Midterm 2

Question 1

Describe the timeline of The Self-Esteem Craze

Answer 1

• 1983 - The Rise of John Vasconcellos
• He suffered from Impostor Syndrome
• From meeting Carl Rogers, he became interested in self-esteem
• 1986 – Task Force (team of professors from the state of California) to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility
• 1990 – “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report released

Question 2

What did the 1990 “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report find?

Answer 2

• High SE correlates with:
• Happiness
• Productivity
• Success
• The State Budget (high SE balanced the state budget)
• Low SE correlates with:
• Crime
• Teen pregnancy
• Pollution
• “All of societies ills can be explained by an epidemic of low self-esteem”

Question 3

Describe the Self-Esteem Movement

Answer 3

• Explosion of interest in raising people’s self-esteem
• Self-help books
• A lot of this is thanks to Vasconcellos
• However, people started pointing at the possibility that the claim that self-esteem is this end all be all is a bit ridiculous

Question 4

What were the methodological issues that Roy Baumeister found in the 1990 “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report?

Answer 4

1) Measuring self-esteem
2) Correlation vs causation
3) Conflicting Research
4) Researcher bias
* Baumeister was very concerned with the methodology used in this report
* Baumeister wrote about this in his “Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth” write-up

Question 5

Describe the methodological issue of measuring self-esteem that Roy Baumeister identified in the 1990 “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report

Answer 5

• Initial critique was the issue of measuring self-esteem
• Lots of different scales, definitions, and types of self-esteem
• “Many scales are available for measuring self-esteem, and different investigations have used different ones, which compounds the difficulty of comparing results from different investigations (especially if the results are inconsistent). Blascovich and Tomaka (1991) reviewed multiple measures and found them of uneven quality, giving high marks to only a few (such as Fleming & Courtney’s, 1984, revision of Janis & Field’s, 1959, scale, and Rosenberg’s, 1965, global self-esteem measure)” - Baumeister (2003)

Question 6

How does William James define self-esteem?

Answer 6

• William James a long time ago provided a good definition
• “Our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities; a fraction of which our pretensions are the denominator and the numerator our success”
• Self-esteem = Success / Pretensions
• “Such a fraction may be increased as well by diminishing the denominator as by increasing the numerator”

Question 7

What are the types of self-esteem?

Answer 7

1) State vs Trait:
* State self-esteem: current feelings about the self
* Trait self-esteem: typical level of self-esteem across situations (more personality or dispositional self-esteem)
2) Global vs Specific:
* Global self-esteem: how the individual values the self generally
* Specific self-esteem: self-evaluation in specific areas of life that fluctuates
3) Implicit vs Explicit:
* Implicit self-esteem: unconscious evaluations of the self (unfakeable - not a lot of studies on this)
* Explicit self-esteem: conscious evaluations of the self

Question 8

Describe Individual Differences in Self-Esteem (High vs Low Trait Self-Esteem)

Answer 8

• High Trait Self-Esteem:
• Use confidence-building strategies
• Strive to stand out in social situations
• Low Trait Self-Esteem:
• Use protective self-presentation
• Seek to fit in
• High on rejection-sensitivity
• One study on low self-esteem individuals in relationships found that if you gave them abstract feedback vs specific feedback, they were more likely to prefer abstract feedback

Question 9

Describe SE in terms of development

Answer 9

• Little differences in SE before the age of 8 (Harter et al., 2006)
• Following adolescence, SE gradually rises and peaks ~60 before declining ~70 (Robins et al., 2002)

Question 10

Why do some people have high vs low SE?

Answer 10

• Individual differences in SE relate to interpersonal strategies
• Most people are pretty solid in their SE
• Midlife is when you’re pretty solidified in your social roles
• 60 is when your social life and other aspects of your life start to erode
• Orth (2018) longitudinal study from ages 8-27
• Main findings: quality of home environment at age 8 seemed to be important (ex: quality of parenting, cognitive stimulation, physical home environment)
• This seemed to predict SE up until the age of 27 and beyond

Question 11

Describe the course of self-esteem throughout life

Answer 11

• SE is highest in children between 9-12 and ~60 yr old adults
• Then dramatically decreases from 12-20
• Then slowly goes up until ~60 where it then dramatically goes down until death
• Women generally have lower levels of SE than men throughout development

Question 12

Describe the methodological issue of Correlation vs Causation that Roy Baumeister identified in the 1990 “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report

Answer 12

• Is self-esteem reliably causing certain outcomes?
• Or is self-esteem simply correlated with some outcomes?
• What are the antecedents of self-esteem?
• We need a theory of self-esteem to explore these questions (ex: Self-Verification Theory, Dominance Theory, Terror Management Theory or Sociometer Theory)

Question 13

Describe the Self-Verification Theory of Self-Esteem

Answer 13

Functions to confirm whether we’re aligning with how we see ourselves

Question 14

Describe the Dominance Theory of Self-Esteem

Answer 14

• Functions to signal dominance and status in a social group and to measure our status
• Evidence shows that not everyone uses this

Question 15

Describe the Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem

Answer 15

Acts as an existential buffer to death and suffering

Question 16

Describe the Sociometer Theory of Self-Esteem

Answer 16

• Fundamental desire is to be accepted and belong to groups
• SE is a measure of our ‘relational value’
• SE is not a need but rather the output of a system that monitors and responds to events through acceptance/rejection

Question 17

Hierometer vs sociometer theory

Answer 17

• Hierometer theory: status is tracked by (indicative function) self-esteem and narcissism which regulate (imperative function) assertiveness to match status
• Sociometer theory: inclusion tracked by (indicative function) self-esteem regulates (imperative function) affiliativeness to avoid exclusion

Question 18

Describe Leary (1995) study on acceptance vs rejection with sociometer theory

Answer 18

• Does acceptance and rejection impact state self-esteem?
• Groups of 5 completed self-description questionnaires with other participants
• Ps then received bogus feedback that they had either been assigned to work with others or work alone
• Told assignment was either based on preferences of others or a random procedure
• Findings:
• Not being chosen for the group significantly lowered state self-esteem, whereas being excluded for a random reason had no effect
• A 2009 meta-analysis found rejection resulted in lower self-esteem (effect size of .30)

Question 19

Describe Leary et al. (1998) study on sociometer sensitivity

Answer 19

• How does SE respond to a wider range of feedback beyond rejection and acceptance?
• Sociometer is best at detecting subtle differences in treatment
• When people received neutral or rejection feedback, self-esteem stayed low

Question 20

Describe Leary et al. (2003) study on social influence

Answer 20

• Do some people have SE that is immune to social influence?
• Findings suggest no

Question 21

Describe Leary & McDonald (2003) study on trait self-esteem

Answer 21

• Does trait self-esteem also reflects people’s perceived relational value?
• Yes, trait self-esteem correlates highly with people’s perceptions of the degree to which they are valued, accepted, and supported by others

Question 22

Describe the different claims establishing directionality in the 1990 “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report

Answer 22

1) High SE makes people physically attractive
* Diener & Wolsic (1995) found no significant correlation between ratings of attractiveness and SE, but self-reported physical attractiveness was strongly related to SE
2) High SE leads to improved academic performance
* Skaalvik and Hagtvet (1990) found that doing well in school one year led to higher SE the next year, whereas high SE did not lead to performing well in school
* High global self-esteem in grade 6 predicted lower academic achievement in grade 7
* SE doesn’t seem to be a strong measure since we’re getting these mixed findings
3) High SE improves job performance
* Weak positive correlations between job performance and SE
* If High SE consistently improved performance in lab tasks, this would be easy to demonstrate
4) High SE results in social success
* “The evidence suggests that the superior social skills and interpersonal successes of people with high SE exist mainly in their own minds. People with high SE claim to be more popular and socially skilled than others, but objective measures generally fail to confirm this and in some cases point in the opposite direction.”
(Baumeister, 2003)
* There’s quite a lot of studies that indicate that high SE individuals can sometimes be jerks in social situations because they have blinders on during their interactions and this can impact how people feel when interacting with them and erode relationships
* One exception: social initiative -> the tendency to initiate interpersonal contact
* Buhrmester et al (1988) found high SE predicts speaking up and taking social initiative
* These were found to not generally be reliable as findings

Question 23

Describe the methodological issue of conflicting research that Roy Baumeister identified in the 1990 “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report

Answer 23

• The Dark Side of SE
• SE and aggression, narcissism, social problems
• Contingencies of self-worth

Question 24

Describe the Dark Side of Self-Esteem

Answer 24

• Theory that low SE leads to aggression and hostility
• BUT troubling link between high SE and aggression in past research
• AND low SE individuals are less likely to take risks and stand out
• ALSO unable to find any book or article that supports theory that low SE leads to aggression

Question 25

Describe Aggression and High Self-Esteem

Answer 25

1) Criminals
* Consistent findings suggest strong relationship between assaults and ego-threats
* High (but unstable) SE reliably predicts violent offenses (through ego threats)
* “Violence is produced by a combination of favorable self-appraisals with
situational and other factors”
2) Group differences
* Men have higher SE and are more violent than women
* Depressed people have low SE and are less violent than control
* “Inflated favorable views of self” exhibited a high rate of antisocial behaviour (ex: unmitigated agency or lack of regard for others) (Colvin, Block, and Funder 1995)

Question 26

Describe Narcissism and Self-Esteem

Answer 26

• High SE becomes an all-encompassing need
• Grandiosity and sense of entitlement
• Pursued through achieving power and status
• Often linked to social problems
• Ex: “Unmitigated agency” (agency with little concern for communion and strong emphasis on goals of power and status) – David Bakan
• Ex: Hostility, aggression, mood swings
• Grandiose vs Vulnerable (Pierro, Mattavelli & Gallucci, 2016):
• Found positive association between grandiose narcissism (NG) and explicit self-esteem
• Found negative association between vulnerable narcissism (NV) and explicit self-esteem
• Found no correlation between NG/NV and implicit self-esteem
• Idea that narcissism is people with low SE just masking it

