Socialization happens since you were born as you learn from your environment. Your environment can even shape your genetic makeup through epigenetic processes.
Thomas theorem describes how people can judge things based on their limited perspective or assumption. Actions will be taken based on those assumptions over actual reality, which can cause harm to those who don’t deserve it.
Attribution theory explains how people like to blame others but excuse themselves.
Emotions affect your memories. The physical location and the emotional part of any memory get stored separately in your brain.
Broken window theory says that if things in your neighborhood are run down, it will cause more destruction. It’s best for society when living areas are pleasant to live in.
Symbolic boundaries, such as conflicting ideologies, or competition, often serve as an invisible divide between people.
Chapter 3 – SELF IN THE WORLD
The dramaturgical perspective says that you perform impression management, you want to be seen in a favorable way by others, so you act differently when you’re around people, from when you’re just by yourself.
Self-actualization is the fulfillment of your full personal potential, the realization of your talents.
The looking glass self theory describes the tendency to base your view of yourself on how you assume other people see you.
Cognitive dissonance is a mental discomfort you may feel when your thoughts don’t match your actions, or when you encounter new information and you don’t want to believe it for whatever reason.
Humans like to attach meanings to things, something that is insignificant to one person may be significant to another.
Doing a regular inventory of your beliefs, opinions, behaviours, and thoughts helps you to remove blockages standing in the way of your overall well-being.
Chapter 4 – THE FRIENDS & FAMILY DEAL
Informal social control is present among people who are socialized into believing something to be true and enforcing it on other members of their society, such as when one family member reprimands the other for not going to church.
Narcissism is an unbalanced adoration a person has for themselves, which usually causes them to treat others negatively.
Children can be brand-aware as young as 2 or 3 years old, brands are symbols that move into your unconscious mind and affect your life, and how you make decisions or form opinions.
Downward social comparisons happen when someone compares themselves or others to those who are doing worse. When, for example, if a child barely passed the test at school, their parents might be inclined to say that at least it’s a pass because they could have failed like the neighbour’s child.
Social capital is a term used to describe all the people within your reach who potentially can assist you in some way. It’s like another precious form of currency.
Temperament refers to someone’s personality, including such characteristics as energy level, emotional responsiveness, demeanor, or willingness to explore. People can be born with troublesome genes that cause a more negative temperament, like aggressiveness. The environment in which a person grows up in can affect those genes. A loving environment has been proven to minimize their power.
Chapter 5 – AFFAIRS OF THE HEART
Theory of evolution is all about the process of adaptation, change, survival, procreation. Many human behaviours, thoughts, and feelings are unconsciously driven by their evolutionary drive, especially in the context of romance.
Attachment theory explains how you approach your relationships by following the connections leading back to childhood. You may be socialized to treat romantic partners or close friends in a way that was shaped by your experiences with your mother as a baby.
Propinquity effect states that interpersonal attraction is more likely to happen when there is a closer physical or psychological proximity between people.
Energy, destiny, life purpose can sometimes create hard-to-explain situations that bring people together.
There are many response biases that people are guided by when presenting themselves in front of others. One of them is Social desirability bias which happens when people want to be socially desirable, or not be an outcast, and will steer their behaviour in a way that will ensure that others see them in a specific way.
Objectification means treating a living being as an object and ignoring their intelligence, competence, or even emotions. Using live bunnies for Easter photoshoots, with no intention to own them, is the objectification of animals.
Chapter 6 – CULTURED
Humans are wired to connect, we like to share things with others. Laughter is a social thing, and most of the time people laugh without there being a funny cause.
Laughter is a celebration of membership in a specific community. People with shared experiences will laugh at the same things which may not be familiar to others.
Comedy and tragedy have been used to entertain since ancient times. They are opposites of the same thing, culture. The same dynamic remained in Hollywood.
Halo effect is a cognitive bias that makes your perception of one particular trait automatically spill all over other traits, and it usually involves the trait of attractiveness.
Diffusion of responsibility happens when in an unclear and extreme situation people tend to look to others for guidance, afraid to make quick and bold decisions.
People conform to an authority or an illusion of it. They may follow orders of the person who appears to have authority over the situation, without questioning them.
Chapter 7 – THE BOX
Groupthink is destructive to organizations. People in a group don’t want to rock the boat and can feel hesitant to express their true thoughts, especially if they assume others will disagree.
The mind forms a heuristic stereotype of a specific person or thing, and will later use this stereotype to make quicker judgments in daily interactions because it’s designed to be efficient in moving you through the unpredictable and complicated world.
Ingroup reciprocity drives discrimination because members of the same group tend to naturally exchange favors with each other more often. Categorizing people into groups intensifies this.
Freud says that conflict is what naturally happens because there is a clash between individual desires and the expectations of society.
Some experts find that virtually on all of the key dimensions of human material well-being—poverty, literacy, health, freedom, and education—the world is an extraordinarily better place than it was just a couple of centuries ago. Though, considering the latest events of year 2020 this view may require further consideration after we see how it all plays out going forward.
Amygdala is the area of the brain associated with aggressive behaviour.
Chapter 8 – LIKE A PRO
People these days find themselves having to create multiple incomes because one is often not enough because of decreasing job stability in some societies. Work-family conflict happens when boundaries are blurred and work creeps into personal life.
Women are found to feel more guilt than men over leaving their families to be at work. Men are likely to feel like it’s their responsibility, but women feel like they’re bad mothers. There is a difference in how we approach our numerous social roles.
Leadership involves being artful in motivating others to follow.
Transactional leaders are good at fulfilling the current needs of the organization and keeping things running smoothly. Transformational leaders inspire followers to focus on common, long-term goals.
Your self-presentation on the front stage is what makes you socially desirable. Self-efficacy is your confidence in your abilities.
Group polarization theory of crowd behaviour is a potential risk to organizations because when in a group, people tend to get carried away towards extremes. People are more likely to become influenced by the excitement of being around other people with a common goal and can end up making more extreme decisions than they first planned. Especially true for men.
Chapter 9 – UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Attitude is an evaluation of something. A behaviourally based attitude is based on how you behaved towards that something before. Cognitively based attitude is based on the properties of that thing, you may try to gain more information before you rate it.
Explicit attitudes are ones that you are conscious of, and can easily report. Implicit attitudes are uncontrollable and unconscious.
Descriptive norms, which are norms that describe actions such as “many people litter” and injunctive norms which refer to what is approved of, or prescribed, such as “please recycle to minimize pollution”.
Your mind is working within an elaboration continuum, a scale that goes from the peripheral route (superficial) to the central route (deeper, fact-based) to persuasion.
Deep knowledge of original word meanings can be found within the study of etymology. Many words can mean something different from what you are used to.
When you want to borrow $50 from someone, you’re more likely to get it if you first ask for $100, then when denied ask for $50 instead. That is the door in the face persuasion technique. The foot in the door technique requires a small request to be made first, as a starter to get some agreement and build affinity, and then a larger request will follow.
