Psych Lecture Part 3

Adam Grant asks people to do an exercise called run a reciprocity ring, where people have to ask for help and others offer a way (resources or connection) to help. What are the benefits of this exercise?

1. This exercise gets people comfortable with asking for help. Asking for help and receiving favors is different from taking. We all need help at some point. There have to be receivers for there to be givers. This exercise will help us build a culture of help seeking. 2. Takers are forced to act as givers in this exercise. This exercise moves both takers and givers more towards the giving side. 3. This exercise helps people realize that we are all better off if everybody is a giver.

Zimbardo studied why ordinary people are capable of doing evilthings on a large scale and summarized the factors that encourage suchbehaviors. What are some of the factors? Can you think of areal-world example?

1. start with an ideology 2. start with small, insignificant-seeming steps 3. person in charge appears just (or does at first) 4. rules vague; words used in new ways 5. highlight models of compliance 6. allow some verbal dissent, but enforce behavioral compliance 7. make it hard to exit One example: Jonestown. The leader of Jonestown, Jim Jones, advocatedcommunism and egalitarianism, which gained support from influentialpolitical figures at the time. So the group had a reasonable ideology to fight for that seemed worthwhile. At the beginning, people in thegroup were only asked to do small things such as going to the Church,making small donations, helpful social projects etc. The leadergradually increased the magnitude of the requests. The group relocatedto Guyana. This relocation, among other things, isolated people andmade it hard for them to exit the group.

According to Adam Grant, what can we learn from Adam Rifkin, who based on data from LinkedIn, is the best networker? More generally, how can we be a better giver?

Adam Rifkin does a lot of small favors that benefit others a great deal with a low cost to the self (i.e. 5-minute favors). For example Adam Rifkin makes a lot of introductions between people who would benefit from knowing each other. This doesnt take a lot of his time, but it will potentially help others a lot.Adam Rifkin is better at helping others in some ways than others. For example, he has a wide network and can introduce people to each other. He developed this specific way of helping people and he sticks with it. He doesnt comply every request indiscriminately. For example, he received a lot of requests for reviewing business plans for other people and chooses to decline such requests. The lesson is that you should help others in a way that utilizes your strength so that you can help others efficiently.

Are all human behaviors and physical features that are shaped bynatural selection evolutionarily advantageous? Give examples ofbehaviors and physical features that may have provided an evolutionaryadvantage and those that probably haven't.

Although many of our behaviors and physical features may have providedan evolutionary advantage, this isn't the case for all of them. Forexample, our spines are not structured particularly well for walkingupright, but they still developed through natural selection.On the other hand, we consider some tendencies and physical ailmentsto be merely harmful, but they may actually confer an evolutionaryadvantage. For example, sickle-cell anemia protects against malaria,children's tendency to refuse new foods may protect them duringa sensitive developmental stage, and a pregnant woman's morningsickness may protect the fetus from toxins at a particularlyvulnerable time.

How are armies related to the prisoner's dilemma problem?

Armies are generally used to attack other countries and to defend against other countries' attacks. The bigger your army gets, the bigger my army has to be to defend against your attacks. This is very costly. Of course, if you have no army at all, I could invade your lands and steal your bananas, which is an ideal result for me. And vice versa: if I have no army, you can come in and steal my apples,which are delicious, so this would be ideal for you. However, if we could coordinate a reliable truce, we could both live in relative peace and spend all the money that it takes to maintain an army on other things like universal health care or sports cars. This, averaged over both of us, is the ideal resolution. However, like the prisoner's dilemma, it is difficult to coordinate all parties to go along with an initially sub-optimal result and trust that everyone else will do the same.

Describe the symptoms of autism as well as the reasons whydiagnosis of the disorder is so difficult

Autism is a disorderusually diagnosed in young children that is characterized by a widerange of developmental problems including restricted or repetitivebehavior patterns, abnormal socialization, and abnormalcommunication. Diagnosing autism can be difficult, since there is nosimple test to diagnose the disorder. Rather, clinicians observe thechild's behavior and development to make a diagnosis. This difficultyis compounded by the fact that there is huge variation among normalchildren in domains like language which are typically affected byautism. For example, at 18 months the mean spoken vocabulary is 100words (1 SD above ~250 words, 1 SD below =0 words). Because of thelarge amount of normal variation in language expression, it isdifficult to determine which children experience language deficitsthat are actually the result of autism.

How do between-group differences and within-group differencesrelate to intelligence? Are there any differences between men andwomen's performance on cognitive tasks?

Between group differences might reflect environmental factors,while within-group differences might reflect genetic variation. Men*tend* to perform better on visuospatial tasks. Women *tend* toperform better than men on certain verbal tasks, especially those thatrequire clear and fluent writing. These comparisons are likelyoversimplifications; for example, although men tend to achieve (onaverage) higher scores on the math portion of SATs, the advantage formen is clearer for tests of spatial relations or geometry, while womenseem to outperform men on tests emphasizing geometry. Differenttheories have been proposed to explain sex differences in performanceon certain tests of intelligence, including biological, evolutionary,cultural, and social factors.

What things should we consider when trying to distinguishbetween normal and abnormal behavior?

Big picture: Abnormality is hard to define. Many disorders do nothave hard and fast "edges" that cleanly separate those who have thedisorder from those who don't. Some questions that are relevant tothis determination are: Does the person show an extreme version of anormal behavior? Is the person suffering? Is the behavior botheringothers or does it make others uncomfortable? Does it bother theperson? Is the behavior maladaptive? Does it interfere with the person's wellbeing in a significant way? Is the behaviorstatistically deviant or rare? Does the behavior violate societalstandards? No one element or definition separates all cases ofabnormality from all cases of normality. Many things that are commonare abnormal (e.g. common cold), and many things that are rare are notconsidered abnormal (e.g. perfect pitch)

How is bipolar disorder different from unipolar depression

Bipolar disorder includes either mania or hypomania, neither ofwhich is present in depression. The depressive episodes seen inbipolar disorder are similar to those seen in unipolar depression.Bipolar disorder has a stronger genetic component (as evidenced bymetrics like higher heritability) and more genetic overlap withdisorders like schizophrenia than with depression. Bipolar disorderis seen as a life-long disorder (someone can be in remission frombipolar disorder), while depression can either be chronic/recurrentor single-episode.

What is the distinction between fluid and crystallizedintelligence?