Question 27

Describe the mixed results found in Self-Esteem research

Answer 27

• Extreme social outcomes involved in high and low SE
• High SE predicts both perpetrators of bullying and those who stand up to bullies (Salmivalli et al., 1999)
• High SE predicted those most-likely and least-likely to cheat (Lobel and Levanon., 1988)
• “Although further research is needed, one impression that emerges from this data is that self-esteem simply intensifies both prosocial and antisocial tendencies”
  (Baumeister, 2003)
• High SE may enhance our social tendencies (both prosocial and antisocial)
• SE enhancement programs could risk negative outcomes because even if there’s a directional relationship we don’t know if that’s positive or negative

Question 28

Describe contingencies of self-worth/self-esteem

Answer 28

• People tie self-esteem to success in specific domains (external things that they don’t have control over)
• Where they ‘stake’ their self-worth
• Ex: academic, relational, physical
• Motivational trade-off:
• Increased drive but higher emotional vulnerability
• Focus on ‘proving oneself’ can undermine learning and relationships (ex: inability to focus on the present and instead always thinking about the next move)
• Ex: contingencies of self-worth in academic success (adolescents are particularly vulnerable)
• Impact of contingencies: adolescents are vulnerable to contingencies of self-worth
• SE tied to specific domains relates to fluctuations and vulnerability to stressors

Question 29

Describe Burwell & Shirk (2006) study on contingencies of self-worth in adolescence

Answer 29

• Ps self-reported on the extent of their self-worth across 4 domains
• Found higher reliance on external validation predicts future depressive symptoms
• Diathesis of social domain contingencies + social stressors predicting depressive symptoms

Question 30

Describe the methodological issue of researcher bias that Roy Baumeister identified in the 1990 “Toward A State Of Self-Esteem” Report

Answer 30

• Vasconcellos had his political career tied to his theory that increasing self-esteem will improve society as captured in this quote that was put out in the media quite often:
• Task Force: “The correlational findings are very positive and compelling…”
• But if you continue reading the book, you find this quote: ”…the association between self-esteem and its expected consequences are mixed, insignificant or absent”
• Seems like the task force was also aware of how muddy these findings were
• Full audio recording September 1988 Task Force meeting: “These correlational findings are really pretty positive, pretty compelling…In other areas, the correlations don’t seem to be so great, and we’re not quite sure why. And we’re not sure, when we have correlations, what the causes might be”
• This is very ambiguous and hopeless
• Andrew Mecca was another politician involved in the report and when presented with mixed findings, he stated: “I didn’t care…I thought it was beyond science. It was a leap of faith. And I think only a blind idiot wouldn’t believe that self-esteem isn’t central to one’s character and health and vitality.”
• Overall data in study was misinterpreted and greatly exaggerated to fit researcher expectations

Question 31

In Baumeister’s review, how does he describe self-esteem?

Answer 31

• Benefits of high SE:
• Initiative (can motivate people a bit more)
• Feeling good
• Limits of high SE:
• Potential link to violence and aggression
• May be an outcome rather than antecedent
• Does not necessarily correlate with success

Question 32

Fragile vs Stable Self-Esteem

Answer 32

• Fragile:
• Can be high but fluctuates
• Attached to contingent domains
• Ex: criminals and offenders
• Stable:
• Trying to increase your awareness and understanding of yourself
• Why this was probably more impactful for adolescents
• Rarely fluctuates
• Stable low SE associated with low SCC (Campbell et al.,1996)
• Stable high SE associated with high SCC (Kernis, Paradise, et al., 2000)
• “Individuals with stable high self-esteem are the masters of their psychological domain”
• ”Healthy Self-Esteem”

Question 33

Describe optimal self-esteem

Answer 33

• Kernis
• Distinct from high SE
• SE that’s derived from a sense of authenticity
• Authenticity: awareness, unbiased processing, action, and relation
• Relates optimal SE to authenticity
• ”Non-contingent self-esteem”:
• Richard Ryan writes about non-contingent self-esteem
• Self-as-process (self as dynamic) vs self-as-object
• Tapping into self-as-process could result in more optimal SE
• SE is not salient -> the less salient your SE is, the more you’re experiencing positive outcomes
• Successes and failures do not implicate self-worth
• Paths to Optimal Self-Esteem:
• Mindfulness
• Flow activities
• Increased SCC

Question 34

What’s self-integrity?

Answer 34

• The perception of oneself as morally and adaptively good
• We all have a need for self-integrity and to maintain adequate self-esteem

Question 35

What’s a psychological threat?

Answer 35

• The perception of an environmental challenge to one’s self-integrity
• Ex: getting a bad grade or a bad performance review at work, failing to achieve other important goals (ex: sports related), health scares or medical conditions (especially if a result of our negative habits), conflict with partner or friend or rejection, parents being embarrassing, favourite sports team losing, intergroup conflict
• Many things can be a threat to our self-integrity

Question 36

What are defensive reactions to psychological threats?

Answer 36

• Negative, hostile, or distorted reaction to anything bad about the self to protect self-integrity
• We often engage in all sorts of defensive reactions
• Examples:
• Denial and minimization
• Compensatory conviction (doubling down on beliefs or behaviours to defend identity)
• Symbolic self-completion
• Self-serving bias
• Blaming others
• Rationalization (justifying actions to make them seem more acceptable)
• Avoidance
• Aggression

Question 37

Describe the function of Defensive Reactions

Answer 37

• Benefit: allow us to maintain positive self-views and restore self-integrity
• Limitations: get in the way of learning from the challenge/setback
• Sometimes we get feedback that’s useful

Question 38

Describe Self-Affirmation Theory

Answer 38

• We’re motivated to maintain self-integrity, thus when this integrity is threatened, we’re motivated to repair it
• We can repair self-integrity by engaging in self-affirmation (an act that demonstrates one’s adequacy)
• Key principles:
  1) We’re motivated to maintain overall, global self-integrity (in any one specific domain or any one particular self-aspect) rather than integrity in a specific domain
• Means that self-integrity is flexible and we can affirm a role or identity in a domain unrelated to the threat to repair self-integrity
• This idea is very similar to self-complexity
• If people are very low in this, threats to an area of their life will have a much more meaningful and negative impact in their self-esteem, as compared to people with high self-complexity
  2) Our motive is to be “good enough”, rather than excellent/superior
• Self-affirmation needs to only foster a sense of adequacy in a personally
  valued domain, not a perception of overall excellence
  3) Self-integrity is maintained/restored by demonstrating integrity through meaningful acts or reminders of such acts
• Praising oneself in the absence of “evidence” will not work (empty self-affirmation)

Question 39

What are some examples of different domains that can contribute to one’s global self-integrity?

Answer 39

• Roles (ex: student, parent)
• Values (ex: humour, religion)
• Group identities (ex: race, culture, nation)
• Central beliefs (ex: ideology, political beliefs)
• Goals (ex: health, academic success)
• Relationships (ex: family, friends)

Question 40

What are some examples of self-affirmations?

Answer 40

• Accomplishments that lead to praise (ex: an award)
• Engaging in meaningful activities (ex: taking care of pet)
• Reflecting on personal values and strengths (most often used in research settings -> Ps are asked to identify and write an essay about important values)
• Examples of core values: leadership, generosity, excellence, simplicity, creativity, community, wisdom, harmony

Question 41

Self-Affirmation vs Symbolic Self-Completion

Answer 41

• Both symbolic self-completion and self-affirmation help people cope with self-threats:
• Symbolic self-completion: engaging in activities that will bolster the specific self-aspect that was threatened (“complete” the threatened identity)
• Usually defensive and involves superficial signals to prove the threatened self-aspect
• More likely if the threatened domain is central to self-concept
• Self-affirmation: we compensate for threats to the self by engaging in
  activities that will bolster our global sense of self-integrity
• More likely if the threatened domain is less central
• If a person is not getting the feedback that they want of themselves (ex: feedback that’s threatening), self-affirmation can help
• Self-affirmation can reduce the need for symbolic self-completion

Question 42

Why is Self-Affirmation Helpful?

Answer 42

• Self-affirmation lifts barriers to learning from threat by:
• Buffering against threat (self-affirmations reassure people that they have integrity and help them to see themselves in a broader way)
• Reducing defensiveness and actually confronting the feedback in the threat and learning from it

Question 43

What are 3 examples of the effects of Self-Affirmation?

Answer 43

1. Stereotype threat in education
   * Self-affirmation can improve minority students’ academic outcomes
2. Prejudice as a reaction to self-threat
   * Self-affirmation reduces stereotyping of outgroup members
3. Mortality salience and worldview protection
   * Self-affirmation eliminates defensive worldview protection when confronted with own mortality

Question 44

Describe Stereotype Threat

Answer 44

• When individuals fear that they will confirm a negative stereotype about their social group, which leads to increased anxiety, reduced performance, and disengagement/withdrawal from the domain
• Helps explain why students from minority groups show an achievement gap compared to students from majority groups
• Ex: Research shows that when race is emphasized before a test, minority students perform worse than when race is not mentioned

Question 45

Describe Sherman et al. (2013) study on Self-Affirmation Educational Interventions

Answer 45

• Can self-affirmation reduce the achievement gap of minority students by reducing stereotype threat?
• Method: Longitudinal study in White and Latino middle school students
• Examining the academic performance of these students
• Completed experimental manipulation 4x over the school year before a test
• Experimental manipulation (randomly assigned to 2 groups):
• Self-affirmation group: write about a particular value that is most important to you
• Control group: write about why a particular value that is not important to you may be important to someone else
• Monitored GPAs
• Results: Self-affirmation (vs. control) improved the GPA of minority students but not White students, thus closing the achievement gap
• White Ps regardless of being in the affirmation or control condition didn’t have a significant impact on their GPA performance
• Closed the achievement gap by 22% in this study
• Follow-up study showed that the benefits of the self-affirmation intervention persisted after 2 years
• Suggests that self-affirmations can improve the academic performance of minority students
• Replicated these findings with several other racial groups and women in STEM

Question 46

Describe the longevity of affirmation

Answer 46

Self-affirmation can create long lasting positive change by setting off a positive feedback loop between self-perceptions, positive outcomes, and the social environment

