Midterm Flashcards
1
Q
Major themes of social psyschology (7)
A
- we construct out social reality
- our social intutions are often powerful but sometimes perilous
- social influences shape our behaviour
- personal attitudes and dispositions also shape behaviour
- social behaviour is biologically rooted
- relating to others is a basic need
- social psychologies principles are applicable in everyday life
2
Q
Social Psychology Theme: we construct out social reality
A
- Humans like to explain behaviour and attribute it to some cause
- Beliefs about ourselves also influence how we perceive things
3
Q
Social Psychology Theme: our social intutions are often powerful but sometimes perilous
A
- Our intuitions shape our fears, impressions, and relationships
- Thinking, memory, attitudes all operate on two levels- one conscious and deliberate, the other nonconscious and automatic- aka dual processing
- Intuitions can also be dangerous bc they cause us to misperceive others
- We often trust memories more that we should, misread our own minds, and mispredict our own feelings and future
4
Q
Social Psychology Theme: social influences shape our behaviour
A
- We respond to our immediate contexts and sometimes the power of a social situation can cause us to act in deviant ways
- Standards vary with one’s culture and we adapt to our social context
5
Q
Social Psychology Theme: personal attitudes and dispositions also shape behaviour
A
- Our inner attitudes also affect our behaviour
- Personality dispositions can also affect behaviour, and facing the same situation, different ppl may react differently
6
Q
Social Psychology Theme: social behaviour is biologically rooted
A
- biological and social influences need to be considered to understand social behaviours
- Social support strengthens immune system, social isolation increases bp, stress hormones affect how we act and feel
- We reflect interplay of our biological, psychological, and social influences
7
Q
Social Psychology Theme: relating to others is a basic need
A
- Our relationship with others can be an important source of stress and pain, as well as joy and comfort
- Being ostracised can cause drops in self-esteem and well-being
- When we help others can cause joy and comfort
- Our relationships form the basis of our self-esteem
8
Q
Social Psychology Theme: social psychologies principles are applicable in everyday life
A
- Social psychology can make visible forces that guide our thinking and acting and can offer ideas about how to know ourselves better, influence ppl and win friends
9
Q
Obvious ways that values affect social psychology
A
- social psychology reflects social history (reserach topics chosen based on social history)
- Values differ across time and across culture –> Europe focuses more on social identity, and NA focuses more in individuals
- Social psychologists investigate how values form, why they change, and how they influence attitudes and actions
10
Q
Subjective aspects, and hidden values of social psychology
A
- Science is viewed through the lens of preconceptions and because scholars share a common viewpoint their assumptions may go unchallenged
- Forming concepts- hidden values seep into psychology’s research-based concepts; certain labels reflect a value judgment
- Labelling- value judgments are often hidden within our social-psychological language
- Naturalistic fallacy- sliding from a description of what is to a prescription of what ought to be (between scientific description, and ethical prescription) –> we inject our values whenever we move from objective statements of fact to prescriptive statements of what ought to be
11
Q
Two main criticisms of Social Psychology
A
- It is trivial because it documents the obvious (disputed by hindsight bias)
- It is dangerous bc its findings can be used to manipulate people
12
Q
Hindsight Bias
A
- hindsight bias (i-knew-it-all-along phenomenon) makes any conceivable result of a psychological experiment seem like common sense, after you know the result (events are more predicable in hindsight)
- We deceive ourselves into thinking what we knew more than we do, which is why science is necessary to help us sift reality from illusion and genuine predictions to easy hindsight
13
Q
Forming and Testing Hypothesis
A
- Theory- an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events (scientific shorthand); an organized set of principles used to explain observed phenomena
- Hypothesis- an educated guess about the nature of the relationship among the variables being tested (testable predictions)
- They allow us to test the theory on which they are based
- They give direction to the research
- Predictive feature of good theories (i.e., hypotheses) can make them more practical
- Operationalization- translating the variables that are described at the theoretical level into specific variables that we are going to observe (i.e., defining all the variables) –> must be valid and reliable
A good theory:
- Effectively summarizes many observations
- Makes clear predictions that we can use to do the following: Confirm or modify the theory, generate new exploration, suggest practical applications
- Theories are replaced not when they are disproven, but when a newer better theory comes along
14
Q
Non-experimental Methods of Research:
A
- Provide information on the association btwn 2 or more variables
- Archival study- examining existing records of past events
- Case study- a detailed examination of a single event
- Survey study- participants complete questionnaires
- Observational study- participants’ behaviours are observed (sometimes covertly), often in a naturalistic setting
15
Q
Correlation v Causation
A
- Correlational research allows us to predict, but cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes in another
- Correlations quantify with the coefficient r, the degree of relationship between 2 factors
- Ranges from -1 to +1 (the closer to 0, the weaker the relationship)
- Longitudinal research is correlational research extended over time, and can begin to sort out cause and effect because we know that some things happen before others
- survey research is a type of correlational research, and experiments are causational
16
Q
Survey Research (and 4 potentailly biasing influences)
A
- Random sample- every person in the population being studied has an equal chance of inclusion (appropriate representation of subgroups)
4 potentially biasing influences:
Unrepresentative samples- how closely the sample represents the population under study matters greatly –> reduced generalizability if not well represented
Order and timing of questions- ex., a study on travelling experiences will be more positive on a warm sunny day than a cold and snowy one
Response bias and social desirability- large array of options changes responses, people don’t to admit their true actions/beliefs, and social desirability will make ppl say what others want to hear or what they want to believe about themselves
Wording of the question- even when people say they feel strongly about an issue, a question’s form and wording can affect their answer (survey researchers must be sensitive to subtle biases)
17
Q
Experimental Research
A
- Social psychologists create lab simulations whenever feasible and ethical to determine cause and effect
- *Control: Manipulating Variables**
- By manipulating independent variables experimenter can pinpoint how changes in one or two things affect us
- Enables the understanidng and prediction of human behaviour
- *Random Assignment: The Great Equalizer**
- the process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given condition; creating equivalent groups
- helps us to infer cause and effect, and generalize to a population
18
Q
Ethics of Experimentation
A
- In situations where it would be unethical to allow for random assignment, observational research methods are used where individuals are observed in natural settings, often without awareness, in order to provide opportunity for objective analysis of behaviour
- Experiments do not need to have mundane realism- degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations- but must have experimental realism- it should absorb and involve the participants
- Sometimes to create experimental realism, deception is needed
- To reduce demand characteristics- cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behaviour is expected (e.g., words, tone of voice, gestures)- experimenters typically standardize their instructions or use a computer to present them
19
Q
External and Internal Validity
A
- Internal validity- the extent to which differences between groups in an experiment can be unambiguously attributed to the dependent variable rather than to other factors
- External validity- the degree to which one can generalize results obtained in one set of circumstances to another set of circumstances
20
Q
The spotlight effect
A
- seeing ourselves at centre stage, and thus intuitively overestimating the extent to which others’ attention is aimed at us
- in the study w the Barry Manilow T-shirt, only 23% of observers noticed compared to the 50% predicted by the students wearing the shirt (Gilovich et al.)
