preview

Social Psychology Course Analysis

Decent Essays

At the beginning of the course, I was very excited and enthused to learn about social psychology, specifically because of its relevance to our everyday life. After reading the course material in that first week, I was drawn to both the social learning perspective and the sociocultural perspective. So for the final discussion post of this course, I decided to write about the perspective that I align with most and how it has developed over these past eight weeks. After doing a lot of reading and studying, I found that I most aligned with the social learning perspective. The social learning perspective focuses on a system of rewards and punishments; whereas individuals learn appropriate and inappropriate social behaviors through being either rewarded for socially acceptable behavior or punished for socially unacceptable behaviors (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2015). Early on in one’s childhood, he is taught values, morals, and life lessons that seek to produce a good, law-abiding, compassionate citizen of the world. …show more content…

According to Tittle, Antonaccio, and Botchkovar (2012), ““Whether individuals will refrain from or initiate, continue committing or desist from criminal and deviant acts depends on the relative frequency, amount and probability of past, present and anticipated rewards and punishments perceived to be attached to the behavior(Akers 1998:66)” (Tittle, Antonaccio, & Botchkovar, 2012, p. 864). Therefore, criminal misconduct is increased when combined with those factors, including the type and anticipated reward or punishment for the criminal behavior. Therefore, not all individuals view punished or inappropriate behavior negatively. This is may be the case with those labeled with sociopathic behavior, which has been shown to have both physiological and social learning influences (Shoemaker,

Get Access