Both fluid and crystallized intelligence take their place at themiddle level of the intelligence hierarchy, alongside of verbal,quantitative, and spatial skills (Please see Figure 11.6 on textbookP431). Fluid intelligence refers to the ability to deal with new andunusual problems. It involves the deliberate and controlled use ofmental operations and is the form of intelligence you need when youhave no well-practiced routines you can bring to bear on aproblem. Fluid intelligence generally reaches its height in earlyadulthood and declines steadily with age.Crystallized intelligence refers to your acquired knowledge. Thisincludes your verbal knowledge and your broad repertoire ofskills--skills useful for dealing with problems similar to thosealready encountered. Crystallized intelligence seems to increase withage--as long as the individual remains in an intellectually stimulatingenvironment.Many factors such as alcohol consumption, fatigue, depression, andsome forms of brain damage cause more impairment in tasks requiringfluid intelligence than in those dependent on crystallizedintelligence

What do we know about the social nature of children vs that of ourcloser relatives (chimpanzees, apes, etc)? Are there inter-speciesdifferences in helping behavior? In social intelligence?

By 12 months, kids seem to share the things they find interesting(they will point to something interesting until the person they arewith and then looks back at them). Humans are uniquely predisposed tothe social world. Comparisons of children (2.5 years old), chimps, andapes on tests of intelligence reveal that children outperform chimpsand orang-utans on tasks of social intelligence, but not on tasks of physical intelligence (although both children and chimps were smarterthan orangs on the latter tasks). We watched a video in which chimpsbeats kids on a hidden toy task because the kids pay attention to the(uninformative) social cues and the chimps watched the reward underthe cups. This stood in contrast to the imitation task, in which achild quickly learned how to remove a balloon from a tube by watchingand imitating an adult, while the chimps failed repeatedly becausethey could not mirror the human's behavior. As Professor Swingleysummarized: "We do what others do the way they do it" and maybe thisfacilitates human intelligence, language, culture, etc.

What are causal attributions and what are the broad types theyare often divided into? What impact do cultural differences have onthe way people form attributions?

Causal attributions are the inferences we make about what caused aperson's behavior. Causal attributions are often divided intotwo broad types: those that focus on factors internal to the person(dispositional attributions - for example, John came late becausehe's disorganized) and those that focus on factors external tothe person (situational attributions - for example, John came latebecause there was traffic and it's snowing outside). Theattributions we make seem to be particularly influenced by whether welive in an individualistic culture (that emphasizes the rights andpreferences of individuals) or a collectivistic culture (thatemphasizes the maintaining of norms and traditions of families andother social groups). People in individualistic cultures tend to makedispositional attributions more often, while people in collectivisticcultures tend to make situational attributions more often (roughlyspeaking). We can observe this cultural difference in the fundamentalattribution error (you should know what this is, as it has been thetopic of recitations all semester), which tends to be made more often in individualistic cultures.

What is cognitive dissonance? How can it lead to attitude change?

Cognitive dissonance is defined as an aversive psychological state that arises due to a conflict between your beliefs/attitudes and actions, or between two beliefs/attitudes. It can lead to attitude change because we are motivated to eliminate this conflict, thereby reducing the experience of dissonance, and one way of doing this is by changing our attitudes. For instance, if you have engaged in a behavior that is inconsistent with your attitude, and there is no apparent sufficient justification for doing so, you can only resolve the conflict by changing your attitude, since the behavior cannot be "taken back." For more information, see the studies by Leon Festinger that we discussed in class.

How do depressed people's brains look compared tonon-depressed individuals'? What are examples of cognitivedifferences between depressed and non-depressed individuals? Whatmight they imply

Compared to other disorders (e.g. schizophrenia), there are fewergross anatomical differences between depressed and non-depressedindividuals ~ current research has not found many ways in which thedepressed brain "looks" different. That said, we know a greatdeal about the ways in which depressed individuals' brains seemto function differently than non-depressed individuals, includingdifferences in: reward sensitivity or "liking" (depressedindividuals exhibit impaired reward learning), motivation/anhedoniaor "wanting", attention, perception and memory. Thesedifferences imply that different aspects of brain functioning mayplay a role in the etiology and the maintenance of depression.

Explain the differences between conformity, obedience, andcompliance

Conformity is about matching our behaviors to those of others due toexplicit or implicit social pressure. Obedience is not aboutmatching others' behaviors, but rather about following a command froman authority figure of some kind. Compliance is conceptuallysimilar, but is about changing our behaviors in response to arequest, rather than a command with some force of authority

What are some of the ways we treat depression?

Depression can be treated with both psychotherapy ("talk therapy", e.g. cognitive-behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy etc) andpharmacotherapy ("drugs" - antidepressant medication). More severedepression that doesn't respond to first-line treatments can betreated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and, if that fails,deep-brain stimulation (DBS).

What are Dunbar's correlation and Dunbar's number? Give two possible causal explanations for Dunbar's correlation (we discussed two in class - here they are plus a bonus one).

Dunbar's correlation is an observed positive correlation between social group size and the percentage of the brain accounted for by the neocortex, among primates. It means, in essence, that species with larger social groups have more of their brain dedicated to "higher" or more complex thinking processes. Dunbar's number is an estimate, based on the correlation, of the "natural" size of the human social group -- that is, how big a group our ancestors evolved to live in. His estimate is about 150 individuals. Causal explanations: a. Greater amounts of neocortex (which presumably evolved for some other reason) cause species to live in larger groups because the neocortex allows the animal to keep track of complex social relations. b. Living in larger groups (which presumably conferred some survival advantage) causes species to evolve larger neocortices, presumably because living in larger groups requires the cognitive ability to keep track of complex social relations. (Note the subtle but important difference between a and b. This is the problem of reverse causation, as we learned in recitation.) c. Both group size and the neocortex grow together for some unrelated third reason. One possibility might be hunting. Perhaps primates that would benefit from hunting in groups also would benefit from "hunting smarter" and so these two traits (group size, relatively large neocortex) go together without one really causing the other. (This is the third variable problem. If any of these methods terms are unfamiliar to you, you should review your notes from the first few recitations.)

Describe the Ekman (1980) study of facial expressions, its conclusions, and how we might qualify them.

Ekman studied the universality of facial expressions by having Westerners interpret facial expressions by people in Papua New Guinea and vice versa. He found that many facial expressions were recognized across cultures, albeit some more than others (see pages 491-492). It was concluded that emotions are recognized across cultures. While this is often true, it's important to remember that cultures have different rules for displaying emotions, often called display rules. By any account, however, emotions are powerful motivating forces in all cultures.

What is evidence in support of schizophrenia being aneurodevelopmental disorder

Evidence suggests that a genetic predisposition, a period ofdiminished oxygen supply to the newborn, and a variety of prenatalviral infections can contribute to schizophrenia. It is clear thatthere is a genetic contribution to schizophrenia. Schizophrenia runsin families. Evidence from twin and adoption studies also supports asizable genetic component in the development of schizophrenia.Additionally, birth complications that lead to diminished oxygensupply to the baby have been associated with schizophrenia. Althoughdiminished oxygen to the newborn is not enough to produceschizophrenia, it may be that restricted oxygen supply affects earlybrain development which interacts with a genetic vulnerability toproduce schizophrenia. Finally, a mother's exposure to viralinfections such as influenza during the second trimester of pregnancymay increase the likelihood that her child will developschizophrenia. All of this evidence supports the notion thatschizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder. It may be that theserisk factors cause the child's brain to develop abnormally froma very early age, eventually resulting in schizophrenia. In supportof this view, precursors of schizophrenia (e.g., less emotionalexpression, unusual motor patterns) can be detected in earlychildhood.

