Ilan Dar-Nimrod Flashcards
Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., &
Solomon, S. (1999)
Terror Management Theory
Terror Management Theory
Terror: ―(A)nxiety that results from the awareness of the inevitability of death in a
highly intelligent, self-conscious animal that is instinctively programmed for
self-preservation‖
2 reactions to death:
1) Proximal: -Deny vulnerability (eg. smokers don’t think they’re as vulnerable as others) -Distract yourself; think about other things & push ourselves to think about other things
2) Distal: -Worldview-defense: Thoughts just below our conscious thoughts about mortality, we deal with this with culture. When we’re aware of our mortality we become much more defensive of culture -Self-esteem: Important in relation to culture, we view ourselves as important cultural agents. We are small animals who die but culture makes us seem important and immortal. Culture has the promised life of immortality: religion & other elements suggest the essence of who I am may be caught in cultural aspects that may continue to last once I die.
Rosenblatt et al. (1989)
Evidence for Terror Management Theory
Mortality salience- before assigning bail they had to answer questions about their own mortality
› Judges in the mortality-salient condition assigned the defendant a much
higher bond than did judges in the control condition (MS / control = $455 and
$50, respectively).
These findings were replicated on college students
Greenberg (1990)
Classic TMT experiment
› MS vs. control
› Subjects read a one-page interview in which the
interviewee evaluated the U.S. political system
› “In this country, the people and not the
government will be the final judges of the value of
what I have to say. That is what makes this
country a great place in which to be a freethinker.―
› “Violent overthrow is the only way the people will
ever wrest control of their own nation from the
capitalist powerbrokers. Saddest of all, I believe
this lofty goal can only be accomplished with the
help of outside influence from other powerful
nations.”
› Pro: MS»_space; Control
› Anti MS
Dar-Nimrod, I. (2012).
MS & Materialism
―The pursuit of wealth and culturally desired commodities are hypothesized to
reinforce those beliefs that function to protect people from existential
anxieties‖ (Arndt et al., 2004, JCP)
› Word completion- ―coff_ _‖ could be completed as ―coffin‖ or ―coffee‖
Death may relate to the pursuit of wealth. Took clips of shows showing deaths, 6 Feet Under and West Wing (control). Participants saw control program or 6FU then 4 commercials. Completed evaluations of the shows and products in the commercials. Participants who viewed products after WW rated them as less desirable than products viewed after SFU.
Study was replicated with movies: in Deerhunter Robert DeNiro dies. Again people preferred products shown after death. The show that completed word completion with death-related words were the ones that influenced people’s materialism.
Bruner & Postman (1949)
- People asked to name cards they were flashed with very quickly
- Some of the colors were incongruent and people started to feel very distressed depending on how long they were exposed to the stimuli for
- people upset/ distressed at the site of a red spade on cards- one person imploded/
―I can‘t make the suit out whatever it is. It didn‘t even look like a card that
time. I don‘t know what color it is now or whether it‘s a spade or a heart.
I‘m not even sure what a spade looks like. My God!‖
Proulx & Inzclit (2012)
The 5 As of Meaning Maintenance Models
We expect events to happen for a reason; we expect to have control over our
actions- e.g., bad things happen to bad people
› Violations of expected relations (schema, assumptive worlds) the 5 A‘s of MMM
› Assimilation- The child die because the mother is bad- Just world
› Accommodation- Sometimes bad things happen to good people
› Affirmation - - “Fluid Compensation” of world view, we bolster the same belief through interpretation of event
› E.g., system threatened > system justification (Jost et al., 2007) to sustain the need for Meaning > God‘s great, liked the child the best. Fluid compensation can come in many different forms, we can be challenged in one area and compensate in a different area.
› Assembly
- Understandings that serve the same function as the old; e.g.,constructing a more “powerful” moral theory to replace a more primitive sense of right and wrong- Piaget,1932. We had an old moral code, we create a new moral code to explain the event. In times of upheaval, there is a huge uptake in art: writing, visuals. There is a need to make sense of ones uncertainty thfough works of art, is rare.
› Abstraction-― Another type of fluid compensation that uses observation/ environment when in Reaffirming alternative framework (relational structure) When participants told they would experience discomfort because of the light they didn’t exhibit morality salience.
Proulx & Heine (2008)
Two instructors switched, didn’t look similar and had different voices. Few participants noticed they changed but people set higher bail for prostitutes when they did. One condition said they may experience discomfort because of the light and in this condition there wasn’t an increase in bail settings. Reduces the need to react in a compensatory way.
