3121 - Social Psych
what is the adaptive-conspiracism hypothesis of conspiracy beliefs?
"Conspiracy beliefs are part of an evolved psychological mechanism specifically aimed at detecting dangerous coalitions." - Adaptive mechanism of human mind - Assists in navigation of social world so that we can anticipate and overcome dangers - We are often biased toward making false positives when cost of false negatives is low
what is an emotion?
"Emotions are episodes of coordinated change in several components (including physiological activation, motor expression and subjective feeling/experience) in response to external or internal events of major significance to the organism." - Klaus Scherer
what is the importance of eye gaze in nonverbal communication?
"Eyes hold special prominence in human exchange and have across time and culture. They serve both as a salient channel through which people send nonverbal messages as well as the primary mechanism by which people perceive nonverbal messages sent by others."
what are moral dilemmas?
"Moral dilemmas are situations in which the decision-maker must consider two or more moral values or duties but can only honour one of them; thus, the individual will violate at least one important moral concern, regardless of the decision."
what is angry rumination?
"Perseverative thinking about a personally meaningful anger-inducing event" The content of angry rumination (Denson et al., 2006): - Focusing/reliving anger provocations - Planning revenge
what is loneliness?
- "Loneliness is ... a distressing feeling that accompanies the perception that one's social needs are not being met by the quantity or especially the quality of one's social relationships" - Hawkley & Cacioppo (2010) - Being alone isn't at the heart of loneliness, it's how we interpret being alone
what correlational evidence is there for the types of loneliness and Facebook usage patterns?
- 1324 Australian internet users, some of whom used FB and some of whom did not - Measured social, family and romantic loneliness - Assessed self-reported usage patterns: active (posting and engaging with content) vs. passive (lurking) Results: Facebook Users vs. Non-users - Social loneliness: users < nonusers - Family loneliness: users > nonusers - Romantic loneliness: users = nonusers - Shows different loneliness patterns according to the presence of people on the FB platform Results: Usage patterns among FB users - Active users on FB tend to be less lonely whereas passive users on FB tend to be more lonely - (Remember we can't make causal conclusions from correlational research)
give evidence for the selection hypothesis in the context of life satisfaction - Stutzer & Frey, 2006
- 17 year-long longitudinal study in Germany. - Measured happiness and wellbeing over time (1984-2000) - Measured demographic variables (like marriage status), and a subjective wellbeing question "How satisfied are you with your life, all things considered?" (0 to 10 scale - Found that those who go on to get married start with greater life satisfaction before marriage - it's not to do with the experience of marriage evidence for selection hypothesis
how do we know that teaching kids about anger regulation may lead to a reduction in aggression amongst adults?
- 2 sessions, 3 years apart (6-10-year-olds first and then tested again at 9-13 years old) - Required participants to build a challenging tower using blocks - Compared maladaptive/dysregulated (venting) versus adaptive (problem focus) responses - Venting at both age groups predicted aggression 12 months later.
what correlational evidence is there for Loneliness, happiness and use levels?
- 332 Facebook users self-reported their levels of loneliness, happiness, their number of Facebook friends and FB persistence Results: - Number of friends on Facebook positively correlated with happiness (r = .22) and negatively correlated with loneliness (r = -.21) the more FB friends, the happier and less lonely you are likely to be - Facebook 'persistence' was associated with higher levels of loneliness.
Why is it important to study how couples handle conflict?
- 80% of intimate partner violence incidents are preceded by verbal arguments - Having a poor conflict management style is a proximal risk factor for intimate partner violence perpetration
When someone has a belief that is disconfirmed, they will be more committed to that belief under certain conditions. What are these conditions?
- A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action... - The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it.... must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. - The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief. - Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief. - The individual believer must have social support. If the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade non-members that the belief is correct.
does the induced compliance paradigm evoke dissonance? refer to the Kool-aid experiment to answer
- After drinking either the yummy or yucky drink, they were asked to write statement that says they liked beverage, under low vs. high choice condition - In the unpleasant condition and low choice: Beveridge was rated very lowly - In the unpleasant condition and high choice: Beveridge was rated more highly - So yes, this creates a situation where people experience dissonance as a result of induced compliance
describe Bartlett et al.'s 2012 experiment about gratitude and the virtual ball throwing game
- After gratitude induction paradigm, Ps played an online ball throwing game (as the yellow avatar) - They would throw the ball to a monetary target, a neutral target or the person from the prior paradigm (either the C who helped them or the other person in the study) - Idea was that everyone would throw to monetary target but in the cases where this did not occur, gratitude would push people to throw towards their benefactor (the person who helped them) - DV: investing in new relationships - Control condition: throwing to the neutral vs benefactor was equivalent - Gratitude condition: throwing to the benefactor was significantly more frequent than to the neutral --> when participants are choosing who to engage with, they tend to choose a benefactor when not choosing money
what are the challenges to measuring aggression?
- Aggression is a relatively infrequent behaviour which makes observation in the real-world difficult and time-consuming - Ethics: Giving someone the opportunity to harm another can be problematic - Participants must not be aware that aggressive behaviour is being observed (deception and measurement activity)
What is indirect (relational) aggression?
- Aim is to destroy reputation or social sabotage (reputations are very important in human society) - There is lots of overlap in brain activity between when people are being ignored and when they're being physically harmed
what is the relationship between power posing and dominance?
- Amy Cuddy suggests that when we hold power poses, there are downstream effects such as how we perceive ourselves (we feel more powerful), may impact hormonal profiles (e.g., increase testosterone and decrease cortisol) and how others perceive us. However this has been met with low reproducibility
how do proxemics track physical similarity (Mackinnon et al., 2011)?
- Analysis of seating patterns in computer labs, classrooms, a lab paradigm, and in hypothetical scenarios - People choose to sit close to others who look like them (e.g., glasses, hair color, hair length), even when controlling for sex and race.
what is the good news about aggression?
- Anger = emotion - Aggression = behaviour (motivated by anger) - People report getting angry anywhere from several times per week to several times per day. But this anger hardly ever turns into aggression for most people. - For most people, anger dissipates in 10-20 minutes all by itself
Does being a target of a positive stereotype impact belief in abilities?
- Asian participants (Study 1), men (Study 2), or women (Study 3) completed an identity-salience (making their identity: man woman or Asian salient) task after taking an easy test in a stereotyped domain. - DV: Beliefs in abilities in that domain and expectations for future performance - Results: Activation of a positive stereotype increased certainty in having performed well on a previous easy task. Increased certainty in turn boosted beliefs in that ability and expectations to perform well on similar tasks in the future. So, being the target of a positive stereotype can boost beliefs in abilities both past and future but this appears to be limited to the situation where performance has been good in the past and limited to people who came to think of themselves as positively stereotyped in that domain
describe Petty and Brintol's 2009 experiment about listing traits in different postures
- Asked participants to "list either three positive/negative personal traits relating to future professional performance." They then asked participants to adopt particular postures. - Confident posture: sitting down with their back erect and pushing their chest out - Doubtful posture: slouched forward with their back curved - DV: rate self-attitude as a potential professional - IV: did the posture impact the positivity/negativity of the traits they listed?
what were the results of Sherman & Gorkin's 1980 experiment with feminists and cognitive dissonance?
- Assessed participant's level of feminism - Gave participants a sex-role logic problem or problem of same difficulty not related to feminism - Even among those participants who scored high in feminism, many could not solve the sex-logic problem - Then participants judged an affirmative action lawsuit where woman is not hired due to gender - Feminists who failed to solve problem also judged decision to hire man as less just and had more positive attitude toward affirm act --> they experienced dissonance because they failed to solve this sex-role logic problem and felt that their feminism was threatened (there was dissonance) so then reaffirmed their feminism by becoming 'more feminist' by seeing the hiring of a man as even less just - I.e., they had a strong belief --> they were presented with information that made them feel dissonance about that --> intensified their original belief
what are the behavioural impulses of hatred?
- Attack, exclude, humiliate, or annihilate the outgroup. - There is a desire to completely remove the outgroup from the social environment. - How to do this depends on context and relationship between the groups Ignore/neglect the outgroup (institutional discrimination) Physical attacks (war, hate crimes) Media/social media humiliation (hate speech) Physical separation (Indian reservations, Nauru & Manus Island, US-Mexico border wall)
why is it important to acquire emotion regulation skills early?
- Because for boys, aggression is pretty stable by 8 years old. - r = .29 for aggression at age 8 and age 48.
what other methods can be used to measure aggression?
- Bureaus - self-report questionnaires (e.g., Aggression Questionnaire and the Displaced Aggression Questionnaire) - peer nominations - perpetration and victimisation surveys/scales
how do casually dating, exclusively dating, engaged and married individuals differ in passion, intimacy and commitment? (Lemiux & Hale, 2002)
- Casually dating individuals rated intimacy significantly lower than those who were exclusively dating, engaged or married (expected) - Casually dating individuals rated passion significantly lower than those who were exclusively dating, engaged or married (expected) - No significant difference in passion between those who were dating or married (unexpected because married couples have usually been together longer) - Engaged participants had the highest passion scores - Casually dating individuals rated commitment significantly lower than those who were exclusively dating, engaged or married (expected) and married people show the highest level of commitment (expected) - Exclusively dating and engaged means were significantly lower on commitment than married couples
what is reactive aggression?
- Characterized by feelings of anger. - Goal is to inflict harm for harm's sake - you feel harmed by them so you want to inflict that back - FBI crime statistics show that most homicides are preceded by a heated, often trivial argument (and often when the perpetrator and/or victim or both are intoxicated). - Courts in many countries take "provocation" into account.
how are humans different to chimps?
- Chimpanzees have one group membership. - Humans have many: residential, tribe/clan, race/ethnic identification, national, religious, political, linguistic group, vegan, hipster, etc. Thus, aggression can occur at many more levels between humans than chimps. We can also form cross-level alliances (NATO, IS). - Formal peace processes (e.g., United Nations) - Ideology --> how we think can divide us e.g., Fascism vs communism - We can kill everyone on earth
what is the self-affirmation revision of cognitive dissonance? why is this flawed?
- Cognitive inconsistency is not the cause of the attitude change etc. - In a dissonance situation, individuals have acted in ways that threatened their self-integrity. - Affirming their self-worth should eliminate attitude change. - But this may be trivialization - Priming participants with the problem of world hunger was rated as important but unrelated to self-view --> also decreases attitude change - So, making people aware of something else important (and unrelated to self-concept) can also reduce the dissonance --> framing - Thinking about world hunger prompts you to trivialise your own dissonance - Self-affirmation causes participants to rate dissonant cognitions as less important
describe how researchers can use ostracism to provoke participants' aggression
- Common paradigm for investigating this: cyberball - Participant tosses the ball between themselves and two other "players" - Then the other two "players" just keep tossing the ball between themselves, excluding the participant --> makes people upset by threatening people's self esteem and their need to belong
What is the Hot (Chilli) Sauce Paradigm of aggression?
- Confederate insults participant - Then under the guise of a taste test, participants allocate hot sauce to then confederate (who they are told hates hot sauce) and who will have to eat it all --> act of aggression as it is a noxious substance - The more hot sauce served, the more aggressive the response
how do epistemic needs motivate beliefs in conspiracies?
- Conspiracy theories provide explanations that help people in the face of uncertainty - Uncertainty increases conspiracy beliefs - Conspiracy beliefs are correlated with perceiving patterns in randomness, need for cognitive closure, and seeking meaning
what are the roles of cortisol?
- Controls inflammation - Stimulates glucose and fatty acids - Sensitizes cells to other neuroendocrines - Promotes attention and storage of memory
Violence is costly, so chimps usually fight smart (like humans). How so?
- Cost - benefit analysis --> not necessarily a conscious process, we can deduce strength from someone's voice or even just their face - "Pant hoot" calls which advertise physical strength and numbers over long distances --> makes it sound like there are more animals than there actually are - Scaring off neighbours is the aim. - When one group outnumbers another, gang attacks are likely because the costs of killing are low.
how can we predict divorce from conflict discussion? (Carrere & Gottman, 1999)
- Couples (husbands and wives) who later divorced started off their conflict discussions with significantly greater displays of negative emotion and fewer expressions of positive emotion when compared with couples who remained married over the course of the 6-year study - Divorced husbands had significantly lower ratio of positive to negative communications/emotions compared to the married husbands - Husbands and wives in stable relationships had less negative affect at the beginning and more positive affect than those that went on to get divorced So, for both husbands and wives, the beginning of the conflict discussion is critical in predicting whether there will be marital stability long-term
how does jealousy from ostracism map onto the PFC?
- Cyberball paradigm was edited such that each player had a face (rather than just an avatar) - You got to pick the third person in the game - according to who is the most attractive (who is the only person of the opposite gender to you) - Everyone starts by throwing the ball to each other then all of a sudden the "attractive" person you chose to play with only pays attention to the other person in the mix (i.e., the other person of your gender) to induce jealousy - Jealousy was directly associated with greater left frontal cortical activity and approach motivation to female with ball during ostracism
Do expressions of ethnicity focussed positive stereotypes impact impressions of the expresser and experience of targets?