21
Q
Illusion of transparency
A
- the illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be easily read by others; we feel especially transparent when we feel self-conscious and worry about being evaluated negatively by others
- In an experiment using public speaking, individuals feel more nervous than they appear to be, and when individuals were informed about the illusion of transparency, they felt better about their speech and their appearance
22
Q
Other Interplay between our sense of self and our social worlds (4)
A
- Social surroundings affect our self-awareness- when we are the only members of our race, gender, or nationality in a group, we notice how we differ and how others are reacting to our differences
- Self-interest colours our social judgment- when problems arise in a close relationship, we usually attribute more responsibility to our partners than to ourselves, but when things go well, we see ourselves as more responsible
- Self-concern motivates our social behaviour- in hopes of making a positive impression, we agonize about our appearance and monitor others’ behaviours and expectations, and adjust our behaviour accordingly
- Social relationships help define the self- in our varied relationships, we have varying selves; how we think of ourselves is linked to the person we are with at the moment and when relationships change, so do self-concepts
23
Q
self-concept and self-in-action
A
- Self-concept = how we come to know ourselves
- Self in action = how our sense of self drives our attitudes and actions
24
Q
Self-schemas
A
- Self-schemas- the elements of your self-concept, the specific beliefs by which you define yourself
- Our self-schemas (perceiving ourselves as athletic, smart, outgoing, etc.) affect how we perceive, remember, and evaluate others
- You welcome information that is consistent with your self-schema
- Self-schemas help us organize and retrieve our experiences
- Attitudes and behaviour can change in different social contexts (the way we act and see ourselves depends on context)
25
Q
Social Comparisons
A
- Evaluating your abilities and opinions by comparing yourself to others
- We compare ourselves with those around us and become conscious of how we differ and then use others as a benchmark by which we can evaluate our performance and our beliefs
- Social comparisons can also diminish our satisfaction as we tend to compare up and not down, thereby raising the standards by which we evaluate our attainments
- When people think well of us it helps us think well of ourselves
- Looking-glass self - describes our use of how we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves (what matters for our self-concept is not how others actually see us but the way we imagine they see us)
- Our self-esteem corresponds with how we see ourselves on traits that we believe are valued by others
26
Q
Individualism v Collectivism
A
- sense of self is shaped by culture
- In industrialized western culture, individualism prevails – identity is self-contained, and becoming an adult means separating from parents and becoming self-reliant and defining one’s personal independent self (value self-sufficiency, uniqueness, autonomy)
- One’s identity remains fairly constant
- assumes life will be enriched by believing in your power of personal control
- Individualism flourishes when ppl experience affluence, mobility, urbanism, mass media, and when economies shift from manufacturing towards information and service industries
- Most countries native to Asia, Africa, Central and South America place a greater value on collectivism by respecting and identifying with the group
- Interdependent self- construing one’s identity in relation to others
- People are more self-critical and focus less on positive self-views
- Social rules focus on promoting selflessness, working as a group, doing what’s best for societies, families and communities have a central role
STUDIES (from lec):
- In highly individualistic cultures a certain part of the brain will activate, but not when they see a picture of their mother or close friend, but in an interdependent culture, the fMRI will light up in the same spot in response to a picture of themselves as well as a picture of a close friend/ family member
- In an individualist culture, when asked who they would save in a house fire, the answer was spouse (an extension of yourself, someone for you), and in a collectivist culture the answer is mother (you only have one mom but can find a new spouse)
27
Q
Culture and Cognition
A
- Collectivism results in different ways of thinking
- In Masuda et al. study, American participants rated the boy in the middle to be very happy in both cartoons (7/7 and 6/7) whereas Japanese participants said the boy was very happy in the first cartoon and very sad in the second as they took into consideration the facial expressions of the kids in the background (think more holistically)
- American more likely to explain the purpose of language as being for self-expression, and Koreans are more likely to say it allows for communication with others
- Collectivist cultures promote a greater sense of belonging and more integrating between the self and others
- Interdependent selves have many selves: self-w-parents, self-at-work, self-w friends –> interdependent self is embedded in social memberships, conversation is less direct and more polite, and people focus more on gaining social approval
28
Q
Culture and Self-Esteem
A
- In collectivist cultures, self-esteem is malleable (context-specific) rather than stable (enduring across situations)
- In individualistic cultures, self-esteem is more personal and less relational, and one will feel more threatened, and sad when a personal identity is threatened than when one’s collective identity is threatened
- Collectivists persist more on tasks when failing and make comparisons to facilitate self-improvement while individualist persist more when succeeding and make comparisons w others that boost their self-esteem
- Happiness in collectivist cultures is more associated w positive social engagement and for individualist it comes from disengaged emotions like feeling superior and effective
- When you move from a collectivist culture to individualistic culture, self-esteem tends to increase as sense of self/self-esteem is viewed as an individual concept so people from collectivist cultures tend to have lower self-esteem (bc it’s not valued/don’t care)
29
Q
Predicting Self-Behaviour
A
- One of the most common errors in behaviour prediction is underestimating how long it will take to complete a task (planning fallacy)
- The best way to improve self-predictions is to be more realistic about long tasks took in the past
- Another way is to estimate how long each step in a project will take
30
Q
Predicting Feelings
A
- Sometimes we know how we will feel but other times we mispredict our responses
- People have the greatest difficulty predicting intensity and the duration of their future emotions (e.g., how they would feel some time after a breakup, receiving a gift, winning a game, and being insulted)
- We are vulnerable to impact bias- overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events- emotional traces of good tidings leave faster than we would expect
