Psych 135 - Final Questions

Which terms have to do with "we have a need to belong (be liked) and a need to be authentic (and known)"?

Conformity, social rejection, self-enhancement, self-verification, cognitive dissonance, foot-in-the-door

Describe stereotype threat and the study related to it

Consequence about holding stereotype about one's group membership. In the study, African Americans who were primed before taking a "test of intelligence" did worse

Why isn't HSE always a good thing?

Creates high standards to be met, more pride or ego to protect when threatened

Does HSE lead to helping or hurting others?

Depends if opportunities to raise self esteem are available

What is self-enhancement theory?

"Tell me that I'm great no matter what the truth". Pushes for positivity, want to be liked by others (Hypothesis 5)

What is self verification theory?

"Tell me the truth" (what I already believe to be the truth), pushes for consistency, want to be accurately known by others (hypothesis 5)

Describe the study where efforts were made to increase self-esteem to enhance education

- 1980s task force to increase self-esteem to help education, crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy (correlational studies) - Increasing self-esteem through manipulation does not improve academic performance > negative effects, like more likely to take drugs, etc. because they think they're invincible

[Social] Oxytocin

- A neuropeptide that's involved in caregiving, or nursing others - People called it the "love hormone" but also involved in a lot of other thigns - Involved in promoting in-group favoritism and aggression towards the out-group - Nurse neuropeptide

Why do we misremember attitudes?

- Attitudes aren't stored with tags for when they were formed - We misremember lots of things that serve our current goal - ex. SATs

What are the two main options for dissonance reduction?

- Change attitude - Justify/minimize conflict - Change behavior (not always possible)

Why do we stereotype?

- Cognitive account: saves cognitive effort, reduces ambiguity - Motivational account: if they are __, then I am better by comparison, stereotyping enhanced when threatened

[Social] Main parts of brain discussed?

- DCC - Ventral straiatum - involved in rewards system

How do we make attributions?

- Dispositional factors (traits) - Situational factors (external)

Explain the study about situational influence

- How likely would you sing on the phone or write a counterattitudinal essay? Think they won't, but they would

For the studies on self-views, which support self-enhancement?

- Most people want positive when asked how much they would enjoy getting feedback - Both HSE and LSE both felt better after getting favorable feedback

Describe the relations to social biases

- Naive Realism > Availability heuristic - Stereotyping - Representativeness heuristic - FAE - Anchor and adjustment heuristic

Name the four compliance techniques.

- Norm of reciprocity - Foor in the door - Low ball - Door-in-the-face

What are the factors that determine helping?

- Notice something is wrong - Decide it's an emergency - Decide one is personally responsible (the presence of other undermines this)

What are the cognitive mechanisms that make us more biased to be more favorable about ourselves? (4)

- Others don't give us negative feedback - Think about how your friends would answer about you - Have more insights into how we are as friends - Most negative feedback is not expressed in words

Why do we commit the FAE?

- Overlook Situational Constraints: often invisible, sometimes we're the situation, subjective construals

What is the basic rule of social psychology?

- Social psychology factors (context, schemas, stereotypes, expectations) are more important for interpreting ambiguous than non-ambiguous stimuli and situations - subjective construal

[SOH] What are three limitations of our imaginations?

- Tendency to fill in and leave out - Presentism - tendency to project the present on the future - Failure to recognize things will look different once they happen

Describe "cognitive miser"

- Thinking is hard so we expend as little effort as possible - Stereotypes are categorizations that make life more efficient, often as the expense of accuracy

What are the motivational mechanisms that make us more biased to be more favorable about ourselves? (3)

- Unconscious self-protective mechanisms, so negative mechanisms don't hurt us - If one has a unreasonably high SE, think great at everything - We choose how to define comparison dimension (define by how we define ourselves, pick construals)

Define social comparison theory

- Upward comparisons to someone better (makes us feel bad), more informative - Downward comparisons to someone worse (makes us feel better)

How do we know what kind of person we are and how good we are at different things?

