Psych 217 Final Exam

Most common SERIOUS lies

20% infidelity, 20% money/job 20% serious misdeeds 40% other

Common ancestor

60-90 million years ago

Motivational Autonomy

Biology determines what CAN be not what MUST be (brain and social structure are like building blocks and how they're put together is flexible)

Why does evolution matter?

Can't assume we can make any moral system we want, but brains and culture are rooted in history & character of our species

Neanderthals

Closest non-living relative= homo neanderthalensis. Common ancestor ~ 500 thousand yrs ago, overlapped biologically with humans for 200K yrs (small degree of interbreeding) went extinct ~ 30K years ago. Used tools, ate mostly meat, don't know if they used language, some art

Bonobo chimpanzee

Pan Paniscus; less violent means of conflict management. Female coordination to a greater degree. Sexual behavior a key component of conflict resolution. Greater diversity of sexual behavior.

Common Chimpanzee

Pan troglodyte;show much higher levels of aggression. Stronger status competition within groups. Radically more violent behavior towards "stranger chimps"

Myths

"rulers of savanna" "humans as autonomous society as a historical creation" "war is essential to human life"

Naturalistic Fallacy

What is typical does not determine what is right (this behavior is "natural" (or evolved) therefore it is moral) BE AWARE OF THIS

Kosfeld trust game experiment

administered oxytocin spray and ppl played a trust game, those sprayed gave more than the placebo

how to increase forgiveness

apology, self-abasing displays(public apology), compensation

nadia kohts

appreciated emotional life of animals

Rational Choice Models

assumes human behavior is rational and self-interested (maximizing profit)

Motivated cognition

attend to the evidence that is consistent with what we want to believe

preconcern

attraction towards anyone whose agony effects you

Machivellian exploitative rationality

because most people are cooperative, I can exploit that trust for my gain

Social Cooperative rationality

because most people are cooperative, it's smart to be cooperative to increase joint rewards

Selfish gene (rich dawkins)

book mimicked life and nature

Bushman mood freezing study

bramitol "freezes your mood" not aggressive after being insulted because they believe it won't do anything

Bond & Depaulo meta-analysis

can we detect the truth barely: 54% accuracy (just over 50%) believe it's true bias

2 emotional roots of helping

compassion and guilt (distress)

williams syndrome

condition caused by non expression of genes on seventh chromosome patients trust everyone indiscriminately and love the whole world equally

4 behaviors that predict early divorce

criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling(silent treatment), contempt(worthless)

Ostracism games

cyber-ball: don't pass the ball to you "no one wants to work with you" use of words "cut, hurt, sharp" not just metaphor

dolphins?

dophins fit the co-emergence hypothesis, are similar cognitively to humans, apes and elephants

2 aspects of fairness

equality of income & rewards are linked to effort

Ostracism

exclusion from a society or group

Eisenberger Cyber ball

exclusion from game led to activation in the areas of the brain during physical pain

Zak ultimatum and dictator game studies

gave oxytocin, ultimatum increased offers, didn't do anything for dictator game (therefore not just generosity, but trust)

Primates

group of about 400 different species of mammals that humans are a part of

social darwinism

herbert spencer, survival of the fittest for humans

Oxytocin

hormone and neurotransmitter ( so in blood and neural processes) vital in reproduction and pair-bonding behavior of mammals (needed in labor, sex, and nursing) reduces anxiety Important role in TRUST

Groups

human life is organized in...

Biological empathy ans sympathy

imitation, emotional contagion, yawning, mirror neurons

Retaliation

improves mood in short run, not long run

Narcissism

inflated self views, extroverted, low in agreeableness

Intergroup vs interpersonal

interpersonal in prisoner's dilemma = cooperative but intergroup turns to competitive

Moral licensing

keep track of our behavior; good deeds are used to justify our bad deeds. Moral behavior early in the day says immoral behavior later in the day

DePaulo interaction record study

kept track of interactions for a week, lies were too in about 30% of interactions 68% were outright lies about feelings, plans, past behavior lies were less likely in close relationships, yet most serious ones were to people close with

Mutual aid

kropotkin, struggle for existence is based on masses of organisms vs. environments

richard wilkinson's findings

less egalitarian states suffer higher mortality

Agriculture effects of humans

less egalitarian; more focus on wealth and power, less interpersonal violence, more intergroup