What is evidence in support of schizophrenia being aneurodevelopmental disorder?

Evidence suggests that a genetic predisposition, a period ofdiminished oxygen supply to the newborn, and a variety of prenatalviral infections can contribute to schizophrenia. It is clear thatthere is a genetic contribution to schizophrenia. Schizophrenia runsin families. Evidence from twin and adoption studies also supports asizable genetic component in the development of schizophrenia.Additionally, birth complications that lead to diminished oxygensupply to the baby have been associated with schizophrenia. Althoughdiminished oxygen to the newborn is not enough to produceschizophrenia, it may be that restricted oxygen supply affects earlybrain development which interacts with a genetic vulnerability toproduce schizophrenia. Finally, a mother's exposure to viralinfections such as influenza during the second trimester of pregnancymay increase the likelihood that her child will developschizophrenia. All of this evidence supports the notion thatschizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder. It may be thatthese risk factors cause the child's brain to develop abnormallyfrom a very early age, eventually resulting in schizophrenia. Insupport of this view, precursors of schizophrenia (e.g., lessemotional expression, unusual motor patterns) can be detected inearly childhood.

What argument have evolutionary psychologists made regardingthe sexual preferences of men and women?

Evolutionary psychologists argue that throughout our evolutionaryhistory, women were forced to invest more resources in their offspringand therefore choose mates more carefully, whereas men were motivatedto produce a large number of offspring without needing to provide manyresources and therefore choose mates less carefully. This argument issupported by men's higher preference for short-term relationships andwomen's tendency to refuse men's propositions at a much higher ratethan men (as was found in the curious study described in class, inwhich confederates asked students on campus whether they wereinterested in a date, in going to the confederate's apartment, or insleeping with the confederate). Women's and men's tendency to feelmore intensely jealous when faced with emotional unfaithfulness andphysical unfaithfulness, respectively, also aligns with women's desireto protect their offspring's resources and men's desire to make surethat their resources are being used for their own offspring.

What are some of the different potential causal factors of mentaldisorders, and what do they tell us about the nature of mentalillness?

Examples include: biological factors (genetic,neurobiological), social factors (interpersonal, cultural),psychological factors (behavioral, cognitive, and emotional),and developmental factors. These factors help explain whydifferent people put in the same situation or experience canhave different outcomes, and show that mental illnessdoesn't have one single cause.

Describe the first line treatments for OCD described in lecture.

Exposure and response prevention (EXRP) is a cognitive behavioraltreatment. Individuals with OCD are exposed to the stimulus they fearand are then prevented from engaging in the compulsive behavior thatneutralizes the obsession or intrusive thought. For example, if anindividual with OCD is obsessed with contamination and frequentlywashes to prevent contamination, EXRP would involve having thisindividual touch a dirty surface and then not allow him/her to engagein the washing ritual. Another treatment for OCD is medication.Medications used to treat OCD work primarily by affecting serotoninlevels and taking the "edge" off obsessions so that they are moretolerable. Studies that have compared EXRP to combined treatment (EXRPplus medication) have found no difference in outcomes betweengroups. Thus, there seems to be no added benefit of medication overand above EXRP, though for those who cannot initiate EXRP themedication can sometimes enable patients to do so.

What are the Big Five personality factors? How are they measured?How are they useful in describing a person?

Extroversion, neuroticism (or emotional instability),agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. (Theusual acronym is "OCEAN", if that helps) They can be measured throughself-report or informant data -- both contribute unique andimportant information about a person's behavior. The big five aredimensions, and so by specifying different levels of each dimension,they allow for the description of any combination of personalitytraits. These factors can be thought of as hierarchical, meaning thateach factor is made up of facets, which can be summarized asbehavioral tendencies, which can be measured as specific behaviors.

What is flow?

Flow is a state when individuals are fully engaged in what they are doing at the moment that they lose themselves in their work, possibly even becoming temporarily unaware of hunger, thirst, or even the passage of time.Csikszentmihalyi has found that flow is most likely to be experienced when there is an optimal balance between the challenge presented by an activity and one s skills to meet that challenge. If the level of challenge is too low for one s ability, one feels bored. If the level of challenge is too high for ones ability, one feels anxiety. But if the challenge is just right and one feels that the activity is voluntarily chosen one may experience flow.

Give an evolutionary explanation for why a man might beparticularly jealous when his wife or girlfriend flirts with anotherman

From an evolutionary perspective, men always face "parentaluncertainty" when their mate gives birth. (This exact term was notused in lecture and you don't need to know it, but this is thetechnical term). In other words, it is always possible that thechild is not the man's. Therefore, it is adaptive for a man toprevent his sexual partner from spending time with other men, becauseif she has sex with another man, he might end up investing resourcesin a child that shares none of his genes.This doesn't mean that women aren't bothered by male sexualinfidelity, which is disturbing to most people. The prediction isthat men should be more bothered by it. The complementary predictionis that women would be particularly (i.e., more then men) disturbed byemotional infidelity, distancing from the relationship, and so on.Question to ponder: Who, men or women, would be expected to demand oftheir partner that he or she "put a ring on it"? And literally, whowants whom to be wearing a ring, as a public affirmation? Who wearsthe fancier wedding/engagement ring and why?

What are the characteristics of individuals who employ the stylethat is overrepresented at the top of achievement that allow them tosucceed?

Givers tend to learn more than takers and matchers because the timethat they spend helping others gives them more expertise in variousdomains. Having this expertise also energizes them to think morecreatively. They also enjoy a reputation advantage because peopletend to root for them. However, givers often rely on matchers tohelp screen out the takers and to match their giving

What is grit as defined by Angela Duckworth?

Grit is a personality trait. People with grit stick with the same goal over a long time. One aspect of grit is that people are passionate about the same thing and consistent with their interests over a long time. The other aspect of it is that people have high perseverance. The Stanford study of 300 high achievers found that they 1) tended not to abandon tasks for seeking novelty. That s part of grit: passion and long term interest. The study also found that high achievers 2) tended not to abandon tasks in the face of obstacles, i.e. they had high perseverance.

What are implicit theories of personality and how do they leadto the tendency to stereotype? How are stereotypes transmitted?

