Positive Psych exam 2

According to Baumeister, why is studying/understanding willpower so important?

Major problems in the world, me, you, school issues, etc all caused by willpower issues. We are up against a LOT of desires (Germans beeper study) and in order to fight this army of desires we need to strengthen our willpower. Contributes to human welfare.

Give a real world example of when you have personally suffered from "decision fatigue."

Renting the vans for spring break.

Explain the reasons why it is so difficult for Oprah Winfrey, despite her high motivation level and inexhaustible resources, to lose and keep off weight.

Set range of weight. She is stuck on it. When you diet, your body thinks you're on a famine. It's hard to lose weight in the long run because of famine thing and set range. Lying to yourself is the only way to lose weight.

It is two days before final exams begin. You are invited out on a romantic date that night. You want to really enjoy the evening and not be distracted by worrying about the upcoming exams and all the studying you have to do. According to the Zeigarnik effect, what should you do to avoid these distracting thoughts during your night of romance? Explain your answer.

Waiters were able to memorize their entire orders, but the second the customers left they forgot everything about it. Had three groups of students think about future plans for studying for an exam, just think about the exam, and think about random **** as control group. Then all participants had to complete words such as "re__" and "ex__". Those who had thought about the exams, but not planned out studying for them answered "read" and "exam," but other people answered unrelated words. Through the Zeigarnik effect you develop a "Zero Euphoria."

What are the four categories of willpower? Give an example of each one.

1) Control of thoughts (I want to think about this drama with my roommate, but the test is tomorrow, maybe I can just focus on the test for now), 2) control of emotions (someone makes you angry and you resist the urge to yell at them), 3) impulse control (impulsive drinking, drug use, sexuality, etc), and 4) performance control (in some ways a combination of the last 3. focusing your energy on the task at hand).

At the start of your first semester at Earlham, you decide you want to be the "Henry Morton Stanley" of EC and be remembered as he is as "personifying the highest moral strength" over many years (pg. 145). What three long term strategies could you employ to ensure your success? Explain the reason for each of these goals.

1) Create a public persona that you can live up to and people hold you accountable for your actions (practice what you preach),2) have a distraction such as the fiancé who was his primary goal that he is striving for and wants to be with, 3) keep up daily activities/habits like shaving because that's automatic processing and it doesn't use energy to do and it strengthens your willpower.

What are three reasons in which a religious upbringing serves to enhance one's ability to self-regulate?

1) Religious people are less likely to develop unhealthy habits and more likely to develop healthy habits. 2) Religion with self-monitoring and self-reflection (reflecting on own beliefs). Had women read books with sexual content and, while they're reading it, they flashed pictures of pope. Catholic women rated the books as less appropriate. 3) God and higher powers is also monitoring you. 4) Going to sunday school and church strengthens willpower stamina in same way that exercising schedules does.

A friend of yours is an alcoholic who wants to stop drinking. But he refuses to go to AA meetings because he says "I don't know how sitting around with a bunch of alcoholics I don't know is going to help me not drink." Could you briefly explain five ways in which the structure of AA just might work for him?

1) Social support: One reason people become alcoholics is that they don't have strong social support. If you have a strong community that isn't drinking or striving for the same goal. Desire for peer approval is often what gets people in trouble initially. 2) Group holding you to specific standards (making goals public): Holds you responsible, you are less likely to break a rule if you could be shamed by telling everyone that you haven't been sober for very long. Resolutions are more likely to be kept if they're made in the presence of others. Chiliean street vendor study. 3) Having a sponsor/others monitoring your behavior: helps with monitoring. 4) Helps set standards or goals: AA helps people set "bright lines" such as "do not have a drink today. 5) Surrendering yourself to a higher power: Alcoholics get so caught up idea that they can deal with everything themselves, but it's an addiction and that's tough. You have more reason to expect your future self to respect your goals (like alcohol goals)

What explanation does Baumeister give for impulsive behavior associated with PMS?

Body channels high amount of energy to ovaries. As the energy is sent to reproductive system, there is not enough glucose for rest of body. They're affected by a variety of feelings, and their problems often arise from a strong reaction to some event.

Your friend says to you that when he was a child his mother would always tell him to "stop slouching" and it would drive him nuts. You respond by saying "By doing that when you were a child, your mother probably helped give you the tools to succeed both academically and socially at college." How do you explain?

Brought participants in and did a baseline study followed by a quick depleting task to see how much willpower declined. Then everyone sent them home to perform exercises such as working on posture, recording whatever they ate, and striving for positive moods. Group controlling emotions did not improve (concluding that emotion regulation does not rely on willpower), but the other two groups did improve. Posture group did the best. By overriding their habit of slouching, the students strengthened their willpower and did better at tasks that had nothing to do with posture. So if you focused on your slouching throughout your life, your willpower was likely strengthened which will help you everywhere else in life!