Dewall tylenol studies

less social pain when taking tylenol

Machivellianism

low in agreeableness and conscientiousness

Psychopathy

low in anxiety, extroverted, low in agreeableness and conscientiousness

Dictator Game

measures altruism; two participants, one is given money and can distribute it as he/she wishes to the other person. no communication, receiver gets whatever the giver decides

Ultimatum game

measures fear of willingness to engage in costly punishment for unfairness;two participants, one is given money and can distribute it how he/she wants, receiver can veto the money if they don't think it's enough (therefore they both get nothing)

Prisoner's dilemma game

measures trust and cooperation; two players, know the options faced by the other player, joint payoffs are highest when both players choose the cooperative option (temptation to exploit)

Trust Game

measures trust; people are given starting amount of money and they can give the trustee a certain amount of money, that money is then tripled and the receiver (trustee) can send a portion back

Harlow

monkey terry cloth study (nurturance is a need)

dewall and sarah brosnan's work on monkey's

monkeys discard perfectly good food simply because another monkey gets something better implies that these reactions may have been around for as long as animals have engaged in tit for tat is consistent with human behavior

Grossman's book "on killing"

most men lack killer instinct

Dark Triad- anti social personality traits

narcissism, machivellian, psychopathy

Hunter gatherers

our ancestral humans were these; small bands of people (~5k people at one point) scavenged just as much or more than they hunted big game

Catharsis

people believe that aggressing or even venting will get rid of bad mood and desire revenge NOT TRUE

Pluralistic ignorance

people misperceive norms or beliefs in a group

Situational force #1: someone in our own group needs help

people who we have group memberships with we are more likely to help Cunningham relatedness study parents, siblings, kis, 70% grandparents 60% first cousins 40% strangers 15%

Reasons humans forgive & reconcile

perceived harm, perceived safety, value relationship

Russell Church

rats help injured

Characteristic of hunter-gatherers

risked starvation and being attacked by large predators, didn't usually have conflict with other groups of humans because little benefit. Mostly egalitarian. Gained status within group, but avoid ostracism

layers of empathy

russian doll analogy core- matching another emotional state middle- concern for others (consolation) outside- perspective taking (targeted helping)

self contingency testing

sense of self and what they saw in mirror

Game theory (economic games)

situations in which people have to interact with others and make decisions with minimal information; recreates problems that people face in social situations

coemergence hypothesis

species that recognize themselves in a mirror should be marked by advanced empathy

Hominidae (our family)

split from other ancestors about 15 millions yrs ago

Bowlby

stressed importance of attachment to parents (studied orphans)

Concilation Tendency (CT)

tendency for increased friendliness after conflict

Ontogeny

the development of an individual o

Phylogeny

the evolutionary history of a population, and how it is related to others.

Promoting moral behavior

threat of punishment, guilt, shame, embarrassment

Link to empathy & torture

torture requires an appreciation of what others think and feel (need to know what rattles them)

ven

traits we consider humane: perspective-taking, empathy, embarrassment, humor, future-orientation, and self-awareness

Gottman studies

videotapes couple discussing a topic they recently agreed about

Eisenberg video study

watched video of woman and children injured in accident (viewed peoples facial expressions and heart rate) Distress (increase in HR & wincing) Sympathy (HR decrease and pinched eyebrows rounded mouth) Distress= not willing to help Sympathy= willingly helped

Chimpanzees

we did not evolve from these, they are our closest relative because we have a common ancestor from about 5million yrs ago

Common lie

we value being nice so instead of saying no we make up a lie saying we don't have the notes

Situational force #2: we help others when costs for us are low

when costs are low we will help Darley & Batson Minister study some students were told to hurry to other building, others weren't. 60%the ones who weren't told to hurry stopped and helped slumped man, 10% who were hurrying stopped

Bystander effect

when no one helps because they think another bystander will

tit for tat reciprocity

when people defect, people look for payback, emotionally driven, not rational

Diffusion of responsibility

when we are in a group we think we are not the most qualified one to help or don't need to be the one who helps

Situational force #3: we help when we are the only ones around

when we are the only ones to provide assistance we help Latane &Darley Seizure study when there were only 2 ppl in study, 85% helped in less than 60 secs when there were 4 others, 30% helped in 60 secs or less

unconscious synchrony

yawning, copying small bodily movements

Beginning of agriculture

~10 thousand years ago

Beginning of cities, written language, modern culture

~5k years ago

dewall's critique of people's model of human society

• Criticizes that all humans consume and produce • Lack tools to look at society w/ objectivity • Unable to look at info of human behavior as a result of studies from anthro, psych, bio