Social Psychology 135 Final

Flow Csikszentmihalyi (1974)

"Flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time" aka being lost in the moment

Motivational explanation for Self-Serving Biases (Ross & Sicoly (1979))

"I want to feel like I'm a contributor." I assert that I've done a lot because I'm motivated to feel good about myself and see the world that way

Zen and the Art of Archery (Eugen Herrigel (1954))

"This state, in which nothing definite is thought, planned, striven for, desired or expected, which aims in no particular direction...which is at bottom purposeless and egoless...is therefore...called 'right presence of mind.' This means that the mind or spirit is present everywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place" - Herrigel But, imagine that you had a teenage child and their teacher at school says "they're in a state in which they're never thinking of anything definite, they never seem to be planning, or striving for anything, they basically have no aim or purpose" - However, as adults, once you lived in a sense of selfhood for a decade or however as many years, we start seeking out this state

Positive Illusion's (Shelley Taylor, UCLA)

(Bias) Positive Illusions: Are illusions that we have about ourselves, that are more positive than they should be - Unrealistically positive self-views

Increasing self-esteem through manipulation does not improve academic performance (Baumeister, Campbell et al., 2003)

- Conclusion they drew is that artificially inflating self-esteem is a bad idea because it makes you think you've done the hard work to be esteemable, when you haven't. - Increasing self-esteem by people telling you how much they highly regard you and being more esteemable are not only different actions but they're negatively correlated with each other

What does Festinger suggest about upward and downward comparisons?

-Downward comparisons make us feel good --Makes us feel good because it makes us feel like we're better at something than other people -Upward comparisons make us feel bad --Makes us feel bad because it reminds us how we're not doing as well as other people

Ways to escape The Self

-Spend a ton of money to escape ourselves · Movies, television, videogames · Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll · Meditation, skiing, reading · Escape the pressure of life's standards

What happens when someone is reminded about their observable self?

It promotes 'good' behavior. This makes people less likely to steal candy, cheat etc.

Downward comparisons

Look down at someone who you think is worse than you in something

Upward comparison

Look up and compare ourselves to someone who is already better at something

Gambling After Failure (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice 1993) (Theory of SE: Coping)

Looked at more negative ways that people can restore their positive self-feelings after failure Results: Found that when you let people with HSE and LSE gamble, after they have experienced threat to identity or have not experienced a threat to identity, turns out those with HSE lose all their money. - Gamble more recklessly because they are seeking out the 'big win' that will erase their negative feelings. Turns out this is not a good way to gamble Important: People who have HSE are much worse gamblers after threat

Accessibility of Positive and Negative Cognitions after failure (Dodgson and Wood 1998) (Theory of SE: Coping)

Looked at whether people failed or didn't fail at some test...Made to feel bad or not. After this, they did a test where they asked people in different conditions to vocalize to the researcher when they thought of some of their strengths and then in another trial they did they same thing but weaknesses Results: When no failure is occurring, Hi SE and Lo SE participants don't look particularly different from each other but after failure, Hi SE participants seem to mentally push their failures further from mind Idea: After failure, Hi SE participants' weakness become less accessible after they had just failed and their strengths become more accessible in comparison to those who have Lo SE and experience failure. Lo SE participants dwell on their past failures as well

Deindividuation

Loss of self-awareness, individual identity (and thus individual accountability)

Is deindividuation always negative?

Loss of sense more generally, does not mean that you're going to do bad things. It depends on the context and what opportunities are given to you at the moment

Self-Serving Biases (Ross & Sicoly (1979))

Married couples rated how much they and their spouse took responsibility for 20 household tasks Results: On average, subjects thought they were more responsible for handling 16 of 20 (80%). Everyone thinks on average that they're doing most of the housework

What happens when you become deindividuated?

More generally, when you're deindividuated you're going to be less restrained, more pre-reflective, and look like you have lost self-control

Why isn't HSE always good?

More pride or ego to protect when threatened, and thus, they will do more to try and protect that self-esteem

Why are we positively biased about ourselves?

Motivational mechanisms that are unconscious self-protective mechanisms which says how unconscious stuff in your head makes you wired to only think positive thoughts about yourself

Is HSE always a good thing? (Theory of SE: Coping)

No not always, it depends. Context matters. HSE also means that you have high standards to be maintained

Is losing self-awareness and self-control always bad?