Proulx, & Heine (2009)
› Describe yourself as : shy, outgoing
› >asked to argue that they have two different selves inhabiting the same body, people really didn’t like this
› Kafka‘s The country dentist –vs. -‘normal‘ narrative
› Artificial grammar
- P‘s copy 45 training letter strings (e.g., X M X R T V T M, V T T T T V M) with artificial grammar dictating
the transitional probability of each letter appearing adjacent to each other letter
- 60 novel letter strings,30 of which conformed to the same transitional probabilities of the training strings (Grammar A), and 30 of which did not (Grammar B)
-Participants in the threatened self-image/ Kaftka story conditions were better at at finding the meaningful patterns. Suggests meaning translates to thinking about letter strings.
Norenzayan et al. (2009)
Does world view as a monolith concept effect people?
- MS vs Control
- Religious (Mostly Christians) vs non
- Worldview is not a monolith construct
-Asked participants to read an essay by Syrian student Jamal. It said the problem with the Western world is lack of faith and soon it will fall.
Wanted to see if members of a different religion would agree or not.Results indicated that the non-religious reliably showed the conventional cultural worldview defense by devaluating the content of the message and decreasing support for the civil rights of anti-Western individuals when death was salient. However there was no endorsement of rejection of the view from religious people. Conflict of religious standpoint and also their membership of the Western World.
Provide an example of a conjunction error. What does it suggest about religion?
Richard is a jerk, people are more likely to believe he’s a teacher who doesn’t believe in God than a teacher, even though teacher subsumes the other categories.
Religion should be studied as a natural phenomena which impacts upon our thoughts and cognitions
Traditional Understanding of Religion
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. -Actuallly these elements may not be common to all religions
Norenzayan & Atran, 2004: Anthropological Religions
I. Counterintuition
• All religions include belief in supernatural agents
• These agents in many ways violate our intuitive understanding
of how the world works
- Can walk through walls?
- Violates folk physics
- Doesn’t need to be born or eat?
- Violates folk biology- some gods eat drink & are born but others aren’t
- Is omniscient?
- Violates folk psychology
II. Commitment
• People actually act on their religious beliefs (should be specifically religious, not ‘one should eat’)
• They act in ways they probably wouldn’t if they didn’t actually believe
• Often costly- ‘Rolling Babar’ rolled thousands of km because of his belief in Hinduism
• Dissonance theory- behaviour affects thought/belief, may believe in religion more
III. Compassion
• People describe having relationships with their gods
• Need to belong
• Transcendence
• Can work with the gods to appease your existential needs
IV. Communion
• Religions are team sports
• Need to belong
People usuallly have practices which identify in-groups & out-groups due to religion
• NOT just people acting with their own solitary beliefs
A “typical” religion
- God/supernatural agent is…
- Not very powerful (basically just a kind of special person)
- Not much privileged access to info
- Not morally concerned
- Locally constrained
These are everywhere, anthropologically.
A “really strange” religion
- God (or gods) tend to be very powerful
- Omniscient
- Omnipotent
- They care a lot about people
- Are morally concerned
- Care about more than just quiet at night!
- Omnipresent
Big religions only emerged 12,000 years ago, around the time of the agricultural revolution. Peope stayed in the same place and had bigger & bigger social groups.
• Nonetheless, they are the most successful
Shariff & Norenzayan (2007)
Game theory Game
Subliminal prime- Scrambled sentence task
Some participants were primed with God-theme sentences
dessert divine was fork the
felt she eradicate spirit the
You have been chosen as the giver in this economic decision-making task. You will
find 10 one-dollar coins. Your role is to take and keep as many of these coins as you
would like, knowing that however many you leave, if any, will be given to the
receiver subject to keep
Wanted to see if the concept of ‘God’ would affect people’s behavior. Without God students left a mean of $1.84, with God students left a mean of $4.22. Some gave more than they kept, one gave all the money to the other person.
Shariff, & Norenzayan (2011)
A View of God Scale - 7 Positive (e.g., forgiving, loving, Compassionate) - 7 negative (e.g., angry, vengeful, fearsome) A tedious math test: press space not to get the answer
No differences in cheating - between self-described believers and nonbelievers - uncorrelated with intrinsic religiosity - uncorrelated with single item assessing belief in God
-Participants who endorsed a kind God cheated more, those who endorsed a mean God cheated less.