- We are especially prone to impact bias after negative events –> we adapt and cope quicker than we’d expect
31
Q
Wisdom and Illusions of Self-Analysis
A
- Our intuitions are often wrong about what has influenced us and what we will feel and do, but when the causes of our behaviour are conspicuous and the correct explanation fits our intuition, our self-perceptions will be accurate
- Overall, there is a modest correlation between predicted feelings and actual feelings
- We are more aware of the results of our thinking that the process
- Dual attitudes- our automatic implicit attitudes regarding someone or something often differ from our consciously controlled, explicit attitudes
- Self-reports are often untrustworthy even if people report and interpret their experiences with complete honesty (not always the truth)
32
Q
Self-esteem (definition)
A
- the sum of all our self-views across various domains, and when we feel good about the domains important to our self-esteem, we have high self-esteem
33
Q
Self-esteem motivation
A
- Most people are extremely motivated to maintain their self-esteem (we dont want to be socially rejected)
- People with high self-esteem usually react to a self-esteem threat by blaming others to preserve their positive feelings about themselves while ppl w low self-esteem are more likely to blame themselves or give up in face of a threat
- Society values kindness and caring and women and people in romantic relationships, so for these people self-esteem trumps communal qualities
- Self-esteem depends on whether we believe we have traits that make us attractive to others and not necessarily on the traits that we value the most
34
Q
Bottom-up Theory of self-esteem
A
- Commonly accepted theory
- Everyone has valued domains that are important to them (including grades, athleticism, attractiveness)
- When we do well in your valued domain you will have high self-esteem, and when you are not doing well, you will have low self-esteem
- If you don’t care about anything, you will likely have low self-esteem
35
Q
Top-Down Theory of self-esteem
A
- We all have self-esteem; a way we view ourselves (whether that is positive or negative), which is affected by both genetics and our upbringing
- When we have high self-esteem we tend to focus and place value in what we do well in
- When we have low self-esteem we tend to value/focus on things you don’t have/do poorly in even if you have areas you do well in
36
Q
Terror Management theory of self-esteem
A
- Terror management theory argues that self-esteem is not only about acceptance, as people strive to be great rather than just accepted, and instead the reality of our own death motivates us to gain recognition from our work and values
- Fearing death is unique to humans and we overcome it by denying it
- Pursuing self-esteem is a way to create a version of ourself that will last past our death (create a legacy) which helps alleviate our fear of death
37
Q
Self-esteem maintenance (sociometer theory)
A
- Self-esteem tracks social acceptance/rejection, and is an indicator/ heuristic for how things are going
- Social support is a buffer for self-esteem, and when social acceptance is low, it motivates us to seek change
- A consistent impediment to self-esteem is social rejection (social isolation)
38
Q
How we maintain self-esteem (4)
A
- self-serving attribution
- self-handicapping
- selective social comparisons
- self-affirmations
39
Q
Trade-off of Low v High Self-esteem
A
- People with low self-esteem are more vulnerable to anxiety, loneliness, and ED, and tend to take the negative view of everything when feeling bad or threatened
- They are quick to believe that their partners are criticizing or rejecting them and often are less satisfied with their relationships
- often low self-esteem correlates with a tough childhood
- When good things happen to people with high self-esteem they’re more likely to savour and sustain the good feelings –> self-preserving perceptions and feelings of superiority can motivate us to achieve
- High self-esteem fosters initiative, resilience, and pleasant feelings (not always good, gang leaders, terrorist)
- Self-esteem does not cause better academic achievement or superior work performance
40
Q
Narcisissm v High self-esteem
A
- narcissists usually have high self-esteem but do not value relationships with others and goes beyond self-esteem bc they think they are better than others which can lead to problematic social relations
- Narcissism is also included in the dark triad of negative traits along with manipulativeness and antisocial personality
- Narcissists’ deep-seated feelings of superiority may originate in childhood; parents believing their children deserve special treatment = narcissism, but not parents expressing feelings of love and kindness to their children
- Narcissists are often initially popular with others but as time passes, their antagonism and aggression towards others makes them less popular with their peers
- Narcissists seem to be aware of their own narcissism
41
Q
Self-efficacy
A
- A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one’s sense of self-worth
- Children and adults with strong feelings of self-efficacy are more persistent, less anxious, less depressed, live healthier lives, and are more academically successful
- Self-efficacy leads us to search challenging goals and persist, and when problems arise a strong sense of self- efficacy leads people to stay calm and seek solutions rather than ruminate on their inadequacies
42
Q
Definition and types of self-serving bias (7)
A
- self-serving attribution
- better than average (favourable comparison)
- unrealistic optimism
- false consensus and uniqueness
- temporal comparison
- social comparison
- self-affirmation
43
Q
Self-serving bias: self-serving attribution
A
- Self-serving attribution- attributing positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to someone else- is one of the most potent of human biases –> activates brain areas associated w reward and pleasure
- E.g. car accidents are the other persons fault, marital issues are the partners fault, marriage success attributed to themselves
- People claim they avoid self-serving bias themselves but readily acknowledge that others show this bias, and this bias can lead to consequences during conflict
- Those with depression do not display self-serving bias as they are more likely to believe they are to blame for negative events
- Depressed individuals have a negative explanatory style (a negative, pessimistic, and depressive explanatory)
44
Q
Self-serving bias: better than average (favourable comparison)
A
- Self-serving bias also appears when people compare themselves with others as on subjective, socially desirable, and common dimensions most people see themselves as better than the average person
- Self-serving bias is stronger for traits that are more subjective or difficult to measure as they give us leeway in constructing our own definitions of success
- 80% thinking they are above average drivers, 86% say they are at top 25% in teaching ability
45
Q
Self-serving bias: unrealistic optimism
A