Question 47

Describe the Self-Affirming Feedback Loop

Answer 47

1. Self-affirmation leads to better GPA
2. Better GPA reinforces self-integrity
3. Because the students got a better GPA, teachers expect more of them in a good way
4. Higher expectations draw out better performance
5. Others reinforce self-integrity through positive feedback
6. The student alters the social world in ways other than through better outcomes, like asking for help and selecting challenging courses

Question 48

Describe Prejudice as a Reaction to Self-Threat

Answer 48

• Threats to the self may lead people to endorse prejudicial attitudes in an attempt to restore self-integrity
• When a person feels bad about themselves, denigrating an outgroup can make them feel better about themselves
• “Hurt people hurt people”
• Hypothesis: Providing people with another way to self-affirm should reduce prejudicial attitudes

Question 49

Describe Fein & Spencer (1997) study on Prejudice as a Reaction to Self-Threat

Answer 49

• Method: Ps told they would complete 2-part study
• Part 1: Intelligence test
• Experimental manipulation:
• Threat to self: negative feedback
• No threat: positive feedback
• Assessed state self-esteem
• Part 2: “How employees evaluate candidates in hiring process”
• Evaluated job candidate based on work experience, academic record, skills, photo
• Experimental manipulation:
• Some Ps led to believe the candidate is Jewish
• Others led to believe the candidate is Italian
• Rate how favourably they viewed the candidate
• Re-assessed state self-esteem
• Results:
• Threat to self led to prejudicial attitude against outgroup member (Jewish
  candidate) and subsequent increase in self-esteem
• Difference in the group of participants that got the negative feedback
• Elicited negative prejudice to Jewish candidate which would be considered as part of a minority group on the campus
• Those who got the negative feedback and gave a negative/prejudiced evaluation of jewish candidate experienced an increase in their self-esteem
• Threat to self led to prejudicial attitudes which increased self-esteem
• Suggests that prejudice partly stems from a desire to restore a threatened self-integrity

Question 50

Describe Fein & Spencer (1997) study on self-affirmation and Prejudice as a Reaction to Self-Threat

Answer 50

• Method: Ps told they would complete 2-part study
• Part 1: All participants threatened with negative feedback on intelligence test
• Experimental manipulation:
• Self-affirmation: Write about a particular value that is most important to you
• Control: Write about why a particular value that is not important to you may be important to someone else
• Part 2: “How employees evaluate candidates in hiring process” (same as their other study)
• Findings: self-affirmation eliminated prejudicial attitudes

Question 51

Describe Terror Management Theory

Answer 51

• We’re all born in this existential conundrum: we all want to stay alive and all have knowledge that we’re all going to die someday
• Awareness that we will die some day creates terror and existential dread
• To manage this terror, we cling to our cultural worldviews, self-esteem, and close relationships
• Allow us to see ourselves as a person of value living in a meaningful world
• Allow us to symbolically live forever
• Ex: if a person is part of a culture and they die but the culture continues, then their spirit continues to live on in this way

Question 52

Describe the effects of mortality salience

Answer 52

• Mortality salience, being reminded of one’s mortality, leads to worldview protection (cling to cultural worldviews):
• More negative evaluations of people that criticize culture and more positive evaluations of people that praise it
• More ingroup bias
• More aggression towards those that have a different worldview
• Greater support for violent solutions to ethnic, religious, and international conflicts
• Preference for less risky activities
• Giving people reminders of their death which is seen as threatening leads us to behave in ways that are more rigid, dogmatic and prejudiced
• There has been lots of research examining this

Question 53

Describe Schmeichel & Martens (2005) study on whether self-affirmation eliminates negative effects of mortality salience?

Answer 53

• Method: recruited American university students as participants
• Mortality salience manipulation:
• Mortality salience: Answered questions about own death
• Control: Answered questions about dental pain
• Affirmation manipulation:
• Self-affirmation: Wrote about an important value
• No affirmation: Wrote about less important value
• Read and evaluated anti-American essay
• Findings:
• People who got the mortality salience condition rated this anti-American essay less favourably
• Basic terror management effect: when people’s death is made salient to them, they engage in worldview protection
• Self-affirmation eliminated typical terror management defense strategy of derogating people that don’t share worldview
• Suggesting that people became perhaps much more open and listen to potential criticisms

Question 54

What’s Narrative Identity?

Answer 54

• A person’s internalized and evolving life story
• Has many of the same elements as other narratives:
• Beginning, middle, and imagined end (imagined future of how we think our life is going to go in the next few chapters and phases of our life)
• Major events that determine plot
• Heroes and villains
• Not perfectly accurate, instead based on a selective and biased reconstruction of the past and imagined future
• No one can possibly remember every single moment of their life
• Narrative identity is deeply personal and highly subjective
• “We’re more like novelists, than secretaries”
• A work-in-progress: constantly shifting as we experience new situations
• Made up of multiple life stories that make up our core/general life story and may be contradictory
• Level 1: generalized life story
• Level 2: contextualized life stories (ex: life story as student) that make up the general life story

Question 55

Describe the functions of narrative identity

Answer 55

1) Provides continuity and unity of the self: organizes the self in time by connecting the past, present, and future self
* But total unity is not possible due to selective, biased reconstruction, new experiences, and contradictory life events
* Rather, we do our best to unify our life, even if these efforts are incomplete and fallible
2) Meaning and purpose: a way to make sense of the events of one’s life
* Ex: how did a person come to be who they are today?
* People interpret similar events differently to fit their evolving narrative identity -> how people can be forming different narrative identities
* 2 people having totally different interpretations of similar events and a 3rd person might not even remember this event at all and it may not be anything that’s key or relevant to them and their lives

Question 56

Describe the relation of the narrative identity to James’ Self

Answer 56

• We are each the storyteller/author writing the narrative of our lives
• Storyteller = I
• Narrative (the story we’re telling, the product of the story time) = me

Question 57

Describe the Development of Narrative Identity

Answer 57

• Identity development begins in adolescence
• Narrative identity doesn’t come online until we’re teenagers
• This was first articulated by Eric Erikson:
• 8 stages of life which consist of conflicts that need to be resolved
• Stage of adolescence is where we see this question of identity popping up
• Identity development begins in adolescence due to:
• Societal expectations about forming an identity and figuring out who one is
• Improvements in cognitive development
• Not until we’re adolescents that we have causal coherence: the ability to craft a causal narrative wherein events link together
• Ex: there was a snowstorm and because of snowstorm there’s a lot of cars on the road, and because of this there’s lots of traffic and because of this I’m late
• Causal coherence is necessary and fundamental for the construction of autobiographical narratives

Question 58

Describe how Narrative Identity is Fundamentally Social

Answer 58

• Parents shape narrative skills in children
• Parents who use elaborated conversation style, focusing on causes in personal stories and underscoring emotion, tend to have kids who develop strong self-storytelling skills
• As adults, our life narratives are edited and reinterpreted by talking with others
• People are more likely to hold onto a personal story and to incorporate it into their more general understanding of who they are when important people in their life agree with the interpretation the story
• The most important editors in our lives are the people who are closest to us

Question 59

Describe the Life Story Interview

Answer 59

• Researchers conducting life story interviews
• Ps are interviewed for 2-3 hrs about the story of their life
• “Think about your life as if it were a book or novel. Imagine that the book has a table of contents containing the titles of the main chapters in the story. Give a brief plot summary of your story, going chapter by chapter.”
• Provide a more detailed account of a few key scenes that stand out in the story (talk more about what that was, how they felt, how it impacted them):
• High point
• Low-point
• Turning-point
• Childhood memories
• The next chapter in life
• Stories are then coded for themes
• Several Ps find this experience so meaningful and so engaging to tell the stories of their lives and find it so rewarding and enriching that they refuse payment

Question 60

What are the common themes coded in people’s life stories?

Answer 60

• Agency
• Communion
• Redemption
• Contamination
• Coherence

Question 61

Describe the theme of agency

Answer 61

• The degree to which a person is able to affect change in their own lives or influence others in their environment, through demonstrations of self-mastery, empowerment, achievement, or status
• Highly agentic stories focus on accomplishment and the ability to control one’s fate
• Ex: “I challenge myself to the limit academically, physically, and on my job. Since that time [of my divorce], I have accomplished virtually any goal I set for myself.”

Question 62

Describe the theme of communion

Answer 62

• The degree to which someone demonstrates or experiences interpersonal connection through love, friendship, dialogue, or connection to a broad collective
• High communion stories emphasize intimacy, caring, and belongingness
• Ex: “I was warm, surrounded by friends and positive regard that night. I felt unconditionally loved.”

Question 63

Describe the theme of redemption

Answer 63

• Scenes in which a “bad” event leads to a clearly “good” or emotionally positive outcome
• The initial negative state is “redeemed” or salvaged by the good that follows
• Tends to frame the negative event as necessary for growth
• Ex: the narrator describes the death of her father as reinvigorating closer emotional ties to her other family members

Question 64

Describe the theme of contamination

Answer 64

• Scenes in which a positive event turns bad, such that the negative affect overwhelms or erases the effects of the preceding positivity
• Ex: the narrator is excited for a promotion at work but learns it came at the expense of his friend being fired

Question 65

Describe the theme of coherence

Answer 65

• Narratives with clear causal sequencing, thematic integrity, and appropriate integration of emotional responses
• Narrative stories can vary in levels of coherence
• Ex: Participant describes how being attacked by a dog as a child has led to his anxiety around letting his children adopt a pet

Question 66

What do life stories reveal about people?

