Midterm 2 - Readings Flashcards
People stigmatize unattractive people, particularly those with ———.
facial disfigurements
ex. mothers are less affectionate to children if unattractive
ex. unattractive defendents get harsher sentences
Define beauty-is-good stereotype
less attractive people are less intellegent, less competent, and less emotional warmth
stereotype produces an unconcious bias against unattractive people!
Moral traits are strongly biased by irrelevant factors such as ———.
one’s physical attractivness !
Attractiveness has a strong influence on moral character judgements
In a study where people are shown photographs of attractive an unattractive faces and asked to judge their characters, what was the finding?
People percieve unattractive people more negatively than attractive people.
Effect is stronger for judgements of moral character (trustworhiness, honesty, selflessness)
Effect less strong for judgements of non-moral character (funny, organized)
What is our behavioural immune system? How does it connect to attractiveness?
Behavioral Immune System = psychological mechanisms that serve as an early defense against pathogens
Works as a “smoke detector” that is oversensitive to things that only resemble disease
Disease can sometimes cause facial irregulatiries (but not commonly), which causes unattractiveness (facial disfigurement) to be a disease cue
——– is an important part of the behavioural immune system
Digust
It motivates us to avoid diseased things (such as people with faical irregularities)
Unattractive individuals are perceived as more likely to engage in purity violations (ex. spitting on sidewalk) compared to attractive individuals. There is no similar expectation for harm violations. What does this finding suggest?
That unattractive people are viewed as more immoral overall
Especially with engaging in behaviours that are considered “disgusting”
How can we reduce our bias against unattractive people?
- Be aware that a person’s physical attractiveness shapes our perceptions and biases of them (particularly facial disfigurements)
- Need to get rid of the “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” idea
(same psychological function as “ I don’t see color”)
Studies show that people are percived to be more trustworthy if they….
- look attractive
- have a relatively narrow face
- have baby-like facial features
- appear to be smiling (even if not)
In a study looking at the process of emotional overgeneralization, what were the results of rating facial images for dominance and trustworthiness?
Attractive people and people appear to be smiling (even when neautral) are seen as more trustworthy
Men and people who appear to be angry (even when neautral) are seen as more dominant
When we look at someone and make immediate inferences about someone’s character, what is this process called?
Emotional Overgeneralization
(oversenstivie emotion detection system)
We constantly look for emotional signals (ex. smiles), and overgeneralize this signals to judge another’s character (ex. they are happy and nice in general)
What is the two step process of emotion overgeneralization?
- Oversensitive emotonal detection system - constantly looking for emotional signals (smiles and frowns)
*Causes us to see emotions not even there, such as a smile because the corners of mouth are tilted upwards. - Tendency to overgeneralize - think a certain feature tells us info about that person’s character
*if we see a smile, we assume that person is happy right now, but also that they are nice in general
If someone is attractive, what are some things they might expect in their life?
- attractive people become sexually active earlier
(increases number of short-term partners for men, increases number of long-term partners for women) - attractive people data individuals higher in attractiveness
- attractive people are more popular with peers and friends (even in early childhood)
——- and ——- attractivness impact social outcomes.
Body attractiveness
(overweight ppl less likely to get jobs, have parents pay for education, or admitted to college)
Voice attractiveness
(people with attractive voices are treated better)
Attractiveness halo effect
endency to associate attractiveness with a variety of positive traits, such as being more sociable, intelligent, competent, and healthy.
What are the 6 categories of advantages of high attractivness?
1. First impressions
2. Mating prospects
3. Parents and peer favoritism (strangers more likely to help attractive people)
4. Education and employment
(attractive people are hired more and have higher salaries)
5. Electoral success
(attractive candidates get more votes)
6. Judicial outcomes
(attractive defendents get smaller sentences)
Attraction is multifaceted. What does that mean?
there are some facial qualities that are universally attracitve, but others depend on an individual level.
attraction is a dual proccess that combines sexual and aesthetic preferences:
- diff brain regions activated for judging sexual vs nonsexual attractivness!
What are the universal features of high attractiveness?
Youthfulness
Unblemished skin
Symmetry
Averageness
Femininity in women
Masculinity in men
Positive expressions and behaviors
Negative reactions to obesity start at a young age. What study demonstrated this?
When ranking other kids they want to be freinds with, children ranked obese children lower than children missing a hand, in a wheelchair, etc.
While there is no single quality for attractiveness, what is a single quality that garuntees unattractiveness?
When a face differs greatly from that of the average face (not prototypical!)
For men, what are the 3 combined features that make a women attractive?
- youthfulness
- sexual maturity
- approachability
What are the 4 explanations explored in the “attraction and beauty” reading for why certain people are attractive?