- Most humans are more disposed to optimism than pessimism
- Unrealistic optimism about future life events occurs partly due to relative pessimism about others fates which makes students perceive themselves more likely to get a good job then their classmates, and less likely to experience negative events
- Illusionary optimism increases our vulnerabilities as believing ourselves immune to misfortune results in not taking sensible precautions like unsafe sex
- Optimism still beats pessimism in promoting self efficacy, health, and well being
- Most people believe they will be happier and live their lives in the future, pessimists however even die sooner as they are more likely to suffer unfortunate accidents
- Defensive pessimism anticipates problems and motivates effective coping and can sometimes save us from the perils of unrealistic optimism
- Success in school and beyond requires enough optimism to sustain hope and enough of pessimism to motivate concern
46
Q
Self-serving bias: false consensus and uniqueness
A
- We have the tendency to enhance our self-images by overestimating or underestimating the extent to which others think and act as we do
- On matters of opinion we find support for our position by overestimating the extent to which others agree- false consensus effect
- When we behave badly or fail in a task we reassure ourselves by thinking that such lapses are also common
- On matters of ability or when we behave well or successfully a false uniqueness effect occurs where we serve our self-image by seeing our talents and moral behaviors as relatively unusual
- We may see our failings as relatively normal and our virtues as relatively exceptional
47
Q
Self-serving bias: temporal comparison
A
- Comparisons between how the self is viewed now and how the self was viewed in the past or how the self is expected to be viewed in the future
- People maintain positive self-views in the present by disparaging distant past selves while complementing recent past selves, creating a sense of improvement
- We perceive positive past selves as psychologically closer in time and negative past selves as more distant
48
Q
Self-serving bias: social comparison
A
- Think of someone else who is doing worse than you to make yourself feel better
49
Q
Self-serving bias: self-affirmation
A
- Think about a domain where you are doing fine (change what you think is important)
50
Q
Explaining self-serving bias
A
- Potentially the self-serving bias exists because of errors in how we process and remember information ourselves
- Comparing ourselves with others requires us to notice, assess, and recall their behavior and ours which creates multiple opportunities for flaws in our information processing
- Trying to increase self-esteem helps power self-serving bias
51
Q
How people manage their self-preservation (4)
A
- self-handicapping
- impression management
- doubting our ability in social situations
- overpersonalizing situations
52
Q
Self-presentation management: self-handicapping
A
- sabotage chances for success by creating impediments that make success less likely; an excuse in case you fail
- self-protective rather than self-destructive
- If we fail while handicapped in some way, we can cling to a sense of competence; if we succeed under such conditions, it will only boost our self-image (succeeded despite the conditions)
- Handicaps protect both self-esteem and public imaging by allowing us to attribute failures to something temporary or external rather than to a lack of talent or ability
53
Q
Self-presentation management: impression management
A
- Self-presentation refers to our wanting to present a desired image both to an external audience an internal audience by managing the expressions we create
- In collectivist cultures it’s particularly true that social interactions are a balance of looking good while not looking too good as modesty is the default strategy
- In familiar situation self-presentation happens without a conscious effort while in unfamiliar situations we are acutely self-conscious of the impressions (less modest)
- high self-monitoring = social chameleons, more likely to express attitudes they don’t really hold and less likely to express their own attitudes
- low self-monitoring = care less about what others think, more internally guided, talk and act as they feel and believe
- False modesty phenomenon- we often display lower self-esteem than we privately feel-as in most situations modesty creates a good impression while unsolicited boasting creates a bad one
- Self-presented modesty is greatest in cultures that value self-restraint such as Asian cultures, and they also exhibit less self-serving bias
54
Q
Self-presentation management: doubting our ability in social situations
A
- Self-presentation theory assumes that we are eager to present ourselves in ways that make a good impression, thus we feel social anxiety when we are motivated to impress others but have self-doubts
- We feel most anxious when we’re with powerful high-status people, in an evaluative context, self-conscious, focused on something central to our self-image, or in novel or unstructured situations
- For most people the tendency is to be cautiously self-protective: talk less, avoid topics that reveal ignorance, be guarded, unassertive, and agreeable
55
Q
Self-presentation management: overpersonalizing situations
A
- shy, self-conscious people see incidental events as somehow relevant to themselves (over personalized situations)
- They are especially prone to the spotlight effect and maybe conscious of their self-consciousness
- To reduce social anxiety some people turn to alcohol and thus chronically self-conscious people are especially likely to drink
- Symptoms such as anxiety and alcohol abuse can serve a self-handicapping function
56
Q
Learned helplessness v Self-Determination
A
- Learned helplessness = helplessness and resignation learned when a person perceives no control over repeated bad events
- Depressed or oppressed people for example become passive because they believe their efforts have no effects
- Learned helplessness has been linked to illness –> stress diverts energy from immune system leaving us more vulnerable to infection and malignancy
- A strategy that works better than a list of New Year’s resolutions, is to start with one area and let your increased self-control spread throughout your newly improved life
- Another hack is to stop doing things you shouldn’t by reducing the possibility you’ll be tempted
- Systems of governing or managing people that promote self-efficacy will promote health and happiness
57
Q
How self-esteem makes us clueless
A
- all above average, think you can control the environment more than you can (gamblers), planning fallacy, affective forecasting, spotlight phenomenon
58
Q
Social media and self-esteem (2 studies)
A
- The affect of social media depends on how you use it
Gonzales and Hancock:
- After two minutes of looking in front of a mirror, at their own FB profile, or at nothing, they took the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (7-point scale)
- FB profile was highest, but the effects are pretty small, so it’s hard to know if its meaningful in everyday life
Kross et al.