Answer 66

• Continuity and change in life stories
• Associations with personality
• Links with well-being

Question 67

Describe McAdams et al. (2006) study on Continuity and Change in life stories

Answer 67

• 3 year longitudinal study asked university students to recall 10 key scenes from their life on 3 different occasions (baseline, 3 months later, and 3 years later)
• Evidence for continuity:
• Across the 3 time points, there were consistencies in the level of narrative complexity, agency, and positive emotional tone in the stories
• Evidence for change:
• Only 28% of memories described at T1 were repeated 3 months later (T2) and only 22% of the original memories were described 3 years later (T3)
• At the end of the study (T3), young adults constructed stories that were more positive, emotionally nuanced, and showed greater personal understanding compared to the stories at T1
• They were coming up with largely different memories just 3 months later when asked about turning points, low points, or high points
• Shows that how we narrate our lives changes as time goes on
• What’s meaningful now might not be as meaningful later on

Question 68

Describe Baddeley & Singer (2006) and Singer et al. (2007) findings on life stories over the lifespan

Answer 68

• Compared to younger adults, older adults tend to construct life stories that are:
• More complex and coherent (consistent with SCC findings where SCC gets higher as people reach middle age)
• More positive in emotional tone
• More summarized and less detailed
• Suggests that as we get older, our life story becomes “warmer, fuzzier” and more integrated/meaningful

Question 69

Describe Narrative Identity and Personality

Answer 69

• McAdams & Pals’ (2006) 3-part model of personality
• At its most basic level: personality traits
• Broad individual differences
• Ex: The Big Five
• Account for consistency in behaviour
• Then characteristic adaptations
• Values, goals, personal projects, defences (ex: avoidance)
• Capture more socially contextualized and motivational aspects of individuality
• At the highest level: narrative identity
• Internalized and evolving life stories
• Tell what a person’s life means in time

Question 70

Describe the links between personality traits and life stories

Answer 70

• High neuroticism is associated with stories characterized by:
• High negative emotion
• Low positive emotion
• Less growth
• More contamination sequences
• High agreeableness is associated with stories characterized by:
• High communion
• Openness to experience is associated with stories characterized by:
• More complex, containing multiple plots
• High coherence

Question 71

Describe the links between motives and life stories

Answer 71

• High power motivation associated with life stories that:
• Emphasize agentic themes
• Use an analytic and differentiated narrative style (focusing on differences, separation, opposition)
• High intimacy motivation associated with life stories that:
• Emphasize communal themes
• Use a holistic and integrated narrative style (focusing on similarities and connections between different life story scenes)

Question 72

What are the implications of the links between development, personality and motives with life stories?

Answer 72

• Different kinds of people construct different kinds of stories
• Links between personality, goals, values and life stories
• Correlation, not causation
• Direction of the personality-life story link is unclear

Question 73

Describe Narrating Suffering and Growth

Answer 73

• Those who are resilient in the face of life challenges tend to engage in a 2-step process of meaning making:
  1) Exploring the negative experience in depth
  2) Committing self to a positive resolution
• More redemption sequences and focus on personal growth are associated with higher well- being
• Moving on to step 2 is important because staying stuck on step 1 can lead to rumination
• Only going to step 2 is often an example of emotional avoidance
• Both are important
• People who are depressed tend to create life stories with themes of contamination (they may be engaging in step 1 more than step 2 or not engaging in step 2 at all)

Question 74

Describe psychotherapy and life stories

Answer 74

• Psychotherapy is a prime arena for creating and challenging life stories
• Theme of personal agency in life story appears to be one of the most/the most important predictor of therapeutic efficacy/change
• In studies of former psychotherapy patients, those who report current higher levels of well-being tend to narrate heroic stories in which they bravely battled their symptoms
• In a prospective study, increases in themes of agency in narratives preceded and predicted improvements in mental health
• Important therapeutic marker for change

Question 75

Describe The Redemptive Self

Answer 75

• Highly generative midlife adults tend to see their own lives as stories of redemption
• Type of narrative story that tends to be very common in Americans
• Generative: people with a strong commitment to promoting the well-being of future generations and improving the world they live in
• Consistently demonstrates 5 features

Question 76

What are the 5 Life Story Themes of the Redemptive Self?

Answer 76

1. Early advantage (EA): The narrator indicates that they have experienced an advantage or distinction (physical, material, psychological, social) that singles them out for special positive attention
2. Sensitivity to the suffering of others (SS): The narrator expresses sympathy for the problems of other people or societal injustice as a child
3. Moral steadfastness (MS): The narrator emphasizes strong value system which motivates behavior. The values are central to their identity and unshakeable
4. Redemption sequences (RS): The narrator describes a movement from demonstrably negative situation to a positive outcome
5. Pro-social goals (PG): The narrator sets goals that involve contributing to the well-being of others beyond one’s own family

Question 77

Describe McAdams & Guo (2015) study on the Correlates of the Redemptive Self

Answer 77

• Examined the life stories of 157 midlife adults
• Also completed self-report measures of generativity, psychological well-being, and depression
• Found statistically significant positive correlations between the different Life Story Themes of the Redemptive Self and generativity and psychological wellbeing
• Found no significant associations with symptoms of depression, except for negative correlation with early life adversity

Question 78

Why is the life story of redemption a good story and so common?

Answer 78

• Sets up a moral challenge that encourages the person to help the next generation (very motivating)
• “I am blessed, but others suffer”
• Redemption sustains hope in the face of challenges and setbacks (helps us remain optimistic)
• Culturally valued:
• Pervasiveness of the redemptive self suggests that it’s an American cultural prototype of “the good life”
• People use this prototype to make sense of their life
• The American dream is that regardless of what kind of circumstances you’re born into, you can be anyone you want to be -> upward mobility

Question 79

Describe Culture and the Narrative Self

Answer 79

• We construct our narrative identities according to the norms and scripts present in our culture
• Culture tells us what events are meaningful, what’s a “tellable” story, and provide a blueprint for how to make sense of events
• Ex: life milestones = post-secondary education, job, moving out of parent’s house, get married, have kids

Question 80

Describe Cultural Differences in Life Stories

Answer 80

• Cultural differences in the types of memories that come up in narratives
• North American (vs East Asian) adults tend to:
• Report earlier age of first memory
• Have more detailed memories of childhood
• Have memories more focused on own personal experiences and emotions
• Chinese adults recall more social/historical events and memories place greater emphasis on social interactions and loved ones
• Differences in memories reflect cultural differences in prioritization of the individual vs the collective
• Memories of North American adults are much more individualistic
• Memories of Chinese adults are much more collectivistic

Question 81

What’s self-regulation?

Answer 81

• The self’s ability to alter its own responses, including thoughts, emotions, impulses, and behaviours based on standards
• Standards: ideas about how something should or shouldn’t be
• Might be personal standards or someone else’s standards
• Could also be moral standards
• “Self-regulation” is often used interchangeably with “self-control”

Question 82

Describe the Self-Control Dilemma

Answer 82

• Conflict between an immediate urge/desire vs a higher order standard/goal (ex: temptation)
• Research suggests that people spend about 5-6
  hrs per day resisting desires and urges
• Good self-regulation often involves successfully resolving self-control dilemmas (ex: over-riding the immediate urge in favor of the standard/goal)
• We know we’re exercising self-regulation/self-control when we’re presented with the self-control dilemma

Question 83

Describe Mischel’s Marshmallow Test

Answer 83

• Classic study of self-regulation
• One of the earliest and most well-known studies into self-regulation
• One of the first measures of self-regulation, specifically testing children’s ability to delay gratification
• This is difficult and challenging
• What are the kids doing to try to manage the self-control dilemma that’s in front of them
• It looks like they’re really struggling
• Some are doing a better job than others of not even having a tiny taste of this marshmallow
• There are individual differences in the way these children can navigate this
• Study showed that:
• Delaying gratification is difficult
• Successful delay of gratification in children depended on the implementation of self-regulation strategies:
• Cognitive strategies (ex: imagining the marshmallow as something else (ex: a cloud) rather than focusing on how yummy it is)
• Distraction (ex: making sounds to distract themselves)
• Not looking at the marshmallow

Question 84

Describe Mischel et al. (1988) follow-up on Marshmallow Test

Answer 84

• Mischel and colleagues used children’s ability to delay gratification at age 4 to predict outcomes at age 14-15
• Children who were better at delaying gratification at age 4:
• Did better academically in high school
• Had higher SAT scores (delay of gratification was a better predictor of SAT scores than intelligence at age 4)
• Showed better social skills
• Suggests that better self-regulation is associated with better outcomes in adolescence

Question 85

Describe Moffitt et al. (2011) New Zealand Study

Answer 85

• Followed a sample of 1000 children from birth to age 32 * Measured self-control and ability to delay self-gratification in children ages 5-6 using observational measures
• Assessed physical health, finances, and criminal records at age 32
• Results: Children with poorer self-control had worse outcomes as adults, controlling for level of intelligence and SES background
• Children with better self-regulation had better outcomes as adults
• Controlling for intelligence and SES, children with poorer self-control had worse health, more likely to have a substance-dependence issue and more financial problems
• Children that at age 5 and 6 struggled with self-regulation, had lower SES at age 32, reported that they planned their finances less, had lower incomes, and had more financial struggles compared to their peers who had higher self-control at ages 5 and 6
• This is controlling for initial SES at ages 5 & 6
• Controlling for intelligence and SES, children with poorer self-control were more likely to be single parents and more likely to be convicted of
  a crime/have a criminal record
• These findings are very well-established
• Especially when it comes to having a criminal record
• Having difficulties with impulse control and delaying gratification seems to be one of the most important predictors of whether somebody will engage in some kind of criminal activity

Question 86

What are the implications of research on self-regulation like the Marshmallow test and the New Zealand study?

Answer 86

• Self-regulation is difficult but research suggests that it leads to many positive outcomes
• Overall, suggests that good self-regulation is one of the keys to a successful life

Question 87

Describe the TOTE Model of Self-Regulation

Answer 87

• One of the most well-established models that tries to articulate how the self-regulation process works
• Feedback loop model:
  1. Standard: Identify what is the desired end state of self-regulation (some sort of goal)
  2. Test: Monitor level of discrepancy between the current state and the standard
  3. Operate: Control/adjust behaviour into the desired direction (assuming that there’s some kind of discrepancy between your current performance and your goal)
  4. Test: Result of “operate” serves an input for another test
• If your test doesn’t lead to desired result, then you go back to the operate stage (feedback loop)
• Feedback loop: constantly cycling between test and operate and monitoring our progress until there’s no discrepancy between our goal and current performance, at which point we can exit this feedback loop and use this process toward another goal
  5. Exit: Occurs if current state is in line with desired standard
• This is essentially how goal pursuit and self-regulation happens according to this model

Question 88

What are the 3 main components to good self-regulation that the TOTE model highlights?