- Cultural explination
(attractiveness based on what culture is preferred) - Cognitive explination
(attractiveness is a result of a cognitive mechanism where we prefer familiar stimuli) - Evolutionary explination
(attractiveness is based on our adaptive nature for genetic fitness) - Overgeneralization explination
(attractiveness is a result of an innate avoidance of qualities that signal poor health or low genetic fitness)
Out of the 4 explinations for why certain people are seen of attractive, which one is the most accurate in explaining the attractiveness halo effect?
Evolutionary explination
(“good genes hypothesis”)
This is the closest explination we have for why the attractiveness halo effect occurs
Evolutionary assumes that as attractiveness increases, so does fitness and other good qualities (no other explinationd assume that)
Although more accurate, the evolutionary explination still does not imply a genetic link between attractiveness and adaptive traits, such as health or intelligence.
What is cultural explination for why certain people are attractive? What evidence contradicts it?
Attractiveness is based on what culture is preffered
(ex. long neck preferred in Myanmar tribe, but not for westerners)
Evidence that goes against theory:
- People across many cultures view the same faces attractive, including babies
- all people typically agree that thinner bodies are more attractive (some cultural differences: african-americans judge overweight women less)
What is the cognitive explination for why certain people are attractive?
Attractiveness is a by-product of a more general cognitive mechanism that leads us to prefer familiar stimuli.
People prefer people that are closer to a prototype of a category over the extremes of a category
It is consistent with the fact that we prefer men with masculine qualities and women with feminine qualities AND that attractiveness depends on our expereinces (a protoypical face will depend on the people we have seen)
Define morph?
a face or other image that has been transformed by a computer program so it is a mixture of multiple images
A morph of many individual faces is more attractive than the individual faces used to create it!
What is the difference between the mere-exposure effect and the generalized mere-exposure effect?
Mere-exposure effect = a preference for stimuli that have been seen before over new ones.
Generalized mere-exposure effect = a preference for stimuli that are SIMILAR to stimuli that we have been seen before.
- Explains why we prefer average faces, which look familiar, in determining how attractive someone is
The —— explination claims that certain people are more attractive because perceptual learning has rendered attractive people as more familiar.
cognitive
What is the evolutionary explanation for why certain people are attractive?
Attractiveness is determined by certain adaptive phyiscal qualities that advertise mate quality
(greater fertility for men, better genetic traits that lead to better offspring for women)
Averageness and symetry provide evidence of genetic fitness:
- ability to develop normally despite environmental stressors
- genetic diversity (strong immune system)
- Feminine faces indicate seuxal maturity/fertility and masculine faces indicate the ability to withstand the stress of testosterone
Evolutionary perspective accounts for attractiveness in youthfulness (aging associated with declines in fertility and functioning) AND attractivness is correlated to intelligence which is crucial for smart offspring and for providing prenatal care (even though attractivness is a weak predictor of intelligence)
What is the good genes hypothesis?
Proposes that certain physical qualities, like averageness, are attractive because they advertise mate quality:
- greater fertility OR better genetic traits that lead to better offspring and greater reproductive success
Included in the evolutionary explination for attractiveness
(the best explination for explaining the halo effect)
What is the overgeneralization explanation for why certain people are attractive?
Attractiveness is a result of the overgeneralization of the innate avoidance of physical qualities that signal poor health or low genetic fitness.
We overgeneralize the innate tendency to use low attractiveness as an indication of lower-than-average health AND the innate tendecy to use high attractiveness as an indication of higher-than-average health and intelligence
How do the evolutionary and overgeneralization explinations differ from each other when explaining why certain people are more attractive?
Evolutionary assumes that as attractiveness increases, so does genetic fitness –> overgeneralization only explains why we avoid unattractive people
Overgeneralization is concerned with detecting low fitness when choosing a mate but ALSO in social interactions –> evolutionary is strictly for mate
What is the trait inference process?
A 3 step process that explains how people infer their inferneces about others.
Stage 1: Behaviour Interpretation
Stage 2: Trait Inference
Stage 3: Situational Revision
(takes effort, stage will not happen if cognitively busy or unmotivated)
Explain Stage 1 of the trait inference process (behaviour interpretation)
People interpret meaning from other’s behaviour –> “ex. John seems to be behaving in a very anxious manner”
People expectations of what they expect to see impacts interpretation
People’s expectations have less of an impact if the behaviour is unambigous (when it is obvious what the other person is doing)
^Study example: When context is given to pictures of ambiguous facial expressions, context-based expections influenced people’s interpretations
(differt interpretations when told “they just won a game show” vs “a swarm of bees is coming into the room”
Explain stage 2 of the trait inference process (trait inference)
Stage where people draw an trait inference that corresponds to the behaviour –> “John must have an anxious personality”
This interpretation of behaviour to make inferes about the person’s personality happens even when distracted/preoccupied!