No, context matters

Alien Abduction Exercise #2

Now instead of just you getting surgery, they now ask you to choose what fate you want to give your town Restrictions: You and your close ones won't be affected. Would you like your whole town to be emotional and impulsive? Or, would you like your town to have no emotion but have impeccable self-control

Is objective self-awareness negative?

OSA is not always negative because it brings to mind the high standards of the generalized other and someone says what happens when you meet that? At that moment, it feels amazing because you met your standards or exceeded them

"Leadership" Motivated Cognition (David Dunning (1991))

People came in and had to rate whether being a good leader depended more on being more goal oriented or people oriented. Whatever you thought prior to this, you are now randomly selected to be told that you're really good at "goal focus" and other people are randomly told that they're really good at "people focus. Results: Those who were chosen as goal focused, think leaders should be better at goal focused. Those who were chosen as people focused, they think that the best leaders should be people focused Idea: Changed their criteria for what makes a good leader, based on the feedback they got from an experimenter

Cognitive Explanation for Self-Serving Biases (Ross & Sicoly (1979))

People each think about these chores and when they try to think of when they do it more or the other person does it more, they try to remember when that chore was done and who did it. The problem is if you try and remember chores in your head, it only comes from YOUR database. So, you only remember the counts when you do it

Self-control in the 1950s

People in the 1950s were really restrained because it was right after WW2. Everyone did their jobs and superficially no one complained and everyone seemed to get along. Era where society valued peoples' identity by evaluating self-control and being able to control yourself to fit in - Underneath the surface people were agitated because they had to be so restrained externally

Unrealistic Optimism

People who have car accidents normally get into more and insurers know is the best indicator whether you're more likely to have a car accident in the future. But, everyone who just had car accidents, said they're better than most people and they have better odds in not getting in another car accident

What does the Alien Abduction Exercise suggest?

When it comes to ourselves, we really make it important for us to be able to feel our emotions and impulses. However, when it comes to other people, we care way more about them having self-control than feeling their emotions and impulse o This suggests that self-control is the price of admission for society - We want other people if they're going to be a part of our society to exercise self-control rather than exercising their emotions and impulses

What happens when someone is more Individuated?

When someone is individuated, they become more restrained, reflective, they have more self-control

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Leon Festinger 1957)

When two of our cognitions conflict, which causes a state of dissonance

What is individuation?

When you do things that make people more objectively self-aware without using things like mirrors. Things that remind people of themselves as distinct individuals. Ex. If Dr. Lieberman called on someone and said "what's your name?" You very much feel like an individual compared to those who are just listening

Louis C.K. Demo

When you watch something like this, it reminds you of that conflict which might make you feel uncomfortable to not just hear him talking about it, but to know that what he's talking about is probably somewhat true about you and yourself as well

Will power vs. self-restraint as forms of self-control

Willpower and self-restraint are synonyms for self-control but have different "flavors" to them Willpower: "I am able to assert myself over my impulses and instincts to sort of go in the direction that I want to go in" - That makes it sounds like exerting my willpower, is who I am Self-restraint: "I'm constraining myself in order to fit in with the group" - Something we do in order to go along with the group and not stand out

Watching comedy after failure (Heimpel, Wood, Marshall, & Brown 2002) (Theory of SE: Coping)

Would watching a comedy make you feel better or worse at failure? After the study and after someone has failed, they ask if they want to put on a comedic movie Results: Folks with HSE are really interested in watching a comedy after they just failed but those with LSE are not very interested in watching a funny movie after they just failed Idea: If watching something funny will make you feel better after you have just failed, then it looks like those with HSE are motivated to repair their mood or at least have an implicit theory "If I engage in this behavior, it will be good for me"

Insufficient Justification (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959)

You do incredibly boring task and then the teacher tells you to tell the next person that this is a really interesting task because the guy that is not here is supposed to tell the next person that it's fun and enjoyable Results: People paid 1 dollar more intensely liked the task in comparison to those who were paid 20 dollars Idea: The people who were paid $20 don't change their attitudes because they can come up with an explanation as to why their attitude doesn't need to change