- Texted people 5x a day for 2 weeks asking how they felt, and what they were doing at that time
- FB use was associated with negative mood in the day and decreases life-satisfaction over the 2 weeks
- The effect depended on how the participant was using FB: active contributor = happy/neutral, passive user (lurker) = negative effect
- Depends on if you are using it to connect socially with others and are an active user, vs whether you are using it to see what other people are doing (lurker) which usually results in a negative effect
59
Q
Priming
A
- Even things that we don’t consciously notice (subliminal stimuli) can subtly influence how we interpret and recall events
- Priming one thought, can influence another thought or even an action (if you think of something at one time, you are more likely to think about that same thing or things related to that thing at time 2)
- seeing a concept once makes it more likely to leap to mind when you are facing an ambiguous circumstance where that same concept could potentially be the answer
- thoughts leaping to mind because it was rendered accessible in a prior event
- Most of a person’s everyday life is determined by mental processes that operate outside of conscious awareness and guidance
- Physical sensations, due to our embodied cognition- the mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments- prime our social judgments, and vice versa (e.g., the room feeling colder when eating alone, thinking people are suspect when the room smells fishy, thinking ppl are friendlier when holding a warm cup of coffee, thinking a topic is more important when holding a heavy clipboard)
- The brain systems that process our bodily sensations communicate w the brain systems responsible for our social thinking
60
Q
System 1 v System 2 Thinking
A
- System 1 = functions automatically out of our awareness (intuition)
- System 2 = requires our conscious effort and attention
- System 1 influences our actions more than we think
61
Q
Automatic Thinking: schemas, emotional reactions, expertise
A
- Schemas are mental concepts that intuitively guide our perceptions and interpretations of our experience; organize one’s knowledge and sets expectations about certain things
- We tend to have false memories because we categorize things using our schemas
- Schemas can lead to change blindness (often miss large changes that appear to be obvious) because our schemas tell us not to pay attention to something we don’t expect –> the experiment where the confederate changes partway through
- Schemas are important because they reduce the amount of information we are required to process and they help to reduce the ambiguity (much of what we experience is complex so schemas help to simplify things based on context)
- They also guide our attention and encoding: how quick we notice, what we notice, how we interpret what we notice, what we remember
- Emotional reactions are instantaneous and before there is time for deliberate thinking
- Given sufficient expertise people may intuitively know the answer to a problem
- Given little info about someone, peoples snap judgment can beat chance at guessing whether someone is outgoing or shy, straight or gay
- Facts, and past experiences we remember consciously, but skills and conditions we work implicitly
- Consciousness delegates, sets goals and priorities, often with little knowledge of operational activities that perform the actions and this delegation allows us to react to many situations quickly and efficiently
62
Q
Limits of intuition
A
- Subliminal stimuli can trigger a weak fleeting response, but there is no evidence that for example, a commercial subliminal audio recording can reprogram your unconscious mind
- We have the capacity for illusory intuition where we can fabricate explanations of our behaviour and it also appears in how we take in, store, and retrieve social information
63
Q
Overconfidence phenomenon
A
- Efficiency has a trade-off; as we interpret our experiences and construct memories, our intuitions are sometimes wrong
- Overconfidence phenomenon- the tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs
- Can lead to overprecision where we cut things too close- arriving late, missing planes- in thinking we know exactly how something will go, we miss the window
- Incompetence feeds overconfidence –> ignorance of our ignorance sustains overconfidence
- People may rely too heavily on their intentions when predicting their future behaviour which causes them to have inaccurate self-predictions
- Overconfidence may persist because we like those who are confident: group members rewarded highly confident individuals with higher status, even when their confidence was not justified by actual ability
- We are not actually good at predicting how we will feel in future situations (affective forecasting)
64
Q
Confirmation Bias
A
- Refers to a tendency to search for evidence that confirms hypothesis and don’t look for evidence that disconfirms it
- Stereotypes –> pay attention to the info that reinforces stereotypes and don’t pay attention to what disconfirms it (can reinforce harmful stereotypes)
- Confirmation bias appears to be a system 1 snap judgment where our default reaction is to look for information consistent w our presupposition –> when we stop to think a little, we are less likely to make this error (contemplation curtails confirmation)
- Also helps to explain why our self-images are stable as people seek as friends and spouses those who verify their own self-views, even when negative (self-verification)
65
Q
Remedies for overconfidence
A
- Prompt feedback- groups that receive daily feedback like weather forecasters, do well at estimating their probable accuracy
- helpful to think about one good reason why their judgement might be wrong to reduce overconfidence and force consideration of disconfirming information
- Realistic self-confidence is still important harbour decisiveness
66
Q
Heuristics: Definitions and Examples (2)
A
- mental shortcuts that we take when making complicated judgements that enable quick and efficient judgments
- They are also subject to error and can cause us to make irrational judgments
- Our snap judgments are adaptive, and the speed of these intuitive guides promote our survival
- representative and availability
67
Q
Heuristics: Representative Heuristic
A
- Refers to judging something by intuitively comparing it to our mental representation of a category; judging the likelihood of something based on its similarity to a typical case
- Problematic when typicality is used instead of base rates
- Representativeness (typicalness) usually reflects reality
- e.g. cops looking for a black suspect bc they they believe it is more likley for black person to be involved in crime
