Social Psychology Quiz #2

Explain the relationship between individualist and collectivist cultures and self-construal.

Individualist cultures foster the development of the independent self-construal. -Self is bounded entity, separate from even close others. Collectivist cultures foster the development of the interdependent self-construal. -Self is defined in part by connections and relationships with others.

Explain how we use the expression of nonverbal cues to perceive people and the role of culture and gender in this process.

Nonverbal communication: -Communicating feelings and intentions without words. -First impressions are often based on nonverbal behavior. -We reliably identify seven primary emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, surprise, sadness, and contempt. Facial Expressions: -Emotions signal others of our intentions -Some emotions are easily recognized across cultures, such as anger, surprise, and happiness. -Darwin argued that the ability to decode emotional expression is an aid to survival. Especially negative emotions that signal potential danger. Body Movements: -Posture and motion convey social information. -We often subtly mimic the movements of others: behavioral mimicry -We don't know we are doing it. Mimicry can increase liking.

Differentiate between public and private self-awareness, and describe the consequences of each.

Private Self-Awareness: Temporary state of being in which you are aware of hidden, private aspects of the self, such as your personal attitudes, beliefs, and current mood. -Become aware of personal standards of behavior -Become aware of the mismatch between personal standards and actual behavior -Change behavior to reflect personal standards -Mood/feeling are intensified. -Effects: Affect intensification, knowledge clarification, and adherence to personal standards. -You become more aware of the discrepancy between your behavior and your personal standards, and you are more likely to behave in-line with those standards. -Makes you more aware of and responsive to your current moods. Public Self-Awareness: Temporary state of being in which you are aware of public self-aspects, such as you physical appearance and the way you talk and behave in public settings. -Aware of social standards of behavior -Become aware of mismatch between social standards and actual behavior -Change behavior to conform with social expectations -Evaluation apprehension -Effects: Social uneasiness, temporary self-esteem loss, and adherence to social standards. -Greater adherence to social standards of behavior, meaning a heightened degree of conformity. -Ex. Being aware of your physical appearance and the way you talk.

Describe the effects of high and low self-esteem in response to negative life events.

Self-Esteem: Your evaluation of your self-concept Most people are fairly positive View themselves more positively than others Low self-esteem is a comparative term. Low self-esteem is associated with: Unhappiness Academic, financial problems Poorer physical health Dark side of High Self-Esteem: -Individualistic cultures promote the idea that rejecting negative feedback is important and healthy -Sometimes negative feedback is useful -People with unstable high self-esteem may respond aggressively to negative feedback -Characteristic of people with high explicit, low implicit self-esteem.

Explain why the construct of the self is an important organizing principle for studying social psychology.

Self: A symbol-using social being who can reflect on his or her own behavior. Distinct between the self as subject of awareness and the self as object of awareness. Self-Concept: The sum total of a person's thoughts and feelings that define the self as an object. The "theory" or "story" that a person constructs about herself or himself through social interaction. According to James, things become part of your self-concept through your emotional identification with them. Thus, your parents, siblings, friends, and lovers are most likely very important components of your-self-concept. Your self-concept includes not just that which is inside your body, but also anything that symbolizes and affirms who and what you are.

Gender Identity

The identification of oneself as a male or female. -North American girls are more likely than North American boys to be raised to define themselves, act, and think in ways that emphasize their emotional connectedness to other people. -Women are socialized toward relational self-concepts -Men are socialized toward independent self-concepts -These self-concepts refer to emotional connectedness with others, not the role of self within the group.

Attribution

The process by which people use information to make inferences about the causes of behavior or events. Motivated by 2 primary needs: the need to form a logical view of the world and the need to gain control of the environment.

Strategic self-presentation

The process of constructing and presenting the self in order to shape other people's impressions and achieve ulterior goals It can require considerable self-regulation and, as self-presentation demands increase, people sometimes lose control of their performances. Failure in self-representation = embarrassment Can become automatic with practice Ex. You could go into a job interview intending to convey intelligence and social skill, only to spill coffee all over yourself.

nonconscious mimicry

The tendency to adopt the behaviors, postures, or mannerisms of interaction partners without conscious awareness or intention. It fosters affiliation and rapport.