Implicit theories of personality are beliefs about the kinds ofbehaviors associated with particular traits and which traits usuallygo together. We develop them through our use of our schematicknowledge and we use them to make inferences about who people are andhow they are likely to behave. While implicit theories of personalityare helpful because they allow us to make predictions aboutpeople's behavior in an efficient manner, the use of broad,schematic thinking can also lead us to make generalizations (oftennegative ones) about social groups. These negative schemas used tocategorize complex groups of people are stereotypes. Stereotypes canlead us to make incorrect judgments about the behavior of people inthese social groups, and they also contribute to prejudice.Stereotypes are transmitted both explicitly and implicitly, and arealso shaped by our exposure to other groups - the less exposure wehave to another group, the more likely we are to perceive that groupas homogenous and to make generalizations about people in that group.This effect is called the out-group homogeneity effect.

What are implicit association tests and what have we learned from them?

In implicit association tests, participants are asked to press one key (like the A key) for a particular stimulus (e.g., North African or stereotypically Muslim names like Yusef) and another key (like the L key) for another stimulus (any other name). Next, they are asked to press the first key (A) for a positive word and the second key (L) for a negative word. They do this for a few dozen stimuli. They are then asked to switch --to press the second key (L) for a positive word and the first key (A) for the negative word. Using this test, researchers have found that most people are slower and more error-prone when a single response requires them to put harder-to-link ideas together, e.g. when they have to connect together a positive word with something for which they have a negative stereotype. Many of us apparently have implicit biases (for example, we more easily associate the North African name with 'bad' than 'good') against various types of minority groups. Members of some minority groups even have implicit biases about members of their own group (for example, around 50% of African Americans more easily associate 'bad' with African American names). One of the main points to take away from these studies is that attitudes are not single entities --it is possible to have implicit biases without engaging in explicit stereotyping or prejudice. There is also some evidence that we can intervene to prevent these biases.

Explain the ultimatum game and the dictator game. What do theyhave to do with fairness motivations?

In the ultimatum game, one player is given a fixed amount of moneyand offers any amount (including none) to the other player. Thesecond player then accepts or rejects the offer. If they accept,both players take the money, but if they reject, no one gets anymoney.In the dictator game, one player is given a fixed amount of money andchooses how much (if any) to give to the other player, and the gameends.When the ultimatum game is played, it is common for the first playerto offer half (or almost half) of the money to the second player.This could be due to a desire for fairness, but it could also be toprevent the second player from rejecting the offer. In other words,it could be a calculated move to avoid leaving the game with no money.The dictator game can determine which of these two possibilities iscorrect, because there is no risk of leaving with no money. As itturns out, the first player usually gives less than in the ultimatumgame, but not zero, suggesting that both self-interest and fairnessmotivations are at play in the ultimatum game.

In Professor Duckworths study, what predicted National Spelling Bee performance? Are these predictors related or independent?

Intelligence and deliberate practice (itself predicted by grit) both independently predicted how well kids performed in the spelling bee. Perhaps unexpectedly, she has found that grit and IQ are quite different; if anything, they are slightly negatively correlated, meaning that higher IQ people tended to have slightly less grit

Imagine that while hiking in the woods, John sees a bear. John experiences fear. Explain the process by which the experience of fear is generated, according to each of the three theories of emotion discussed in your textbook.

James-Lange Theory: John sees the bear, and the sight prompts a physiological response in his body (primarily his autonomic nervous system) that is unique to fear. He interprets this bodily arousal as fear. Cannon-Bard: John sees the bear. This triggers brain activity that simultaneously causes non-specific autonomic arousal, and the subjective experience of fear. Schacter-Singer: John sees the bear, which causes non-specific bodily arousal. John then cognitively appraises the situation and determines that it is a fear-inducing situation, leading him to interpret the arousal as fear. (Textbook, pg. 495)

We discussed four mechanisms that could give rise to the emergenceof altruism. Explain each one briefly

Kin selection: we help people we are related to because they shareour genes. From an evolutionary perspective, this is adaptive,because it helps our genes to survive and be passed on. Reciprocal altruism: we help others that we are likely to see againwith the expectation that they will help us in the future as well. Group selection: natural selection may also act on groups as well asindividuals, such that groups in which genes for altruism are commonwill out-compete groups in which such genes are rare, leading to theoverall survival of altruistic genes (though this idea is somewhatcontroversial) Cheater detection: to prevent people from "loafing" in situations thatrequire cooperation, we have a desire to punish people who loaf (orotherwise fail to hold up their societally determined end of things).This contributes to cooperation by making failure to cooperate"expensive".

Is anything known about the developmental course of psychopathology?

Looking back at the developmental course of persons with mentalillness, we see that symptoms of mental illness were often presentearly in life (as early as 5-11 years old), and that the disordersindividuals experienced later in life were not always the same as theones they presented with early in life.

Milgram examined factors that could potentially reduce conformityrates. Which factors were and were NOT effective in reducingconformity? What is the general lesson to learn from Milgram andAsch's studies on conformity?

Milgram's studies examined factors such as gender (whether women weremore compliant than men), the location of the experiment (whetherparticipants would be less compliant if the experiment did not occurin a prestigious university like Yale) and did not find such factorsto be very effective in reducing conformity.In one condition, the experimenter phoned it in, instead of beingphysically present during the study. In another condition, the teacher(participant) was physically forcing the learner to take theshock. These two factors were reasonably effective, i.e. subjectscomplied less. The most effective way to reduce conformity rate is tohave another teacher (a confederate in the study) walk out of theexperiment.Such findings show the power of dissent and suggest that people need amodel for resisting authority.

What are some of the (relative differences) in mate preferences between men and women? Why might this be the case, from an evolutionary perspective?

On average (and this is important to say, so I'll say it again: on average), men care more about physical attractiveness in their partners than women do, whereas women care more about social status and wealth in their partners. This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Men do not make as great an investment in their offspring as women do (biologically, at the very least), but they should care about the health and fertility of the woman who will be bearing their child. The features that men generally find attractive in women are, it turns out, signals of such health and fertility. Women, on the other hand, have the most reproductive success by finding a mate who will invest resources in her and her offspring, and therefore should care relatively more about wealth and status in a partner. (though as we've seen and as you already know, status isn't everything.) Moreover, men tend to prefer slightly younger partners and women tend to prefer slightly older partners. This, too, makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint: men do best, from a reproductive standpoint, by having as many children as they can. Younger women are more fertile and will remain fertile for longer, so this should be attractive to men. Women's preference for older mates is less obviously adaptive (and your book doesn't really try to explain it). It could be that age is typically correlated with status, and so this is really just another aspect of the preference for resources and status. It is important, of course, to keep in mind that there are important cultural contributions to these preferences as well, and there is reasonable debate about the degree to which such effects come about directly from the (partially innate) desires of individuals, versus being mediated by cultural influences whose origins are not simple to unravel. (textbook, pg. 482-483)

Name some cues that determine when we start and stop eating. Why are there so many? Pages 467-469.