- e.g. a woman is outspoken and majored in economics, and she was passionate about issues of equality and discrimination–> is it more likley that she works at a bank or that she works at a bank and is involved in feminist movements –> representative heuristic says b), but a) is more likely (b is a subset of option a so it cant be more likely)
68
Q
Heuristics: Availability Heuristic
A
- A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory; if instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace
- Judging the likelihood of an event based on the ease with which we can recall examples of it
- Problematic when ease of recall is not in line with actual requency of event
- News won’t cover less exciting, more common causes of death, making plane crashes seem like a probable cause or lottery losses
- Dish politics –> you think you did the dishes the last time because its easier to remember what you did and not what your roommate did
- Thinking that the name of a celebrity is more common than it is, or thinking that LGBTQ members are more common than they are bc issues are talked about frequently
- Explains why powerful anecdotes seem more compelling that statistical information
- We worry about remote possibilities while ignoring higher probabilities (probability neglect)
- Availability heuristic can make us more sensitive to unfairness as our struggles are more memorable than our advantages
69
Q
Counterfactory Thinking
A
- Refers to imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened but didn’t
- Imagining worse alternatives help us feel better, and imagining better alternatives helps us prepare to do better in the future
- Occurs when we can easily picture an alternative outcome and underlies our feelings of luck
- The more significant and unlikely the event, the more intense the counterfactual thinking
- More people regret over things they didn’t do rather than the things they did do
70
Q
Illusory Thinking: Illusory Correlation
A
- A perception of a relationship where none exists, or a perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists
- If we believe a correlation exists, we are more likely to notice and recall confirming instances and if we believe that premonitions correlate with events, we notice and remember the joint occurrence off the premonition and the events later occurrence
- Can help explain why clinicians continue to express confidence in uninformative or ambiguous test
71
Q
Illusory Thinking: Gambling
A
- Many instances of people acting as though they can predict or control chance events
- Gamblers attribute their wins to their skill and foresight and losses become near misses, flukes, or a bad call
- When experiencing a lack of control, people will act to create a sense of predictability, leading people to form illusory correlations in stock market information, to perceive nonexistent conspiracies, and to develop superstitions
72
Q
Illusory Thiniking: Regression Toward the average (mean)
A
- The statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behaviour to return towards the person’s average – when we fail to recognize this, illusion of control may rise
- When things are at a low point, we try every and anything, and this is more likely to be followed by improvement rather than further deterioration
- Extreme performance at time 1 is followed by less extreme performance at time 2
- Extremely good performance is picked by luck, and extremely good luck at T1 likely means less luck at T2 (luck is random)–> regression to mean will be more indicative of actual skill
- Commonplace in situations where luck and skill are both at play (sports, exams)
73
Q
Mood and Judgment:
A
- Social judgments involve our feelings as our moods infuse our judgments
- Unhappy people tend to be more self-focused and brooding, but a depressed mood also motivates intense thinking-a search for information that makes one’s environment more memorable, understandable, and controllable
- Happy people are more trusting, more loving, and more responsive
- Our moods colour how we see our world partly by bringing to mind past experiences associated with the mood
- if our attention is explicitly drawn to our moods, we may correct our judgments; if we acknowledge our moods we can keep them from biasing our judgments
74
Q
Perceiving and interpreting events: political perceptions
A
- we are mostly accurate and our first impressions are more right than wrong
- People perceive media and mediators as biased against their position (sports referees, politicians)
- When political debates have no clear-cut winner, they mostly reinforce pre-debate opinions
- We view our social worlds through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes and values –> our beliefs and schemas shape our interpretation of everything
75
Q
Belief Perseverance
A
- Persistence of your initial conceptions, as when the basis for your belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives –> it is difficult to demolish a falsehood once the person conjures up a rationale for it
Anderson, Lepper, and Lee:
- Implanted a false belief, and then the participants were told to explain why its true, and then the researchers discredited the info by telling them it was fabricated
- The belief survived approx. 75% intact
- The more we examine our theories and explain how they might be true, the more closed we become to information that challenges our beliefs
76
Q
Constructing memories of ourselves and our worlds: Misinformation effect
A
- we construct memories at the time of withdrawal using our current feelings and expectations to combine fragments of information
- We can easily (though unconsciously) revise our memories to suit our current knowledge
- Misinformation effect- incorporating misinformation into one’s memory of an event, after witnessing an event and then receiving misleading information about it
- False memories look and feel like real ones and can be just as persuasive
- Imagining childhood events can lead individuals to recall the event actually happened, and this imagination inflation occurs partly because visualizing something activates similar areas in the brain as does actually experiencing it
- False confessions are an issue that misinformation can explain
- imagination inflation - active areas of brain for real and imagined memories are the same
- compliant (tired, worn down) v internalized (we actually believe it) confessions
77
Q
Constructing memories of ourselves and our worlds: Reconstructing Past Attitudes
A
- People whose attitudes have changed often insist that they have always felt much as they now feel
- The construction of positive memories brightens our recollections, and people often exhibit rosy retrospect- where they recall mildly pleasant events more favourably than they experienced them
- As our relationships change we also revise our recollections of other people (couples who break up view the partner negatively and couples who stayed together said it was love at first sight)
78
Q
