PSY 201 Final Paper Essay Example

In the scenario provided, Sarah portrays several aspects of social psychology. The first is her attitude towards her curfew. She is shown to be obedient towards the curfew, but is persuaded by her new friends through the peripheral route because she likes them and, lastly, was having fun enough that she felt she could ignore her curfew. This also opens her up to cognitive dissonance in that she knows she needs to be obedient and obey her curfew but she also is having a good time with her friends and does not want to go home, causing a conflict in beliefs. She conforms quite a bit to her new friends’ beliefs, first by staying out with them, then by leaving with them when they did due to the fight, and in general just staying grouped with them. She did these things due to normative social influence but also because she hoped they would continue inviting her out and her new friends were popular. The scenario then shows how Jack was attracted to Sarah due to physical attraction, proximity, and similarity and wraps up with a display of hostile aggression and the end of the party due to the cathartic reaction. Each of these displays of the aspects of social psychology can be displayed further in-depth. Sarah’s attitude towards her curfew involves several factors. The first factor involved is obedience. The scenario explains that Sarah is very obedient and always does what her parents tell her to. Obedience is behavior that is in response to the orders of another (Carter & Seifert 2013). This factor shows that she desires to be obedient and wants to be home in time for her curfew. The second factor in Sarah’s attitude to her curfew is persuasion via the peripheral route of persuasion by her friends to stay out with them. The peripheral route to persuasion is influence based on small, noncore factors (Carter & Seifert 2013). In this case, it is because she likes these new friends so much that she is persuaded to stay out with them. The third and final factor in Sarah’s