Psych 304 Exam 2

Dweck's implicit theories; entity and incremental theory

---- Entity theory (fixed mindset)-believe ability is fixed, unchangeable ---- Incremental theory (growth mindset)- believe ability is malleable, can be improved with practice, effort, and hard work

Higgins' self-discrepancy theory (ideal self vs ought self)

---- Ideal self-who we strive to be Actual own- ideal discrepancies (where you don't match your own ideals for yourself) results in feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction Actual Other-ideal discrepancies (not matching others ideals for you) results in feelings of shame and embarrassment ---- Ought self (morally related)-who we ought to be Actual own ought discrepancies (where you don't live up to your own conscience) results in feelings of guilt and self-contempt Actual-other ought discrepancies (not matching others oughts for you) results in feelings of agitation, fear, and threat of abandonment

Resolution of the dissonance/self-perception debate; Is arousal involved or not?; When does counter-attitudinal behavior evoke arousal and cause dissonance versus not evoke arousal and cause self-perception?

---- Is arousal involved or not? Arousal involved in dissonance but not self-perception ---- When does counter-attitudinal behavior evoke arousal and cause dissonance versus not evoke arousal and cause self-perception? Dissonance happens with attitudes that are clear-cut and of some importance Self-perception happens with attitudes that are relatively vague or of less importance Mild discrepant actions lead to self-perception processes Highly discrepant actions produce dissonance; creates arousal/feeling of hypocrisy that engage dissonance reduction efforts

How do they affect social perception?

-Knowing what traits are part of one's self-schema has important implications -Schematic traits guide our attention and affect our perceptions of the social world around us; look for people who are like/not like me Independence/dependence Body image

Specificity of measurement issue/compatibility principle

-Specificity of measurement is critical -General measures of attitude predict general measures of attitude to predict one specific behavior, yielding low correlations -When you match the specificity of the measures, you find that attitudes do a decent job at predicting behavior

What are the different ways that we can reduce dissonance?

1) Add consonant beliefs that serve to rationalize my actions and minimize the inconsistency; our powers of rationalization are great 2) Change your behavior (to be more in line with your attitude) 3) Change your attitude (to be more in line with your behavior)

What are the different ways we respond to feelings of reactance?

1. Directly perform the threatened behavior a. I don't care what you say...ill just do it anyways 2. The threatened behavior increases in attractiveness a. You don't know what you've got until its gone 3. Aggress against the threatening agent a. Rebel to restore your freedom to act as you chose

Petty and Cacioppo's Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM); central route and peripheral route; What is the role of personal relevance/involvement in this model?

2 distinct routes to persuasion ---- What is the central route to persuasion? Persuasion is based on the quality of the message arguments You look at people's cognitive responses (thoughts) about the message (if they are favorable or unfavorable) ---- What are cognitive responses? Thoughts that people have about a message How you think about the message; how it relates to other things that you know and whether you agree or disagree ---- Role of motivation and ability in central route The central route is taken if you have the ability and the motivation to process something this way ---- What is the peripheral route to persuasion? Based on factors independent of message quality Messages are not scrutinized carefully Heuristics take over Instead, heuristics or peripheral factors (source expertise, attractiveness, number of arguments) determine the amount of persuasion ---- What is the role of personal relevance/involvement in this model? With high involvement you use central route persuasion Effortful, thorough processing Decide for yourself whether you agree with the message With low involvement you use peripheral route processing Use simple cues to determine persuasion

Attitudes

A predisposition to respond in a consistent manner towards a particular object

Tripartite view of attitudes

Affective component-our feelings about the attitude object Cognitive component- our beliefs or thoughts about the attitude object Behavioral component- our behavior toward the attitude objective

Persuasion-Message factors (what are they and why do they work?)

Aspects, or content, of a persuasive message, including the quality of the evidence and the explicitness of its conclusions Quality of the message arguments, comprehensibility of message, logical versus emotional appeals, one sided versus two-sided message, number of arguments presented

What is attitude accessibility and how is it measured?

