Technology and the social world Flashcards
What are practical technologies?
Used to act on the material world directly eg. shovels for digging
What are cognitive technologies?
Used to act on the mind, self, or other - they change what is recalled, thought, or experienced eg. notebooks aid remembering, films guide experiences of the audience
In what ways did Tomasello (1999) argue that language is a form of cognition?
Language enables us to manipulate the attentions of others and their actions.
But it can also influence our own thoughts and actions through inner dialogue.
- Self-talk enables us to plan complex sequences of behaviour, remain focussed on the task and overcome problems
What are reasons that writing likely developed?
- As a means to extend our capacity for memory and facilitate communication
- Early written records mark time, record quantities, mark events and prompt narratives
- Also enabled one person to talk to many - writing is essential to coordinating large groups of people
- Mass printing enabled people to have a direct relationship with religion
What are possible selves according to Markus and Nurius (1986)?
- People have an idea of what they would like to be, but also what they are afraid of becoming
eg. ideal selves provides goals and hope, equally, negative future selves can create fears and threats
How can cultural technologies be conceptualised and how does this relate to story telling?
Intervening in our parallel and possible selves, enabling us to both vicariously live out an unactualised aspect of the self and to cultivate a new aspect of the self which might become actualised in the future
- Story telling is a key technology that underscores novels, films, video games etc - these allow us to explore alternative worlds and versions of the self.
What are fairytales?
- evolve through many generations passing through cultural and psychological constraints
- Usually involve an inversion of power structures of society eg. paupers triumphing over kings and giants
- Provide a welcome affirmation of the way the world should be in contrast to the way the world is
- In fairytales, the harsh injustices of the world of reality are rectified.
What are avatars?
- The virtual self
- A graphical representation of a user within the environment which is under their direct control - can be 2D icons (chat room) or 3D (eg. video games)
- A site of experimentation and imagination, as individuals interact with technology and each other to create new expressions and experiences for what it means to be a person
What are Massively Multiplayer Ongoing Role Playing Games?
Emphasise fantasy role play in virtual worlds where users collaborate to achieve goals and overcome obstacles (eg. World of Warcraft)
What are self-determined virtual worlds?
- Virtual environments built by users
- No preorganised purpose or structure for engagement but enable imagination around architecture, landscaping and role play (eg. minecraft)
What do avatars allow for users?
Enables users access to experiences with others and realisations of their identity that are not necessarily possible otherwise
- can be used to construct a template for real life, to explore and try out aspects of personality and physical characteristics
- safe space for exploration due to anonymity
What is Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory?
People infer their own attitudes and beliefs from observing own behaviour
What is the Proteus effect (Yee & Bailenson, 2007)?
Users infer from their avatar’s appearance expectations around attitudes and behaviour, and then conform to these expectations
Describe Yee & Bailenson’s 2007 study into the proteus effect?
2 studies examining how individual behaviour conforms to digital self-representation
- attractiveness
- height
50 undergrad students in height study.
Ppts paired with confederate (opposite sex) and informed the study investigated interactions in virtual environments.
Interactions in a room with same dimensions as virtual room
Ppts randomly given avatar 10cm taller or shorter or same height as confederate
Virtual mirror behind ppt showed virtual height
Ppts played ultimatum game in 4 rounds - agree to split $100 between them
What was the procedure of Yee & Bailenson, 2007?
- Confederate instructed to always accept split as long as it didn’t exceed $90 in favour of ppt.
R1: P offers a split
R2: C offers 50/50
R3: P offers a split
R4: C offers 75/25 split in their favour
Measures: how much did P offer in 1 and 3, did they negotiate unfair split in 4?
What were the results of Yee & Bailenson 2007?
- 1st split unaffected by condition
- 2nd split, ppts in tall condition split money significantly more in own favour than ppts in short condition
- Ppts in short condition 2x as likely to accept unfair offer (72%) as ppts in tall condition (38%)
Height of avatars impacted how confident ppts behaved.
What did Yee and Bailenson study in 2009?
Follow up to 2007 study - same phenomenon using characters from World of Warcraft
- Both height and attractiveness of avatar were significant predictors of behaviour
- Behavioural changes from virtual environment transferred to subsequent f2f interactions
- This shows that exploring alternative virtual selves can also change our own real and lived self-concept
What did Birchmeier et al., 2011 argue?
That existing social psychological theories already account for many of the psychological phenomena that take place via digital technology
Online interactions have some unique properties compared with physical interactions
- Anonymity/choice/no geographical constraints/no time constraints
But the social processes observed are the same
- Impression formation, relationship development, group dynamics, ostracism
What does social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner) explain intergroup relations as?
A function of group-based self-definitions
According to social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner), how do individuals define their own identities?
Regarding social groups, and such identifications work to protect and bolster self-identity
- Social identity is the aspects of a person’s self-concept or image that derive from the social categories that they belong to
What are the 3 main assumptions/principles of social identity theory?
- Interpersonal-intergroup continuum
- Positive self-esteem and intergroup differentiation
- Group strategies to avoid negatively evaluated social identities
What is the interpersonal-intergroup continuum?
Personal identity
- Characteristics that define us as individuals as distinct from other individuals (eg. personality)
Social identity
- The part of our self-concept corresponding to group memberships, and the value and emotional significance attached to those memberships.
Personal and social identity are 2 extremes by which behaviour can be defined
- In group situations, we shift from a personal to social identity
What is positive self-esteem and intergroup differentiation according to Social identity theory?
A central principle of SIT - people seek to maintain positive social identities.
To maintain or enhance their self-esteem, members of social groups will base their comparisons with relevant outgroups with which they can make a favourable comparison on behalf of the ingroup
- social categorisation, social identification, social comparison
What are strategies to avoid negative social identities according to social identity theory?
There is a possibility that groups to which one belongs may not satisfy the motivational principle of maintaining a positive self-esteem and intergroup differentiation.
Members of the group avoid negatively evaluated social identity by:
- Individual mobility (eg. leaving group)
- Social creativity (eg. changing comparison)
- Social conflict (eg. engaging in collective action)