- We compare ourselves to others to find out where we stand BUT we choose our standard of comparison or reference point - We think the comparison is reasonable but it may not be - Social comparison allows us to LEARN about ourselves or FEEL GOOD about ourselves, but rarely both - Hypothesis #5: Accuracy and likability

[Social] 3 brain adaptations & when evolved?

1. Connection 2. Mind reading 3. Harmonizing (evolved the most recently)

Describe the Self-Evaluation Maintenance study

60 seconds to give as many clues as you can in a self-relevant conditon or not, less helpful clues in the self-relevant condition

Explain the cyberball study

After some time, the ball would not be thrown to the participant, find that same parts of brain associated with physical pain is also associated with social pain

Describe the study about amnesia and cognitive dissonance.

Amnesics and healthy controls participant in a study similar to the appliances study. Amnesics showed similar rankings, even though they don't remember how they originally ranked the appliances. This suggests people are not aware of their rationalization

What is nonverbal communication?

Anything but words themselves, appearance, facial expressions, tone of voice, basic form of communication - we're pretty accurate (Hypothesis 4)

Describe Oliver Sack's "The President's Speech"

Aphasic patients understood President's gestures, tone, expresssions, etc., but not his words

Explain the consequence of differential attributions for self & other

Assume the other person doesn't like us, pluralistic ignorance, our reason is afraid we're being rejected

Describe Correspondent Inference Theory

Behavior = Dispositions + Situational Factors - Situational Constraints = we all share social knowledge - Counternormative Behavior = suggest correspondence between behavior and one's internal dispositions

What do we actually infer? (invisible states/traits)

Behavior > Intention > States > Traits Affirming the consequent error - if A then B, does not imply B then A

Should we try to increase self-esteem?

Benefits are shown through correlation Gas tank vs. gas gage - actually need to be more esteemable, not just have more self-esteem

Discuss the IAT

Categorize words and pleasant or unpleasant, then with black/white faces as quickly as you can, either congruent or incongruent, usually go slower during incongruent (have an easier time associating whites with pleasant, blacks with unpleasant)

Which terms have to do with "given all that, we do pretty well"?

Circumscribed accuracy, nonverbal decoding

Define self-esteem

Esteem = to regard or respect The self is both esteemed and does the esteeming Motivated to have it

What is the sociometer hypothesis?

Estimate of whether we are meeting society's standards and thus likely to be accepting, estimate in light of our generalized other

Describe circumscribed accuracy

FAE tends not to be a problem because we tend to see people in the same situation (this is not always the case in experiments). Despite FAE, can still predict behavior, even though we might have the wrong explanation for it

Which terms have to do with "we don't know others minds and our minds very well"?

FAE, Naive realism, implicit stereotyping, cognitive dissonance reduction, self-serving biases

Describe the maze rats study

Grad students who thought they had smarter rats had better results, even though their rats were randomly selected

Describe the Threatened Ego & Aggression study in terms of self-esteem

HSE more aggressive when threatened

Describe the reasoning of the HSE reactions

HSE people have more favorable self-views, and are better at maintaining and restoring these view. After failure, positive thoughts are more salient, more persistent in the face of failure, more motivated to restore mood, more willing to help

Describe the helping and self esteem study

HSE: more likely to volunteer after a failure LSE: more likely to volunteer after a success

Describe the insufficient justification study

Have to justify receiving $1 or $20 lie about an uninteresting task - people who receive $1 say they enjoy it more because they had to rationalize receiving such a small amount

[SOH] What separates humans from animals?

The ability to think about the future actively, "nexting", conscious thoughts, prospective thinking, frontal lobe organizes

Describe rationalization

Helps with feeling consistent/authentic (Hypothesis 5)

What are heuristics and biases?

Heuristics are a rule of thumb - Availability: cognitions that are more available or accessible or vivid in memory as estimated as occurring more frequently - Representativeness: Law of Small Numbers, Neglecting base rates, conjuction fallacy (two events are always less likely to occur than either event alone)

[SOH] What is the psychological immune system and how does it work?