Attitude accessibility-the extent to which an evaluation automatically comes to mind (is associated with) an attitude object Indexed by the reaction time in making a response Facilitation or inhibition where response is faster or slower

Ajzen and Fishbein's Theory of Planned Behavior

Behavioral intentions are predicted by 3 factors: attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control Subjective norms=what you perceive others want you to do Perceived behavioral control=the extent to which you feel like you can effectively enact your goals and plans

attitude inoculation

Biological metaphor, expose people to weak arguments, give them practice at counter arguing

What happens when prophecy fails (doomsday cult/end of the world prophecy)?

But what dissonance theory studied were situations where people had a difficult time rationalizing their actions/behaviors Conditions of "insufficient justification" Under such conditions, one must change their attitude

Self-awareness theory; What is self-focused attention and what are its consequences?

Certain situations lead our attention to be self-focused more than others (mirror, camera, and audience) In these situations, we evaluate ourself in comparison to internalized self-standards

Persuasion-Communicator factors (what are they and why do they work?)

Characteristics of the person who delivers a persuasive message, such as attractiveness, credibility, and certainty Credibility, expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness, similarity

Persuasion-Audience factors (what are they and why do they work?)

Characteristics of those who receive a persuasive message, including need for cognition, mood, and age Mood state, intelligence, initial position on the issue at hand, level of interest/involvement in the topic, need for cognition

Cortisol

Chronically high levels of cortisol damage different cells and organs in the body

Which component is the one most contemporary theories use to define attitudes?

Current definitions of attitude define in terms of affective component

How well do we insulate ourselves from persuasion in everyday life?

Data from Wilson's lab, we think we are far better at resisting than we really are We think we are better than others too Self-serving bias As a result, we may not take proactive steps to avoid bias, confident that we can counteract its influence post exposure

What is dissonance?

Dissonance is a state of psychological discomfort resulting from an inconsistency between 2 cognitions (often a behavior and an attitude) Dissonance is a motivational or drive state (like hunger and thirst) that engages actions to reduce or eliminate that drive

What are the benefits of implicit as opposed to explicit measures?

Explicit measures rely on self-report Are people willing to accurately report their attitudes toward sensitive topics? Social desirability concerns Can people accurately report their attitudes toward some topics? Do people know how they feel? Introspective awareness

What are the five stages of Wilson's model of debiasing?

Exposure control-avoid exposure to the biasing agent (message) altogether (requires knowledge and awareness of what's coming) Preparation- anticipatory counterarguing (attitude inoculation) Resistance-fighting against the influence of the biasing agent (actively counterarguing) Remediation-once "infected" by the bias, trying to undo the damage done (correction effects) Behavior Control-admission of the bias, but actively attempting not to act upon it (self-regression effects

Effort Justification paradigm (e.g., Aronson & Mills)

Had participants join a sex discussion group under 1 or 3 conditions (no initiation, mild initiation, severe initiation) Group turned out to be really boring-who would feel the most dissonance? The severe initiation group Important implications for understanding why pledges are willing to endure painful and embarrassing hazing experiences Effort justification-the tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing

How are self-schemas measured?

Hazel Markus used a reaction time measure to me/not me task -Subjects were to respond as quickly as possible whether a trait was a self-description or not -Faster RT indicates that a trait is part of our self-schema

Tim Wilson's work on reason-generated attitude change (what does the generation of reasons do to one's attitude and why?)

He finds that after listing reasons, people often make different choices (preference shifts) Interestingly, he finds that the choices that they make after listing reasons are often ones that they later regret, and are less satisfied with The reasons people come up with are not often the true underlying reasons why we like or prefer something We may not have conscious access to the reasons for liking People can so readily generate reasons when asked to do so because we share certain lay theories or beliefs about why people like things Those lay theories are easy to articulate, are consensually agreed upon, and come to mind readily After generating reasons, we convince ourselves those are the real reasons we like something, resulting in these shifts in preference Experts are not as susceptible to this effect

Induced compliance experiments (Festinger & Carlsmith); Counter-attitudinal advocacy/behavior under high and low dissonance conditions

In all cases, you must get participants to engage in counter-attitudinal behavior under high and low dissonance conditions High dissonance led people to changing their attitudes about something

What is insufficient justification?