Answer 88

• Standards/goals
• Monitoring (test) -> framed as self-awareness
• Willpower/capacity for change (operate) -> to somehow change our behaviour to get closer to this goal
• Good self-regulation involves the efficient operation of all 3 of these (not that only one of these matters and the others don’t)
• Difficulties with any one of these 3 components results in difficulties with self-regulation/self-control

Question 89

Describe the Expectancy-Value Theory

Answer 89

• The most influential model in this domain
• How likely we are to achieve a standard/goal depends on:
• Expectancy: whether we expect that we can accomplish the goal if we
  attempt it
• Value: how much we value the goal/find it worth doing (goal is important and meaningful to us)
• 4 factors that influence value
• We are most likely to achieve standards that are high expectancy + high value
• Associated with higher motivation

Question 90

Describe expectancy

Answer 90

• More likely to accomplish a goal if we believe that it is achievable
• Highlights importance of setting realistic goals that make sense for us

Question 91

What are the 4 factors of value?

Answer 91

1) Importance
* How important is it to do well on the goal?
* Influenced by how central a goal is to sense of self
* Ex: If goal = improve grades, more motivating if being a “good student” is central to identity
2) Intrinsic value
* To what extent do you want to do the goal for its inherent satisfaction?
* Ex: practicing an instrument because it’s fun and challenging (vs out of obligation)
* Kids tend to set goals that are very intrinsically valuable to them
3) Utility
* How useful do you find the goal for your life? What’s the benefit?
* Often related to how useful a specific task is for the pursuit of other, higher-order goals
* Ex: going to bed earlier, so that you’ll be in a better mood/more productive tomorrow
4) Cost
* What does the goal cost you?
* Time? Money? Boredom?What other things could you be doing?
* Procrastination is often due to a goal being costly
* With any goal, there usually always is some kind of cost to it whether it’s small or large
* Factors 1-3 foster motivation
* Factor 4 hinders motivation

Question 92

Describe the Relationship between Expectancy and Value

Answer 92

• In theory, expectancy and value are separate independent dimensions
• High value, but low expectancy = hopeless/demoralizing goal
• We can really value a goal but not expect that we’re going to be able to achieve it
• Low value, but high expectancy = easy, but boring goal, not very energizing
• But, in reality, highly positively correlated with each other, and negatively correlated with cost
• Suggests that they track one another
• If we think we have a high likelihood of being able to accomplish a goal we also tend to value it more
• Also, the more we feel a goal is realistic and we value it, we tend to perceive it as less costly
• Expectancy and Value Reinforce Each Other (cycle):
• Expect to do well -> Value task more -> Do the task more/put more effort into it -> Improve at task -> Expect to do well (and so on)
• Similar process to the feedback loop of self-affirmations

Question 93

Describe the implications of the self-regulation component of standards/goals

Answer 93

• To foster good self-regulation, we need to set good goals
• “Good” goals/standards are ones that are:
• Achievable and realistic
• Valuable to you
• Or if they’re not immediately valuable, find a way to frame it as valuable to you
• Ideally let go of goals that are too costly and that don’t feel valuable (important, intrinsic, or useful) to you

Question 94

Describe the Factors that Interfere with Setting Good Goals

Answer 94

1) Lack of self-knowledge
* If we don’t have a good assessment of knowing what our competencies, weaknesses or strengths are can interfere with setting realistic standards (issue with expectancy)
* Lack of clarity on what standards/goals are important and intrinsically motivating (issue with value)
* If we’re unclear about who we are, what we like and what we dislike this can get in the way of value component
2) Perfectionism
* Associated with tendency to set unrealistic goal (issue with expectancy)
3) Self-control dilemma
* If there’s some other more tempting thing that interferes with the goal we set for ourselves, this can interfere with our motivation because it increases cost of goal (issue with value)
* Each of these increase the chance of failing at a goal

Question 95

Describe Self-Awareness

Answer 95

• The capacity to direct attention to oneself (self-
  focused attention) and engage in thoughts about oneself
• Self-awareness, unlike directing attention to other objects/people, automatically leads to a state of comparing the self against salient standards
• Ex: self-awareness automatically triggers self-evaluation
• Automatically engage in a process of judgement
• As a result, increasing self-awareness often leads to behaving in a way consistent with salient standards (personal standards or some other person’s standard)
• As a result, it sometimes leads to self-criticism and people feeling self-conscious

Question 96

Describe the evidence that Self-Awareness Leads to Better Behaviour

Answer 96

• The presence of a mirror stimulates/increases self-awareness
• Research shows that if you have someone complete a task in front of a mirror, they tend to become more self-aware even if their attention isn’t brought to the mirror
• People use more first-person pronouns when sitting in front of a mirror than when not sitting in front of a mirror
• The presence (vs absence) of a mirror leads people to:
• Work faster and harder on a task when instructed to do so
• Behave in more moral ways
• Behave less aggressively
• Behave in ways that are more consistent with previously stated personal values
• Suggests that failure to behave in ways consistent with a standard may be due to lack of self-awareness
• Suggesting that increasing self-awareness seems to lead to an increase in good behaviour

Question 97

Describe Beaman et al. (1979) Halloween Study

Answer 97

• Field study
• Does lack of self-awareness lead to more misbehaviour?
• Recruited people in the neighbourhood handing out candy to trick-or-treaters
• Method: Halloween trick-or-treaters (all children) were told to take only one candy but were left alone with the opportunity to take more (left them with the bucket of candy)
• 2 conditions:
• Mirror in front of bucket full of candy
• No mirror in front of bucket full of candy
• Wanted to see which group of kids are more likely to abide by this instruction when they think no one’s watching them
• Results: Children in the mirror condition were more likely to obey the instructions and children in the no mirror condition were more likely to disregard the instruction and take more than one piece of candy

Question 98

Describe the evidence that Low Self-Awareness Leads to Worse Behaviour

Answer 98

• Alcohol reduces self-awareness
• When Ps are given alcohol, they use fewer first-person pronouns than Ps who consumed a placebo non-alcoholic drink
• In lab settings, Ps that are given alcohol (vs non-alcohol drink) tend to:
• Behave more recklessly
• Spend more money
• Behave more aggressively
• Suggests that poor behaviour may be due to lack of self-awareness to be able to align their behaviour with these standards

Question 99

Describe the implications of the self-regulation component of monitoring (test)/self-awareness

Answer 99

• Self-awareness is critical for self-regulation
• The process of comparing the self against a standard makes behaviour change
  possible
• Very difficult to regulate something without closely monitoring it
• Suggests that if you want to achieve a goal, monitor your progress and foster self-awareness

Question 100

Describe the Ego Depletion Theory

Answer 100

• Self-control/willpower is a limited and general mental resource
• Idea that we have this reserve of willpower
• Any sort of task that we engage in that requires self-control relies on this reserve of willpower
• After exerting effort on a task that requires self-control, self-control is impaired such that people will do worse on another task requiring self-control, even if the tasks are unrelated
• Metaphor of the muscle: after using a muscle a lot, you then lack the strength to do an exercise with that muscle

Question 101

Describe the General Ego Depletion Study Methodology

Answer 101

• Ps perform 2 separate, independent tasks that both require self-control/willpower
• Tasks are performed one after another
• Typical ego-depletion effect: people tend to perform poorer on this second task compared to a control group that are not having to do a task requiring self-control initially

Question 102

Describe Muraven et al. (1998) study on Ego Depletion After Suppressing Emotion

Answer 102

• Does emotion regulation lead to poorer physical
  stamina?
• Ps completed a baseline handgrip endurance measure
• Then watched a sad movie
• Experimental manipulation (Ps were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions):
• Increase emotion: Let the movie affect you and express your emotions on your face as much as possible
• Decrease emotion: Avoid letting the movie affect you and express as little emotion on your face as possible
• No emotion control: no instructions
• Then handgrip endurance measured again
• Findings:
• Evidence for ego depletion effect
• Ps who had to alter their emotional state had decreased handgrip endurance compared
  to people who did not have to control emotions
• Presumably because they had already used up some of their willpower by trying to regulate their emotions
• People in the control condition’s handgrip performance didn’t change at all

Question 103

Describe the Evidence for Ego Depletion

Answer 103

• Examples of ego depletion reducing performance on 2nd self-control task:
• Looking for and crossing out a particular letter in a text leads to reductions in handgrip endurance
• Writing an essay about attitudes one doesn’t believe in (cognitive dissonance) reduces persistence on a follow-up task (effortful because they’re having to suppress their actual opinion)
• Suppressing forbidden thoughts leads to giving up more quickly on unsolvable anagrams
• Evidence that ego depletion increases impulsive, disinhibited behaviour:
• Spend more money on impulsive purchases
• Eating more junk food
• Drink more alcohol
• Fewer sexual inhibitions
• More aggressive responses to being provoked
• Meta-analysis of 600 studies suggests that these findings are robust and well replicated
• This is very well-studied
• These highlight that our willpower isn’t domain-specific but is instead general

Question 104

Describe Moderation by Automaticity with regard to Ego Depletion

Answer 104

• Moderators of this effect
• Mental processes are either automatic or controlled:
• Automatic: require few cognitive resources and occur outside of conscious
  awareness, common for familiar/highly practiced tasks
• Ex: tying your shoes, driving a familiar route
• Automatic processes shouldn’t be relying on self-control because we’re on auto-pilot
• Controlled: require active, conscious attention and effort, involved in learning new skills or complex situations
• Ex: playing a new musical instrument, solving a complex math problem
• Ego depletion affects controlled processes, but not automatic ones
• Ex: vocabulary performance (automatic) remains intact after ego depletion but logical reasoning (controlled) is impaired

Question 105

Describe Moderation by Motivation with regard to Ego Depletion

Answer 105

• Ego depletion can be overcome if people are given an important incentive to do well on the 2nd task
• Ex: told that their performance will help others or paid based on performance on 2nd task
• But usually show even more depleting after this 2nd task
• Suggests that ego depletion effects reflect conservation of willpower, not a complete absence of willpower
• People are managing a limited energy supply by holding back in the present
• Ex: someone doing a long distance run

Question 106

Describe the implications of the self-regulation component of willpower/capacity for change (operate)

Answer 106

• Self-control/willpower is costly in the short term
• Willpower is a general and limited supply that has to be replenished
• Can do this by taking a break between 2 tasks requiring self-control
• All types of self-control draw from this one supply
• People tend to conserve their willpower unless highly motivated in the moment to expend it
• Ego depletion explains why people may fail to sometimes achieve their standards/goals

Question 107

Describe the controversy of ego depletion theory

Answer 107

• Decent chunk of researchers in social psych that are very skeptical of ego depletion theory
• Some researchers have argued that the ego depletion effect doesn’t exist or that the effect is very small if it does exist and probably doesn’t impact anything
• 2014 meta-analysis: meta-analysis of 198 studies concluded that the size of ego depletion effect is small and not significantly different from 0
• 2021 study: multi-lab replication study (3531participants) of 1-2 ego depletion studies found no reliable effect of ego depletion (unable to replicate these ego depletion effects)
• But another 2021 multi-site replication conducted in 12 labs (1775 participants) showed a small, but significant effect
• Over 600 studies have been published supporting ego depletion effects
• Often when there’s these kind of conflicting findings, there are different ways to figure out what’s going on

Question 108

Why are there so many conflicting findings with ego depletion theory?

