about facial expressions like you can see on this slide here But also displays of power and status. That's basically the same for humans and other animals, especially primates So we humans are also just animals and we are just part of the whole food chain sometimes we tend to forget it but we are and therefore we have a lot in common with other animals So and that's also What evolution would expect Secondly, there are some habits that are universal among humans So irrespective of where you live in which culture you grew up in which context you you live You will show some behavior Nevertheless think for example about forming relationships all humans across the globe Irrespective of where they live in which culture form relationships the way they relationship these relationships develop and what they look like the That's different, but they all do form relationships And that's also because forming relationships is essential for us humans to stay alive and reproduce So evolution theory is a very strong perspective It is used a lot still up to this very day to explain human behavior But it cannot explain everything because humans also differ between cultures for example And that's where the social cultural perspective comes in So there's differences between people depending on where they live And in the social cultural perspective behavior is explained in terms of the influence of the larger group that you live in What are the the the ways people connect to each other in that specific culture? What is normal behavior in the specific group that you live in and culture the social cultural perspective can help us to explain human behavior for example by Noticing that some habits traditions and behavior are different depending on cultural context. For example what we eat I would not really prefer eating either one of those these Animals, but they are delicacies in some cultures So what we eat is you think that's a matter of taste, but it's also definitely a matter of where you grew up and also Of course human behavior. So what is the correct way? of greeting a person and here you see a very nice illustration of both people from separate cultures trying to Be empathic and use the correct way of greeting a person on the culture That's that the other person is from so this is two people trying really hard But it's still a really a source of miscommunication. So there's many misunderstandings across cultures also Between groups based on a difference in culture So what is appropriate behavior? What is normal behavior really varies from group to group and it's really important to be aware of this when you try to Make sense of how humans behave. So what is inappropriate in a certain context is very appropriate in other contexts And there's certain groups of social psychologists that are really interested in this and they typically conduct cross-cultural research and this is research that is conducted with members of different cultures and Oftentimes the researchers are interested in whether one variable Is different between members of certain groups So in this perspective What is really taking into account is that we are influenced by environment and That basic idea is the same for the third perspective That's the perspective of perspective of social learning So in the social learning perspective social behavior is explained in terms of learning experiences in the past that predict our future behavior So how we've developed especially in our youth That's a really a main focus of the social learning perspective is shaping our behavior today And you might be wondering how does this social learning perspective help us to explain human behavior? Well, if for example during your childhood hood you grew up with the concept of religion and Every week you visited Church the church with your parents and there's actually quite a high likelihood that you'll still be going to church Even if you leave your house and maybe even if you start a family yourself, there's a higher likelihood of you to To embrace the concept of in religion later in life as well Of course, you can also decide to not do so and make a very conscious choice to leave that aspect behind But there's definitely a higher likelihood of being religious and going to church if that's this has been part of your upbringing And the same goes for social behaviors For example, if it was very normal for you when you grew up to help maybe elderly Maybe your grandmother lived in your house and you helped her and this is something a concept of helping others Especially vulnerable people if this is a concept that you grew up with then this is likely something that is still affecting you When you grow up and you get older So this is actually very beautiful, of course So as as parents you have a lot of responsibility to you know Protect protect your children and and love them and and make sure you Create an environment that is that is safe and warm and full of opportunities But it's also and this is something a lot of parents don't realize Enough I think is that also by showing behavior doing things yourself You're really affecting your children and this also of course goes for negative behaviors such as smoking We know that children who grew up with parents who smoked or two parents who smoked have a higher likelihood of smoking themselves so the core idea of Of the social learning perspective is that people are prone to show behaviors that they have earlier witnessed in role models So and that's mostly your parents But it can also be your teacher for example or your grandparents or maybe your neighbor someone that you spend a lot of time with So we have these three different perspectives in social psychology We actually have more but these are the perspectives that have decided to focus on for now And what I found really important to to add When when I'm closing off this part of the lecture is that there's always an interaction between these perspectives So let's for example consider language Having language and communicating with each other. That's really part of being a human So evolution theory can really help us understand that learning language is universal It's something that all humans do but the specific language that we speak depends on where we grow up and there the cultural perspective can help us understand why we speak a certain language So this is a very nice example of both the both the evolutionary perspective and the social cultural perspective Perspective helping us to understand human behavior So it's also important to realize that it's not the case that one perspective is better or superior to others Even though in science you always have sort of this this idea of a battle especially when you're writing an article and getting your idea published that you want to Want to show to the people reading your article reading your work that you know How humans actually behave and what is true human behavior, but it's very important to realize that all these perspectives are valuable and they can Together help us understand why humans do what they do