Lecture 5 - The Cognitively Adaptive Self Flashcards
Characteristics of a mentally healthy person
Stability (not like BPD) Rationality High Self-Esteem Adaptive Copes with stress and adversity Follows social norms Realistic about ourselves Close contact with reality
“the perception of reality is called mentally healthy when what the individual perceives corresponds to what is actually there”
BUT
Actually people make many systematic errors
They use heuristics - simple rules to make judgements and follow biases
Illusions and well being
Most people have illusions about the self
1) Positively biased self evaluations
2) Illusions of control
3) Risk assessment (optimistic)
Shelly Taylor
Considered to be adaptive
Evidence for the existence of illusions (things people do)
Self-evaluations - People do these:
-Positive traits are overwhelmingly more descriptive of the self
-Positive information about the self and successes are processed more efficiently and recalled better than negative self-information and failures
-Self serving bias when making causal attributions
Good = me bad = situation
-One’s talents are seen as unique, one’s weaknesses are seen as common
But are
Evidence for the existence of illusions (are they illusions?)
1 - Self evaluation
But are they illusions (i.e. distortions of reality)?
(1) Better-than-average effect
Everyone says they are above average on many traits
Individually this might be true
Cannot be true statistically, most people must be average
(2) Self ratings are usually better than observer ratings
Evidence for the existence of illusions (are they illusions?)
1 - Personal control
Dice
Lottery
Depressive Realism
The idea that we have control over our lives is central to theories of well being and self-esteem
But our beliefs over this control are more than what is justified
(1) Dice
If people throw the die themselves, they feel like they have more control over it
(2) Lottery
- people chose their numbers
- could trade
- people who have their own numbers are less likely to trade, even if they are told the other numbers are more likely to come up
- people believe they have more control than they do, even when given the odds
(3) Depressive realism
Depressed people do not show these illusions of control
-lights set to randomly flash
-some people given buttons to press
-people with buttons to press believe they have influence over the lights (not true)
-depressed people do not
Evidence for the existence of illusions (are they illusions?)
1 - Risk Assessment
People are generally optimistic about the future
Believe present>past, future>present
Test:
How likely is it that ___ will happen to you
How likely is it that ___ will happen to a peer
(peer matched on gender, age, education etc)
Estimates overestimate the odds of positive things for you vs peers
Cannot be true for everyone, statistically impossible
Even when people are given base-rates, they do not update their predictions
Depressive realism happens here too
Are common cognitive illusions adaptive?
Correlational evidence
People who have high self-esteem, believe they have more control and are more optimistic about the future, are more likely to say they are happy at the present.
Are common cognitive illusions adaptive?
evidence for Happiness
2x2 study
Caring for others
Creative and productive work
(1) manipulate the self-serving attribution
- take a bogus self accuracy test
- manipulate success or failure
- manipulate attribution:
(a) Why would someone do well or poorly on this test? - personal attribution
(b) Why would this test be easy or difficult? - situation attribution
measure mood and self-esteem
2x2 results
Self attribution | + Success = very high positive SE
+ failure = very negative SE
Test attribution | + success = slightly positive SE
+ failure, still not happy but less than the other
(2) Caring for others Inducing a positive or negative mood: Helping Initiate conversations Express liking
(3) Creative and productive work
No direct evidence but maybe via a specific route
High positive self > Works harder, longer
Self control > work harder, longer
Optimism > Work harder, longer
This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy
Also intersects with an incremental/entity view
Do differences in esteem, control beliefs and optimism predict adjustment to college?
What mediates in Adjustment?
What mediates in GPA?
Two year prospective study (looking for causality)
Outcomes:
Adjustment (as measured by affect and perceived stress)
Productive work (as measured by cGPA)
H1: Positive illusions will facilitate better adjustment to university
Looking for:
Direct effects of positive illusions
Or MEDIATED effects (coping stratefies, cosial support or motivation)
RESULTS
Adjustment
Optimism directly affected adjustment
SE and optimism combined affected adjustment MEDIATED by coping strategies (Less avoidance or work, more active coping, more support seeking)
SE+Optimism>Coping>adjustment
cGPA
SE affected cGPA MEDIATED by motivation
SE>Motivation>cGPA
Do differences in esteem, control beliefs and optimism predict adjustment to extreme challenges such as HIV infection?