Answer 108

1) Publication bias for positive results
* The way academia works is you want to get your work published
* It’s way more interesting to publish some kind of effect
* Academic journals tend to prioritize a publication of some kind of effect
* When researchers don’t find any significant or positive results, then they throw their findings away and don’t even bother trying to get published
* When studies don’t produce the predicted outcome, they’re not published
* Leads to only “successful”studies being published resulting in the inflation of an effect
2) There probably is an effect (intuitive and lots of findings) but have to figure out under what circumstances it exists
* Many studies using general ego depletion methodology assume that the 1st and 2nd tasks rely on self-control, rather than explicitly testing this assumption
* Need to figure out which tasks do and which tasks do not rely on self-control
* Ego depletion research focuses on controlled processing rather than automatic processing
* Individual differences?
* Possible that ego depletion effects are stronger for some people or in some situations, but not others
3. Over-reliance on lab studies which may not reflect what’s going on in the real world
* Field research would help clarify under what circumstances ego depletion exists

Question 109

Describe Trait Self-Control

Answer 109

• People vary in trait self-control
• There’s individual variation on trait self-control
• People high in trait self-control are consistently better able to successfully deal with self-control dilemmas
• More likely to do things more in line with their goals
• More likely to agree with the statements that have a + associated with them on Tangney et al. (2004) 13-Item Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) and less likely to agree with statements that have - associated with them

Question 110

Describe the Positive Effects of Trait Self-Control

Answer 110

• de Ridder et al. (2012) meta-analysis of 93 studies shows that higher trait self-control is associated with:
• Better performance at school and work
• Sustaining healthy relationships
• Less binge-eating
• Higher overall psychological well-being

Question 111

Describe the Paradox of Trait Self-Control

Answer 111

• We tend to intuitively think that people high on trait self-control are good at effortfully resisting temptation/have more willpower
• When they encounter a self-control dilemma, exert willpower to inhibit undesirable urge and choose to act in accordance with goal
• BUT, in everyday life, people high on trait self-control experience fewer self-control dilemmas than low trait self-control people
• Report fewer experiences of temptation in everyday life
• Suggests that they’re hardly using effortful self-control which goes against the idea that high self-control is effortful and difficult

Question 112

Why Do People High On Trait Self-Control Experience Less Temptation?

Answer 112

1. Better at setting and pursuing goals that are intrinsically rewarding
   * Ex: actually enjoy activities that many struggle with like eating healthy, exercising, studying
   * Because they’re intrinsically valuing these, it makes sense that they feel less effortful for them
2. Set-up and follow/rely on routines and habits which are more automatic
   * Ex: consistent exercise routine, consistent study schedule
3. Structure their lives in such a way that they don’t experience temptation
   * Ex: make a point of not walking by a bakery on the way to school
4. Identify self-control dilemmas (temptation) earlier

Question 113

Describe Gillebaart et al. (2016) study on Identifying Self-Control Dilemmas

Answer 113

• How do high trait self-control people react to self-control dilemmas?
• Method: Participants presented with pictures of food on a computer
• Instructed to click “positive” when presented with healthy food and “negative” when presented with unhealthy food
• Measured:
• Trait self-control
• Reaction time (RT) to select an answer
• Implicit and explicit self-control dilemma
• Implicit: mouse trajectory from the bottom of the screen to select an answer
• Straight mouse path to negative indicated no temptation experienced
• How they index implicit self-control dilemmas:
• When they notice a pull in mouse path toward positive which then ends up in negative (pull = temptation)
• Intensity of dilemma = degree of “pull” in direction of answer not selected
• Also assessed when the “peak pull” occurred
• Explicit self-control dilemma: “How conflicted do you feel about your answer?”
• Results: Higher trait self control…
• Predicted weaker feelings of conflict (explicit self-control dilemma)
• BUT not related to average degree of “pull”
• Suggests that high and low trait self-control people experience same amount of temptation on an unconscious level (no difference in their implicit pull)
• Predicted earlier “peak pull”
• Suggests that high trait self-control people detected self-control dilemma earlier
• Predicted faster RT for correctly classifying food (healthy=positive, unhealthy= negative)
• Suggests that resolved self-control dilemma faster
• Suggests that high trait self-control people are detecting self-control dilemmas earlier which allows them to deal with them in a faster and more efficient way at an unconscious level
• So good at this that they don’t consciously experience the temptation (not consciously registering for them)
• Why they say “I don’t know how I can do this”

Question 114

Describe Implications of Trait Self-Control Research

Answer 114

• People that have good self-control are exercising this ability effortlessly by relying on automatic processes:
• Habits and routines (by definition we’re not thinking about these as much)
• Reducing exposure to temptation
• Earlier temptation detection
• Implies that if you want to improve your chances of completing a goal, make your behaviour as automatic as possible

Question 115

How do we make self-regulation more effortless?

Answer 115

• Implementation Intentions
• One of the most useful and promising answers to this question

Question 116

Describe Implementation Intentions

Answer 116

• Very specific plan about how you will achieve a goal in a particular situation
• Link a situation with a specific action
• “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y”
• Ex: “If…then…”
• Part of the reason why they’re effective is that they solve problem of goals being too vague and increases your commitment by focusing on one method of achieving a goal
• These help you avoid putting your eggs in more than one basket
• There’s some research that shows that this isn’t as helpful
• Ex: 1 option per goal instead of multiple options for 1 goal
• Having too many ways to complete a goal reduces commitment to
  any one particular option making you less likely to complete the goal
• Because we’re not particularly committed to any of the options/actions, then we fall in loop of relying on the other one and not putting much effort in either of them

Question 117

Describe Gollwitzer & Brandstatter (1997) study on Implementation Intentions and Achieving Goals

Answer 117

• Do implementation intentions help people achieve goals?
• Method: Ps were instructed to write a report about how they spent Christmas Eve that was due on December 26th (probably one of the times of the year where people are least likely to want to do this)
• Experimental manipulation:
• Implementation intentions: Think about when and where you will write report
• Control: Simply asked to write report
• Wanted to see who completed the report
• Implementation intentions group was more likely to complete goal
• Found they were 2x more likely than control group (~70% of implementation intention completed report compared to 33% of control group completed report)

Question 118

Describe Milne et al. (2002) study on Implementation Intentions vs Motivation Boost

Answer 118

• Method: Recruited people who wanted to exercise more
• Ps tracked how often they exercised for 2 weeks
• 3 experimental groups:
• Control: Track how often you exercise
• Motivation: Track how often you exercise + read about benefits of exercise
• Implementation intention: Track how often you exercise + read about benefits of exercise + set implementation intention
• Ex: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20-mins of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].”
• Implementation intentions set at T2 (after one week)
• Who exercised at least once per week?
• Findings:
• Seems like monitoring did nothing for control group
• No benefit of increased motivation intervention
• Implementation intentions doubled the rate of people exercising at least once a week at T3
• Suggests that when we don’t reach goals, not because of lack of motivation or lack of monitoring, but because lack of specific plan

Question 119

Describe the Beneficial Effects of Implementation Intentions

Answer 119

• Implementation intentions facilitate goal achievement, such as:
• Exercising more
• Eating a healthy diet
• Writing a CV
• Managing anger (ex: next time I feel angry, I will count to 10 while I breathe)
• Increasing perspective-taking
• Increasing public transportation use
• Increasing voter turn-out
• Increasing flu shot rates

Question 120

Describe Gollwitzer & Brandstatter (1997) study on Implementation Intentions and the Moderating Role of Goal Difficulty

Answer 120

• Method: Ps identified personal projects they intended to achieve during Christmas break
• Experimental manipulation (randomly assigned Ps to one of 2 conditions):
• Easy goal
• Difficult goal
• Assessed implementation intentions
• Results: Implementation intentions were useful for completing difficult
  goals, less relevant for completing easy goals

Question 121

Why Are Implementation Intentions Helpful?

Answer 121

1. Heightened accessibility of situational cues (“when”)
   * Improves ability to detect the situational cue relevant to our goal
2. Formation of a strong mental link between the situation cue and the planned response
   * Consequently, automates action initiation
   * Priming us to look out for the situations in which our goal is relevant
   * Ex: Goal = eat healthy, situational cue = meal, action = eat vegetable

Question 122

What are the implications of implementation intentions research?

Answer 122

• Implementation intentions show that conscious planning can make goal pursuit more automatic over time
• Remove need for a conscious decision to pursue a goal at the relevant time
• Intended action is executed more effortlessly, rather than relying on effortful self-control
• Some of our goals can be triggered very automatically

Question 123

How do we sometimes pursue goals without even realizing it?