Studies found that participant’s recall of information is better when there are trait cues that can infer about one’s personality
Explain stage 3 of the trait inference process (situational revision)
Last stage where the inference is revised by taking into account the situational forces that could have caused the behaviour –> “John is waiting for the dentist, maybe he isn’t such an axious person”
An effortful process! People will not complete this stage is they are cognitively busy or unmotivated:
Ex. cognitively busy study:
(one condition told to memorize, other told to just listen to a interview, people listening were able to better consider the contexts of the topics when drawing infererences about the person)
Ex. Unmotivated study:
(one condition told they are going to do a fun activity after this boring one, other condition told to do a even worse activity after. Condition who had the worse activity after tried to stretch the fun of the first activity and could revise their inferences better!)
What is the difference between trait inference and situational inference?
The both make inferences from behaviour but…
trait inference = people interested about people (trait goal)
situational inference = people interested about the situation (situational goal)
What is the situational inference process?
Process that happens when people are interested in the situation, where tehy draw situational inferences from behaviour
If people have the ability and motivation, they can revise these inferences by considering the person’s personality
(exact opposite process of the trait inference proccess)
What is the social inference process?
Explains why we either make trait or situational inferences –> both occur with the main goal of increasing our ability to predict other’s behaviours
Example of trait goal = someone interacts with someone they might expect to interact with in the future
(“I just met our new neighbors, they seem very friendly)
Example of situational goal = someone is expecting to enter a situation
(“Did you hear those people laughing from the theatre? I’m excited to see the movie”)
People may be predisposed to either trait inference or situational inference based on culture or personality. What is the difference between westerners and non-westerners?
Westerner’s default process = trait inference
Non-westerner’s default process = situational inference
Makes sense because people higher in individualisitic views are more likely to infer traits effectively from behaviour than those with more collectivist views.
What is a potential explination for the seasonal cycle in binding moral values?
May be explained by a percieved threat, which encourages people to stick to their group:
Anxiety patterns are an emotion that is associated with threat perception –>
and these anxiety patterns align with the seasonal cycle of binding values!
What are 3 potential consequences with the seasonal cycle of binding moral values?
- Binding moral values make people better cope with crisis → may cause groups to cope better with crises that happen in spring and autumn (rather than summer and winter)
- Binding moral values also promote distrust of people who do not meet the norm → may cause seasonal cycles in prejudices against minorities
- Politics can be influenced because liberals prioritize individualizing values, while conservaties prioritize binding → with the timing of political elections, the seasonal cycle could influence the outcome in tight votes!
What is argued to be the most poweful determinant of overall impressions of people and groups?
Moral character!
Prior theories attributed warmth and comptetnce to form impressions, but they fail to account for the role moral character has on impression formation
New perspective is that moral character functions alongside warmth and comptence as a SEPERATE course of how impressions form.
What was one of the first influential studies (by Rosenberg) on impression formation?
Subjects asked to sort traits into categories they thought belonged to the same person –> results showed that people organize traits along two axes that correspond to warmth and competence
Warmth dimension in this study = friendliness, sociability, kindness, trustworthiness, extraversion
The warmth dimension does not have a clear measurement of which traits are relevant to wamth (someonce can be trustworthy but not warm), which has made the category unclear
What research examples have explored the importance of morality instead of warmth and competence?
- Impressions of in-groups best predicted by moral traits, not social traits or competence
- Evalutation of unfamiliar ethnic groups were influened more by rating moral traits
- Individuals prefer to know moral traits about a person rather than sociability or competence traits
In the “moral character in person perception” reading, what were the main findings and arguments?
Found that morality determines impressions much more strongly than warmth and competence (with morality causing almost x8 more variance in impressions)
Warmth traits and compitence traits showed little predictive power
Argue that morality, warmth, and competence should be treated as seperate predictors because they each point to different aspects of people and that moral character is the most important source of information used by people to form impressions
What do morality, comptence, and wamrth each indicate about a person?
Moral character = indicates nature of person’s intentions (has the most prective power on impressions!)
Competence = indicates how effectively a person can carry out their intentions
Warmth/sociability = indicates how successful someone would be in recruiting people to support their intentions.
How are considerations of character also relevant to how people grant moral standing to animals?
Animal intelligence and their capacity to suffer = grants animals high moral standing
“Cruel Nature” (tendency for animal to inflict harm) = grants animals lower moral standing
Finding reflects a dislike of cruelty (even for animals who cannot carry out their instincts) which makes animals capable of harm being granted lower moral standing simply because they have harmful potential.
What are the two categories of moral character traits?
“Core Goodness” traits - honesty, kindness, etc.