- DV: how Asian participants perceived this expresser who either expressed a positive stereotype or not, and how they experienced this interaction themselves - When the expressor gave a positive stereotype, they were rated as more likely to hold negative stereotypes, to be more racist and participants reported feeling more depersonalised
Do expressions of gender focussed positive stereotypes impact impressions of the expresser and experience of targets?
- DVs: how the female participants perceived a male who either expressed a positive stereotype about women or not, and how they experienced this interaction themselves - Viewed the expressor of the positive stereotypes as likely to hold a negative stereotype, more sexist and made the target feel more depersonalised
Angry rumination can lead to poor health-relevant outcomes such as...
- Delayed cardiovascular and endocrine recovery to provocation - Poor sleep quality following provocation - Maladaptive coping with ethnic discrimination: Greater engagement in in unsafe sex, substance use, and aggressive, dangerous, and illegal behaviors (e.g., destroyed property, shoplifted, been in physical fight)
how are conspiracy theories entertaining?
- Discovery of an important secret conspiracy with important implications may provide a sense of meaning and purpose. --> Consistent with conspiracy beliefs being associated with boredom, need to feel unique, narcissism - Intense emotions activate automatic, intuitive thinking and suppress analytic thinking --> Consistent with conspiracy beliefs being negatively associated with analytic thinking
what is the self-consistency revision of cognitive dissonance?
- Dissonance occurs when individuals behave in ways that make them feel foolish, immoral, or irrational. - Inconsistent with being competent, moral, and rational - Predicts that individuals with high self-esteem (SE) should have more dissonance, because they conceive of themselves are more competent, moral, and rational. - Evidence is very mixed on SE --> people with high SE do not always show the most dissonance - Dissonance occurs in species (e.g., rats, pigeons) that lack these self-conceptions.
what are stealth raids? How are they adaptive?
- During the night, just before dawn - Quiet attempt to steal livestock (which symbolise wealth) --> this was the main goal - If opportunity arises, kill enemy --> not the main goal, just a biproduct - Casualties are low. Found that prolific raiders had more wives (3 vs 2) and more children (6.5 vs 6) than the less-prolific raiders --> adaptive element of raids
Does posture influence ability to recall memories (cognitive functions)? (Dijkstra et al., 2006)
- Eight memories recalled while holding congruent or incongruent poses. (Incongruent example: Please, stand up, go to the book case and place your hands on the shelf. Now, tell me a memory of one particular time you were opening the door for a visitor. Congruent example: Please, lean back in the recliner, open your mouth and tell me a memory of one time you were at the dentist.) - DV: reaction times to generate memory & recall 14 days later - During the experiment, memory generation was faster holding a congruent vs. an incongruent body posture. - Two weeks later, recall was better for memories generated while holding a congruent vs. an incongruent body posture.
differentiate between encoding and decoding
- Encoding: sending nonverbal cues - Decoding: receiving nonverbal cues
what are the 6 functions of violence (why people may be violent)?
- Escape from aversive situation - Attain a goal - Release of negative affective arousal (people sometimes feel like if they blow off steam they'll feel better - catharsis - shown not to be effective because instead of feeling better, people tend to feel remorseful) - Resolve a conflict - Gain respect (street gangs where being tough is important) - Attack a culturally defined "enemy" (e.g., war, racist attack)
what makes people experience happiness?
- Exposure to nature (e.g., Capaldi et al., 2014) - Reminiscing over past positive experiences (Bryant et al., 2005) - Sharing / discussing positive experiences with others (Lambert et al., 2012) - Spending money on experiences rather than material things (Howell & Guevarra, 2013) and spending on others rather than the self (Aknin et al., 2013) Not all positive emotional experiences are 'happiness' - there is variety of positive emotions which we experience in day to day life
what is unconscious vigilance?
- Facilitates the identification of the subtle threat. - Facilitates the identification of incidental hazards / resources in contexts of background threat. - Efficiently capitalizes on acquired preferences, co-opting a shared mechanism for use in numerous domains
what is error management theory?
- Failure to recognize or believe conspiracies may lead to costs/death - People tend to err on the side of caution - Early humans who were suspicious of conspiracies were more likely to reproduce see table in notes
what is the cultural anxiety buffer? how does it relate to the management of terror?
- Faith in a cultural worldview -- a set of beliefs about the nature of reality shared by groups of persons - It manages terror by colouring life with meaning, order, stability, and permanence - Cultural worldviews provide an explanation of the origins of life, prescriptions of behaviour for feeling good and valuable, and routes of obtaining immortality.
what are the conflict characteristics of violent husbands? (Jacobson et al., 1994)
- Found that violent husbands show more contempt and belligerence than their non-violent counterparts - Wives in relationships with violent husbands showed greater level of anger than wives in non-violent relationships - So, contempt and belligerence are particularly important aspects of specific negative communication that are associated with violence in relationships --> a red flag
Consequences of the uniquely human ability to think temporally, symbolically, & self-reflectively
- Freedom from reactivity (have flexibility in our behaviour) - Self-regulation - Self-consciousness - Kierkegaard's ideas of being able to experience awe and dread
describe the psychoanalysis theory of aggression
- Freud suggested that we have 2 primitive drives = Sex/Create (Eros) & Aggression/Destroy (Thanatos) - "Hydraulic" model --> you need to release anger or else it will become toxic (i.e., catharsis)
explain the gender differences in competition within friendships (Hojjat et al., 2021)
- Friend pairs attended lab and were randomly assigned to competition vs no competition condition Findings - anagram performance: Competition condition: - No gender difference in number of anagrams solved - Both men and women completed more anagrams when they were competing against a male friend No competition condition: - No gender difference in number of anagrams solved - Participants solved more anagrams when paired with same-gender friends Findings - self-reported competitiveness: Competition: - Both men and women were more competitive when paired with a male friend No competition: - Participants reported more competitiveness with same gender friends Findings- enjoyment and stress: - Men reported enjoying competition more than women, regardless of the gender of their competitor friend. - Men reported feeling more stressed when their competitor friend was a woman, compared to a man (maybe because men have been socialised to not engage in competition with women). - Women reported no differences in stress dependent on the gender of their competitor friend. So, might be more acceptable for men to outwardly express competition. Also, social norms for women competing with women are different to men's - women are socialised to believe that competitiveness isn't feminine Contradicts the well-held belief that women shy away from competition and that they perform worse under competitive circumstances than men --> women are reporting differently to current research --> gender norms and roles are changing because this shows that women aren't conforming to shying away from competition
when testing the universality argument for the Morality as Cooperation approach, what was found?
- Gathered a rich data set from 60 societies around the world and gathered information from their ethnographic records (writings by anthropologists about a society) - In 961 out of 962 observations (99.9%), upholding the moral value had a positive moral valence. There were no societies in which upholding any of the seven moral values had a negative moral valence
what are the concrete/practical benefits of neuroscience?
- Gives us an understanding of structures, chemicals, molecules involved in disorders can lead to treatments (pharmo, neurofeedback, CBT) - Helps us to know the different functions of structures to assist in neurosurgery - Provides unbiased, observable measures that give psychological research credibility to other sciences & laypersons
Despite an explicit, anti-prejudicial statement, researchers have found robust bias and prejudice against Airbnb hosts and guests of minority background. What are some stats around prejudice against guests?
- Guests with African-American names were 16% less likely to be accepted as renters than guests with characteristically white names (Edelman et al., 2016). - Requests from guests with blindness, cerebral palsy, dwarfism, or spinal cord injury were less likely to be approved than guests without disabilities (Ameri et al., 2020).
explain the experiment which saw that winning an aggression paradigm increased testosterone in women (Denson, Mehta & Ho Tan, 2013)
- Had a game whereby people blasted each other with loud noise - aggressive competition (if they lose, they get blasted and if they win, they get to blast the other person) - Manipulated whether people won or lost majority of trials - People who won had an increase in testosterone and people who lose had a slight decrease (at the 10 min mark)
what is the influence of the media, internet and social media on hate speech?
- Hate speech used to increase ingroup cohesiveness and solidarity against the outgroup (e.g., Islamic State). - Easier to find an audience for socially undesirable hate speech than in the past. - Facilitates scapegoating.
how can you put people in a high state of dissonance under the hypocrisy paradigm?
- Have a person publicly commit to a belief by making a statement that is in accordance with this belief (e.g., that people should use condoms) - Knowledge that one has publicly preached a firmly held belief is dissonant with knowledge that one does not always act in accord with it
what is the adaptive role of emotions?
- Help to drive behavioural responses - Help to direct cognition - Help to reorient physiology (may help to energise or calm the body)
what are the 2 fundamental questions of becker's analysis?
- How are we as humans the same as other animals? --> we all posses a biological proclivity for self-preservation (we all have a strong urge to live) - How are we as humans different from other animals (how do we survive)? --> we differ in our ability to think...e.g., we can engage in many kinds of thought
what is the relationship between facebook use and divorce? (Valenzuela et al., 2014)
- Hypothesised that Facebook use was positively correlated with divorce based on the experience (Facebook use would cause divorce - easy access to other people) and self-selection hypothesis (people who are already unhappy might use FB more often because it's beneficial to them) State level data: collected between 2008-2010 Measures: - State level divorce rate per year - Facebook penetration (i.e., number of FB accounts registered in each state, divided by the population of each state) per year - Demographic and social variables known to covary with divorce Findings: - A 20% annual increase in FB use was associated with a 4.5% increase in divorce rates across US states in the same year. - Across states, a 20% increase in FB penetration in one year, resulted in 4% increase in divorce the following year. Gives evidence that there is an effect of FB on divorce rates in the USA Individual level data: survey on 1160 married individuals Measures: - Likelihood of divorce - Relationship quality - Time spent on social networking sites - Demographic and social variables known to covary with divorce Findings: - Someone who doesn't use FB is 11% more happy with their marriage than a heavy user - Using FB heavily is associated with a 7% increase in trouble in marriage compared to non-users - The probability of thinking about divorce was 16% for a nonuser and 32% for a heavy user. That's a difference of 16%! Clear association between FB use and relationship trouble - Individual and state-level data supported hypotheses that FB is associated with poorer quality and higher likelihood of divorce - Could be explained by either experience or self-selection hypothesis
how does testosterone influence the decision to compete again (or not)?
- If you see a decrease in testosterone after you lose, it may protect you from wanting to fight again (adaptive advantage) - Mehta & Josephs (2006): participants told that they would be competing against each other on a test of an important type of intelligence called "spatial processing speed" --> told that they're really smart, really good at the task and that intelligence is related to social status - No testosterone effects in winners, but in losers, if there was a decrease in testosterone only 20% wanted to compete again whereas if they had an increase in testosterone, 70% wanted to compete again
what is action orientation?
- Implementation of decisions is enhanced - People more likely to get their decision enacted once in an action orientation mindset - Related to approach motivation - Greater relative left frontal cortical activity → approach motivation
According to Dr Gottman, the first 3 minutes of a conflict conversation will predict whether the couple of low- or high-risk 96% of the time. What is the ratio of positive to negative emotions during conflict is unhappy vs happy couples?
- In unhappy/unstable couples, the balance of positive to negative emotions during conflict was 0.8:1. - In happy/stable couples predicting divorce, relationship stability, and happiness during conflict was 5:1.
Are more people likely to experience anger or sadness on the basis of their left vs right PFC activity after receiving ostracism manipulation?
- Increased anger = greater left PFC - Increased sadness = greater right PFC So, the frontal asymmetry can predict the kind of emotions people experience in response to something like social rejection
what is the relationship between the dimensions of narcissism and SM use behaviours? - Singh et al., 2018
- Individuals who had high narcissistic traits globally tended to post or send selfies through SM more frequently and rated their selfies as more attractive than people who weren't narcissistic - Narcissists spent more time on SM, posted more and had a higher degree of engagement with SM sites - Found the strongest relationships across all social media use behaviours for people who were high in Grandiose Exhibitionism - All of the narcissism subscales were correlated with a self-interest motivation for using SM --> wanted people to admire them and desire a friendship with them - The relationship between narcissism and the frequency of posting selfies was accounted for by an increase in self-interest motivation for using it
what are the abstract/theoretical benefits of neuroscience?
- Integrate research from different approaches - Generates new, testable ideas - Points to breadth, complexity of social psychological processes & emotions
what is the triangular theory of love?
- Intimacy: closeness, connectedness, wantedness - Commitment: the desire to move towards shared goals with someone, create a life together - Passion: desire, physical attraction, romance, sexual chemistry
Can SM use change our personality? - Andrews et al., 2010
- Investigated whether certain kinds of people or certain personality traits were more likely to use SM and whether SM use in one year changed or predicted our personalities in the following year Results: - SM use was not related to extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness (and these traits weren't related to any subsequent SM use) - SM use at time 1 predicted greater neuroticism a year later at time 2 --> increases in SM uses = increases in neuroticism - Likewise, presence of neuroticism at time 1 predicted greater social media use a year later - High social media use in the first year predicted lower honesty-humility a year later (but they didn't find that low honesty-humility at time 1 predicted any increase in SM use) So yes, social media might affect traits associated with emotional stability and entitlement
what are the conflict characteristics of unhappy and violent couples?