Our liver regulates the supply of glucose in our body and signals other organs about our need for glucose by sending hunger and satiety signals. Our stomach walls contain receptors sensitive to the nutrients dissolved in digestive juices that communicate the presence of nutrients for us to stop eating. Fatty tissues secrete leptin into the bloodstream when we are full, which inhibits appetite stimulating neurochemicals. The hypothalamus detects and responds to these cues (although there are other regulatory mechanisms). There are additional cues in addition to these. We probably have so many signals so that if one fails, we can survive. Additionally, some signals monitor our short-term needs while others monitor our long-term needs. Finally, the different cues monitor different aspects of our food intake.

Generally speaking, what are character strengths as identified by Peterson and Seligman? What are their significance?

Peterson and Seligman developed a taxonomy of character strengths, which are positive personality features. They are traits that contribute to a person s happiness without diminishing the happiness of others. (for example: traits concerning wisdom and knowledge, courage, justice, and so on.) Such positive traits appear to be associated with a number of important life outcomes, such as greater success at work, with friends, and in marriage (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). The strengths also matter for one s physiological functioning and health (Ryff et al., 2006; Salovey, Rothman, Detweiler, & Steward, 2000)

What is phenomenology? According to Maslow, what is self-actualization and what are the traits of self-actualizers?

Phenomenology is the study of individuals own unique, first-person, conscious experience, which is central to humanistic psychology.Self-actualization is the full realization of ones potential. According to Maslow, self-actualizers were generally realistically oriented, accepted themselves and others, were spontaneous, cared more about the problems they were working on than about themselves, had intimate relationships with a few people rather than superficial relationships with many, and had democratic values. One of the major themes of humanistic psychology is that we each have within us the impulse to self-actualize.

When it was first reported in the news that none of Kitty Genovese's neighbors did anything to stop her attack, despite being able to see or hear it, many people lamented the lack of values among city-dwellers and the decay of America's moral fiber. Social psychologists instead proposed two alternative explanations. What are they?

Pluralistic ignorance: The situation was ambiguous, so the neighbors were unsure whether it was an emergency, or something more benign like a simple argument. Because they were unsure, they looked to each other's behavior to help them understand the situation. Since no one was intervening, they each concluded that it was not an emergency. Of course, everyone else's non-intervention was also due to hesitation and uncertainty, but it was interpreted as signalling that the situation was benign. Diffusion of responsibility: Even if the neighbors had realized that the situation was an emergency, they might each have individually felt that they did not need to intervene because there were many other people around, and therefore someone else would probably do it. Pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility can both produce this unfortunate "bystander effect" in which groups of people stand by in emergencies without helping, sometimes with tragic results.

What are some of the potential consequences of restrictingthe definitions of mental disorders to more severe diagnoses?

Research suggests that mild disorders are associated withimportant later life negative outcomes: including hospitalization,suicide attempts, work-disability, and the development of more seriousdisorders. Making definitions more restrictive would miss people atrisk for developing more serious problems, and wouldn't allow forpreventative treatment (given current insurance environment - to gettreatment you must have something diagnosable).

What are two ways in which persuasion by others can help shape ourattitudes? (hint: central and peripheral.) How can experience andour own behavior shape our attitudes?

Researchers divide persuasion into two types based on the mode ofprocessing information: 1) the central route to persuasion, in whichwe carefully track incoming information and consider the argumentsbeing offered (the content of the persuasive message), and 2) theperipheral route to persuasion, in which we devote fewer cognitiveresources to processing incoming information and are influenced byhow and by whom the message is presented. We tend to use the centralroute if an issue matters to us (for example, deciding which collegeyou should attend) and we're not distracted, and we tend to usethe peripheral route when we don't care as much about an issue(for example, deciding which toothpaste to buy) or when we'redistracted. This explains why having a supermodel pose withtoothpaste encourages consumers to buy that particular brand, whilehaving a supermodel pose in front of a college dorm might not be aseffective. Experience, like intergroup contact, can shape our attitudes about agroup of people, as in the Robbers Cave experiment described on pages515-516. Our behavior can also shape our attitudes when we encountercognitive dissonance - an uncomfortable inconsistency among ouractions, beliefs, attitudes, or feelings. We attempt to reducecognitive dissonance by making our actions, beliefs, attitudes orfeelings more consistent with one another. Hazing, for example, isunpleasant, but it results in individuals placing a higher value ongroup membership (and therefore changing their attitudes) perhapsbecause they need to justify the suffering they went through toachieve it. These patterns of behavior can also be explained byself-perception theory, the idea that we know our own attitudes andfeelings only by observing our behaviors and deciding what probably caused them. In this case, someone who was hazed would have observedtheir behavior and figured that they must have really wanted to jointhe fraternity, otherwise they wouldn't have put up with allthe suffering to do so.

What is the difference between romantic love and companionate love?

Romantic love is an intense, passionate love. It is characterized by idealization of the lover and feelings of being "carried away" or "swept off your feet". Romantic love is underpinned by both physical arousal (e.g., lust, fear, pain) and attitudes that lead a person to interpret this arousal as passion. This type of love tends to be short-lived (with studies suggesting that on average, men being quicker to fall in love, and women being quicker to fall out of love). In contrast, companionate love is a much gentler, more reflective kind of love, characterized by deep affection for someone whose life is deeply intertwined with one's own life. Unlike arousal-driven romantic love, companionate love is driven more by similar outlooks on life, trust, and mutual caring that tends to develop over longer periods of time.

Describe the positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms ofschizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by at least some of the following symptoms: marked disturbance of thought,withdrawal, inappropriate or flat emotions, delusions, andhallucinations. Schizophrenia is characterized by positive, negative,and cognitive symptoms. Positive symptoms are behaviors that are notevident in healthy people including delusions, hallucinations, anddisorganized behavior. Negative symptoms reflect an absence ofbehaviors that are usually evident in healthy people. These includeflattened affect, catatonic behavior, and social withdrawal. Finallycognitive symptoms reflect impairments in executive functions. Thesecognitive difficulties include impairments in early sensoryprocessing, episodic memory, working memory and attentional control

What is self-efficacy? What is its significance?

Self-efficacy is a belief that one can perform the behaviors that will lead to particular outcomes (Bandura, 2001, 2006). When a persons sense of self-efficacy is high, she believes that she can behave in ways that will lead to rewarding outcomes. By contrast, when a persons sense of self-efficacy is low, she believes herself incapable, and she may not even try. High self-efficacy beliefes are associated with better social relationships, work, and health outcomes (Bandura, 1997; 2001; Maddux, 1995; Schwarzer, 1992). Likewise, self-efficacy beliefs about a particular task (Im sure I can do this! ) are associated with success in that task. This attitude leads to more persistence and a greater tolerance of frustration, both of which contribute to better performance

What is self-handicapping? Is it found more in some cultures than others?