Implicitly enhances the perceived morality of an agent (good, bad, and neutral)
(ex. A good student who shows honesty enhances the impression that that student is good)
“Value Commitment” traits = eg. dedication, commitment
Implicity enhances the perceived morality of good and neutral agents, BUT amplifies the immorality of bad agents!
(ex. A kind Nazi is better than a Nazi, but a dedicated Nazi is worse than both)
Both morality and warmth independently predicted —— and negatively predicted —– (morality being the stronger predictor).
admiration
antipathy
AKA: Morality and warmth are both traits that promote admiration and reduce negative feelings, like antipathy (feelings of dislike), independently from each other.
A group’s —— tended to predict envious responses toward it, whereas its —— negatively predicted envy toward it.
sociability
morality
AKA: a group’s morality tends to reduce envy because people may admire the group’s ethical behavior, rather than feeling jealous of them (socialiability).
*demonstrates that these dimensions should be treated as independent when forming impressions
What are the two primary reasons for conformity?
1. Normative Influence = people people go along with what people around them are doing because they are concerned about what others think of them. (ex. Saloman Asch study)
2. Informational Influence = people are often a source of information for what we should do and how we should act
- Reliance on descriptive norms (norms regarding the way most people act)
- “Do you think we should” → “Sure, everyone else is doing it”
What’s an example of informational influence?
informational influnce = people’s behaviour is a source of information for what we should do and how we should act
Example = b inge drinking among college students
- Students drink how much they believe the average student drinks → students often overestimate the descriptive norm for student drinking.
Describe Solmon Asch’s study on conformity
Participants told to say out loud which of the three lights were the same length as the line on the left.
6 confederates, 1 participant
In third round, confederates all gave the wrong answer –> 76% of participants went along with the norm with what the confederates said for at least one of the rounds by giving the wrong answer.
Participants knew it was wrong, but concern for what others thought was stronger
What are some additional findings of Asch’s study as a result of different variations?
- More conformity when more confederates
- Teenagers more prone to conforming than adults
- People conform less when they think confederates won’t hear their response
What were the results of the study that measured white people’s brain activity when viewing a series of white and black faces?
important to know this & brain regions! (likely will be on exam)
When black faces flashed quickly = greater activity in the amygdala (associated with vigilance and sometimes fear)
*effect most pronounced in people who had strong implicit racial biases
When black faces flashed for longer = greater activity in prefronal brain areas (associated with detecting internal conflicts/controlling responses)
shows that people were conciously trying to suppress their bias!
In a cognitive dissonance study, high-school girls rated the attractiveness of 12 “hit” records. Using two of the records girls selected as “moderate”, researchers asked them to chose which one they would rather recive as a gift.
What were the 3 conditions?
What were the results?
After decision about which one they would rather recieve as a gift was made, the girls either:
C1. Recived both records as a gift
C2. Recived only one as a gift
C3. Uncertain as to the outcome
RESULTS:
- When girls are uncertain as to the outcome or recive both records, there is NO dissonance reduction(aka. no change in attractiveness of chosen records)
- BUT there is a large dissonance change in the condition where girls only recive one record (trying to justify to themselves that that record is better)
What is a study example of cognitive dissonance of lying?
Participants participated in a long “motor performance” study for an hour, with the real purpose of giving participants an identical negative/boring experience.
At the end, subjects told to tell the next person outside of the lab that the experiment they just did was very interesting and fun!
Conditions:
C1: payed $1 (less justification for their lying)
C2: payed $20 (more justification for their lying)
FINDING:
- Lower-paid students (less justification for lying) experienced the most dissonance and reduced it by changing their initial belief to thinking the study was actually enjoyable.
- Higher paid students (more justificaion for lying) kept their original opinion of the study being bad more than the lower-paid students
Resisting temptation can cause cognitive dissonance. What study using toys in a playroom tested if desire will increase when an object/activity is “unattainable”?
Children ranked 5 toys in a playroom:
C1: children can play with any of the toys but experimenter took the second best with him
C2: children could play with any toys except the second best toy that was still in the room (threatened by mild punishment)
C3: children could play with any toys except the second best you that was still in the room (threatened by a more severe punishment)
When experimenter returned, children could play with all the toys and attractiveness of each toy was measured again…
FINDINGS:
No temptation = no dissonance, (toy increased in attractiveness)
Severe punishment = little dissonance (toy increased in attractiveness)
Mild punishment = much dissonance and toy was less attractive
because there is less justification (punishment) to not play with this toy
Sour grapes phenomenon in dissonance reduction for mild punishment condition (persuade themselves that they do not desire the prohibited activity)
Those who are rewarded —— for doing something that involves dissonance change their personal opinion less in agreeing with what they did than those who are rewarded ——.
1) MORE
2) LESS
Ex. how paid $ influences how much dissonance is reduced after lying