- Involved physically aggressive couples, verbally aggressive couples, couples who withdrew from conflict and non-abusive couples Did conflict discussion which was coded for the following: - offensive negative communication (negative gestures, negative touch) - negative voice - defensive negative behaviour (head-hang, no eye contact, leaning away) - physical positive (positive gestures and touch) - smiling and laughing Results: - Physically abusive husbands showed more offensive negative behaviours and negative voice than VA and withdrawing husbands - Physically abusive wives showed steeper escalation of negative behaviour than VI and withdrawing wives - Non-abusive husbands showed more physically positive behaviour than all three conflictual husbands - Non-abusive wives show higher physically positive behaviour, more smiling/laughing and lower negative voice than all three conflictual wives. So, partners who are in (physically) abusive relationships tended to show more negativity earlier on and throughout the conflict discussion. And physically aggressive wives showed steeper escalation. Non-abusive couples (i.e., those who aren't dealing with distress) tended to show more positive behaviour than their conflictual counterparts
are there social benefits to co-laughing?
- Kashdan and colleagues (2014) asked 162 participants to complete a daily dairy in which they recorded any interactions in which they laughed with another person, their levels of positive emotion, and the degree to which other interactions were characterised by intimacy and enjoyment. - It turns out that laughing with someone is not only really pleasurable, but it predicts the enjoyment and intimacy of the next social interaction, even if that next interaction is with someone else!
Which is more true: "birds of a feather flock together" or "opposites attract" in terms of relationship satisfaction? - Dyrenforth et al., 2010
- Large study run with >11,000 couples from Australia, UK and Germany looked at relationship between own personality, partner personality and marital satisfaction. - Personality: OCEAN - Interested in whether discrepancies/similarity in personality were predictive of marital (dis)satisfaction. Results of AUS participants: - The main factor associated with relationship satisfaction was your own personality: more agreeable, extraverted, conscientiousness and emotionally stable individuals had higher relationship satisfaction - People who are more open tend to have lower relationship satisfaction - You tend to report higher relationship satisfaction if your partner is more agreeable, extraverted, conscientious and emotionally stable but lower relationship satisfaction if your partner is more open - The more dissimilar you and your partner is on extraversion or openness, the more likely you are to report a lower level of relationship satisfaction Little evidence that either "birds of a feather flock together" or "opposites attract" are true in terms of determining relationship satisfaction. What's more important is what you and your partner are bringing individually
how does the adaptive-conspiracism hypothesis relate to modern life?
- Like other evolutionary hypotheses, model does not posit that conspiracy theories are adaptive in modern day - Conspiracy beliefs were adaptive in our ancestors, but may no longer be adaptive, and may even be maladaptive
Do expressions of live ethnicity focussed positive stereotypes impact impressions of the expresser and experience of targets?
- Live interaction between participant and confederate - all participants were Asian: Categorisation condition: "I'm white and you're Asian" Positive stereotype condition: "I know all Asians are good at maths. How about you do this maths homework and I'll do the art" - Looked at participants' belief about whether the confederate held negative stereotypes, were racist or were able to depersonalise - Participants believed that the confederate held more negative stereotypes in the positive stereotype group relative to the categorisation condition, rated them as more racist and reported feeling more depersonalised
what is the high vs low choice manipulation?
- Low choice to engage in behaviour (i.e., forced) - many consonant cognitions --> shouldn't feel much dissonance - High choice to engage in behaviour (i.e., subtly encouraged) - few consonant cognitions --> forms an illusion of choice which causes them to be committed to the behaviour and to feel dissonance
when relationship satisfaction is experienced by both members, what is it associated with?
- Lower chance of breaking up - maintaining relationships - Greater individual wellbeing and happiness - Decreases in relationship satisfaction are associated with increases in psychological distress, depression/anxiety symptoms and decreases in life satisfaction
what are the specific genes that has been identified as contributing to aggression and violence?
- MAOA-L (involved in regulating emotions via serotonin and dopamine so when it is poorly functioning, is prompts violence - about 40% of the population has this lowly performing variant) - OXTR (oxytocin receptor gene - when poorly functioning we see aggression)
what is the effect of time course on MS effects?
- MS exerts effects on worldview defense after delay and distraction from MS - Immediately after typical (supraliminal) MS prime, worldview defense is not influenced. - Interpreted to indicate that individuals suppress death thoughts immediately after MS prime, and then death thoughts rebound after this suppression. - Immediately, may think about being healthy or denying death in other ways
what is instrumental aggression?
- Means to an end (achieve a goal) e.g., violent robbery where the person wants the money to support a drug addiction - More thoughtful and deliberate than reactive aggression - Can be considered "cold-blooded" (no provocation in this case because it is planned aggression) - Sometimes overlaps with reactive aggression (i.e., mixed goals) e.g., an angry hit man planning and then taking revenge
in what situation do you see greater perceptions of the expresser's responsiveness and gratitude, as well as greater experienced love?
- Measured naturally occurring oxytocin prior to lab visit in 129 romantically involved adults. - Partner expressed gratitude to them in the lab. - Greater oxytocin over the prior 24 hr was associated with greater perceptions of the expresser's responsiveness and gratitude, as well as greater experienced love. - More oxytocin before the lab visit were more happy with the gratitude they received and felt more in love compared to people will less oxytocin
what results do we see from Booth et al.'s (1989) study of tennis players
- Measured testosterone during a match (drool method) - Winners' testosterone stays high for a longer time than the losers - Winners' always have higher testosterone than the losers
what is the difference between mis-and dis-information?
- Misinformation - incorrect or misleading info; unintentional errors communicated by unsuspecting persons - Disinformation - deliberatively deceptive info
what are the implications of the cultural anxiety buffer?
- Needs for worldview faith and self-esteem are universal. - Self-esteem is derived from cultural standards of value - Because self-esteem and worldview faith buffer anxiety, much intrapersonal and interpersonal behavior will be directed toward maintaining and defending self-esteem and faith in the worldview.
Can a rating-based intervention reduce bias toward hosts on Airbnb?
- No rating: robust bias/prejudice --> 10.5% fewer participants chose to stay in the Airbnb apartment over the hotel when the host had a Norwegian-Somali name - Mediocre rating: 15.9% fewer participants chose to stay in the Airbnb apartment over the hotel when the host had a Norwegian-Somali name - 5-star rating: can outweigh any potential negative impact of being an ethnic minority --> no significant difference between choosing the apartment vs the Airbnb
Can a rating-based intervention reduce bias toward guests on Airbnb?
- No review: guests were 19.2% less likely to be accepted by hosts when they had African-American names - Positive review: guests with African-American names were just as likely to be accepted as guests with white names [alternative] - No review: consistent bias against people with African-American names - Non-positive review: guests with African-American names were just as likely to be accepted as guests with white names So, even non-positive reviews still reduce bias --> theory behind this is that maybe having any information about a guest could resolve some queries about trust that can arise in intergroup situations --> some information is always better than none
Despite an explicit, anti-prejudicial statement, researchers have found robust bias and prejudice against Airbnb hosts and guests of minority background. What are some stats around prejudice against hosts?
- Non-Black hosts earn roughly 12% more for a similar apartment with similar ratings and photos relative to Black hosts in New York City (Edelman & Luca, 2014) - Asian hosts earned 20% less than their White counterparts in Oakland, California (Wang et al., 2015) - Asian and Hispanic hosts charge 8%-10% lower prices relative to their White counterparts on equivalent rental properties in San Francisco, California (Kakar et al., 2018). - It is hypothesised that guests are less likely to stay at non-white host listings. Therefore, those hosts need to charge less to incentivise guests and thus, earn money
what are battle raids? How are they adaptive?
- Occurs during the day. - All out attack with guns --> this is the main goal - Goal is to kill and steal livestock (wealth) - High chance of being killed Leaders had more wives but not more children, on average, than the non-leaders
what is the social salience hypothesis?
- Oxytocin enhances the perception of social stimuli; - Thus, enhancing responses to both positive and negative (e.g., provocation) social stimuli. - May account for both the socially desirable and socially undesirable effects of OT: · magnify prosociality when dealing with familiar, close or reliable others · but diminish prosociality under situations of competition or when interacting with out-group
describe Hertenstein et al.'s 2009 experiment about what different touches communicate
- Pairs of strangers - Encoder: make contact with other participant's body to communicate either anger, disgust, fear, love, happiness, surprise, sadness, sympathy - Decoder: choose the emotion that was communicated. - Most-used behaviour to communicate each emotion (from encoder perspective): - Anger - Hitting - Fear - Trembling - Sadness - Stroking - Disgust - Pushing - Surprise - Squeezing - Happiness - Swinging - Love - Stroking - Sympathy - Patting
what is the gratitude induction paradigm (Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006)?
- Participant (P) and confederate (C) involved - P and C engage in a joint task first, designed to induce a relationship between P and C - P and C engage in an individual, tedious task second (deciding whether a string of letters is a word or not, many times) - Manipulation: Gratitude condition: P's computer "breaks" after 10 mins and C fixes it so that P will not have to redo task induces gratitude Control condition: computer does not break --> does not induce gratitude - DV: helping behaviour After the computer breaks, another C walks to the P and asks them to help out with some logic tasks The new C then left the P to work on it as long as necessary (as a favour) Ps in the gratitude condition spent significantly longer helping - they were more likely to help than the control Ps Experiencing gratitude = increased helping
explain the experimental paradigm which tests moral double standards on an individual level
- Participants are faced with the task of either assigning easy or hard tasks to themselves. The task they don't choose goes to "another participant" - Expectantly, participants in this study want to do the easy task rather than the hard task - They're given access to a randomiser and the experimenter leaves the room - Dilemma: do they use the randomiser (if, yes do they use it honestly) or do they just choose? - Stage 2: (a) participant assigns the task OR (b) participant watches a confederate assign the task (in this case, all confederates fail to use the randomiser and simply choose to assign the easy task to themselves) - Stage 3: participants judge the fairness of the situation --> (a) how fairly they acted OR (b) how fair it was that the confederate gave the easy task to themselves - Nearly everyone assigned "easy" to self without the randomizer - (a) participants thought what they had done was pretty fair but in (b) this was judged as less fair --> what is okay for the self to do is not as okay for others to do
explain the experimental paradigm which tests moral duplicity
- Participants are given the opportunity to divide an outcome between themselves and another person e.g., entries into a raffle to win a prize - Participants were told that a fair way to come to the decision of who gets the most entries would be to flip a coin (given) and then the experimenter left the room - Dilemma: flip a coin or simply choose - With the coin option, do you right down the honest outcome or give the appearance of having been fair by flipping but then writing down the outcome which benefits yourself - Result: over 80% of the time, participants end up with the positive outcome - If they were writing the outcomes honestly, this number should be close to 50% --> people are engaging in moral duplicity
describe App et al.'s 2011 experiment about how different haptic channels are used to communicate different emotions
- Participants asked to send particular emotions to a mannequin who they imagined to be a close same-sex friend: social status emotions, survival emotions and intimate relationship emotions - found that social-status emotions are mostly conveyed via body channels, survival-focussed emotions are mostly conveyed by facial channels and intimate relationships are mostly conveyed by touch
describe Van de Vyer & Abrams's 2015 experiment about compassion training and prosocial help
- Participants completed one-day compassion training or memory training and continued the practice of compassion/memory for 3 days. - Participants then came into the lab to play a video game where they could open or close gates for other players - i.e., they had the choice to play pro-socially or anti-socially - DV: Prosocial helping - Compassion training showed an increase in helping and memory training showed no change in helping --> compassion might orient people to prosocial help
how do emotional states exacerbate or attenuate double standards?
- Participants rated the fairness of moral violations/transgressions done by the self or others - In one condition there is no emotional induction, in another there was an anger induction and in a third there was a guilt induction - Idea is that one's emotional states might push around the moral emotional side of what's going on in moral double standards - Neutral condition: classic double standard pattern --> the same transgression is seen as fairer when done by the self than when done by another - Anger condition: moral double standards are even stronger --> even more fair for the self to do it than another (perhaps to do with feeling self-righteous) - Guilt condition: turns off the moral double standards condition --> just as unfair when done by both the self and another
describe the results of the jeffrey epstein study
- Participants read text about death of convicted well-connected sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died while in jail in 2019. - Conspiracy condition: He was murdered by powerful people like Trump or Elon Musk who feared his testimony (for what it could've revealed about them). - Control condition: He committed suicide. - Rated entertainment value, emotional valence, emotional intensity - Rated conspiracy beliefs - Results Conspiracy text was rated as more entertaining in conspiracy (murder) than control (suicide) condition Participants felt more positive affect after conspiracy than control Participants felt more intense emotions after conspiracy than control Conspiracy beliefs were higher in conspiracy than control condition
what is the contoria election study?