Self-handicapping is a self-preservation strategy where people create obstacles to their own performance. Although this seems counterintuitive, self-handicapping allows a person to attribute failures to these obstacles, rather than to his or her own limitations. For example, if I were afraid of failing the final exam in this class, the obvious course of action would be diligent study. However, I instead might spend more time than usual watching television, or drinking, or drinking and watching television. Then, if I did not do well on the exam, I could make a relatively harmless attribution (e.g., I didnt study hard enough) rather than a more sensitive, ego-challenging one (e.g., I am not smart enough to succeed at Penn). This form of self-protection is less common in collectivistic cultures -- that is, among people who are less motivated to view themselves as different from, and better than, others.

What do anorexia and bulimia nervosa have in common? How are theydifferent?

Similarities:Both anorexia and bulimia stem from an all-encompassing drive to bethin, such that self-evaluation is unduly influenced by body weight orshape. Both disorders have a similar prevalence and course. They aremost common in industrialized nations and have been dramaticallyincreasing in prevalence since the 1960s. They both predominantlyaffect the same demographic: young, mostly middle- and upper-classfemales. Their onset is typically soon after puberty and recoveryfrom these disorders may take many years. Finally, morbidity ratesfor these disorders are quite high with many of these cases due tosuicide. Differences:One of the main diagnostic criteria for anorexia is a refusal tomaintain a normal weight. Anorexics have an intense fear of becomingfat even though they are eventually extremely underweight. This fearof weight gain leads them to grossly limit their food intake. Thecriteria for bulimia are a bit different although still focused on theintense fear of gaining weight. Recurrent episodes of binge eating arecharacteristic of this disorder. Binge eating is defined as eating ina discrete period of time (e.g., within any 2-hour period), an amountof food that is much larger than what most people would eat during asimilar period of time under similar circumstances. After the binge,the bulimic individual is preoccupied with finding ways to compensatefor the effects of the binge by purging. Typical compensationstrategies including self-induced vomiting, excessive exercise, or useof laxatives.

What do Tomasello and colleagues' studies on children's helpingbehavior suggest about altruism? Does altruism exist or is it allreally self-serving in the end?

Some have argued that altruism in the context of certain religionsmight be better explained by the motivation to be rewarded in theafterlife. These claims are hard to evaluate, but atheists do stillshow altruism. Researchers have looked at young children (who arelikely to be much less influenced by their religious beliefs, culturalnorms, etc). In class, we saw a video showing young children helping astranger in different situations (picking up a clothes pin, puttingbooks away in a cabinet), and saw that there was no apparent benefitto the child of helping, and that the child's action was specific tocontexts in which the child assessed that the person actually neededhelp: when the man dropped the clothes pin "by accident", the childhelped him pick it up, but when he threw it on the ground"intentionally" the child didn't help. This shows that even youngchildren can assess the motivations/goals/needs of others and help inan altruistic manner. Human-enculturated chimps do this in somesituations, but overall considerably less than human children do.

What are general intelligence and the hierarchical conception ofintelligence?

Spearman proposed that general intelligence (g) is a mental attributecalled on for virtually any intellectual task.The hierarchical conception of intelligence proposes that intelligencehas many components. (Please see Figure 11.6 on textbook, P431). Atthe highest level is g, a form of intelligence that applies tovirtually any mental task. Each person also has a set of morespecialized talents such as "linguistic ability", or "numericalability." Finally, each person has a much larger number of even morespecialized abilities, such as "a specialized ability for fast-pacedmental tasks" "a specialized ability to learn new materials," etc.Both theories appear to be correct. People draw on generalintelligence in virtually everything they do. Therefore there isconsistency in their performance--an overall level of achievementshaped by the person's g. People also have their specializedabilities. That's why the consistency of performance for tasks isn'tperfect.

Some might argue that the conformity behavior Milgram observed backin 1960s is no longer prevalent today. Is that true? What is a studythat shows people still show such conformity behavior?

Studies have shown that the conformity behavior has not reduced muchfrom the time Milgram did the original study. Nowadays it is hard toreplicate the original study due to ethical concerns aboutparticipants experiencing as individuals the ordinary human failure tobecome a hero.Yet there are a few cases of variations of the original Milgramstudy. One example is a study (a demonstration, really) conducted in2010 that used celebrity instead of college professor as the authorityfigure. In this case, the learner answered questions as part of a gameshow. The participant was told to shock the learner if they answeredthe questions wrong. (The shocks weren't real.) 80% of participantscomplied completely and shocked the learner all the way up using themaximum voltage.

What are some of the facts that we learned about suicide inlecture?

Suicide is the third leading cause of death in teenagers afteraccidents and homicide. Most teens who commit suicide have apsychological disorder (though remember: psychological disorders arequite common.). Among individuals aged 18-34 who attempt suicide,most attempts are impulsive acts with (in one study) 40% ofindividuals deciding to commit suicide less than 5 minutes beforetheir attempt and 70% making the decision less than an hourbefore. Notably, suicide rates depend on the availability of the meansto do it. For example, in the UK, when there was a reduction in thetoxicity of gas used in homes, the suicide rate dropped by30%. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, an increase in toxic pesticides wasassociated with a substantial increase in suicides. When thesepesticides were banned, the suicide rate dropped by 50%. Finally, inthe US, although women attempt suicide more often than men, men aremore likely to die from their attempts because they use more lethalmeans like guns.

What are the 3 different interaction styles that Prof. Grantdiscussed in lecture?

Takers are individuals who try to get as much as they can fromother people and hardly give anything in returnGivers are individuals who enjoy helping others and who do so withno strings attachedMatchers are individuals who employ a quid pro quo strategy; try tostrike an equal balance of give and take

What are some (anecdotal) ways to identify "takers" on social mediasites like Facebook?

Takers are more likely to have extremely attractive profile picturescompared to their regular photos because they are trying to presentvery positive images of themselves to others. Takers are also morelikely to engage in more self-promotion on Facebook. They are morelikely to be photographed alone, and post "selfies". Additionally, ifthey are photographed with others, they are more likely to be picturedwith famous or influential individuals.

Of these 3 interaction styles, which usually rises to the top andwhich falls to the bottom in terms of achievement?

Takers tend to rise quickly but fall quickly in many domains because(among other things) matchers engage in prosocial gossip warningothers about the takers. Research has shown that the worst performers in sales, medicine, andengineering tend to be givers. Interestingly, however, givers areoverrepresented at both extremes of success. In other words, they aremost likely to be at the lowest and highest ends of achievement

What is the comparative method? How was it used to study aggressive behavior? Pages 475-476

The comparative method is when researchers make systematic comparisons among different species to learn about the function or origin of a structure of behavior. Researchers have used the comparative method to study aggression in animals, and have found that among vertebrates, males are generally more aggressive. In humans, males also tend to be more physically aggressive (although women can be more verbally or socially aggressive). There also seems to be a relationship between testosterone and physical aggressiveness, but the relationship is complicated in humans.