Insufficient justification is when you don't feel like it was worth it doing something because you don't have adequate justification for it, so you have to convince yourself that it was worth it doing something

Lockwood and Kunda; When do we see another's success as inspiring as opposed to deflating?

Key determinant: the perceived attainability of the other person's accomplishments If you see them as attainable, then their success will inspire you If you see them as unattainable, then their success will demoralize you

Four functions of attitudes

Knowledge function-all attitudes serve to organize and summarize our knowledge about a particular attitude object Ex. Like a schema, help structure environment Instrumental/Utilitarian Function-some attitudes serve to maximize our rewards and minimize punishments obtained from our environment Particularly true for attitudes that have tangible outcomes/food, comfort, items, activities Social identity function-some attitudes serve a symbolic function for the individual 2 types: value/expressive-attitudes that express ones own central values Social identification-attitudes that express central values of desired or admired groups Self-esteem maintenance function- some attitudes serve to maintain and potentially enhance one's self-esteem Attitudes about self (and attitudes we possess) or about our ingroup are positive Attitudes about other groups are negative (prejudice feelings toward outgroups ---- What are examples of attitudes that fit each of these functions? Knowledge function-"this is a good book" Instrumental/utilitarian function-"I like flannel sheets because they keep me warm on cold nights"

Consequences of introspection; What are causal theories and why do people rely on them?

Often we are told when making decisions to analyze our reasons pro and con for a given alternative Tim Wilson has conducted experiments in which people in some conditions are asked to analyze reasons for why they prefer certain objects and others are not

What two processes does Dan Wegner posit to account for rebound effects?

Operating process-our conscious process; works to distract us from unwanted thoughts Ex. What am I going to think about Monitoring process-an unconscious process; monitors what we are doing currently Ex. Checks to see whether the operating process is failing, needs renewal

Thought suppression (try not to think of a white bear); Why do we experience failures at thought suppression?

Paradoxically, you find that asking people to suppress some thought or action leads to an obsession with that very thought or action Rebound effects-hyper accessibility of the thought following an episode of suppression

Baumeister's "radish/chocolate chip cookie" study

Participants come into the lab Experimental subjects smell freshly baked cookies Taste test either radishes or cookies After taste test worked on different problem solving tasks Obviously, many acts of self control deplete our mental resources (impulse control, concentration) Downstream consequences of mental depletion are ubiquitous (inability to resist temptation, failure to inhibit undesired responses Efforts at self-regulation and mental control do not always lead to positive consequences (some situations in which trying to exert conscious control backfires and leads to poorer decisions

Greenwald & Banaji's Implicit Association Test (IAT)

People try to respond as quickly as possible without making errors (speed/accuracy trade off) Participants are presented with members of categories and are told to link them to different words Most dominant implicit measure used in the field Problems-order of the combined tasks influences the measure IAT effect smaller with picture stimuli than word stimuli IAT effects are reduced with repeated administrations No strong rationale for standard data cleaning procedures (cut offs for responses) IAT effects tend to increase with age of respondent IAT measures are influenced by measurement and complex variables IAT appears to be slightly fakeable IAT must measure more than just association strengths IAT actually measures association strengths of pairs of associations

What factor determines which process (comparison or reflection) prevails in a situation?

Performance Closeness of the other Personal relevance of the performance domain on your self-concept When relevance is high, we compare; being outperformed by close others is particularly tough on our self-esteem When relevance is low, we reflect; we take credit for and experience greater self-esteem boost for the success of close others

What are the affective reactions associated with the different self-discrepancies?; What parenting strategies/reinforcement patterns are associated with each?; How do they affect motivation?