- Participants read text that described an election event in a fictional country called Contoria. - It was manipulated to be neutral or entertaining - Participants then rated how entertaining they found the article and rated conspiracy beliefs - found that: Entertaining text was rated as more entertaining than neutral text. Emotional intensity was higher for entertaining than neutral. Conspiracy beliefs were higher for entertaining than neutral
describe Van de Vyer & Abrams's 2015 experiment about moral elevation and donating money
- Participants watched a morally elevating video or a control (nature) video - DV: donating money - Participants in the morally elevating video donated more money ($35) than those in the control condition (vs $20)
describe Klimecki et al's 2016 experiment about generosity following a video about suffering
- Participants watched a short video depicting the suffering of others (or no video or a neutral video) before making a 'dictator game' decision to divide points (that correspond to money) between themselves and another person. - DV: generosity - Following no video, participants gave 42% of their points (majority kept for themselves) - Following the neutral video, participants gave 31% of their points (majority kept for themselves) - Following the suffering video, participants gave 71% of their points (majority given to others) - The higher the intensity of compassion felt towards the people in the video, the more points were given --> correlation
Does expressing a positive stereotype impact other peoples' perception of the expresser? (Czopp, 2008)
- Participants watched a video set up like a job interview where the candidate either expressed a positive stereotype or not - Results: people in the positive stereotype condition were perceived as less likeable, more biased and less qualified
describe Schnall et al.'s 2010 experiment about moral elevation and helping behaviour
- Participants watched an "elevating" video (Oprah), a documentary video, or an amusing video (included to show that the effects seen in response to moral elevation weren't just as a consequence to feeling good, but specific to moral elevation) - DV: Helping behaviour - Participants in the elevation condition helped much longer than participants in either the documentary or amusing/mirth condition --> feeling elevated contributed to helping behaviour
describe Wood et al's 2019 experiment about gestures vs facial expressions
- Participants watched short videos of an actor displaying either congruent or incongruent facial expressions and gestures. - They were instructed to either attend to the face or the hand and report the valence of it (positive vs. negative). - Idea was that perhaps an incongruent gesture might have an effect even when participants are attending to only one part of the stimulus - DVs: accuracy and reaction time of judgement - Incongruent: longer reaction times, more errors - Congruent: shorter reaction times, less errors
what were the results of Krumhuber et al's 2014 experiment about fake smiles and rater face movement?
- Participants watched short videos of genuine or faked smiles while activity in their own facial musculature was measured. - Perhaps when distinguishing between a genuine or fake smile, information about how the participants' own face moved serves as an input to this judgement
how does cognitive load effect moral reasoning?
- Participants were asked to do the randomiser task or observe someone else doing the randomiser task either under cognitive load or not (by memorising and rehearsing a series of digits in their mind as the experiment continued) - Control: no cognitive load = rated failure to use randomiser as pretty fair when done by the self but much less fair when done by another - Cognitive load: moral reasoning interrupted = moral double standards disappear = rated failure to use randomiser as equally fair when done by the self as when done by another
what were the laughter research findings?
- Participants were better than chance at identifying whether the pairs were friends or not! - Overall, accuracy was highest for female friends in every single country - Actually, it turns out that where participants were from did not explain very much variability in accuracy! So, the authors concluded that the patterns described above were culturally universal.
what are the critical ingredients to a conspiracy theory
- Patterns - assume that people, object, or events are causally connected - Agency - conspirators are deliberate actors - Coalitions - group of actors working together - Threats - goals of conspirators are harmful or deceptive - Secrecy - conspiracies are hidden and difficult to disprove
what is the association between relationship type and global and experiential wellbeing? (Hudson, Lucas & Donnellan, 2020)
- People generally experience more experiential wellbeing (i.e., more positive affect, sense of meaning, less negative affect) when they are with a friend or romantic partner than when on their own. (Also more positive affect when spending time with kids but no decrease in negative affect) - On average, spending time with extended family increased sense of meaning, but also increase negative affect and had no impact on positive affect - Presence of co-workers was associated with decreased positive affect, and increased sense of meaning and negative affect. - People were most happy (and experienced most meaning) when they were having sex, followed by exercising, engaging in spiritual activities and socialising. - People experienced greatest negative affect when they were studying. - People tended to engage in different activities around different people (e.g., more likely to exercise with friends; more likely to do housework with partner/family) So, the people that are present and the activities that are being performed appear to have separable associations with experiential wellbeing. Individuals do not appear to respond favourably to the mere presence of their friend (rather than partner/children) but this preference is more attributable to the fact that the activities you do with friends are more fun people do engage in more fun activities with friends vs with family so report higher experiential wellbeing
Would the catastrophe of climate change, bring people together and make them more favourable towards everyone on the planet rather than form an in-group and out-group dynamic?
- People show an increase in peace keeping when primed with MS and global climate change --> eliminate country boundaries/in-group, out-group effect via thinking about all humans together on a common goal (working towards GLOBAL climate change) - Priming of MS unites humanity rather than one locality vs another locality --> increases support for peace keeping
what is the relationship between status/competence and warmth/competition?
- Perceived status and competence are positively correlated all around the world - The perceived correlation between competition and warmth is negative --> non-competitive people are judged as warm
what do we know from Koppensteiner et al., 2016 about body posture and nonverbally communicating dominance?
- Politician speeches converted to stick figure videos. - Participants rated perceived dominance. - Coded movements, space occupation and overall posture. - Speakers were rated as higher in dominance when the postures were expansive (horizontally and vertically) and when a large amount of expansive movements occurred.
what is Fredrickson's broaden and build theory?
- Positive emotions first serve to broaden our cognition - Broadened cognitions then serve to build resources - These resources contribute to a greater wellbeing which then produces more experiences of positive emotions
what is the relationship between style of humour, functions of humour and relationship satisfaction? (Hall, 2013)
- Positive styles of humour (affiliative and self-enhancing) were moderately positively associated with relationship satisfaction - Negative styles of humour (aggressive and self-defeating) are not statistically associated with relationship satisfaction - but both are in a negative direction...
describe the experiment which tests an appraisal-based framework for studying emotion regulation in conflicts
- Reappraisal vs. Control condition - Read passage that was critical of Palestinian citizens within Israel - DV = negative emotions & political intolerance - Cognitive appraisal was only effective for people on the right (i.e., right-wingers) in terms of emotion and intolerance
what is the relationship between romantic attraction and dominance? (Vacharkulksemsuk et al., 2016)
- Reasoned that body postures which indicate dominance are interpreted as more attractive - Manipulated online dating profiles to feature pictures with expansive postures or contractive postures - DV: 'swiping' and perceived dominance - Profiles with expansive were more likely to receive 'yes' responses - This effect was explained by perceived dominance
what is hatred?
- Requires higher order cognitive appraisal - Probably uniquely human - No discernable physiological profile identified - Can involve thinking there are so few similarities between you and the other that you don't even see them as human - Is provoked as a result of recurrent offences which are perceived as intentional and as stemming from the stable, evil character - Unlike fear or anger, which are targeted at specific actions, hatred is targeted at the fundamental characteristics of the individual or the group. In other words, haters do not believe in any possibility of improving intergroup relations. - As a result, hatred gives expression to the dismissal of any attempt to change the hated individual or group; indeed, hatred consists of a willingness to harm and even annihilate the other
what was found in the FB study of digital emotional contagion?
- Researchers manipulated whether people using FB saw less positive or less negative emotion posts from their network (i.e., they filtered news feeds) - Then looked at the emotional content of the posts they were making and compared them to a control group that didn't have their feed altered Results: - Compared to control, those who viewed fewer negative emotional posts had fewer negative and more positive posts - Compared to control, those who viewed fewer positive emotional posts had fewer positive and more negative posts - Suggests that emotion contagion can happen when we don't have in person cues or interactions --> the human side of interactions isn't necessary for emotion contagion to happen - So, what we're consuming online does influence our experience of emotions
is laughter contagious?
- Robert Provine, found that simply listening to a 'laugh track' (think, the sounds you hear during TV sitcoms) is sufficient to produce smiling and laughter. - There's a limit though - in that research, the first exposure to the laugh track produced laughs and smiles, but after a while listening to those 'canned' laughs was just perceived as obnoxious. Perhaps that's why shows don't include laugh tracks anymore! - More recent research suggests that laughter happening shortly after to the exposure to another person's laughter, suggesting contagion, is more likely amongst friends than strangers (Smoski & Bachorowski, 2003) --> this is called antiphonal laughter
describe DeSteno et al's 2010 experiment about gratitude
- Same gratitude induction paradigm as above - Ps asked them to play a game with 4 tokens: worth $1 if kept for the self or $2 if given to the other player - Both players make the decision at once. If you keep the tokens for yourself = sure win of $4. If you get given all the tokens you get $8 and your partner gets $0 - The best outcome is for both participants to give their tokens to the other so both get $8 - Perhaps gratitude increases trusting behaviour and decreases self-serving behaviour because sending your tokens to the other is doing so in the hope/trust that they will do the same - DV: self-serving vs trusting behaviour - Gratitude condition Ps sent more tokens on average than those in the control condition --> aligns with binding function of the find-remind-and-bind theory of gratitude
what is the evolutionary theory of aggression?
- Sees aggression as a useful adaptation to increase fitness i.e., helps people secure resources, acquire a mate, survive and reproduce - Our aggressive ancestors had more children on average than nonaggressive ancestors (Directly via kidnapping and/or rape, indirectly through using violence to obtain resources/status, keeping multiple wives)
what research is there for the anxiety-buffer hypothesis?
- Self-esteem threats cause anxiety - Defensive responses to self-esteem threats are mediated by anxiety - Use of self-esteem defenses reduces anxiety
what are 3 narcissistic social media use behaviours?
- Selfie posting/sending - Perceived attractiveness of their selfies - Motivation for SM use (to keep up with friends or for selfish reasons)
what is involved in the process model of emotion regulation?
- Situation selection - Situation modification - Attention deployment - Cognitive change (reappraisal) - Emotion response - Response modulation (suppression)
what muscles are important for smiling?
- Smiling is driven by the Zygomaticus major. When people seem to be experiencing genuine positive emotion, they engage muscles around the eyes: Ocularis oculi - Smiling can happen with or without the eyes - this is an indication of genuine or ingenuine smiles
how can you tell the difference between genuine and volitional laughter?
- Spontaneous laughs share acoustic features with laugh-like sounds produced by non-human primates. - Perhaps, then, acoustic cues might signal whether people are genuinely laughing or fake laughing - and as such whether they are close friends or mere strangers
what are the determinants of relationship satisfaction? (Keizer, 2014)
- Spouses' individual difference characteristics (e.g., personality, religion, parental divorce) - Life stressors (e.g., health problems, work-stress, having a baby) - Couple processes (e.g., communication skills, conflict management)
explain the experimental paradigm which tests moral double standards on a group level
- Stage 2 (cont.): (c) someone from ingroup assigns the task OR (d) someone from outgroup assigns the task - (c) participants rated it just as fair as the self --> moral double standards extend to members of the in-group - (d) ratings were even lower than when it was just another person --> we are particularly harsh in judging the same action when done by outgroup members than when done by ourselves
what do we know from the effort justification paradigm? which experiment proves this (Aronson & Mills)?
- Suffering for something can cause us to find it more desirable. - The unpleasant effort is dissonant with our desire to do such Experiment - women participate in sex discussion group - Manipulated difficulty of joining group: control, mild effort required to join and severe effort required to join - control & mild effort rated discussion as more boring & less interesting than severe effort
what is Swann's self-verification theory? how does this translate into real world contexts
- Suggests that receiving positive info about oneself can cause dissonance for someone with a negative self-view. - They do things to maintain that negative self-view e.g., push people away, seek to maintain relationships with people who abuse them etc. Relation to real word: - may explain why persons consistently enter into relationships with others who abuse them - someone actively seeks to become dislikable
What are some ways you reduce the amount of anger you experience in response to instigation?
- Suppress the anger. (Expressive suppression) - Cognitively process the incident so that you are no longer angry. (Cognitive reappraisal) - Dwell on the anger. (Rumination) - Distract yourself. (Distraction)
Unconscious vigilance is an alternative explanation to terror management theory. What is the difference?
- TMT says that we defend cultural world view & self-esteem because it buffers us from anxiety - However, MS influences reactions to emotion stimuli unrelated to cultural world view too - So, other subtle non-MS primes cause worldview defence --> MS has a broader ray of effects beyond culture/worldview (i.e., simple sounds and pictures)
Does the function of the humour drive an effect between positive humour styles and relationship satisfaction?
