Social Psychology Paper

Hello Mr. Lazarre,

        I think that the factors that contributed towards Sarah’s attitude regarding her curfew were competence. I think Sarah wanted to compete and make her new friends think that she was outgoing like them. She wanted to be liked by them very well. She was new to that town and new to that school and had just made them as new friends.  Similarity I think also played a part because Sarah seemed to have something in common with them like they were in the same grade. They also may have some same classes.

        In a way that Sarah display cognitive dissonance is when she went to the party instead of going straight home. She knew she had never stayed past her curfew with her friends and she felt like she had to because she had just met these new friends and she had never been to a party before.

        Sarah conformed to her peers’ and beliefs when she was asked to go to that one party and stay past her curfew. She maybe did it to fit in and to be liked at school. She had always followed rules at home and had never broken them.

        Some possible reasons that I think Jack was interested in Sarah was that they shared some of the same interests in a way. They both liked the same kind of music. They had the same taste in hobbies and they lived in the same neighborhood. Proximity played a role in this because it is when a person is most likely to be friends with someone who lives closer to them than someone who lives farther to them. Similarity played a role in which they had the same interests in the same things as music, hobbies, and they lived in the same neighborhood. Also physical attractiveness played a role because Jack was attracted to Sarah and Sarah to Jack. He thought she was pretty.

When the fight broke out at the party the social interaction that was displayed was aggression. The reason why is because the boys started by yelling at each other and then escalated to a physical fight. This kind of social interaction could harm some of the teenagers there because then they get ideas of what to say and what kind of hits to take. They think it is cool when there is a large crowd around them yelling and cheering for the persons fighting. So some of them think it is cool. Some of them become scared and traumatized depending on how hurt the person gets when in the fight. Sometimes they are even scared to walk home from school or vice versa.