Counterfactual Thinking

The tendency to evaluate events by imagining alternative versions or outcomes to what actually happened. Can help us feel better following a negative outcome Sympathize Helps us emotionally cope in the present, also better prepare us for the future. By considering alternatives to past actions, we can better understand our mistakes and thereby improve our chances for future success. Imagining alternative versions or outcomes to what actually happened may not only help us emotionally cope with negative events but may also help us to achieve success in the future. Can be counterproductive after trauma. Can help us make sense of our lives. Can help us feel better.

Representativeness Heuristic

The tendency to judge the category membership of things based on how closely they match the "typical" or "average" member of that category. Helps people quickly decide in what categories to place others. It is essentially stereotyping operating in reverse.

Availability Heuristic

The tendency to judge the frequency or probability of an event in terms of how easy it is to think of examples of that event. The availability heuristic provides insight into a number of faulty social judgements, including peoples' responses to risks. Highly visible events that have a low probability of occurring (such as terrorism or a mass shooting) can result in people overresponding to the risk. In contrast, people will under-respond, and fail to take proper precautions, for low visibility but high probability events (such as biking or automobile accidents).

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to seek information that supports our beliefs while ignoring disconfirming information. Once we form an impression, we seek to confirm it. Perpetuates incorrect stereotypes

Hindsight Bias

The tendency, once an event has occurred to overestimate our ability to have foreseen the outcome. Helps us make sense out of the unpredictable. Ex. After your favorite sports team defeats its archrival for the first time in years, you exclaim, "All week long, I could tell that my team would win!" After-the-fact. Most commonly accepted explanation for the hindsight bias is that it is fueled by our desire for accuracy, and we are most likely to rewrite our memory of a past event when the outcome is initially surprising. Can be used to protect self-esteem and reduce disappointment.

Self-Regualation

The ways in which people control and direct their own actions. Most important self-function Allows us to delay gratification Control theory of self-regulation: Compare to standard (public or private) Change behavior if not meeting standard. Repeat comparison. Exit feedback look when standard is achieved Ex. The Marshmallow Test

Identify the two components of a dual-process model of attribution.

Theories of attribution that propose that people initially engage in a relatively automatic and simple attributional assessment but then later consciously correct this attribution with more deliberate effortful thinking. Assumption: People employ two broad cognitive strategies in their social thinking Effortless/automatic thinking Effortful/deliberate thinking First attributions are spontaneous and effortless In North American culture they are likely to be dispositional. Second attributions are deliberate and effortful. May correct first judgements If cognitively busy, this process may not take place, and initial attributions remain uncorrected

Heuristic

Time-saving mental shortcuts that reduce complex judgements to simple rules. Conserve mental energy. Downside: Not always accurate Reasonably, but not extremely, accurate. To be useful, heuristics must satisfy two requirements 1. They must allow us to make quick social judgements 2. They must be reasonably accurate Most likely use heuristics when: We do not have time for systematic analysis We are overloaded with information and cannot process it all We don't consider issue important We have little knowledge to use in making a decision Situation primes a given heuristic, making it cognitively available We are in positive mood, signaling that everything is fine and no effortful thinking is necessary

Common self-presentation strategies.

-Ingratiation: Flattery -Modesty: Downplay accomplishments, only works if people actually know your accomplishments -Self-promotion: State your own accomplishments -Exemplification: Show your integrity and moral worthiness -Intimidation: Threats -Self-handicapping: Put obstacles in your own way as an excuse for failure

Trace the links between James's and Mead's distinctions between the "I" and the "me" in modern research on the self, including self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-esteem.

William James (1890) and George Herbert Mead (1934) - Described the self as having two separate aspects: The self as subject of awareness - you watching and thinking (the I). The self as object of awareness/attention (the me). Refer to the "me" as Self-Concept -Emotional identification with an object makes it part of your self-concept. -The self changes over time.

Self-Esteem

A person's evaluation of his or her self-concept. James stated that our self-esteem is a measure of our successes in the areas of our lives with which we emotionally identify relative to our aspirations in those areas.