- The enjoyment function of humour, consistently mediated the relationship between positive humour styles and relationship satisfaction - So having a positive humour style --> more likely to use humour for enjoyment purposes --> more satisfied with relationship
Do misogynistic tweets correlate with and predict real world violence against women? - Blake, O'Dean, Lian & Denson, 2021
- The number of misogynistic tweets and the number of alcohol outlets significantly predicted DV incidences - DV at time 1 predicted DV at time 2; Misogynistic tweets at time 1 predicted misogynistic tweets at time 2 - The number of misogynistic tweets at time 1 significantly predicted DV arrests at time 2 (but DV at time 1 did not predict misogynistic tweets at time 2) - So, misogynistic SM isn't harmless, it contributes to norms of violence against women and a hostile worldview which may contribute to real world violence and social norms
describe the laughter experiment aims
- The research team tested whether listeners recruited from 24 countries around the world (see map below) could identify whether pairs of people knew each other or were strangers solely on the basis of short recordings of colaughter. - They also examined which acoustic features in the laughs listeners might be picking up on when making those judgments.
describe the research method of the laughter experiment
- The researchers used recordings of pairs of Americans who were either friends or strangers. The pairs had been instructed to talk about anything they liked. The researchers extracted 48 snippets of simultaneous laughter - 966 participants were asked to choose whether the pairs were friends or strangers. - Those participants were from countries around the world including Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Korea, Namibia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, and Turkey. - Some samples were from urban areas, some from rural areas, and some from tribal cultures. The study was carried out in participants' native language. - The key outcome was the accuracy of those choices. Could participants detect the affiliation status (friends vs. strangers) of pairs? Did it depend on the gender composition of the pairs?
what is meant by "power posing boundary conditions: culture" (Park et al., 2013)
- There may be cultural variability in how acceptable some power poses are - so if we look at an individual's cultural orientation, we can predict whether a given power pose might have the predicted effect - E.g., Expansive feet on desk pose may have different connotations in different cultures --> acceptable in USA but rude in east Asia - Where a specific power pose is considered rude, you would not see the expected power pose effects that Cuddy lists - Where there is no differential meaning in posture between cultures, there is no difference in self-perception. Where there is differential meaning in posture between cultures, there is difference in perception
Can the SCM explain regional differences in how immigrants are perceived? - Binggeli, Krings & Sczesny, 2013
- These researchers capitalised on the fact that there are different native languages to Switzerland and thus recruited participants from the German-speaking societies and the French-speaking societies - hypothesis: immigrant who speak the regional language might be seen as competitive relative to immigrants who don't speak the regional language. Therefore, they should be perceived as lower in warmth, but no difference in competence - Participants then rated the warmth and competence of immigrant groups including from Germany and France - consistent with SCM: the language of the participants should not impact perceptions of competence - participants from German and French-speaking regions came to view immigrants of the same language as less warm relative to the participants from the French-speaking region --> consistent with SCM: language may drive perceived competition and therefore, warmth
The scientific definition of human aggression contains 2 elements. What are these?
- To be an aggressive behaviour, it needs to involve a delivery of a noxious stimulus (i.e., something nasty) that organism is motivated to avoid e.g., a punch, a blow to your reputation, having acid thrown on you etc. - Stimulus needs to be delivered with the intent to harm
what is the relationship between trait reappraisal and suppression and mental health?
- Trait reappraisal is associated with better mental health (depression, anxiety and stress). - No relationship between suppression and mental health (i.e., suppression doesn't do anything beneficial) Note: the manipulation was effective since the provocation did increase anger, systolic BP and diastolic BP
what is the bad news about anger?
- Treatments like CBT for anger are somewhat less effective than treatments for depression and anxiety. - People with various other disorders report increased anger too - Frequent, uncontrolled anger increases risk of early mortality via cardiovascular disease (via constant activation of physiological systems) - Anger can lead to social isolation and unemployment...and violence
give evidence for the experience hypothesis and mental health - Horn et al., 2013
- Twin study: longitudinal data from 1,613 sibling pairs from the USA. Measures: - Relationship status - Internalising mental health issues (i.e., depression & suicidal ideation) - Externalising mental health issues (i.e., antisocial behaviour and alcohol use) - Physical health (i.e., cigarette use and subjective report) Findings: Holding constant genetic influence and shared social environment, compared to their single twins, coupled twins had lower likelihood of depression, suicidal ideation and alcohol use
what are the 4 elements of laboratory experiments looking at aggression?
- Typically elicit anger to examine reactive aggression - Experimental manipulation that increases or decreases aggression relative to a control group. - Random assignment - High internal validity (psychological realism)
what is the universality argument in the Morality as Cooperation approach?
- Upholding these values should be perceived as morally good in all cultures. - Violating these values should be perceived as morally wrong in all cultures.
what is the difference in the effort justification results of people in an upright vs supine position?
- Upright (standard dissonance condition): see standard effect where people doing the difficult task rate the incentive more highly than those who did the easy task - Supine condition (experimental condition): don't see effort justification - difficult task does not invoke more positive ratings of the incentive --> supine decision eliminates dissonance
what is the difference in the the spreading of alternatives between people in an upright vs supine position?
- Upright: standard spreading of alternatives effect - Supine: no change in attitude between pre and post-decision --> supine decision eliminates dissonance
what common methods does Dr Gottman use to study close relationships include?
- Validated questionnaires such as the 'Relationships Checkup' that helps to identify strengths and areas of improvement. - Interviews with and discussion among couples that can later be analysed. - Physiological measures such as heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, and respiration. - Coded emotions from facial expressions, voice tone, verbal behaviour, and non-verbal behaviour. - Video-recall rating dial to assess real time perceptions.
what is the spreading of alternatives?
- View chosen as more positive - View rejected as more negative
when do women fight?
- When fear of retaliation is low. - When "low risk" forms of aggression can be used e.g., gossiping. - When there is competition for men.
when do men fight?
- When status is at stake. - When there is competition for women (e.g., polygynous societies - men can have several wives) - When men's opportunities to obtain resources are bleak (unemployed, unmarried, low status, low education, high income inequality). Male violence peaks 18-30 years of age (testosterone is at its highest and men are at their strongest)
The negative stereotype that women are not good at maths can undermine female performance on maths tests. Similarly, being the target of the negative stereotype that men are not good at emotional skills undermines male performance on an EQ test --> do we see a similar, reversed effect for positive stereotype?
- Women and men were exposed to a positive gender-related stereotype, another stereotype (for women), or no stereotype. - Study 1: women read about neutral content, the "women are beautiful" stereotype (positive but unrelated), or the "women are communal" stereotype (positive and related) --> - Result: Women who read about the "women are communal" positive stereotype had lower maths test performance relative to the other conditions, but only among women who cared a lot about maths. - Study 2: Men read about neutral content or the "men are agentic" stereotype --> - Result: Men who read about the "men are agentic" positive stereotype had lower socioemotional test performance, but only among men who cared a lot about socio-emotional skills. So, being the target of a positive stereotype can undermine performance, especially if it has to do with the broader stereotype often held for that group of people
does laughter reveal something about who we are?
- Yep! Recently, researchers recorded Dutch and Japanese people laughing. - Then, Dutch and Japanese participants listened to the laughs and guessed whether the laugher was part of their cultural ingroup (from their same country) or outgroup (from another country). - Performance was well above chance! 71-77% of the time, participants correctly guessed whether the person laughing was from their cultural group.
how do proxemics track social needs (Marinovic et al., 2017)?
- Young children watched a video depicting ostracism of someone else or a video simply depicting an interaction. Children then picked a seat in a row of chairs with an experimenter at one end. - Children who watched ostracism chose to sit closer to the experimenter.
what is death construct accessibility?
- a test to determine how readily themes of mortality are to someone? - D E _ _ (DEAD, DEAR, DEER) - Immediately after typical MS prime, death construct accessibility is low - And then it increases after a delay & distraction
Experimental evidence: Did a manipulated increase in active FB engagement reduce loneliness?
- found that the intervention did encourage people to post more - there was a significant reduction in loneliness only for participants in the intervention condition - intervention condition participants reported more social connectedness on a daily level and reported less loneliness at the end of the intervention - Effect explained by daily social connectedness and was not impacted by whether status updates were 'liked' or received comments.
what is the relationship between hate and violence?
- hated group is seen as unable and unwilling to change. - If the ingroup is convinced the outgroup will not stop harming the ingroup, destruction of the outgroup seems reasonable. - This is how hate can lead to an intractable cycle of violence.
what is the relationship between dissonance, action orientation and neurology?
- high choice (= high dissonance) manipulation puts people in an action-oriented mindset (associated with approach motivation and greater left prefrontal cortical activity) - reducing the left prefrontal cortical activity (via neurofeedback) decreases spreading of alternatives (= reduces dissonance)
what is the aversive consequences model?
- in the induced compliance paradigm, people experience dissonance because they feel personally responsible for producing foreseeable negative consequences (lie to confederate) - When Cooper & Worchel (1970) repeated the Festinger & Carlsmith experiment and added a condition in which the confederate did not believe the "lie", the participants did not change their attitudes - Suggested that this is because they eliminated the aversive consequences and therefore eliminated the dissonance reduction effect of attitude change
how can we reduce belief in and spread of conspiracy theories?
- inoculation theory - Nudging people to think about accuracy improves choices about what to share - Intellectual humility related to less conspiracy beliefs and susceptibility to fake news
It is important to use multiple methods in neuroscience --> if you get convergence of these you can be more confident that you're closer to truth. Such methods include:
- lesion studies - Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation - Biofeedback studies (reduce depression) - Neuroimaging studies - PET, fMRI, EEG, ERP All found that there is a reciprocal relationship between Left & Right PFC i.e., when the left is activated/on, the right is deactivated/off and vice versa (particularly the case with motivation - you're either in approach or withdrawal mode)
how does passion, intimacy and commitment change over the course of a relationship? (Lemiux & Hale, 2002)
- passion and intimacy wane over time - commitment increases over time
what research suggests that self-esteem is an anxiety buffer?
- raising self-esteem reduces anxiety in response to graphic death-related video - raising self-esteem reduces physiological arousal in response to the anticipation of painful electric shock
what personality variable correlate with a belief in conspiracy theories?
- religiosity - paranoia - narcissism - cognitive ability - schizotypy - pseudoscientific beliefs
how is cortisol linked to social stress and anxiety?
- situations with other people see an increase in cortisol (not bad as long as it goes up and comes back down) - dominance confrontations: if you're at the bottom of the hierarchy and being bullied you show cortisol and if you're at the top where others are fighting you to be, you show cortisol - Subordinates exposed to more social stressors has higher levels of cortisol
how do we reduce cognitions?
- subtract dissonant cognitions - add consonant cognitions - increase importance of consonant cognitions - decrease importance of dissonant cognitions
How can FBI crime reports be used to measure aggression?
- the FBI records every arrest in the US, violent crime in particular - The more misogynistic tweets in a given area were expected to yield a higher rate of DV --> because these tweets create a norm of misogyny in society - Misogynistic tweets in one year predicted DV is the next year
what is moral weakness?
- when people fail to live up to their moral values - Doesn't require public judgments, displays, or claims to morality; thus is an intrapersonal (within our own selves) type of moral hypocrisy
describe Rogers et al's 2018 experiment about conversational gaze behaviour
--> - Participants wore head-mounted eye-trackers during a 4-minute "getting acquainted" conversation with a stranger. - DVs: eye gaze data, participants' perception of eye contact - Perceived eye contact: Participants perceived eye contact occurring for ~70% of conversation. - Actual eye contact: But, mutual eye contact actually ranged from 0-45% of conversation - people over perceived the amount of eye-contact in a chat - Actual face gaze: Instead, mutual face gaze occurred for ~60% of conversation --> looking in the general direction but not necessarily at the eyes
what are the 7 forms of love according to the triangular theory?
1. Liking: true friendship with filial love without long term commitment or romance 2. Companionate love: long-term committed friendship 3. Empty love: love one another without intimacy or passion 4. Fatuous love: whirlwind courtship - no proper intimacy 5. Infatuation: passionate, lustful "love" at first sight without closeness or commitment 6. Romantic love: summer fling 7. Consummate love: the ideal relationship; there is passion, can't see themselves with anyone else etc. --> difficult to maintain long-term and in long-term relationships might cycle in and out of these different types
what are the 4 dimensions of narcissism?
1. Narcissistic Leadership/Authority (NPI-LA) --> someone who thinks they have the most amazing leadership abilities, social power and potency; not usually a maladaptive form of narcissism 2. Grandiose Exhibitionism (NPI-GE) --> the self-absorption dimension; "selfie" behaviour; can have adaptive and maladaptive correlates 3. Entitlement/Exploitativeness (NPI-EE) --> reflects entitlement in social contexts; willing to manipulate others to get what they want; associated with the most maladaptive and socially poor outcomes 4. Global narcissism --> combination of all of the above
what are the 4 types of aggression?
1. Reactive Aggression 2. Instrumental Aggression 3. Violence 4. Indirect Aggression
give 6 predictors of infidelity in married and co-habiting couples
1. Workplace: opportunity for involvement with others and time spent travelling for work - one partner stay-at-home, the other working - both partners working reduces risk for infidelity 2. Previous infidelity: Once a cheater, always a cheater? 3. Co-habiting without marriage is associated with greater infidelity 4. Attendance at religious services and having the same faith as your partner is negatively associated with infidelity 5. Having shared social networks with your partner less infidelity (investment - social capital) 6. Having the same level of education as your partner less infidelity
what are the 6 forms of nonverbal behaviour
1. body posture 2. eye gaze 3. facial expressions 4. proxemics 5. gestures 6. haptics
According to morality as cooperation theory, together, which 7 values are the mechanisms that help societies work?