Investigate adaptive (vs maladaptive) consequences of unrealistic optimism
550 gay and bi men
238 HIV+, 312 HIV+ men who have not got any symptoms yet nor received an AIDS diagnosis.
Measure dispositions (life optimism task) and a measure specific to optimism about AIDS
- I feel safe from AIDS because I developed immunity
- I think my immune system is more capable of fighting AIDS than other gay men
Results showed there was much more optimism in HIV+ men.
Is this adaptive coping cos they have the disease
Is this the reason they have it (more risky behavior)
AIDS specific optimism predicted:
Higher perceived control (among HIV+ men only)
More active coping (HIV+ men only)
BETTER health behavior (HIV+ men only)
It was not associated with increased risk behavior
SO IT IS ADAPTIVE COPING AND NOT WHY THEY GOT SICK
Do differences in esteem, control beliefs and optimism predict expectations of symptom onset in HIV?
Take asymptomatic, HIV+ gay men
Follow for 2.5-3 years
Do negative HIV specific expectancies (i.e. realistic acceptance predict symptom onset
Negative HIV-specific expectancies showed no main effect
BUT
if the person had someone close who died of AIDS, there as an interaction effect
Negative HIV-specific expectancies X Bereavement
Self-fulfilling prophecy; negative expectancies predicted developing symptoms, but only among those who recently lost a loved one.
Do expectations of symptom onset in HIV predict the course of the disease?
Realistic Expectation
Gay guys with AIDS for one year
Realistic acceptance:
I tried to accept what might happen
I prepare myself for the worst
I refuse to believe this problem has happened (reverse coded)
Estimated survival time was 9 months SHORTER for those with high realistic acceptance
A summary of Biases
Our self representations can impact our daily ups and downs
Self-representations and specifically biases in self-representations - can impact our adjustment to major life events
Bias is adaptive and appears to be fairly pervasive
Optimism bias mechanism
Optimism bias is the tendency to underestimate the chances of future negative effects
There is a learning asymmetry and selective updating
Beliefs are updates more for new information that is better than expected vs. that which is worse
This is dopaminergically mediated
G1 - L-DOPA
G2 - Citalopram control - rules out seratonin and also eliminates placebo as a counfounder
Presented with descriptions of 40 adverse life events and asked to estimate the chance of it happening to them
Given new information (negative or positive)
Asked again in a second session
In general, the prediction for the life events that were positive (so they had overestimated the chances of it happening to them) resulted in bigger changes in their estimates in the second session than those with negative information (indicating they had underestimated the chances of the negative life event).
HOWEVER - this was much more pronounced among those given L-DOPA and negative base-rate info indicating that enhanced dopamine signaling prevents the updating of beliefs based on negative information.
This implicates dopamine signaling in the updating of beliefs based on feedback.
L-DOPA/placebo admin within subject (citalopram control) Presented w/short description of 40 adverse life events and asked to estimate probability that event would happen to them (vs. placebo)
L-DOPA selectively impaired belief updating in response to undesirable info
No effect on belief updating in
response to pos. info
No effect of citalopram either
L-DOPA interferes with “dopamine dips,” the hypothesized mechanism signaling a worse- then-expected outcome
Are these biases universal?
Opinion is divided
Is the motive to self-enhance restricted to cultures
that emphasize the independent self?
Biases promote image that self is strong person
But separation not good for interdependent cultures
Unrealistic optimism: North American»_space;> Asian
(Heine et al 1995)
Self-enhancement: North American»_space;> Asian
(NA does more than EA)
Sedikides: No, Westerners and Easterners use
different methods to achieve the same goal—
positive self-regard
Americans and independents enhance on
individualistic attributes
Japanese and inter-dependents enhance on
collectivistic attributes