Explain the "foot in the door technique." How might this be used in a real-world setting? Can you think of a way to avoid falling victim to it?

The foot in the door technique is a method for eliciting compliance with a burdensome request that relies on people's desire to remain consistent in their behavior. Rather than immediately making a large request, a person using this technique would first make a fairly small one. Then, after the "target" of the technique has agreed to the small request, they would later make the larger one. Because the "target" agreed to the smaller request, they would infer something like "I must be the kind of person who does these sorts of things and cares about helping this person." Thus, they become more likely to comply with the larger request than they would have been had the smaller request not been made first. One particularly chilling example of how this is used in the real world comes from Jim Jones, the cult leader that we discussed earlier in the semester. He would not approach people and immediately request that they surrender all of their possessions, move to his commune, and be willing to die for his cause. Instead, he would initially recruit people by explaining the (superficially positive) goals of his group and asking if they would help out by doing some small task like stuffing some envelopes with information about the group to be mailed out. Once someone agreed to a small request like this, he would make increasingly larger requests of them, and they would generally comply, out of a desire for consistency (among other psychological causes, no doubt). As you know, this eventually culminated in over 900 people willingly sacrificing their lives at Jones's request. One possible way to avoid falling victim to the foot in the door technique is to simply be aware of it and to keep an eye out for it in the world. If a salesman (or cult leader) starts to make larger requests of you after a small one, they are probably using this technique against you. Simply realizing this could make it easier to say no to future requests.

What are the different major classes of antidepressants? What arethe known mechanisms of action of different antidepressants?

The most commonly used antidepressants are serotonin-selectivereuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) These drugs, which are safer and havefewer side effects than the early antidepressants, block the reuptakeof serotonin, thus prolonging its time in the synapse and increasingits post-synaptic effects. There are also non-selective reuptakeinhibitors, which block the reuptake of multiple neurotransmitters,including serotonin and norepinephrine. There are also atypicalantidepressants which have dopaminergic effects. The MAOIs work byblocking the enzymatic breakdown of monoamines by inhibiting the oxidase responsible for their breakdown.

What do we know about the lifetime prevalence of mental disordersin the US? Is there anything surprising about these numbers?

The restricted list of disorders we reviewed in class indicatedthat the numbers are very high - cumulative lifetime prevalence (# ofUS adults who have ever had any disorder on list) is 46.4%. That meanshalf the US population will have at least one diagnosable disorderfrom that list, and the 1-year prevalence of 25% suggests that in a1-year span a quarter of the US population has a diagnosabledisorder. These numbers are underestimates of the overall rates ofmental illness because: the list does not include all mental disorders(e.g. insomnia, erectile dysfunction), and this survey missed manysubpopulations with higher rates of mental illness (e.g. homelesspersons,, prisoners, illegal immigrants, and institutionalizedpersons).

Describe the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and how they regulate our body temperature to maintain homeostasis. Pages 464-465.

The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for action (by increasing heart rate, slowing down digestion, etc.), while the parasympathetic nervous system restores the body's internal activities to normal after the action is done (by decreasing heart rate, restoring digestion, etc.). Both are parts of the autonomic nervous system (see chapter 3). There must be a mnemonic for this. How about "pare down"? Like whittling something away? Parasympathetic -> winding down? Our body maintains homeostasis (self-regulation of its internal environment) by triggering the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system when we are hot, which results in bodily efforts to lose heat via evaporation and vasodilation (widening of the skin's capillaries), and the sympathetic branch when we are cold, which results in bodily efforts to maintain heat via vasoconstriction (the contraction of the skin's capillaries) and cessation of sweating.

What are the hypotheses for the causes of autism? How is autismtypically treated?

There is substantial evidence that autism has a large geneticcomponent. Currently, most hypotheses about the factors underlyingautism focus on biological dysfunctions. Some of these propose thatautism is caused by abnormalities in amygdala functioning or thecerebellum. Others propose that autism is caused by abnormalities in abrain function that allows the child to understand others'thoughts, feelings, intentions.Autism is typically treated with behavior modification which buildson the principles of shaping and reinforcement. A few medicationshave been tried for autism, but none have been very effective. Mostchildren with autism (70%) will not be able to live independently asadults so they often require assisted living facilities in adulthood.

Recall Ehrlinger, Gilovich, and Ross's (2005) studies of perceptions of bias in the "other side" of arguments. Give a real-world example of the phenomenon that these studies demonstrated.

These studies consistently showed that in a disagreement, both sides think that the other side is biased, but their own side is unbiased and able to see things clearly and objectively. The obvious real-world example of this is in politics, especially partisan American politics. To take a couple of prominent stereotypes: Republicans see Democrats as naive and unable or unwilling to deal with the realities of economics and international relations, while Democrats see Republicans as heartless and aggressive, and as unwitting slaves to the ultra-wealthy. Both sides, of course, see themselves as unbiased and able to see the world as it really is, unlike those other guys. As in many such situations, the disagreement doesn't necessarily mean that both sides are wrong, but there is wrongness in the picture somewhere. The examples we saw involved distribution of resources in use of a new gym; affirmative action policy; and the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Do people with more grit tend to stick with difficult jobs/activities or drop out?

They are more likely to stick with what theyre doing, even if its hard. In Professor Duckworths research, she found that sales representatives, Chicago public school students, and special forces officers with higher grit scores all showed greater retention rates. In other words, lower grit people are more likely to drop out, while higher grit people stay the course.

In the Latane and Darley experiment on people's behavior in ambiguous, threatening situations, what did they find? What havereplications revealed about the influences of these behaviors --e.g. what do Latane and Darley propose as the 3 true potentialexplanations of so-called "bystander apathy"?

They found that people were very likely to investigate the smokeand leave the room to find help when they were alone (75%), but muchless likely to do so when in a room with 2 confederates who see thesmoke but who respond with indifference rather than alarm. Especiallysurprising was their finding that the likelihood of intervening wasalso quite low (1 to 3 of 24 subjects) when the 2 other people in theroom were other participants who also did not know that the smokewasn't dangerous -- a counterintuitive finding because one wouldimagine that having 3 people with the potential to be worried andreact would increase the likelihood.Replications have revealed that having more people around makes youLESS likely to get helped, if the situation is ambiguous. This effectis stronger with strangers than with friends.They proposed 3 potential influences on people's lack of actionin these situations: 1) audience inhibition: embarrassing to be wrongin front of others, 2) social influence on interpretation: maybethose other people know something, and 3) diffusion ofresponsibility: it needs doing, but why should it be me?