1. family 2. group 3. reciprocity 4. heroism 5. deference 6. fairness 7. property
what are the 6 innate, culturally universal and universally recognised emotions?
1. fear 2. surprise 3. happiness 4. sadness 5. anger 6. disgust
what are the 5 theoretical motivations for social media use?
1. functional value: the capability of SM platforms to provide functionality or means to achieve one's goals 2. social value: maintaining one's social image and social reward 3. emotional value: enjoyment 4. epistemic value: the capability of SM to arouse curiosity, provide novelty or knowledge 5. conditional value: value related to use in a certain situation e.g., a birthday
what are 4 consequences of conspiracy beliefs?
1. prejudice 2. aggression 3. anti-science beliefs 4. anti-democracy reactions
what were the results of Bartz et al's 2011 review on oxytocin and prosociality?
21% of the studies on oxytocin and prosociality report negative - that is, antisocial (i.e., not prosocial) - effects, such as increasing feelings of envy, mistrust, attachment insecurity or outgroup derogation
what is the relationship between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs?
3 studies found positive correlations between trait anger and conspiracy beliefs
what mediates the link between anger and conspiracy beliefs?
3 studies found that evil perceptions mediated the effect of trait anger on conspiracy beliefs People who score highly in trait anger are more likely to believe that the actors in conspiracy theories are evil - and the more they believe that, the more they are likely to believe in conspiracies
what proportion of aggression is inherited?
50% which means the rest of the drive to be aggressive is environmentally driven
what are some moderators of trolley/footbridge type dilemma decision making?
Age of victims (Kawai et al., 2014) - younger preferred over older Closeness to victims (Kurzban et al., 2012) - known individuals preferred over strangers - may be a group/kin value popping up so people have more of an emotional response to sacrificing/saving someone they know --> this emotion drives the decision Foreign language (e.g., Chan et al., 2016) - more sacrificial decisions with scenario presented in well known second language than in first language - in a second language, processing that information requires more cognition --> some of your mental capacity is dedicated to encoding the language itself which pushes out the emotional response --> why you get more sacrificial decisions Age of participant (Arutyunova et al., 2016) - younger participants make more sacrificial decisions than older participants Gender of participant (Friesdorf et al., 2015) - men make more sacrificial decisions than women, especially for personal moral dilemmas
what is the problem when trying to tease genes and environment apart in the conversation of aggression?
Aggressive children are more likely to grow up in an aggressive home
compare anger and fear
Anger - Present in animals - Occurs when other group or person's actions are perceived as harmful or unfair. - Physiological responses (SNS). - Increased approach tendencies and aggression. Fear - Present in animals - Occurs when threatened or in danger. - Physiological responses (SNS). - Increased avoidance tendencies or defensive aggression.
what is the "bad boy effect"?
As estrogen increases, females are more sexually attracted to males who posses masculine and socially dominant features, leading to increased verbal and non-verbal flirting behaviours with these males. Males who have these features are thought to have greater genetic fitness
what were the outcomes of Aronson & Carlsmith Experiment which told children that there would be either a mild or severe punishment if they played with the toy that they had rated to be the most attractive?
Asked the kids to re-rate the toys and found that the kids in the mild condition rated toy less attractive (desirable thing became less desirable); severe condition kids rated toy as more attractive (desirable thing became more desirable)
Were negative and positive personality traits associated with committing infidelity? - Sevi et al., 2020
Attitudes towards infidelity: - Only psychopathy was positively and strongly associated with the acceptance of infidelity attitudes - Only Kantianism was negatively associated with infidelity attitudes Infidelity behaviours: - When controlling for attitudes towards infidelity, only psychopathy (lack of empathy and high impulsivity) was associated with the likelihood of engaging in infidelity - Effect of Kantianism disappeared So perhaps the malevolent traits in society have a little more predictive power than the benevolent traits in terms of predicting infidelity behaviour
what is becker's analysis?
Awareness of death + Biological proclivity to live = should be paralysed by anxiety/terror
what is nonverbal behaviour?
Communicative actions that don't have verbal content (i.e., words) e.g., actions, facial expressions etc.
what is compassion?
Compassion is the positive emotional response to the suffering of others
in a moral dilemma where the victim was either in-group or out-group, what pattern do we see of people in the oxytocin condition?
Consistently see that people sacrifice the out-group (although the effect is small with the placebo condition), especially in the oxytocin condition
Cognitions can be relevant or irrelevant to each other - dissonance theory is interested in those cognitions that are relevant (i.e., linked in some way). If cognitions are relevant, they can be either consonant or dissonant, what is the difference?
Consonant: one cognition follows from the other Dissonant: the opposite of one follows from the other
how do social needs motivate beliefs in conspiracies?
Conspiracy theories may help people maintain positive self-image - Because you feel that you possess rare, important info that others do not have Conspiracy beliefs are associated with - Narcissism, exaggerated self-view with need for external validation Need to maintain positive group image (collective narcissism) is associated with believing conspiracies - Collective narc. in Poland predicted conspiracy beliefs about Jews
does testosterone relate to aggression?
Correlation between levels of testosterone & aggression in humans is weak - almost non-existent (r = 0.06)
what were the results of a meta-analysis of adolescent (age 9-24) studies with measures of both loneliness and social anxiety - Maes et al., 2019?
Cross-sectionally, loneliness and social anxiety are correlated (r = .46) - Correlated but not redundant - there is cross over but they each measure different constructs, they're not identical Longitudinally (1 month - 6 years), loneliness predicts social anxiety and social anxiety predicts loneliness. - The more socially anxious at time 1, the more lonely at time 2 --> related constructs which have influence on each other
what experiment might explain why when people engage in negative behaviours towards people they end up viewing them more negatively than prior to those negative behaviours?
Davis & Jones - Participants asked to tell another that he is dull (for no reason) i.e., mild verbal aggression - Participants given low or high choice to do this (i.e., induced compliance paradigm) - Participants rated person more negatively if in high as compared to low choice condition - In the high choice condition, they actually begun to believe that the other person was dull
describe the study which suggests that acute oxytocin administration can increase aggression
DeWall et al. (2014) - OT given to people in romantic relationships - First completed stress test & cold pain task - Then asked participants how they felt about their partner in terms of their inclination towards aggressive actions - People with high trait aggressiveness: When given OT, reported more violent inclinations towards their romantic partner --> opposite of the "love hormone" expectations you might have
how does support for your worldview change with different manipulations of death?
Doesn't matter how you manipulate death, you still see mortality salience increasing support for the world view
what is digital emotional contagion?
Emotional experiences can be spread through social media pathways to other people (both consciously and unconsciously)
what is latent negative stereotype theory?
Expressing positive stereotypes signals that one holds latent (or underlying) negative group-based beliefs as well
Researchers investigated the odds of dying associated with various aspects of social relationships amongst other things. What were the results of this? (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010)
Found that perceived quality and quantity of social relationships had higher mortality odds than some of the deadliest behaviours e.g., smoking --> underscores the importance of meeting one's social needs and the dire outcomes associated with not
describe Bushman's experiment testing Freudian mentality
Found that rumination made people more aggressive than if they had just done nothing/distracted themselves
describe the 2 observational studies of aggression
Graham & Wells (1991): - 12 bars in Canada - Recorded violence among young people: - 77.8% men only - 3.4% women only - Violence in 1/3 of cases (kicking, punching, brawling) Baron (1976) - Had a confederate pull up at the front of the traffic to a stop light - When the light went green, the confederate would either do a normal or slow start - They observed the aggression of the driver behind - Dependent variable: Honking latency (how quickly they honked) and duration
what is gratitude and how is it different to indebtedness?
Gratitude is the positive emotion one feels when another person has intentionally given, or attempted to give, something of value.. It is distinct from 'indebtedness' - the feeling of needing to repay someone else (negative valance)
what is the relationship between texting similarity amongst partnerships and their relationship satisfaction? (Ohadi et al., 2018)
Had individuals who were in relationships complete some Likert scaled (1-5) questionnaires asking: - How long were they in the relationship for? - Perceived similarity between oneself and their partner in the frequency of initiating text conversations - how often did they initiate text conversation vs how often did their partner initiate text conversation - How often did people use text messages to express affection, anger/frustration, just to reach out etc. - your perception of yourself and your perception of your partner Results - the more difference you perceive in texting behaviour between you and your partner, the less satisfied you are with the relationship overall - But, when looking at each behaviour separately, there was only significant associations between difference in the frequency of texting just to say hello and how often partners initiated text conversations generally --> perhaps it's not about the content of the text that matters but the thought of the text - Differences in frequency/how we initiate text conversations have important outcomes on relationship satisfaction - So, it's important to be on the same page as your partner when it comes to texting style and relationship satisfaction
what is the relationship between cortisol and attention?
High levels of cortisol are associated with selective attention to angry faces in the lab because they're considered as threatening stimuli (e.g., van Honk et al., 2000)
what is the mortality salience hypothesis?
If our worldview and self-esteem protect us from the terror of realizing we are merely fragile creatures fated only to die, then reminders of mortality (Mortality Salience; MS) should intensify efforts to aid and defend our Worldviews and Self-Esteem
how does body posture relate to inferences to/about the self?
In any given moment, we are the encoder and decoder of our own body posture
how do happiness and wellbeing relate?
In the absence of negative emotion and in the presence of life satisfaction, happiness is thought to constitute a general sense of one's mental wellness
what is the induced compliance paradigm?
Induced compliance is a complex task which aims to create a state of dissonance. A participant is asked to cooperate in the task, acting in a way that contradicts his or her attitudes or beliefs about a specific subject or person through an exchange of roles E.g., People are required to do a boring task for a long while - then there is a confederate who asks you to tell the next person something positive about the task you just did - we will pay you either $1 or $20 to do this
what is comparative psychology?
Involves comparing human psychology to animal psychology
what is the difference between Gottman's high- and low-risk couples?
Is about predicting divorce, relationship stability, and happiness - In low-risk couples, their positive interactions cumulated over the course of an interaction to far outweigh the number of negative interactions. - In high-risk couples, their negative interactions cumulated over the course of a conversation to far outweigh the number of positive interactions.
are there other types of laughter?
Jo-ann Bachorowski's work has identified, among other things, that high-pitch, songlike voiced laughter is the most liked and most effective at eliciting laughs in others, relative to unvoiced laughter such as grunts, pants, and snorts
what does loneliness look like across the lifespan?
Loneliness does depend on how old you are. However, there are several peaks and troughs of loneliness which usually correlate with different life events e.g., around 60, people are retiring and will lose work relationships
why should we avoid bad relationships?
Married individuals who are experiencing relationship distress (poor relationship quality): - Higher probability of substance use disorders - Higher likelihood of anxiety and depression - Higher likelihood of suicide attempts and ideation - Higher likelihood of personality disorders - Predicts future substance use disorders, anxiety disorders and mood disorders - Experience negative effects on physical health: immune health, BP etc. - Can affect work productivity, job performance - Children of these couples have lower wellbeing too
what is moral elevation?
Moral elevation is the positive emotional response to witnessing virtuous actions committed by another (e.g., generosity, morality, charity, etc)
what is moral duplicity?
Motivation to appear moral yet, if possible, avoid the cost of actually being moral Results in acting selfishly if chances of being caught are low. Can also result in deceiving others and self!
why is there debate and subjectivity about what aggression is?
Much of the time we need further context to decide whether a behaviour is aggressive or not - we need to understand invisible mental states behind each action
how can we create research designs that address potential alternative explanations of predicted results?
Multiple measures of the construct is one way to do this: - Physiological, self-report and behavioural measures - Though these measures may not always correlate
describe how researchers can use insults to provoke participants' aggression
Participant is given difficult anagrams and as the participant engages in them, the researcher follows this script: - 1st minute: "Look, I can barely hear you. I need you to speak louder" - 2nd minute: "Hey, I can barely hear you." - 3rd minute: "Look, this is the third time I've had to say this! Can't you follow directions!" This provokes participants because they feel unjustly 'harmed'
what do we know from Rule et al., 2012 about body posture and nonverbally communicating dominance?
Participants can identify dominance vs. submission of body postures and head postures based on only 40ms exposure
what do we know from Schwartz et al., 1982 about body posture and nonverbally communicating dominance?
Participants rated a standing figure to be more dominant than a seated figure
what is the Taylor Aggression Paradigm?
Participants see a fixation cross, then they choose a noise level for the participant they're playing against, then they see another fixation cross, then a red square Manipulate aggression by the opponent they're playing with - Low provocation opponent: gives 1 or 2 noise level - High provocation opponent: gives 3 or 4 noise level When the red square changes colours, the participant needs to click their mouse/spacebar and whoever is fastest wins the round Loser gets the noise blast
how do epigenetics play a role in the discussion of aggression?