Prevention versus promotion focus Prevention-goal is safety and security; "moving away" from an undesired end-state; living up to your own oughts Promotion-goal is attainment; meeting your ideals; "moving toward" a desired end state Promotion focus associated with use of praise for success; absence of positive reaction for failure Prevention Focus associated with use of punishment for failure; absence of negative reaction for success Promotion focus is motivated to move toward a desired end state Prevention focus is motivated to move away from an undesired end state

Private and public self-consciousness

Private-tendency to introspect and examine ones inner self and feelings; being inwardly reflecting; how we feel about ourselves in our own head Public- is an awareness of the self as it is viewed by others' worrying about how other people perceive us

Role of self-monitoring

Refers to the dimension reflecting how much people adapt their behavior to their immediate social environment -High self monitors are social chameleons Can be different people in different situations The situation rather than their attitudes, dictates their behavior -Low self monitors want to "be themselves" in social situations Seek out others that are similar to them Use their attitudes as an important guide to their behavior

Self-reference effect

Refers to the superior recall for words that are encoded with respect to the self

Self-serving bias; To what causes do people attribute their own/others' successes? Failures?

Refers to the tendency to make different attributions about performance by the self for success as opposed to for failure Why did we succeed?-clear preference for internal attributions Why did we fail?-clear preferences for external attributions Attributions for others' successes and failures are more balanced

Non-attitude

Responses we make on the fly when we are asked an attitude question and are highly unstable, resulting in poor attitude behavior consistency

Distinction between task-contingent and performance-contingent rewards

Rewarding someone for something they already like to do actually undermines their interest in doing that activity Task-contingent-if you do it, you get the reward (quality doesn't matter) Performance-contingent reward-allocated based on quality performance

Applications to the use of reward, punishment, illusion of choice

Rewards ($1 or $20); $20 condition people say that its boring, $1 condition people say that they enjoyed it because they didn't have money as justification or why they did it Threats (mild versus severe punishment); mild punishment didn't wanna do it anymore, but sever wanted to do it after the punishment Choice (low choice versus high choice); high choice had to justify why they picked it -Real change happens with small punishment and small rewards

How do the attributions of depressed and non-depressed individuals differ? self-serving bias

Self serving bias only occurs with people who don't suffer from depression Depressed show little if any self-serving bias

What is ego depletion and why does it subsequent performance?

Self-control consumes resources (like using a muscle) so that the person is fatigued for future tasks; efforts at suppression lead to ego depletion

Self-complexity (Linville); What are its implications for mental health and coping?

The number of unique self-aspects that a person believes that they possess Assessed through a Q-sort technique group; traits into as many aspects of yourself as you want Low complexity- few self-aspects High Complexity- see different selves based on the different roles that you play High complexity people tend to cope better with negative/stressful events in their lives High complexity people less prone to depression, better health outcomes overall The buffering hypothesis- have other things to fall back on to compensate for failures in one facet of one's life

Self-perception theory; How does it differ from dissonance theory?; How does it account for the overjustification effect?

The theory that people come to know their own attitudes by looking at their behavior and the context in which it occurred and inferring what their attitudes must be People don't change their attitudes, they infer what their attitudes must be No arousal involved: people coolly and rationally infer what their attitudes must be in light of their behavior and the context in which it occurred With attitudes that are relatively vague or of less importance Tendency to devalue those activities we perform, even if they are pleasing, in order to get something else We draw cues for what our body is doing for figuring out what we think, feel or believe To understand something, people must mentally "try it on" or simulate it and what our body is doing or how its feeling can facilitate or impede the act of simulation, influencing what we think and feel

Self-affirmation (Steele); What is it and how does it work?; Works by...