Answer 123

Auto-Motive Model

Question 124

Describe the Auto-Motive Model

Answer 124

• Goal pursuit is not always deliberate, goals can be activated and pursued automatically, without conscious awareness
  1. Learned associations: people form associations between situations, goals, and actions based on repeated past experiences
  2. Automatic goal activation and pursuit: Once these associations are established, encountering the situation can automatically trigger the goal and its associated action, such that the person is pursuing the goal outside of conscious awareness
• Ex: Goal = go downtown, situation = metro station, action = take orange line to Lionel Groulx

Question 125

Auto-Motive Model vs Implementation Intentions

Answer 125

• Auto-Motive Model:
• Situation-goal-action mental links created unconsciously via learned associations
• Person is not necessarily aware the goal is being pursued
• Implementation Intentions:
• Situation-goal-action mental links created consciously via “forming “if-then” plans
• Person is aware they set up the goal pursuit

Question 126

Describe Fitzsimons & Bargh (2003) findings on Unconscious Interpersonal Goals

Answer 126

• What kind of goals do people pursue in different relationships?
• Classmate = self-enhancement (but not with friend or romantic partner)
• Friend = “helping friend” + “having fun together”
• Mother = “wanting to make mom proud” (but not with friend or romantic partner)

Question 127

Describe Fitzsimons & Bargh (2003) study on the Automatic Activation of Goals

Answer 127

• Does thinking about a specific relationship automatically trigger interpersonal goals usually pursued in that relationship?
• Method:
• Randomly assigned to 1 of 3 priming conditions: Form a vivid picture in your
  mind and write about…
• Mother
• Best friend
• Bedroom (control)
• Part 2: Read about description of “Mark” and form impression
• Hypothesis: Mother prime -> will see Mark as more motivated to succeed
  (vs friend prime)
• The goal of wanting to make mom proud will be more accessible and thus attributed to Mark
• Findings:
• Mother condition led to statistically significantly higher mean rating of “Mark” motivation than control and friend
• Thinking about mother increased accessibility of Ps own goal with mother (wanting to make mom proud) which they then projected onto Mark
• Evidence that relationship-specific goals can be automatically activated by just thinking about that person

Question 128

Describe the implications of auto-motive model research

Answer 128

• Relationship partners can unconsciously activate interpersonal goals which are then pursued unconsciously
• Relationships have the power to influence our motivations and behaviours, even when the relationship partner is not physically present

Question 129

Describe the Fundamental Need to Belong

Answer 129

• Humans have a “pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, significant interpersonal relationships”
• “A great deal of human behavior and thought is caused by this fundamental interpersonal motive”
• 1st proposed in classic paper by Baumeister and Leary in 1995
• Ex: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Older theory
• Belonging just above our basic physiological and safety needs

Question 130

How can we satisfy the fundamental need to belong?

Answer 130

1) Frequent pleasant interactions
- Need to occur in the context of long-lasting caring relationships (with people we care about)
2) Long-lasting caring relationships
- If we have neither one of these is insufficient as we need both to feel like our need to belong is satisfied

Question 131

What are the characteristics of fundamental needs?

Answer 131

1) Need satisfaction/not met should influence emotions (ex: hangry)
2) Unmet need should motivate behaviour to satisfy it
3) Should follow the principles of satiation and substitution
- Satiation: we’ll continue to pursue trying to fulfill this need until the point of being satiated (being satisfied)
- Substitution: this need is quite general in the sense that it can be satisfied in many different ways
4) Chronic need satisfaction/ frustration should be related to health outcomes
5) Universal

Question 132

Describe how the Status of Need to Belong Affects Emotions

Answer 132

• Lots of evidence for this when we think about social behaviour/socializing
• Creating new social bonds is strongly associated with positive feelings
• Ex: making a new friend, falling in love
• Life satisfaction strongly correlated with having some close relationships
• Having some close relationships is fundamental for happiness
• The loss of social bonds is strongly associated with negative feelings (ex: sadness and anxiety)
• Highly upsetting when separation/loss happens
• Reluctance to end bad relationships

Question 133

Describe the Social Reconnection Hypothesis

Answer 133

• Social rejection is one indicator of an unmet need to belong
• Associated with negative feelings
• Social reconnection hypothesis: Feeling rejected motivates us to seek out new bonds and strengthen existing ones
• Thus, negative feelings associated with rejection are adaptive/useful because it’s motivating reestablishing social contact
• Rejection signals to us that our need to belong is unmet and should motivate us to have this need be met
• Because it’s aversive, it’s motivating healthy behaviour
• One of the most common ways that this has been tested is through the “future alone” paradigm

Question 134

Describe Maner et al. (2007) study on the Social Reconnection Hypothesis

Answer 134

• Does rejection lead to a desire for social contact?
• Method:
• “Future alone” paradigm
• Ps complete personality test and receive fake feedback
• To make the feedback more believable they’ll usually add in some accurate personality feedback based on the questionnaires the Ps completed
• This feedback doesn’t feel good
• Randomized to 3 conditions: future alone vs future belonging vs future misfortune (control)
• Future belonging: Ps told they’re the kind of person that’ll have a future filled with rewarding relationships
• Future misfortune condition: Ps told that they’re the kind of person that’ll be accident prone in life
• This acts as an extra control as it has nothing to do with social life
• To see whether it’s negative feelings in general causing the effects or rather negative feelings that are specifically associated to hearing about being alone for the rest of their life
• Then asked “To what extent would you prefer doing the next task with a few other people?”
• Findings:
• “Rejected” participants showed strongest desire to work with others
• Other 2 conditions were not statistically significantly different from each other
• Demonstrates the theory that when our need to belong is unmet through feelings of rejection, this motivates us to then reinitiate contact with others
• “Rejected” (vs accepted) participants also showed:
• Greater interest to meet and connect with new friends
• Greater desire to join student group to connect with others
• Rate others as more attractive and sociable (perceive attributes in others that make them seem more approachable and are consistent with their own needs) -> if rejection is instilling a greater desire to belong and socialize in people, they’re going to project that desire onto others and therefore perceive people in ways that are consistent with that goal

Question 135

What are the findings on rejection that go against the Social Reconnection Hypothesis?

Answer 135

• Rejection is also associated with withdrawal (isolation to avoid experiencing rejection again) and even aggression sometimes (ex: passive aggressive)
• Majority of school shooters in the US had experienced chronic rejection (whether that’s through bullying or harsh and critical family conditions) (Leary et al., 2003)
• In the lab, rejected people:
• Evaluated another person more negatively
• Delivered longer and louder blasts of aversive noise to the rejector
• Gave rejector hot sauce knowing that they hate spicy food
• Last 2 are ways that researchers examine aggression in the lab

Question 136

How can positive and negative research both be true?

Answer 136

• Often moderator at play
• Explains in what kind of situations people behave in one way vs another or in what kind of people we see certain behaviours vs other behaviours

Question 137

Describe DeWall et al. (2010) study on the Intensity of Rejection as a Moderator

Answer 137

• Does intensity of rejection moderate rejection-aggression link?
• Method:
• Manipulated intensity of rejection using Cyberball paradigm (other very commonly used paradigm in rejection research)
• Believed they were playing with 3 other people
• 4 conditions: Excluded by all 3 players, excluded by 2, excluded by 1, or included by all (how they varied the intensity of rejection)
• Prepared food for another participant (confederate) not involved in Cyberball
• This other person hates spicy food
• How much hot sauce do they give this other person? (measure of aggression)
• Those accepted by 0 people had most intense rejection and were most likely to act aggressively and give more hot sauce to confederate who hates spicy food
• Being accepted by even one person greatly reduces likelihood of rejected person lashing out and reduced how aggressively they behaved (gave way less hot sauce)
• Suggests a little acceptance goes a long way
• Feeling accepted even just by one person seems to counteract the potential negative effects of being rejected
• Additional acceptance had decreasing incremental effect

Question 138

Describe Cyberball

Answer 138

• Ps are told they’ll be playing this online game with other Ps that are participating in the study at the exact same time
• Initially there’s a very nice cooperative turn-taking game of throwing this ball
• Everybody is throwing to each other
• P is being included in the game
• Eventually, the other 2 players (who don’t actually exist but P thinks it’s other Ps) start excluding the participant and start only passing the ball to each other and not at all involving the participant
• Supposed to mimic what would happen in a schoolyard when people were kids

Question 139

What’s rejection sensitivity?

Answer 139

• Person moderators: are there certain kind of people that are more prone to behaving aggressively when they’re rejected or react badly to rejection
• Rejection sensitivity is one of the person-level variables that has been studied the most
• Rejection sensitivity: disproportionate fear to being rejected
• People high in rejection sensitivity are much more scared of being rejected
• Associated with:
• Hyper vigilance to signs of rejection
• Very accommodating of others when rejection is not perceived (people-pleasing - attempt to prevent rejection)
• Over-interpreting neutral, ambiguous cues as rejection
• Aggressive (especially passive aggressive) behaviour when rejection is perceived
• Attempt at self-protection (not rational but rather emotional)
• This is an individual difference on the level of the person
• Some people are more and some are less rejection sensitive
• This also changes overtime
• People that are younger tend to be more sensitive to rejection
• People get less scared of rejection as they get older (probably because they get used to it or realize that it’s not so bad)

Question 140

Describe Ayduk et al. (2008) study on Rejection Sensitivity as a Moderator

Answer 140

• Does degree of rejection sensitivity moderate reactions to rejection?
• Method: Study on “how people choose partners in dating services”
• Wrote a short biosketch (personality description of themselves)
• Told it would be emailed to another participant (potential partner - not a real person) that would have to choose between the participant or someone else to have a 15-minute chat with
• Completed a self-report measure of rejection sensitivity
• Experimental manipulation:
• Rejection: Not chosen by potential partner
• Control: Internet down so email wasn’t sent
• Participant asked to help experimenter with different study examining link between personality and food preferences
• Participant prepared food for potential partner who hates spicy food
• Measure of aggression: How much hot sauce do they give the potential partner?
• Findings:
• Rejection elicited aggression only in those high in rejection sensitivity
• High RS people in control condition less likely to give hot sauce can be interpreted as them doing their people pleasing and being very accommodating because there was no sign of rejection
• High RS people in rejection condition gave the most hot sauce in reaction to this rejection
• Indicates how different people are going to be reacting to rejection

