journal of social psychology
Interracial Relationships
INTRODUCTION
Intimate relationships between men and women have been around for as long as the different sexes have, and these often complicated structures will probably be around as long as people exist. Within relationships, there can be countless different combinations in relation to the age of the people involved, their hobbies, religions, family backgrounds and many other variables. Depending on the people involved in a relationship, different factors will be more important than others. With these numerous factors that can play a role in two people getting together, the races of the two individuals can be considered one of the most important. Besides being visually salient, someone’s race is usually intermixed with their culture. More often than not, two people in an intimate relationship will be of the same race, and this does not draw attention to that factor. However, when the races do decide to mix, it usually does not go unnoticed.
Even within the factor of race within relationships, there are several different combinations of possibilities including Asian/White, Hispanic/Black, Native American/White and many more, but one of particular interest is Black/White relationships. These relationships, especially in America, have always received large amounts of interest whether they were between master and slave, or today where a black/white couple often gets a second look from outside observers. This particular mixing of the races seems to get investigated more closely than the others do and numerous theories have come out concerning its various aspects. These range from the idea that whites enter relationships with blacks solely because of their supposed sexual prowess, to whites and blacks entering into relationships with each other for the same reasons that same race couples do. Teasing apart the truth concerning different aspects of these relationships is often difficult as some investigators may have been looking at them from a racist viewpoint biasing the theories they produced. A close look at theories and experiments concerning black/white relationships hopes to show that many of the past theories were based on unsupported reasons and that these relationships are formed in the same way and for the same reasons as are same race relationships.
Why Don’t I Feel Better? The Truth About Positive Affirmations and Self-Help Books
“I am successful,” “I am a wonderful person,” “I will find love again,” and many other similar phrases that students, the broken-hearted and unfulfilled employees may repeat to themselves over and over again, hoping to change their lives. Self-help books through the ages, from Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking all the way to the latest, The Secret, have encouraged people with low self-esteem to make positive self-statements or affirmations.
New research suggests it may do more harm than good to many people.
Pasig River and the Bystander Effect
When thinking of the very much polluted and technically dead Pasig River, one might be reminded of what is known as the “bystander apathy effect” or simply, the bystander effect. Consider the following excerpts from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, Vol. 83, No. 4:
“The bystander apathy effect generally regarded as a well-established empirical phenomenon in social psychology (e.g., Darley & Latane, 1968; Latane & Darley, 1968; Latane & Nida, 1981). A person who faces a situation of another person in distress but does so with the knowledge that others are also present and available to respond is slower and less likely to respond to the person in distress than is a person who knows that he or she is the only one who is aware of the distress.”