How we find ways to feel better by rationalizing or putting something in a positive way, kicks in more for big thing

What is cognitive dissonance theory?

INTRAPERSONAL, two of one's cognitions are dissonant, and often one of the cognitions is an awareness of behavior.

Describe the misattribution of dissonance arousal (pill) study

If you take a pill that you believe will relax you, then dissonance induced arousal is surprising and experienced as more intense, leading to a greater dissonance reduction. If given a pill that you believe will arouse you, then subjects make no attempt to alleviate arousal, and don't change their change.

How can stereotypes reduce ambiguity?

In ambiguous situations, help label

Explain Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

In general, we're more happy if someone we have a strong social connection to does well is a not relevant domain. We're less happy if a friend does well in a self relevant domain.

What is the effect of seeing others?

In the face of ambiguity, we look at others to know what to do Pluralistic Ignorance, when people keep beliefs to themselves

Why do people conform in the absence of authority?

Information (don't want to miss out), Norms (don't want to stand out, be rejected)

Why do people conform?

Informational pressure > internalization, desire to be right, normative pressure > compliance

Which terms have to do with "we don't know what we don't know"?

Introspection, affective forecasting

Why do we want to be accepted?

It may literally hurt to be left out, mammals need social bonds to survive, loneliness is as big a health risk as smoking

What's the basic trend in explicit stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination?

It tends to decrease over time

Explain the limitations to Hal Kelley's Covariation model

It's a model of what we should do, now what we actually do, assumes we get to see lots of behavior over time, but in real life we don't

Describe salience and the study related to it

It's what grabs your attention - other people's behavior can be salient. In the study of the actor-observer effect, when we watch the other person, we think they they are driven by their disposition and we are driven by situation. When we watch ourselves from the actor's point of view, the effect reverses and we think we are driven by our disposition.

Describe the auto kinetic effect study

Just see dot on wall, experimenter asks how much it moves, participants converge in answers

Describe the cultural bias study

Koreans said they take in situational factors more, but when tested both Americans and Koreans make same error

In the Accessibility of Positive and Negative Cognitions after failure, did weakness/strengths become more accessible to HSE/LSE participants?

LSE: weaknesses became more accessible HSE: strengths became more accessible, weaknesses more remote, aids in recovery and prevents rumination

[SOH] What are the similarities and differences between perception, memory, and imagination?

M - memorize what we experience by details P - idealism, perception is not physiological process I - future anxious

Describe door in the face

Make big request and then scale it down

Explain the self serving biases study

Married couples rated how much they and their spouse took responsibility for 20 household tasks, on average thought they were responsible for 16/20. Cognitive explanation: remembered examples of their own behavior.

Describe the initiation study

Women came in, had to read a paragraph for a discussion group, either taboo or not very taboo, those who read very taboo paragraph reported that they enjoyed the group more.

Describe the subway directions study

More likely to correct with the question directed at the subject, rather than it being directed at the confederate or both the subject and the confederate

Explain the face morphing study.

Morphed face with ugly/attractive face, people thought they were +20% more attractive than they really are.

Do we always know when we're rationalizing?

No - if we don't this might contribute to us now knowing ourselves and why we do things (Hyp. 2 & 3)

Describe low ball

Only reveal part of obligation first, commit to deal, then accept the worse

Describe the counterattitudinal essays study

People misremember their attitudes after writing counterattitudinal essays. Their beliefs shift towards what they wrote for/against.

What is Balance Theory (and cognitive consistency)?

People want to be consistent in that we like people who like what we like. In cognitive consistency/balance theory, if the triad is unbalanced, then there's tension. INTERPERSONAL

For the studies on self-views, which support self-verification?

People want to hear favorable feedback about positive, unfavorable about negative; only believed it if it was consistent with what they believe

Describe the free choice study

Rank appliances, either given choice between #4 and #5, or just given #4. Rank appliances again - if had choice, rating goes up for selected item and down for rejected item.

Explain the rejection-conformity study?