People experience stress and trauma at "critical windows" which causes epigenetic changes which then influence the way our neurobiology functions and that can have all sorts of aggressive outcomes
what is the selection hypothesis?
People who have better health to begin with are more likely to then get into or maintain a relationship and thus they have better mental health in the end as well --> so what is predicting this later good mental health is that they started out with good mental health initially - it's not the actual experience of being in a relationship that promotes better mental health but that it increases the likelihood that you're going to choose to be in a romantic relationship
what makes up the "magic trio" that contributes to happy and lasting relationships
Physiological calm When couples are physiologically calm, this state facilitates listening and empathy. When couples are physiologically flooded, this state facilitates attack and defence behaviours. Trust Mutual trust occurs when both partners maximise the benefits for both people. A mutually trusting relationship leads to intimacy and (good) sex. A distrusting relationship leads to loneliness. Loneliness is the main reason people have affairs. Commitment In intimate relationships, commitment manifests as cherishing your partner and nurturing gratitude for what you have. When commitment is present it leads to loyalty. When commitment is absent (betrayal) it can lead to a dissolution of the relationship.
what is the effect of a raised self-esteem on mortality salience?
Raised self-esteem MS prime protects you from MS - there is no increase in attitude toward world-views
what is relationship satisfaction?
Relationship satisfaction is the subjective evaluation of one's relationship. Relationship satisfaction is not a [observable] property of a relationship; it is a subjective experience and opinion. As such, members of the same couple may differ in how satisfied they are with their relationship
Does this perception of evil of the conspirators relate to being more likely to believe the conspiracy?
Replication of the Contoria Election study with additional measures of evil perceptions: - Entertainment value didn't predict the conspiracy beliefs - Entertainment condition was rated as having more evil conspirators - The effect of the entertaining condition on conspiracy beliefs was mediated by perception of evil but not by entertainment value Replication of the Jeffrey Epstein study with additional measures of evil perceptions: - Conspiracy condition text affected belief in the Epstein conspiracy via evil perceptions - Evil perceptions may be a better predictor of what causes us to believe conspiracies than entertainment value (as entertainment is not a strong predictor)
what do men fight over?
Reproductively relevant resources i.e., things that make them attractive and capable of having more offspring (status, valuables, money, land, animals, women)
why are close relationships important?
Research suggests people in marriages or romantic relationships have better: - Physical health - Mental health - Self-esteem - Mortality risk - Less risk for substance and alcohol misuse
what is meant by Asymmetrical Frontal Cortical Activity & Approach/Withdrawal?
Research suggests that the left and right prefrontal cortices are differently involved in approach/withdrawal motivation (left = approach; right = withdrawal)
what does loneliness look like between ages 15-20?
Researchers identified groups of adolescence who followed different patterns --> the majority have stable, low levels of loneliness and the minority experiences chronically high loneliness
what is the by-product theory of conspiracy beliefs?
Says that conspiracy beliefs are the by-product of other psychological processes that evolved for different reasons Says that our tendency to form conspiracy theories and believe them is epiphenomenon - is due to our brains capacity for thinking, reasoning and gossiping
Effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or support the worldview of judges?
See huge mortality salience effect - when judges were primed with their own mortality (i.e., thought about their own death), they recommend a bond of about $450 and when they weren't primed they recommend a bond of $50
what evidence is there for the Self Expansion Model of Love? - Sheets, 2013
Self-expansion measure: - "You are still learning things about your partner"; - "Being with your partner expands your sense of who you are"; and - "Your relationship with your partner is the source of new experiences." Passionate love measures: - Eros: romantic/sensual attraction to one's partner: "Your partner fits your ideal standards of beauty/handsomeness" "Your partner and you have the right physical chemistry" - Mania: possessiveness or obsession for one's partner "If your partner ignores you, you do things to get his/her attention" "Since being with your partner, you find it hard to focus on the routines of life" Companionate love measures: - Storge: love of a close friendship. "Your love for your partner is really just a deep friendship" "You always expect to be friends with your partner" Researchers predicted that those in long-term relationships would report less self-expansion in their relationships and as a consequence, less passionate love (Eros and Mania) Results: - People in longer term relationships reported lower levels of self-expansion in their relationships compared to people who had been with their partner more short-term (expected) - Note: positive relationship between self-expansion and both kids of passionate love but negative relationship with self-expansion and compassionate love - Relationship length wasn't correlated with Eros (so no decline in physical attraction depending on length) - Negative relationship with Mania and relationship length --> as relationships went on, mania decreased So, taking advantage of self-expansion opportunities in relationships might be associated with keeping passion alive across the length of a relationship
what is social anxiety?
Social anxiety involves a marked and persistent fear of one or more social situations in which the person is exposed to possible scrutiny by others. Usually takes one of three forms, anxiety about: - Being observed - Performance situations - Social interactions* (this is most relevant to the discussion of loneliness)
what are the consequence of SM that reinforce our use of it?
Social capital: The resources a person gains from engaging in social interactions. - E.g., sharing news of a new local pizza place, marketplace, providing or gaining assistance from people, establishing trust (perhaps you've been posting about being on holiday but your neighbour notices movement at your house, so they call the police) - all of which make your life better Social reward: the perceived value a person receives from social interactions. - If someone has received social capital/resources/knowledge/assistance from a social interaction online that helps them achieve a goal, they're mor likely to see that social interaction as socially rewarding
how do we know that hypocrisy causes dissonance?
Stone, Aronson, Crain, Winslow, & Fried (1994) Hypocrisy condition (committed to the belief that condoms are necessary and mindful of past failures) shown to purchase the most condoms (85%) --> condition that experienced the most dissonance engaged the most in dissonance reduction behaviour (i.e., buying condoms)
is jealousy an adaptive, positive trait in maintaining friendships? (Krems et al., 2021)
Study 1: - Jealousy was greater in the "loss to a third party" condition than in the "loss alone" condition --> confirms hypothesis Study 2: - Jealousy was greater in the "loss to a third party" condition than in the "loss alone" condition --> as was found in study 1 - Participants in the "loss to a third party" condition were significantly more likely to engage in friend guarding behaviours than those in control condition Then did mediation analysis to determine whether the relationship between the "loss to a third party" condition and the friend guarding behaviours was mediated by the type of emotion they felt because of the loss - The only significant relationship they found between emotion and friend guarding was between jealousy (nothing between sadness or anger) - Losing your friend to a third party significantly increased jealousy which then significantly increased the likelihood of engaging in friend guarding behaviours So, friendship jealousy is (1) uniquely evoked by third party threats and (2) these feelings motivate behaviour aimed at countering these threats to the friendship (guarding) which may be adaptive for the sake of maintaining the friendship
explain testosterone and the HPG axis
Testosterone: End product of the Hypothalamic Pituitary-Gonadal (HPG) axis
what is the 'Gold Standard' for inducing a cortisol response in the lab?
The Trier Social Stress Test Participants are required to give a speech in front of a disapproving panel of "linguistics experts" AND do mental arithmetic (e.g., count backwards in 13's from 1000) --> this is stressful
are there personal benefits to laughing?
The more frequently participants laughed in the lead up to a stressful event, the weaker the association between stressful events and stress symptoms became. This finding supports the idea that laughter serves as a buffer against stress
what is the relationship between cortisol and social support?
The more social support subordinates have (e.g., grooming), the less cortisol they have
how do the 5 various values associated with SM motivate use?
The perceived quality of the value you're receiving from SM will reinforce your continued use of that platform - E.g., you get 100 messages from your FB friends on your birthday --> perceive favourable conditional value and thus continue using the platform - E.g., you don't get the likes you expect or you compare yourself to other people on Instagram, you may not perceive emotional value as highly and perhaps you're less likely to continue using it
Effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or support the worldview of university students?
Those unfavourable to prostitution become even more harsh towards the prostitute after being primed with the mortality salience ($425) compared to those who are favourable to prostitution who don't differ from the neutral condition ($150)
what is the difference between the trolley and footbridge moral dilemma?
Trolley: - impersonal moral dilemma: recruits more reasoning than emotion Footbridge: - personal moral dilemma: recruits emotion more than reasoning - people take longer to make a decision, suggesting they're grappling between the dominant emotional response and the reasoning (head vs heart) - Different areas of the brain are recruited for different decisions: emotional or reasoning processing --> good evidence for a differentiation between moral reasoning and moral emotion
Can the stereotype content model explain differences in how men and women are perceived and treated?
UK researchers drew out particular gendered groups in society and asked where society perceives them to fall on measures of warmth and competence - Eckes, 2002 - The "typical woman" tends to fall low in competence and high in warmth --> consistent with the SCM - The "typical man" tends to fall high in competence and low in warmth --> consistent with the SCM
what is the equation to predict what will happen next in couples' interactions?
Uninfluenced portion + emotional inertia + influence function = Behaviour Future behaviour in the interaction can be predicted by how the person enters the interaction (constant), how moveable their emotions are based on their past behaviour, and how much influence the other person has on them
how do we arrive at judgements of warmth/competence? - Cuddy, Fiske & Glick, 2008
Warmth and competence perceptions are driven by perceived competition and status, respectively --> we judge others for their competitiveness and status - non-competitive others are judged to be warm - high-status others are judged to be competent
how do existential needs motivate beliefs in conspiracies?
When we lack control, we may feel more in control if we believe conspiracies that offer better "accounts" than official narratives. Conspiracy beliefs are associated with - Feeling powerless - Anxious attachment style - Death anxiety - Alienation from political system; belief economy is getting worse Experimentally boosting sense of control reduces conspiracy beliefs (van Prooien & Acker, 2015)
what are the literal and emotional ramifications of self-expansion?
When you include your partner in yourself, there is a literal overlap in resources and possessions e.g., moving in together, shared bank account. In a more abstract way, you might feel your partner's emotions as if it were yourself
what is the relationship between emotions and situation?
Without emotions, we wouldn't be able to effectively, nor efficiently, deal with situations presented by our environment. Our situation evokes specific emotions and those emotions help us deal with those situations E.g., We experience fear to threats so we can effectively flee the situation
can people believe angry rumination is a positive thing?
Yes - Participants engaged in cognitive bias modification (CBM) training intended to induce positive or negative beliefs about rumination. - After CBM training, all participants showed a positive belief bias towards rumination!
what is the relationship between mortality and aggression?
You are more harsh/aggressive towards people who disagree with your political views and less aggressive towards those who agree with your views
what is narcissism?
a pathological self-absorption characterised by an inflated sense of self-worth, self-image and nay be addicted to a fantasy of being amazing. They tend to actively exploit others to get what they want
what is violence?
a special type of aggression that inflicts severe physical harm or death
what are positive stereotypes?
a subjectively favourable belief held about a social group
what is the function of gratitude?
according to the find-remind-and-bind theory of gratitude (Algoe, 2014), the emotion - alerts the person to viable new relationship partners (finds) - makes them aware of existing valuable relationship partners (reminds) - encourages relationship building behaviours with those people (binds)
what kind of motivational state is driven by cognitive dissonance?
an aversive motivational state
why is there a correlation between levels of testosterone & aggression in animals but not in humans?
animals can only really seek dominance via aggression, humans have other means which is perhaps why we don't see a like between testosterone to aggression
anger is often associated with what kind of motivations?
approach motivation - the urge to go towards something in the environment Anger with approach-motivated tendencies: urge to act outwardly and go toward the angering stimulus
which hypothesis is right: selection or experience?
both - like nature/nurture
why might oxytocin increase aggression?
by lowering perceptions of danger that normally inhibit people from retaliating (Denson et al., 2019) - anxiolytic effect
explain cortisol and the HPA axis
cortisol is the end product of the HPA axis
what are moral double standards?
differing assessments of 'wrongness' according to who's doing the wrong - maybe what is okay for me to do is wrong for you to do
how are the alternatives of a difficult decision rated differently from the alternatives of an easy decision?
difficult decision = change: chosen is more positively rated & rejected is more negatively rated compared to easy decision
what is cognitive dissonance?
discomfort felt when we hold 2 or more conflicting ideals/cognitions
what were the results of Petty and Brintol's 2009 experiment?
found that body posture can track back to inferences we make about ourselves
what were the results of Gunnery et al.'s 2013 experiment about real vs fake smiling?
found that raters' ability to detect a fake smile correlated with their ability to produce one
what is the difference between genuine and volitional laughs
genuine = spontaneous laughter volitional = purposeful laughter
How has aggression changed over the years? Why is this?
has decreased substantially. This is because as a culture, we have evolved to teach self-control and emotion regulation
what is the anxiety-buffer hypothesis
if a psychological structure provides protection against anxiety, then strengthening that structure should make one less prone to exhibit anxiety, and weakening that structure should make one more prone to exhibit anxiety.
what is the problem/opportunity and solution regarding heroism + deference in the Morality as Cooperation approach?
