Distal Influences In Social Psychology

Social Psychology can undoubtedly be applied to humans’ everyday life because it studies the way they feel, act, and think in various social situations (Text, p. 5). Many different experiments have proven that there are some similarities in behaviors amongst almost all people, and having background knowledge on this subject can help further explain why people do certain things. An event that I experienced a few years ago can be understood more clearly when looking at it from a social psychologist’s perspective. My family and I were waiting in the lobby of our hotel when an African American couple walked in. I overheard their conversation with the manager, and they were turned away because he claimed there were no more rooms left. The …show more content…
Distal influences are factors that influence behaviors, feelings, and thoughts without being present in the immediate situation, such as the way one is raised by their culture or the way evolution has made them (PowerPoint 1, July 11, 2016). If his family raised him in a way that lead him to believe that white people are superior to other races, then his attitudes and actions displayed are just an example of what he thinks is right. Although it cannot be confirmed, it can be assumed that at least one of these two distal factors influenced the way the manager acted in this situation. The manager of the hotel exhibited discrimination, modern racism, self-fulfilling prophecy, and distal influences in the incident I witnessed. These four concepts can explain how he felt negatively towards black people and why he treated them unfairly. His rudeness towards them can also be justified by these terms. Not only can these ideas explain what the man did, but the way he acted and felt can help better understand what these social psychology concepts mean. This specific occurrence is a prime example of each of the traits in a real world