Saslow et al. (2013)
Doesn’t religiosity matter?
• Measured Prosocial Behaviours: • -Volunteering time • -Charity donation • =Allowing a stranger to go ahead in line • Trait compassion • Religious identity
The affect of being a compassionate person attenuates pro-social behavior for both religious and non-religious people.
People who were religious were more likely to do pro-social behavior even if they weren’t compassionate. Compassion doesn’t effect religious people as much as N-R. N-R did more pb if compassionate.
Gervais et al. (2011)
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.—Psalm 14:1 • Evolutionary scientists have long been puzzled by the problem of large-scale cooperation- trust • How’d one trust a stranger? • Distrust >> Disgust • mediated thermometer for atheists
In US people like atheists less than gay people. Atheists are viewed as very untrustworthy although gay men elicit disgust.
Conjunction error again (for Chris not Richard):
People v. unlikely to Say Chris is christian/ teacher, bit more likely to say muslim/teacher, v. likely to say rapist/ teacher or worse, atheist/teacher.
All other countries, except Finland, show this conjunction fallacy, even non-believers. Less CF in countries with more NB.
Gebauer et al. (2012)
Religiosity-as-social-value
Religiosity-as-social-value
• Does religion relate to wellbeing?
• Case for social self-esteem & psychological adjustment
• It depends…
Religiousity is positiviely related to someones social self-esteem is connected with how religious the country is, same for psychological adjustment.
Neuberg et al. (2014) Prejudice and discrimination
• Does ingroup/outgroup relation affected by society religiosity?
The relationship between prejudice & incompatibility is low when the society isn’t religious but high when the society is religious.
Culture
a society’s (group’s) system of shared, learned values
and norms; these are the society’s (group’s) design for living
Values
abstract ideas about the good, the right, the desirable
Norms
social rules and guidelines; guide appropriate behavior for specific situations
Mores
norms central to functioning of social life
• bring serious retribution: thievery, adultery, alcohol
Folkways
norms of little moral significance
> dress code; table manners; timeliness
Herodotus (active 440-425
B.C.)
First historian/geographer
• Traveled through some 50 societies
• Collected data on origins, religion, art, beliefs
about gods, and everyday practices
• Anthropologist?
• What emerged were distinctive ways of life
(different cultures)
• Coined the term “barbarian”
• Originally : “People who are different.” Later, became
derogatory.
Aristotle
Slaves and barbarians were by nature deprived of the powers of planning and reasoning.
Natural Science: emphasize stable, universal processes of the mind that are timeless in their operating principles (Aristotle/Plato)
- Similarity: to seek knowledge
- Difference: How that knowledge is sought
Hippocrates
Group differences arose form differences in climate and social institutions.
• Cultural-Historical Science: necessary to understand
organization of people’s current ways of life, which shape their thinking (Herodotus)
- Similarity: to seek knowledge
- Difference: How that knowledge is sought
Shweder
part 1 • A key goal of general psychology is to reveal the underlying, and universal, CPU. • To do this we need to isolate it from context and content, to reduce the noise and allow us to detect a clear signal. Avoid studying multiple cultures as this increases the amount of noise. • Any cultural variation that is found occurs because of noise that conceals the CPU. “Real” cultural variation can’t exist, because the “real” mind is the CPU, which is universal.
• In contrast, cultural psychology maintains that the mind cannot be separated from content or context. • Mind and culture are mutually constituted. • That is, mind arises from participating in a culture, with all the activities, challenges, practices, and scripts inherent within it. • Also, culture arises from the participation of the minds within it.
Cahan & White, 1992
Principles of Modern
Psychology
- “Psychological laws” produced in the research lab underpin human behavior in general.
- Research methods: tools to understand universal mechanisms
- Analogous to use of vacuum tubes in physics.
- Universality of laws is true across context and across species.
- “Difference between Homo sapiens and our near phylogenetic neighbors is one of degree, not of kind.” (Darwin) We have the same mental processes as apes, ours are just clearer. Not qualitative, quantitative. Modern psychology about discovering basic, human universal processes; we all share the ability to reason and plan.
Modern psychology & culture
Task: discovery of universal features of human psychological make-up
• Culture is accorded a distinctly minor role.
• Framework of methodological behaviourism
• Culture: often given a status of an independent variable.
• Culture serves as a stimuli that elicits divergent responses from its members.
Geert Hofstede
What is Culture?
“(T)he collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group over another… Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture”
Puts forward the concept of values as shapers of culture.