Shepher (1983) conducted a famous study that we did not talk aboutin class. He surveyed thousands of children raised on kibbutzim(collective farms) in Israel. The children -- who were not related toone another by blood -- were reared communally, with the hope thatthey would grow up to marry each other and carry on the kibbutzim. Asit turned out, almost none of the children (on the order of 14 out of 2800 -- or zero, depending on what you count) grew up to marry peoplethat they had been reared with. Based on what we have learned inclass, why did this probably happen?

This is likely a result of an evolved system for detecting kin thatprevents incest. We learned in class that we do not feel sexualattraction to siblings, but this is primarily learned in childhoodfrom being raised together. Thus, even though the children raised onthe kibbutzim were not siblings by blood, they had the psychologicalexperience of being raised together and therefore were not attractedto each other as adults. This is an example of a very reasonable,adaptive psychological system "failing" because we no longer exist inthe same context in which it evolved.

What is the fundamental attribution error? Does its extent vary across cultures?

This is the tendency to make dispositional attributions of people's behavior while ignoring situational or environmental factors that may have led to that behavior. For example, someone cuts you off in traffic and you immediately think "*******". However, what situational factors could have led them to cut you off? Maybe they were transporting their friend with serious arterial bleeding to the nearest hospital. Or they're late to their wedding. Or a million other situational factors that regularly lead us all to do things we don't normally do. There is some evidence that the FAE may be stronger in Western cultures like ours (with our relatively strong emphasis on individual identities) compared to some Eastern cultures (with a relative emphasis on group identities). For example, in one study,Hindu Indians and European Americans were both given vignettes about people's actions. Consistent with the FAE, Americans gave twice as many dispositional attributions as situational attributions. However, the Indians showed just the opposite trend, giving twice as many situational attributions as dispositional ones.

Describe the treatment for bulimia based on the psychologicalmodel that Dr. Ruscio outlined in lecture.

Treatment of bulimia involves: 1. Establishing a regular eating pattern - counteracts the dietaryrestriction that puts the individual at risk for binge eating andpurging2. Psychoeducation - helps the individual to understand healthyeating patterns and how binging and purging will not be effective inproducing his/her desired weight/shape3. Changing maladaptive beliefs about shape and weight4. Teaching problem-solving skills - provides the individual withadaptive skills to cope with stress so that they are less likely tobinge eat and purge as a way to counteract stress

Conformity is a common feature of real-world groups, and sometimes can be problematic. Based on Asch's study, what are two factors that affect conformity levels?

Two features that clearly affect conformity levels are group size and the presence of dissenters. Conformity becomes more likely as groups get larger. It becomes less likely when at least one other person defies the group norm, even if they are also wrong, just in a different way than the group is.

According to Adam Grant, what is a good way to spot takers?

We can ask people questions such as what percentage of people in the company steals from their employers? People have projection bias, which means, when asked to estimate others behaviors, people reflect on their own behaviors and ask what have I done or what would I do ? They then use this information as a basis for projecting others behaviors. Therefore, people who steal from their employers tend to report a higher estimate than people who dont

Explain one study that shows that we believe that other people notice and understand us more than they actually do. How does it show this?

We discussed three such studies in class: Newton & Ross: participants selected a song from a list of 25 and tapped out the rhythm on a table. They expected that their partners would guess the song correctly about 50% of the time, whereas the actual rate of correct guesses was about 2.5%. The participants tapping the rhythm thought that what they were doing was far more transparent than did their partners. Gilovich et al.: Participants drank three identical-looking glasses of liquid. Two contained fruit punch and one contained a dyed pickle/vinegar brine. They were instructed to hide their reactions to each one. They expected that observers would still be able to tell which was the vinegar brine (i.e., they thought their displeasure at the drink would "leak out" in their behavior), but in reality, the observers only guessed correctly at chance levels (i.e., about one third of the time). The famous t-shirt study: Participants were told to wear an embarrassing t-shirt featuring a large, prominent picture of singer Barry Manilow, and then were sent down the hall where a group of people were filling out surveys. After leaving the room, they predicted how many people in the room had noticed their shirt. They predicted that about half of them had, whereas in reality, only about a quarter had. This demonstrates that we think people are paying much more attention to us than they really are.

Is personality biologically determined? What does theheritability of temperament suggest? What is an example of how genescould affect personality?

We know that temperament (a person's characteristic level ofreactivity and energy) is highly heritable: monozygotic twins are moresimilar than dizygotic twins (with heritability ranging from40-60%. (what is heritability? What is the H-index?remember?). Insofar as our genetic code influences our personality, itprobably does so in part by predisposing us to certain behavioraltendencies; for example, those with inhibited temperament (apersonality style associated with introversion and neuroticism,characterized by a fear of novelty) seem to have lower thresholds foractivation of the amygdala, an area of the brain involved in threatdetection.

When do people make dispositional vs. situational attributions about themselves? Could we call this a bias as well? What's a prominent exception to the general trend?

We tend to think that the good things that happen in life are our own doing (e.g., if I pass an exam: I am smart and worked hard) but blame bad things on the world and other people (e.g., if I fail: the professor wrote an unfair exam). This is sometimes called the self-serving bias, as people tend to interpret events in a systematically biased way that serves their own self-image. Another example: when people are successful in business, this bias would lead such a person to focus primarily on the things he or she did that were necessary for his or her success, and not on the situational conditions that made that success possible (e.g., having gone to good schools paid by the parents, having had access to a workforce with a decent public education, etc.). One exception is the way people sometimes respond to catastrophes. For example, if you're having lunch with a friend and he steps outside and get hit by a taxi, you may start to blame yourself over things you could not control (e.g., "If only I had made him get another cup of coffee"). In light of really terrible things, people often search for a way to take responsibility for those events.

What things do our definitions of abnormality influence?Why does how we define abnormality matter in the real world?

What is defined as abnormal can have a huge influence in a varietyof settings. Definitions of abnormality can influence what and who istreated: it can guide people to seek treatment (knowledge that youhave a disorder can influence treatment seeking), to be eligible fortreatment (insurance coverage), and it can shape what treatments areavailable (it's hard to have a treatment for something that isn'tdefined). It can guide research funding, and thus can influence whattreatments are available, what we know about the disorder, and canlead to the improvement and development of existing and newtreatments. It can influence public policy, as public funding fordisorders is often linked to how prevalent and impactful a disorder isin a society: if only .05% of a population suffers from a disorder, itwill likely receive less attention and funding than a disorder thatexists in 20% of the population. To make these estimates you have tobe able to count the number of people who are suffereng from eachdisorder.

Does Professor Duckworth think you can you build grit?

Yes. To build grit, she recommends doing two things: 1) choosing your talents and interests based on what you are passionate about. Then, 2) working really, really hard those things, especially the specific aspects of your performance that most need improvement.