See how willing people are to conform, those we are excluded from cyberball had a stronger desire to be accepted, and go along with wrong answer

Is reflective thinking necessary? Describe the study with the monkey/kid M&M study.

Showed monkeys two different colors of M&Ms. The color that the monkey didn't chose is the same color the monkey rejects when offered again.

Describe the smoke study

Smoke starts to fill the room...how fast will someone notice? Those who were alone is the room thought there was a fire, those who were with others thought it was steam

[Social] Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Sociological needs should join physiological needs

Explain the study of stereotypes and cognitive effort

Some subjects see stereotypical label that organizes half of the adjectives, able to remember adjectives better, even if cognitively busy

Describe reciprocity

Someone does something for you, hate to feel that we owe them something

Explain basking in reflected glory

Sometimes we want our friends those we are connected to to do well. Example, when our football teams wins ("we won"). BUT this is not always true - sometimes it makes us feel bad when our friends do well when it affects our view of ourselves.

Explain anchor and adjustment

Start with in anchor (like priming), we answer by adjusting to the anchor rather than giving the correct answer that's no where near the anchor - adjust insufficiently

Describe foot in the door

Start with small request, then the person will be more likely to do larger favor

Explain stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination

Stereotypes: beliefs that associate a group of people with certain traits, can be positive or negative Prejudice: negative feelings/attitudes towards others because of their group membership Discrimination: negative behaviors towards other because of their group membership

Describe the Asch study

Subject sits with confederates, clear that one line matches with another, but subject will pick the wrong answer because the confederates do

Explain the Castro Study

Subjects read pro-Castro or anti-Castro essays written by other students, subjects believe that essays were either freely chosen or required, but still rated the writers are being for the position they wrote about.

Describe the self fulfilling prophecy study

Teachers were told certain students were late bloomers; bloomers had higher IQ later

Explain the implicit prejudice study

The interviewer and interviewee influence each other to make subtle differences in nonverbal behavior, suggests we are very sensitive to this

What is the correspondence bias or fundamental attribution error?

The tendency to make dispositional attributions from observed behavior even when situation influences account for their behavior, major reason why "we don't know why people do what they do"

Describe the gains vs. losses study

The way options were worded affected the way people responded - When we think about gains, we become risk adverse - When we think about losses, we become risk seeking

Why do we have these biases?

They simplify our world, rules of thumb, useful and good enough most of the time

Explain the motivational account of stereotyping study

Those primed with "Asian" stereotype make more stereotypic completions

Describe the SE study on watching comedy after a failure.

Those with HSE would rather watch comedy after a failure

In term of invisible states and traits, what is reasonable to infer?

Traits (broad) > States > Intention > Behavior (narrow)

Why do we infer?

Useful to know states/traits of others, empathy and predicting future behavior

[SOH] Why might it be a good idea to use a surrogate to make affective forecasts and why do we, nonetheless, think using a surrogate is a terrible idea?

We feel better when we know how the other person felt, limitations of our imaginations, doesn't mean we'll feel the same

Describe the sequential operations model

We often don't know the bias in our judgments because they are made automatically. It takes effort for this cognitive process of correction using relevant situational information.

What is a self fulfilling prophecy?

When an originally false social belief leads to its own fulfillment

Describe the sequential operations model study

When made cognitively busy, subjects could not assess true level of actor's anxiety. If not cognitively busy, can think about situational factors.

Describe the Gambling study in terms of self-esteem

When not threatened, LSE and HSE won about the same amount, but when threatened, HSE made more risky choices

What is the effect of being seen by others?

When other are around we keep our eyes and ears to ourselves, therefore less likely to notice emergency, less likely to help

Describe expected utility theory

linear relationship between value and money

Describe prospect theory

overturned EUT, three key differences: 1. zero point is psychologically important 2. Slop of negative side is steeper than slope on positive side 3. Slope is steeper close to zero than further away in either direction

Which terms have to do with "situations are powerful because they are invisible"?

self-fulfilling prophecies, conformity, helping, attribution