in human society there tends to be conflicts around dominance (i.e., who is at the top of the hierarchy) --> one needs to rise and the other needs to agree that this is the case
what is the problem/opportunity and solution regarding group in the Morality as Cooperation approach?
in order to achieve particular broad goals, it's more beneficial for people to work together than individually --> mutualism: behaviours that draw us together and bind us to a group
Multiple methods of inducing anger have been found to cause...
increased relative left frontal cortical activity It is the anger associated with high-approach motivation causes increases in left PFC This motivation can be altered by telling participants that they can/cannot act on their motivation (i.e., if they are allowed to act on the anger, you increase the motivation; if they are not allowed to act on the anger, you decrease the motivation)
what can we learn from Burris, Harmon-Jones, & Tarpley's 1997 experiment on cognitive dissonance in religious participants and Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, & Denson's 2020 experiment on Trump supporters?
intensifying your belief after a dissonance situation can reduce negative affect
what is the I-cubed theory of aggression?
involves three orthogonal components: 1. Instigation - exposure to something or an event that creates an urge to aggress in most people e.g., ostracism, provocation 2. Impellance - the factors which impel someone to be aggressive e.g., hostile thinking, pain 3. Inhibition - person or situation factors that increase the likelihood that (or the intensity with which) people will override the effects of instigation and impellance e.g., alcohol is disinhibiting which means under the influence, you fail to inhibit aggressive tendencies
what is Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)?
is a method whereby we can apply weak electrical currents to the brain to manipulate left vs right Frontal Cortical Activity
what is the problem/opportunity and solution regarding family in the Morality as Cooperation approach?
it is more adaptive to share resources with family/kin than non-family/non-kin --> research has found that when given the option, people tend to act more altruistically towards family than others
what is the experience hypothesis?
it's actually the experience of being in a romantic relationship or marriage that improves mental health
what is the social desirability effect?
no one wants to admit that they hate another group/individual
how might people use substances to eliminate dissonance? (Steele, Southwick, & Critchlow)
people may engage in alcohol consumption as a way of eliminating dissonance
Counter-stereotypic behaviours/characteristics are met with _________?
prejudice examples: - Women who display strong competence and men who display strong warmth. - Females who pursue "competency"-related careers and males who pursue "warmth"-related careers. - Mothers who return to work and fathers who take parental leave
what is the function of compassion?
promotes behaviour aimed towards alleviating others' suffering
what is the function of moral elevation?
promotes prosocial behaviour by motivating helping others or becoming a better person
what is the action‐based model of dissonance?
proposes both a proximal and a distal motivation for the existence of dissonance processes: · Proximal motive of dissonance reduction efforts → reduce discomfort · Distal motive of dissonance processes → promote effective action / pursuit of goals
what is the relationship between reappraisal and heart rate variability?
reappraisal is associated with the physiological indicator of emotion regulation flexibility (i.e., HRV) (HRV indicates flexible emotion regulation ability)
what is Unequivocal Behavioral Orientation?
represents a commitment to action in the face of uncertainty
what response should be seen after tDCS to increase relative left prefrontal cortical activity?
self-reported anger to the insult should be more strongly related to aggression No such relationship for the condition where tDCS was given to relative right PFC activity and sham tDCS condition
what is co-laughter?
simultaneous laughter between individuals in social interactions
what is Social self-preservation theory (Sally Dickerson and colleagues)
social evaluative threat can heighten cortisol public speaking and cognitive tasks see a high cortisol response
how do subliminal primes effect worldview defense?
subliminal presentations of death words also causes increased worldview defense --> suppression of death-related thoughts
How does the evolutionary theory account for sex differences in aggression?
suggests that different types of aggression are customary to different sexes e.g., physical aggression is more manly while indirect aggression like gossiping is more womanly
Ghengis Khan & his son Kubla Khan are an example of what?
the evolutionary theory of aggression - He would invade places, take women and produce many offspring with women often against their will etc. - 8% of modern Asian men have DNA linked to Ghengis Khan (on the Y chromosome). - 0.5% of the world's population! --> an example of how violence is evolutionarily adaptive in terms of reproduction - aggression is a good adaptation in terms of increasing "fitness"/ability to reproduce
what is meant by Morality as Cooperation approach?
the reason we have morality is to help us engage with others and to help us not engage in acts that would violate cooperation
what does the longitudinal evidence say about types of loneliness and motives for use?
the relationship between loneliness and FB use has to do with motive - i.e., how lonely you feel depends on what you use FB for in the first place
Traditionally, we use rewards as incentive to get people to engage in things they don't want to do - the other way of doing it would be through the threat of punishment. What is the effect of threat on dissonance?
the stronger the force, the more justification a person has to follow along with the incentive/threat of punishment --> should experience less dissonance
why do we see higher aggression in breastfeeding mothers (humans and animals) than non-feeding mothers?
they have higher oxytocin which mediates aggression
how do we deal with the expected death anxiety?
through culture: shared symbolic conception of reality that imbues the world with meaning, order, and permanence
true or false: belief in one conspiracy relates to belief in others
true - if you believe in one, you're more likely to believe in others
what is the stereotype content model?
universal dimensions of interpersonal and intergroup perception including: - Warmth: good-natured, trustworthy, tolerant, friendly and sincere - Competence: capable, skilful, intelligent and confident · When we come across someone, or groups of people we already know, we perceive those social entities along the above two dimensions · The content of our stereotypes is driven by variations along the above 2 dimensions
what is the ovulatory competition hypothesis?
when Estrogen increases motivation to compete with other females for status and access to mates
what is the problem/opportunity and solution regarding reciprocity in the Morality as Cooperation approach?
when a person has received a benefit and has the option to not reciprocate - in a group, not reciprocating undermines cooperation --> reciprocal altruism: when given the opportunity to reciprocate a received benefit, one will tend to give back to the giver
what is the problem/opportunity and solution regarding property in the Morality as Cooperation approach?
when ownership happens, people need to respect it and not steal --> ownership
what is the problem/opportunity and solution regarding fairness in the Morality as Cooperation approach?
when there is a resource that needs to be divided amongst a group --> division
can the negative affect experienced as a result of simple inconsistencies can cause/be explained by a state of dissonance?
yes - see notes
What is self-perception theory? How does this relate to hate?
you dictate your attitude by your behaviour, by saying you hate certain people, you can actually come to hate them
how many people use social media?
· 3.8 billion people world-wide use some form of SM (Kemp, 2019) · ~70% of US adults actively use at least 1 SM platform (Pew Research, 2018) · Over 50% of people visit SM sites each day (Smith & Anderson, 2018) · Average SM usage is 145 minutes per day
give some facts about infidelity
· 90% of people think infidelity is immoral, and 65% think it is unforgivable (Gallup, 2001) · ~20% of married people have cheated in their lifetime · These estimates are higher for people who are "dating" · Peaks in summer months (seasonal variation) · It is one of the most common reasons for divorce · Infidelity can lead to psychological harm
what is the self-expansion model? (Aron & Aron, 1986)
· According to this model, individuals have a fundamental motivational drive to expand themselves by forming relationships where they can include the other person in their perception of themselves - individuals expand by taking on their partner's perspectives, traits, characteristics and resources (e.g., car, apartment etc.) · Once their person has been integrated into your own, the rate of self-expansion slows which then leads to a decline in romantic passion --> this explains why we see a decline in passion throughout the length of a relationship
Describe the fluidity of each component of the triangular theory of love
· Argues that once commitment is established, doesn't change that much while intimacy and passion are more unstable (they decrease with time) · Argues that intimacy depends on whether you're in a good relationship - increases rapidly in the honeymoon phase but overtime could plateau (in the case of a good relationship) or sharply decrease (in the case of a bad relationship) · Might expect a sharp increase in passion at the beginning of a relationship and then a consistent decline over the course of the relationship
what is the relationship between self-expansion and passion?
· At the beginning of a romantic relationship, you are continuously learning new things about your partner and you're bringing those characteristics/concepts/resources into yourself (self-expansion through integration) which generates a passion between you and your partner. But, later when you are one and the same (i.e., fully integrated), the opportunity for self-expansion diminishes and thus, there is less passion - Self-expansion generates passion - once the opportunity to self-expand is spent, so too is passion · So, in long-term relationships, if self-expansion can be sustained throughout the relationship, so too could passionate lover - which my lead to more wholistic fulfilling relationships
what is the relationship between socioeconomic status and one's rank in the hierarchy?
· Being poor or even just feeling poor (i.e., subjective social status) predicts a host of poor health outcomes. · Disadvantaged groups and minorities are more likely to experience lower subjective social status and social evaluative threat.
what is the belief disconfirmation paradigm?
· Belief is highly resistant to change · Information disconfirms belief, and info is difficult to ignore · Reduce dissonance by increasing social support & persuading others
when is cortisol problematic? How is it problematic?
· Both excessive and flat cortisol responses are associated with problems (e.g., depression) · At excessive levels, cortisol can impair memory, causes atrophy of hippocampus, and promotes loss of nerve cells
what is the relationship between conflicting cognitions and action?
· Cognitions are "action tendencies" - they suggest ways in which we should behave · Conflicting cognitions interfere with effective action
what are some obstacles to bridging the mind-body gap?
· Cost (time and money) · Invasiveness (e.g., EEG cap involves lots of touching) · Inadequate technical knowledge · Problems with data acquisition and analysis · Faulty inference
what is the conflict discussion paradigm? (Gottman)
· Couples come into the lab and complete an individual questionnaire where they detail how problematic certain topics are for their relationship e.g., housework, money, children, alcohol use etc. · Couple is then re-united and the researcher gives them their top-rated problem. Couple then needs to pick one to discuss alone: outline the problem and decide on a solution · Cameras are directed to each of their faces and people trained in observing emotion displays and behaviours then code the videos e.g., verbal aggression, dominance etc. · The codes are then used to find correlates of communication styles in relationships
how does testosterone affect effort?
· Gave people 150 mg testosterone via gel or placebo · Paradigm consisted of a repeated 9-player competition where participants had to exert effort to compete for rank position by responding as fast as possible to multiple targets on screen then given a rank against "other people" · Manipulated high vs low rank in competitive task · Participants with exogenous testosterone (vs. placebo) exerted greater competitive effort (responded faster) as the task progressed, but only for individuals with a low rank position - High rank: general investment of effort as the task went on but didn't differ as a function of placebo/testosterone - Low rank: people given testosterone tried harder and harder and harder vs placebo testosterone is motivating them
what is the relationship between social status and testosterone?
· Increasing social status typically increases testosterone · Losing social status typically decreases testosterone · When facing social competition or social threat, individuals show (short term) increases in testosterone · This is especially seen in those having a history of victory
describe the general aggression model (Anderson & Bushman)
· Inputs: person (genetic predispositions, traits etc.) and situation (provocation, alcohol consumption etc.) · Routes: mediators between inputs and outcomes which influence people's internal state (affect, cognition and arousal) · Outcomes: people reappraise the situation and act via either thoughtful action or impulsive action
what are some problems for social neuroscience?
· Interpretive ambiguity - not knowing for certain how the physiological measures are related to the psychological constructs that you're interested in · Time resolution and time courses of various systems/measures differ substantially · Spatial resolution - measures taken from the surface of the scalp fail to tell us exactly where in the brain something is occurring · Not knowing the functional significance of the observed physiological measure
what is social neuroscience?
· Is about studying the relation between mind and brain · Is a field that uses non-invasive physiological dependent or independent variables to gain insights into psychological questions (i.e., interested in the mind-body gap) · Integrative field that examines how nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are involved in sociocultural processes
what is the relationship between oxytocin and childbirth?
· Is released in large amounts immediately prior to and after childbirth · High post-natal levels also facilitate breastfeeding and infant-bonding
what is the difference between momentary and chronic loneliness?
· Momentary loneliness is adaptive - it prompts seeking social connection, often successfully. · Chronic loneliness is highly maladaptive - it ultimately undermines social connections and leads to a wide array of negative outcomes.
what is the relationship between oxytocin and trust?
· OT decreased trust with outgroups · OT decreased trust with those who are highly rejection sensitive · OT only facilitates trust with those who are close to us
what are the possible relationships between elements in the psychological and physiological domains?
· One to one - an element in psychological set is directly associated with one and only one element in physiological set, and vice versa (rare) · One-to-many: 1 psycho element is associated with many physio elements · Many to one - 2 or more psycho elements are associated with same physio element
how does oxytocin influence ethnocentrism?
· Participants asked to determine whether words were associated with the in- or out-group · Can see there is an interaction with an out-group effect (they're consistently seen as less human than the in-group) but the biggest effect was seen with those in the oxytocin condition --> people with higher levels of oxytocin love their in-group more (don't necessarily like the out-group less though)
how is self-esteem understood in terror management theory?
· Theory proposes that self-esteem & beliefs are fragile constructions needing social validation · Existence of others with alternative beliefs threatens faith in the validity of our own
differentiate between values and moral values?
· Values (generally) are things that people care about. · Moral values are things held to be right or wrong or desirable or undesirable.