Self-Awareness

A psychological state in which one takes oneself as an object of attention. State of focused attention on self. Associated with the anterior cingulate cortex, located in the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, is especially important in self-awareness Another way to describe self-awareness is that it is a temporary state of mind where you psychologically "step outside yourself" and examine your thoughts, feelings, motives, behavior, or appearance. Necessary for the self to develop Humans develop self-awareness around 18 months of age The great apes and a few other species appear to have self-awareness ability

Script

A schema that describes how a series of events is likely to occur in a well-known situation and which is used as a guide for behavior and problem-solving. Used as a guide for behavior and problem-solving in the situation. Learning scripts is an important part of the socialization process, and children as young as 3 years of age have well-developed preconceptions about familiar events in their lives, such as having lunch at the day care center or getting ready for bed at night.

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

A tendency to be biased toward the starting value or anchor in making quantitative judgments.

Use the covariation model to explain how attributions are based on three types of information.

An attribution theory that describes how we make judgements about people's actions by observing them over time (consistency information - does target react in same way to stimulus object over time?), across situations (distinctiveness information - does target react in same way to other stimulus objects?), and in comparison to others' actions (consensus information - Are others reacting in same way to stimulus object as target?). Covariation principle, meaning that they assume that for something to be the cause of a particular behavior, it must be present when the behavior occurs and absent when it does not occur.

Ethnic Identity

An individual's sense of personal identification with a particular ethnic group. -Age-related stages: Unexamined ethnic identity Has not thought about one's own ethnic self-concept May internalize negative stereotypes -Ethnic Identity stages: Explore ethnicity through cultural events, reading, etc. May reject anything dealing with dominant culture -Achieved Ethnic stages: Appreciate ethnic heritage Internalize beneficial values while separating the self from damaging aspects of group identity

Define a "schema," and explain how schemas affect our information processing.

An organized structure of knowledge about a stimulus that is built up from experience and that contains causal relations; a theory about how the social world operates. -Schemas also hasten the processing of information and, hence, decision-making. -An expert in an area has a well-developed schema and thus can especially efficient in making related decisions. -Schemas often determine what information in our surroundings we pay attention to and how quickly we process it, what information we form memories about, and what information we later recall when making decisions. -Sometimes, information is so sharply inconsistent with an existing schema that we take great notice of it and store - or encode - it into a new, separate schema. But existing schemas can also be updated. -Important role in what we remember.

Gender Schema

Cognitive structure for processing information based on perceived female or male qualities. -People with well-developed gender schemas habitually organize things in their minds according to gender categories. -When information is filtered through a gender schema, social perceptions and judgements typically adhere to cultural standards.

Clarify why people are poor deception detectors but how we can improve.

Detecting Deception We are generally about as good at detecting deception as we are at guessing coin flips. Given expressions consist of the words and gestures that people are consciously trying to transmit to others. Expressions given off, also known as nonverbal leakage, cover a wide range of behavior unintentionally transmitted and of which people are much less aware. Unintentional "expressions given off" are better indicators than intentional "expressions given." We overestimate importance of facial expressions, which are relatively controllable. With training, we can improve at detecting deception, but error rates remain high.

Define the fundamental attribution error, and explain why attribution tendencies may differ by culture.

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) Underestimate situational factors in explaining others' behavior, and overestimate dispositional factors Significant cultural variation tendency to commit FAE In individualist cultures, when we don't engage in deliberate attributional inference, our explanations of other people's actions are likely to fall prey to the fundamental attribution error.

Social Identities

we associate ourselves with certain groups and contrast ourselves with others. -Aspects of a person's self-concept based on his or her group memberships. -Social identities provide members with a shared set of values, beliefs, and goals relating to themselves and their social world. As George Herbert Mead might describe it, to have a social identity is to internalize the group with the individual, which in turn serves to regulate and coordinate the attitudes and behavior of the separate group members. -Social identities situate us within clearly defined groups. -People who have many social identities exhibit more creative thinking than do those with few social identities, possibly due to the former individuals having a greater diversity of opinions and experience, thus allowing them to think more flexibly. -Ex. I am proud to be a Marquette University faculty member. It's a part of who I am, how I describe myself to others, and drives many of my goals and behaviors. I'm proud when others at the university succeed as it reflects well on me too.