Thinking affirming thoughts about yourself By thinking about positive aspects of your life, you can boost your self-esteem Thus, even when you experience some threatening event, self-affirmations enables you to maintain positive self-regard despite the threat Trivialization-its really not that important anymore Distraction-not thinking about it any longer Mood repair-I'm feeling good now and that's all that matters

reactance

Threat or elimination of freedom to act arouses feelings of reactance

What are some of the main ways that attitudes are measured? Thurstone scales, Likert scales, semantic differential, one item rating scales

Thurstone-list of different kinds of statements, check the statements with which you agree, not used as much anymore because measuring cognition instead of affect Likert scale-indicate your agreement with the following statement from strongly disagree to agree Semantic differential- rate how you feel about blank on a scale of 1-7; scales are good, bad; unfavorable, favorable; pleasant, unpleasant; negative, positive One item rating scale-degree to which you like something on a scale of 1-7

What do we do in the case of a close other's failure?

We distance ourselves from "losers" (cutting off reflected failure or CORFing) How does sibling rivalry evidence SEM processes in action? Strong sibling rivalry when same domains are self-relevant Closeness in age Same gender

What is the MODE model and how does it reconcile Ajzen and Fishbein with attitude accessibility?

We do deliberate processing (like the TPB) only when motivation is high and sufficient opportunity is present When either motivation is low or opportunity is not present, we rely on attitude accessibility to determine our behavior

Tesser's Self-Evaluation Maintenance model (SEM)

We learn about ourselves and our abilities by comparing ourselves to similar others However, sometimes social comparison information can be threatening when we are outperformed by others ---- Comparison process ---- Effects of comparisons to close others vs. strangers Comparisons are more impactful when the person is close to us (as opposed to a complete stranger) Ex. Give harder clues to our friend than a stranger ---- What are its implications for self-esteem? If we outperform them-feel good about ourselves If they outperform us-we feel bad about oursleves ---- Reflection process Take pride in another person's success instead of comparing ourselves to the other person

Wicker's review of the attitude literature — what did it conclude?

Wicker did a review of the attitude-behavior consisting literature and called into question the usefulness of the attitude construct

Self-schema (Markus)

Work on the SRE effect led people to hypothesize that we have a self-schema, a representation of ourself stored in memory -unique, derived from experience -may consist of few or many traits or characteristics

Basking in reflected glory (BIRGing)

Works best when you have a close association We proclaim our associations with successful others

Sleeper effect

an effect that occurs when a persuasive message from an unreliable source initially exerts little influence but later causes attitudes to shift

Perceived control

developing a sense of control can benefit a person's overall health

Swann's self-verification theory

people do not want enhancing feedback; instead, they want feedback based with how they view themselves Makes the novel prediction that low self-esteem individuals desire negative rather than positive feedback

Self-enhancement/self-protection

people want to feel good about themselves-embrace positive feedback; people want to protect themselves from negative feelings of self (avoid, discount negative feedback)

Optimism

people who are more optimistic to have greater happiness and well-being and they enjoy better health as well

Social support

people who report having strong ties to others live longer; social connections lead to positive responses to stress and better health overall

Metacognition

secondary thoughts that are reflections on primary thoughts (cognitions)

Hostile media effect

tendency for individuals with a strong preexisting attitude on an issue to perceive media coverage as biased against their side

Self-distancing

the ability to focus on one's feelings from the perspective of a detached observer

Thought polarization

the hypothesis that more extended thought about a particular issue tends to produce a more extreme, entrenched attitude

Sociometer hypothesis

the idea that self-esteem is an internal, subjective index or marker of the extent to which a person is included or looked on favorably by others

Psychological stress

the sense that challenges and demands surpass one's current capacities, resources, and energies; stress increases the release of cortisol which increases heart rate and blood pressure, hand sweat, suppresses the activity of the immune system, forming flash bulb memories (respond to short-term stress)

Rumination

the tendency to think about a stressful event repeatedly People who ruminate about a negative event experience prolonged stress compared with people who distract themselves from the event

System justification theory

the theory that people are motivated to see the existing sociopolitical system as desirable, fair, and legitimate

Terror management theory

the theory that people deal with the potentially crippling anxiety associated with the knowledge of the inevitability of death by striving for symbolic importability through preserving valued cultural worldviews and believing they have lives up to cultural standards

Distinctiveness hypothesis

things that compromise our self schemas are things that make us distinct from others; make us different than other people that we know