Question 141

Describe the implications of research on rejection and the need to belong

Answer 141

• Rejection promotes affiliation only if we see connecting with others as a realistic, and viable option:
• Ex: people need to feel at least minimally accepted by others
• Ex: need to not generally fear rejection/expect others to reject us (low rejection sensitivity)

Question 142

Describe satiation with regards to the fundamental need to belong

Answer 142

• People seek out new relationships until their need to belong is met
• Less motivated to seek out relationships once they feel like they have a sufficient
  number of satisfying relationships
• Evidence:
• Average student’s meaningful interactions happen with same 6 people
• People generally prioritize having a few close friends over having many, less close friends

Question 143

Describe substitution with regards to the fundamental need to belong

Answer 143

• Need to belong can be satisfied by different kinds of relationships
• To some extent we can say that relationships are substitutable
• Evidence:
• As a romantic relationship develops, people generally spend less time with other people, including old friends
• A person who’s in a new relationship is now having their need to belong being met by this romantic relationship so they’re now less reliant on their friends
• People are more likely to cheat in relationships in which they feel lonely/ rejected (indication that need to belong is not met)
• We replace relationships that have ended with new ones
• We can meet this need to belong through others

Question 144

Describe the Creative Substitutions to Meet Need to Belong

Answer 144

• What if we’re “hungry” for belonging and there’s no one to connect with?
• People can get really creative when they find themselves in this situation
• When people don’t see viable connections in real life…
• Look to para-social relationships (relationships in which one person is very emotionally invested in another person and this other person doesn’t even know they exist -> ex: people’s obsessions with celebrities)
• Ascribing human characteristics to non-humans (anthropomorphism):
• Pets
• Technology (ex: people developing what they feel are meaningful relationships with ChatGPT, substituting it for friends, romantic relationships, therapists)
• Objects (ex: Wilson in Cast Away)

Question 145

Describe Powers et al. (2014) study on whether unmet need to belong can make us willing to lower bar for
what we accept as social connection

Answer 145

• Method:
• Manipulated feelings of connection/disconnection using future alone paradigm * Created animacy judgement task
• Ps were presented with pictures one by one
• Some of these pictures were of dolls and others were of human faces
• They had to decide whether this picture was of an animate face (human) or inanimate (not human -> doll)
• They created a continuum
• They took these 2 extremes and morphed them to have varying degrees of the human face vs the doll face
• Gets tricky to tell in the middle
• Trying to quantify people’s specific animacy threshold
• Animacy threshold: point at which participant detects animacy
• Lower animacy threshold = accept face with less human features and more doll-like features as animate
• Hypothesis: Feelings of social disconnection/rejection (future alone) should be associated with lower animacy threshold (more willing to accept faces that have more doll-like features as human)
• Findings:
• People who received “future alone” feedback had a lower animacy threshold than those who received “future belong” feedback
• Suggests that social disconnection makes us lower the bar for acceptable social contact at least temporarily

Question 146

Describe the Consequences of Chronic Belonging Deprivation

Answer 146

• Poorer mental health
• Lack of adequate supportive relationships associated with increased stress
• Children who grew up not receiving adequate emotional attention from caregivers have poorer mental health
• Also children who are chronically bullied tend to have poorer mental health
• Poorer physical health and immune response:
• Lonely people tend to take longer to recover from stress, illness, injury
• There have been studies where Ps come into the lab and report how lonely they feel and the researchers give them a small paper cut
• The people who say they feel chronically lonely take the longest for this paper cut to heal
• Earlier mortality (compelling evidence that chronic belonging deprivation leads to earlier mortality)

Question 147

Describe Holt-Lundstad et al. (2010) findings on how Belonging Lowers Mortality Risk

Answer 147

• Meta-analysis of 148 studies (308,849 participants) looking at effects of social connection on physical health
• Results: People who have stronger social relationships are 50% more likely to survive in a given time frame than those who have weaker relationships
• Controlling for age, sex, initial health status, cause of death, and follow-up period (all these things being equal)
• The influence of social relationships on mortality is comparable, and even exceeds, the effect of well-established risk factors for mortality
• Feeling socially connected was just as important, or very comparable, for health as not smoking too much
• Effect of social connection was even bigger than physical activity, a person’s BMI, and than whether they struggled with hypertension
• How important it is on our physical health to be socially connected can’t be understated

Question 148

Describe the universality of the need to belong

Answer 148

Everyone has a need to belong but there are individual differences in how strong this need is

Question 149

Describe the Evolutionary Basis of Need to Belong

Answer 149

• Social connection critical for survival
• Attachment system’s function is to ensure infants’ proximity to caregivers so that they survive (consistent with attachment theory)
• Connection to group:
• Fend off predators (humans aren’t physically apt for survival as other animals are - find their strength in numbers, groups can protect us against predators)
• Share labor, food, care for young
• Led to development of biological mechanism to motivate us to seek belonging to social groups and lasting relationships
• Hypothesis: Pain system as biological mechanism underlying need to belong
• Evolutionarily older physical pain system appropriated to prevent separation from others

Question 150

Shared Vocabulary Between Physical and Social Pain

Answer 150

• We seem to use the same kind of language when talking about physical pain and social pain
• Ex:
• “They hurt my feelings”
• “She broke my heart”
• “I’m cut to the core”
• “Emotionally scarred”
• “He ripped out my heart”
• “Like a slap in the face”
• This seems to be the case in a lot of other languages as well
• We would then expect these 2 types of pain to be processed in the same brain areas

Question 151

Describe the Neural Correlates of Physical Pain

Answer 151

• Activation in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) associated with emotional aspect of physical pain
• Lights up when we feel bothered by physical pain
• When people have this part of the brain temporarily deactivated or damaged, they continue to feel physical pain but they’re not bothered by it

Question 152

Describe Eisenberger et al. (2003) study on Neural Correlates of Social Pain

Answer 152

• Is social pain also processed in dACC?
• Method:
• Ps played Cyberball while undergoing fMRI scan
• Assessed degree of distress after exclusion
• Results: dACC activity associated with feelings of distress (clear positive linear association)
• Evidence that physical and social pain are processed in the same brain region

Question 153

Describe Eisenberger et al. (2006) study on Physical and Social Pain Overlap

Answer 153

• Applied heat to their hand and told them to stop when it got painful (pain tolerance)
• Looked at pain unpleasantness threshold
• Physical pain sensitivity associated with sensitivity to social exclusion (reported feelings of distress in Cyberball)
• Negative correlation between social distress and pain unpleasantness threshold (as social distress goes up, pain unpleasantness threshold is smaller)

Question 154

Describe DeWall et al. (2010) study on curing Heartache with Pain Killers

Answer 154

• Does easing physical pain also ease social pain?
• Method: Double-blind, placebo-controlled study
• Experimental group: Daily dose of Tylenol (acetaminophen) for 3 weeks
• Control group: Placebo for 3 weeks
• Feelings of social exclusion assessed via:
• Daily evening self-report of feelings being hurt that day
• Cyberball with fMRI after 3 weeks
• Hypothesis: Tylenol would reduce feelings of social exclusion
• Findings:
• Tylenol group reported fewer hurt feelings overtime (vs placebo group)
  
  • Tylenol group showed less dACC activation after exclusion in Cyberball game

Question 155

Describe moderation

Answer 155

• When the strength and/or direction of the relationship between an independent and dependent variable depends on a third variable
• The third variable is called a moderator
• Shows you for whom, when, or under what
  circumstances a relationship exists
• Language used to describe moderation:
• “The relationship between X and Y is moderated by”
• “The relationship between X and Y depends on…”
• “This effect is true for these people, but not these people…”
• Ex: relationship between implementation intentions and goal completion is moderated by goal difficulty or relationship between rejection and aggression depends on rejection sensitivity

Question 156

Describe mediation

Answer 156

• Explains the mechanism that underlies a relationship between an independent and dependent variable via the inclusion of a third variable
• The 3rd variable is called a mediator
• Language used to describe mediation:
• “The relationship between the independent and dependent variable is mediated by…”
• “The independent variable influences the mediator which influences the dependent variable”
• “The independent variable influences the dependent variable through the mediator”
• Ex: age influences SCC via role commitments (being older is associated with more role commitments which are associated with higher SCC) or link between threat to self and increased self-esteem is mediated by prejudicial attitudes (threat to self led to prejudicial attitudes which increased self-esteem)

Question 157

Describe self-presentation

Answer 157

• Any behaviour made with the intention of influencing how other people see you
• The process of constructing and maintaining a desired reputation
• Continuous, evolving overtime
• Never fully done and accomplished
• Connotation that we’re all actors

Question 158

Describe automatic self-presentation

Answer 158

• Self-presentation tends to be automatic, not strategic
• Often not consciously controlling and monitoring
• Follows behavioural scripts/habits that have been frequently rewarded in the past
• Ex: smiling and listening attentively because these have led to past approval
• More likely with people we’re familiar with and who know us well
• Self-presentation is sometimes more controlled:
• Ex: More self-conscious and focused on the impression we’re creating, including planning and rehearsing the self-presentation
• More likely when the audience is important and we’re uncertain about the impression we’re creating
• Ex: job interview or date

Question 159

What are the characteristics of desirable self-presentations?

Answer 159

1) Beneficial
* The actor views it as facilitating their goals
2) Believable
* The self-presentation can be credibly presented and defended to the audience

Question 160

Describe how Self-Presentation Stems from Desire to be Liked

Answer 160

• Self-presentation is often motivated by the desire to be liked by others
• Rooted in evolution:
• A good reputation increases one’s chances of survival and reproduction
• In modern times, a good reputation is also essential for smooth and successful social functioning
• Leads to pervasive socially desirable behaviour

Question 161

Describe Public vs Private Self

Answer 161

• Lab studies consistently demonstrate that people behave in more socially desirable ways in public vs. private
• In public, people are:
• More generous and helpful when others are watching
• Conform more and accept more influence from others
• Work harder when watched