Constructing memories of ourselves and our worlds: Reconstructing Past Behaviour
A
- Memory construction enables us to revise our own histories –> people recalling brushing their teeth more over the last 2 weeks after hearing out its benefits
- We tend to underreport bad behaviour and overreport good behaviour
- Sometimes our present view is that we’ve improved, in which case, we may misrecall our past as more unlike the present than it actually was
79
Q
Attribution Theory
A
- We analyze and discuss why things happen as they do, especially when we experience something negative or unexpected
- Men are more likely to attribute a woman’s friendliness to mild sexual interest which and can lead to behaviour women regard as harassment
- Misattribution is especially likely when men are in positions of power
- Attribution theory- the theory of how people explain the behaviour of others- for ex. by attributing it to either internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations
- Dispositional attribution- attributing behaviour to the person’s disposition and traits
- Situational attribution- attributing behaviour to the environment
-If we can make accurate attributions (the schemas we have ab other ppl), they can simplify our world by helping us to:
o Explain the causes of behaviour and outcomes
o Predict future behaviour
o Respond appropriately to social situations
80
Q
Inferring Traits
A
- We often infer that other people’s actions are indicative of their intentions and dispositions –> normal or expected behaviour tells us less about the person than does the behaviour that is unusual for situation
- Spontaneous trait inference- an effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone’s behaviour
81
Q
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
A
- Fundamental attribution error- the tendency for observers to underestimate situation influences and overestimate dispositional influences on other’s behaviour; aka correspondence bias bc we so often see behaviour as corresponding to disposition
- Even when people know they are causing someone else’s behaviour, they still underestimate external influences (thinking that someone who debates a topic agrees w it even when the side was assigned)
- We tend to presume that others are the way they act even when we don’t make the same presumptions about ourselves
- Intelligent and socially competent people are actually more likely to make attribution error
- Those with social power usually initiate and control conversations, and this often leads underlings to overestimate their knowledge and intelligence (e.g. ppl thinking doctors are experts in all questions unrelated to medicine)
82
Q
Why the FAE occurs: Actor-Observer difference
A
- We observe others from a different perspective than we observe ourselves (extension of FAE)
- We tend to take credit for our successes, but remove blame for our failure, and blame others for their failures but remove responsibility for their success (related to self-serving bias)
- The passage of time decreases the tendency toward the fundamental attribution error (i.e. less likely to attribute it to a person and more likely to situation after time passes)
- Because we are more acutely aware of how our behaviour varies with the situation, we see ourselves are more variable than other people
83
Q
Why the FAE occurs: Cultural differences
A
- Western worldview predisposes people to assume that people, not situations, cause events as internal explanations are more socially approved –> learn to explain behaviours in terms of other’s personal characteristics
- Eastern Asian cultures are more sensitive to the importance of situations, and are less inclined to assume that others’ behaviours correspond to their traits –> more leeway bc it is assumed that they do behaviours to maintain harmony in the society
- In collectivist cultures, people less often perceive others in terms of personal dispositions and are less likely to spontaneously interpret behaviour as reflecting an inner trait
- Dispositional attribution = more unsympathetic to the poor and unemployed, and situational attribution = tend to adopt political positions that offer more direct support to the poor
84
Q
Gilbert’s two state model of attribution
A
- If we see someone exhibit behaviour, system one will attribute it to dispositional factors (we start with S1)
- If we are motivated to think about the reasons for the behaviour, we are more inclined to attribute it to situational factors (S2)
- If we are not motivated to look for another reason, we will stick to our S1 attribution
88
Q
Fixed v Incramental Growth Mindsets
A
- Fixed = intelligence/ ability is innate –> we are good at some things and not others, and there’s nothing much we can do about it
- Growth = intelligence/ ability is developed –> you can get good if you try harder
Kids praised for their ability = fixed mindset –> less persistence, enjoyment, performance on other tasks
Kids praised for their efforts = growth mindset –> more persistence, enjoyment, performance on other tasks (praising children to embrace challenges)
111
Q
Cognitive Dissonance: Insufficient justification
A
- When participating in a boring experiment, those paid $20 said it was interesting but had sufficient reason for doing so (low dissonance), and those who were paid $1 didn’t have sufficient reasoning for saying that it was interesting, so they thought it might’ve actually been interesting (high dissonance)
- When external inducements are insufficient to justify our behaviour, we reduce dissonance by internally justifying the behaviour
- Attitudes-follow-behaviour effect was strongest when people felt some choice and when their actions had foreseeable consequences
- Attitudes follow behaviours for which we feel some responsibility
121
Q
Study testing the elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
A
- students heard a message about institutive comprehensive examinations at their University
- Independent variables:
- Argument strength (strong or weak)
- Personal relevance (next year or 10 years for now)
- Source expertise (local high school class or Princeton University Prof)
- High personal relevance = the source didn’t matter as much bc they weren’t paying attention to peripheral cues, but low personal relevance = large difference between favourability of message btwn the source
- High personal relevance = favourable attitudes when argument is strong but low personal relevance = gap of persuasion isn’t as large btwn strong and weak arguments
- Persuasion via peripheral processing is temporary, bc they don’t have good reasons to support their attitudes
- Persuasion via central argument is more resisting and enduring bc they have strong reasons in support
157
Q
Sherif’s Studies of norm formation
A
- example of informational/private conformity
- Autokinetic Phenomenon- the apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark
- Participants were exposed individually and asked how far the light had moved
- They were brought in again, in groups, and had their answers called out –> found that after successive days, participants estimates of the apparent movement of a point of light eventually converged
- One year later the estimates reflected the group consensus and not what the participant had initially guessed (no group pressure since it was a phone call, so they actually changed what they believed to be right)
- The amount the line moves is ambiguous, so they use the behaviour of other participants to make their estimates
- “Mood linkage” –> just being around happy people can make us feel happier
- “The chameleon effect” –> the subconscious automatic behavior synchronization; behavior influences our attitudes and emotions, so the natural tendency to mimic inclined this to feel what others feel
- Suggestibility causes mimicking of things like illness and suicide causing them to come in waves
- “the Werther Effect” –> imitative suicidal behavior; suicides, and fatal auto accidents and private airplane crashes increase after well publicized suicides
159
Q
Migrams obedience studies
A
- Occurred after WWII when people were trying to come to terms with the holocaust and dispositional attributions were pervasive
- Milgram was interested in conformity (had replicated the Asch study) but wanted to examine social influence when there were severe consequences
- Obedience- change in behaviour produced by the commands of authority
- In a study where the participant was told they were testing “punishment and learning” by giving the other participant a shock for each wrong answer; the participant (teacher) has to increase the shock intensity every wrong answer and the confederate (learner) makes pleas when the intensity increases but the researcher prompts the participant saying that they must continue
- Dependent variable is how far the participants go, when/do they quit, and how many go all the way
- They had a higher number of participants than expected who complied all the way up to the maximum voltage, and those who stopped did so at a higher voltage than predicted
- Even when the protests were more compelling (had a slight heart condition), 63% still complied and the results didn’t very much for women
- The only one of the prompts was really a “command” (you must continue), so argued that it wasn’t really a study of obedience
- Similar study repeated 10 years ago, and the results were similar
- *The Ethics of Milgram’s Studies:**
- Milgram was very disturbed by his studies, and psychologists were also disturbed by his studies
- Even though nobody received a shock, but the “teachers” and the participants were stressed against their will
170
Q
Summary of the classic studies of obedience
A
178
Q
Caldini’s studies of water conservation in hotels
A
The initial sign:
- Injunctive norm- we should conserve water and save our planet
- Descriptive norm- everyone else has their towel washed even when they don’t need to, so I’ll just do the same
- Environmental focus –> injunctive norm appealing to environmentalism (respect environment by reusing towel)
- Cooperative focus –> injunctive norm appealing to environmentalism as well as stating they will donate proceeds to an environmental non-profit (the best option for the environment)
- Descriptive norm –> saying 75% of guests were on board with saving water and reusing towels
- Shows the power of descriptive norms because it was the most effective
179
Q
When harnessing conformity for social good backfires
A
- Method: put norm information about power consumption on household power bills
- Descriptive: average household uses X, you are above/below the average user
- Injunctive: no face vs smiley/frowny face
- It is assumed that when you tell people where others stand, energy consumption should decrease
- Turns out it backfires for people doing good things bc it tells them they can loosen up and do more bad things –> below average users used more energy the next cycle, and with the injunctive info it was slightly minimized but it was still more than last bill
- Above average users used less power and with or without injunctive info didn’t affect much
182
Q
Social Facilitation: The Mere Presence of Others
A
- Mere presence means that the people are not competing, do not reward or punish, and in fact do nothing but be present as a passive audience, or as co-actors
- Triplett noticed cyclers ride faster when in a group
- It also improves performance and accuracy on simple motor tasks
- This is social facilitation- original: the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present; current: the strengthening of dominant (prevalent) responses owing to the presence of others
- Zajonc reasoned that arousal enhances whatever tendency is dominant –> arousal enhances performance on easy tasks for which the most likely response is correct, but promotes incorrect responding on complex tasks for which the correct answer is not dominant
- In study with cockroaches, their instinct is to go towards the dark (the exit of the maze) –>They were faster with an audience and a simple maze, but slower with an audience and complex maze
- Similar effects were seen with novice v expert pool players when a confederate was watching –> experts did better and novices did worse
- Athletes, actors, and musicians perform well-practiced skills, which helps explain why they perform best when energized by the responses of a supportive audience –> Olympians doing the best at home competitions (but home-field advantage only applies for good teams)
- The effects of other people depends on how well-learned you are in the task
185
Q
Social Loafing
A
- Ringelmann found that the collective effort of tug-of-war was half the sum of individual efforts –> contrary to “unity in strength” group members may be less motivated when performing additive tasks
- feedback and experience increases individual effort
- Social loafing- the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable
- In tug of war experiment, individuals exerted less force when in a group v alone (not bc of a lack of coordination)
- In social loafing experiments individuals believe they are being evaluated only when they act alone and the group situation decrease evaluation apprehension –> when people are not accountable and can’t evaluate their efforts responsibility is diffused across all group members
- When being observed increases evaluation concerns, social facilitation occurs; when being lost in a crowd decreases evaluation concerns, social loafing occurs with additive tasks where the contributions of many add together to progress toward a goal (group projects, household chores)
- To motivate group members one strategy is to make individual performance identifiable
188
Q
Reconciling social facilitation and social loafing
A