What is the evidence for Baumeister's assertion that there is a causal link between glucose and ability to self-regulate?

Elementary school food experiment: Asked kids to skip breakfast one morning. Then gave half the kids breakfast at school. Found those kids behaved better and learned more. Results evened out once kids were fed lunch. Below average glucose levels account for 90% of juvenile delinquents.

According to Baumeister, some people define "justice" as "what the judge ate for breakfast." Explain the method, results, and implications of the studies that led people to that definition.

Found that judge's were more likely to give people parole early in the morning and after meals/breaks. Prisoners who were scheduled to appear just before the judge's break had 20% chance of getting parole compared to a 65% chance if they went after the break. This demonstrates that, as judges made decisions, their brains and bodies used up glucose. The meal break replenished their glucose. There's also abundant research that people have a hard time giving up options so, like the judges did by denying parole, they're likely to postpone the decision making process until they have more energy.

When your willpower is depleted, how are you likely to handle decisions? Explain.

Judges test. Have trouble controlling impulses, stronger cravings, feed that beast. You'll go with the default response or you'll try to delay the decision. Low willpower causes people not to want to give up options which causes people to delay or postpone decision making.

Next time you buy a car, what sales technique should you try to avoid? Explain.

Lots of questions and options wears people out. People end up choosing the easiest responses (like the default one) so car salesmen put more expensive options at the end. Decision Fatigue Experiment: Participants shown table loaded with lots of stuff and were told they could keep one item at end of experiment. Then some made choices on what they wanted by going through all of the items, two at a time, and saying which item they wanted more. Control group simply had to spend the same time thinking about all the products without having to make any decisions. Then everyone given a task of self-control: holding your hand in freezing cold water for as long as you can. Deciders gave up significantly sooner than nondeciders. (91-92)

On page 121, the authors states, "People care more about what other people know about them than about what they know about themselves." Explain how knowing that piece of information may be helpful in helping you improve your self-control.

Making goals public. Alcoholics Anonymous works by making other people accountable for your behavior. You have to stand up in front of AA and say, "I have been sober for this many days." People care more about what other people know about them than about what they know about themselves. It's about potential shame. Some guy created a app that let him take a daily mood test because he was battle depression. He had an option that would send his results to his friends. So when he was having a worse day, people would see that data and get in touch with him.

According to the authors, why are gossip magazines and candy placed at the checkout stand in supermarkets?

Mall experiments and decision fatigue experiment. You are worn out by the time you get to the front of the store and are more likely to make impulsive decisions. Also, the candy would be a quick glucose replenisher.

Before the start of exam week, your roommate's mother calls you and says: "I'm worried about Seymour. He seems really worried about all the studying he has to do for exams and has been eating a lot of junk food." How do you try to reassure him?

Mardi Gras Theory: By resting before lent, people could store up willpower to succeed at lent. Milkshake study: Three groups' willpower depleted in a first study. Then they were resting and one group was given boring magazines, another given delicious giant milkshakes, and another group was given flavorless milkshakes. Found that both milkshake groups succeeded better on the next task than the magazine group. Seemed that calories were necessary to replenish willpower for next task.

Paul the Procrastinator who is known to pull a lot of all-nighters during the last week of classes says to you, "I work best under the pressure of a deadline." Based on your reading of Baumeister's last chapter, how do you respond?

One experiment had students take procrastination test, then professor gave 3 due dates for paper and found that some of the highest scorers on test didn't even write down first 2 dates. Procrastinators did worse on all accounts: lower grades, lower scores on midterms and final exams. However, procrastinators are healthier until the end when the procrastinators get so sick it is worse than the non-procrastinators leading up to the exams.

Why was there a decline of interest in, or focus on, the will in the 20th century?

Our generation is preoccupied with ourselves and we just do what feels good. We don't follow through with our ideas. "If you dream you can do it" but you can't just think those things are going to happen, you have to will yourself to do stuff. In Freud's time, people had very strong wills which were harder to penetrate, but once they were penetrated they had the will to follow through and make changes in their lives. Today, people are easier in therapy, but they don't follow through. Ideology of willpower blames the individual.

Explain the link between self-control and self-awareness.

Participants were supposed to shock a participant. Those in front of mirrors shocked less. Also, during Halloween kids were part of a study and found that if they were in front of a mirror they stole less candy or no candy. Also, drinking causes loss of self-awareness which is why you act crazy because you don't give a ****. (113)

According to Baumeister's ego depletion theory, what is likely to happen in dorm life during the upcoming final exam period? Explain why.

People are going to lose all of their willpower and thus they can't regulate themselves. They adapt worse study habits because they sleep more, drink more, etc. Personal hygiene will drop. Studying causes stress which depletes willpower. Depleted willpower increases cravings which causes you to act poorly. Talk about dirty socks.

Which one of these four categories is "uniquely different" from the other three categories? Why?

Performance is the most important overall, for your life. It encompasses the other three categories. Improving your performance control will help you everywhere in life.

The following article on the latest dieting craze recently appeared in USA Today. Based on your reading of Baumeister's book (and especially chapter 10), are you optimistic or pessimistic about the potential success of this new approach? Give reasons to support your answer.

Pros: Don't deplete willpower because you're only focusing on your diet 2 days a week. Bright line effect and automatic processing. You could easily involve self-monitoring, publicly announcing results, and the never-say-never effect (but the thing is you actually do eat everything the next day). It may condition you on dieting days to eat healthy which you then do on off days as well. Cons: But are you still glucose deficient at the end of the diet days? What would happen on those days when you have less willpower because you aren't eating enough? Does your spending go up? Bad eating? Bad decisions? Will your body decide a famine is going on and just gain a ton of weight the next day or your body will hold the calories on diet days. Also, the "What the hell" effect could happen on the extremely important 2 days of dieting if you ate an unhealthy breakfast you might give up on the rest of the day. Bright lines could be a problem for internal/external cues. So on days off, you might just keep eating because you're used to external cues (like "it's Tuesday so I don't eat much") which wouldn't occur on non-diet days.

Describe the method, results, and implications of the "radish experiment"

Students had been fasting then came into room with smell of freshly baked cookies. Two groups: 1) allowed to eat sweets, and 2) had to eat raw radishes. No one gave up and just ate cookies. Then students taken to a room to do insoluble puzzles to see how long it would take till they gave up. Found that radish eaters gave up after 8 minutes while those who had not been put in the room with food at all and those who had eaten cookies lasted 20 minutes. The effort used for self-control left them with less energy to do puzzles. Implication is that all energy for self-control comes from the same place so if you exhaust your self-control doing one thing, you won't have any left over for later. (22)

Explain the hot-cold empathy gap.

The inability, during a cool, rational, peaceful moment, to appreciate how we'll behave during the heat of passion and temptation. Morton Stanley's men may have said they were virtuous back at home in England, but when the goings got tough, the men got wicked. In the heat of the moment people act differently then when they are cool headed. Masturbating study people were more likely to answer yes to slightly or very perverted questions. Also, when you make commitments to yourself (such as dieting) you are likely to make unrealistic commitments, "it's really easy to agree to diet when you're not hungry."

Define, and explain, the term "ego depletion." What is the primary symptom of ego depletion?

Vince likes term "psychic exhaustion." Baumeister's term for describing people's diminished capacity to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and actions (28) Study where people told that there would be a future exam saved energy. Symptoms include diminished willpower and strong cravings.

Describe the method, results, and implications of Mischel's famous "marshmallow experiment."

Walter Mischel. Four year-old child sits in chair, show them a marshmallow, and offer them a deal before leaving the room. If they could hold off eating marshmallow, they would get a second marshmallow. Had to wait 15 minutes. The ones that succeeded found ways of distracting themselves. Years later in college, Mischel found that those who failed marshmallow test had less self-control, got in more trouble in and out of school, got worse grades, lower SAT scores, less popular, earned lower salaries, lower body mass, fewer problems with drug abuse. The implications were that you could predict success and self-control as a college student when you're only 4 years old. (10)

What is the utility of the website "The Quantified Self"?

Website monitors your habits. Mint.com monitors your financial habits. Monitoring is a great form of self-control. One guy says it frees him to do the right thing because he can blame his behavior on the numbers. He thinks, if I walk up these steps I get extra points. Self monitoring and keeping goals you can rely on. Anthony Trollope forced himself to produce 250 words per quarter hour. He then kept track of day to day progress in a diary and if he became idle, that idleness stared him in the face and demanding increased labour. Nothing surely is so potent as a law that may not be disobeyed.

A friend of yours says that she has trouble keeping focused on her schoolwork while her roommates are in the same room talking and laughing. You suggest that she can help herself by beginning an exercise workout program. She looks confused and says "What does exercise have to do with saying focused on schoolwork when my friends are talking?" How do you respond?

When participants work out and have an exercising routine, their stamina was strengthened. Study with people watching three squares flash on a screen and slide around and then indicate which of the squares were the ones that had flashed initially. It was made harder because they were being distracted by Eddy Murphy. People who exercised did better on puzzle. Because they used willpower to keep to their exercising their stamina was strengthened. This is analogous to room full of people.

What are the two lessons that Baumeister's experiments consistently found?

You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it (Exams cause problems in the rest of your life because they cause stress). You use the same stock of willpower for all manner of tasks (Posture example).