Diminished subject-object dichotomy (Deinidividuation)

You don't feel as separate from other people when you are deindividuated

Motivational cognition (Kunda, 1990)

You get to select criteria for traits in a self-serving manner. It's already programmed in you so that when you think "friend," that already primes for you particular characteristics and not other characteristics Idea: Not like we're trying to tell a positive story of ourselves, but there's something at some level that is shaping our subjective construal and our cognitive processes of understanding the problem space, the criteria that we need to consider that does seem to be effected by reaching a positive conclusion about ourselves

Alien Abduction Exercise #1

You have two options for surgeries: Option 1: Completely remove your capacity for self-control. Option 2: Leave self-control intact, but remove all of the emotions and impulses - What you typically try to control with yourself control Which do you want to become? · Dramatically emotional and impulsive? Or · Completely self-controlled without any emotions and impulses within you

Time distortion (Deinidividuation)

You're lost in the moment of whatever is going on around you. It seems as if time doesn't exist at all but, you would say, you are very much in the now, and the past or future seem distant

What happens when we lose self-awareness?

We tend to become more entrained as to what others are doing and we tend to not think about what others may think of what you're doing BUT, this is not because you're afraid of judgement... o When you take the self out of the situation, it makes sense to go along with the stuff that's going around you · Ex. When others are dancing around you, you're more likely to dance as well

What does Turner say about different generations and self-control?

We tend to see it in different eras as The Self more associated with self-control, or The Self more associated with expressing yourself and not really engaging in self-control Idea: In different generations, people sometimes value self-control as a suppressant or as a part of your own self

Self-control in the 1970s

Were a time if you were self-restrained, all other people would be like "you're not being yourself if you do that" "To deny our impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human" - The Matrix

What makes for a 'good friend'?

What makes this interesting is when Dr. Lieberman asked us earlier if we are a good friend, we weren't necessarily thinking about friendship in general. We most likely were thinking of a small group of characteristics that make US good friends

What did Gustav Le Bon say about deindividuation?

When an individual is placed in a crowd, the unconscious mind of each individual emerges and creates a "collective mind" that is primitive in nature, causing uninhibited behavior

Why do people rationalize?

Feels authentic (Hypothesis 5), but looks inauthentic (Hypothesis 2)

Should we increase Self-Esteem or try to be more Esteemable?

Fill your tank (be more esteemable), don't move the needle BUT, if you try to raise self-esteem then the more people tell you that you're awesome, the less you feel the need to go and do more things that are "awesome"

What happens when we are in a flow state?

Flow kind of loses the sense of self and we are lost in the moment

Self-esteem as Coping (Brown and Dutton 1995)

Had people take a test and they either got positive feedback or negative feedback Either Lo SE or Hi SE. When they were asked "How happy are you right now?" Results: When it comes to POSITIVE feedback, both Lo SE and Hi SE people feel good. When it comes to NEGATIVE feedback, people with Lo SE feel much worse than people with Hi SE Idea: Data is consistent that Hi SE is a protective factor that is protecting those individuals from fully feeling the effects of negative feedback or they feel the negative feedback for a less amount of time than those with Lo SE

How does your memory for actions get reduced? (Deindividuation)

Have less memory after the fact, for your actions because when you're lost in the moment, you're not doing the things, that set down careful retrievable memories

When videotaped, adolescents brain lit up more in comparison for when they weren't (Somerville et al. 2013)

Idea of study: Put people in and MRI scanner and made people objectively self-aware some of the time o She had kids of all ages and adults lay in a scanner and when a light would come on, there is a room full of people that can see you in the scanner o What she looked at is how much the same region is compared to when the light is on vs. when the light is off Results: Adolescents brain lit up more in comparison for when they weren't "being watched" Conclusion: Adolescence is a period of intense self-awareness that is linked to where you're trying to figure out where you fit in, or don't fit in, in the social world

Gas Gage Metaphor for Self-Esteem (Consequences of altering people's self-esteem if it serves as an indicator of how others evaluate you)

Run out of gas and you can either get gas or break into your dashboard and change the arrow to full. Now you're looking at a meter that has always been an accurate way of looking at the gas fullness and you have BROKEN the very strong correlation between the gage and the gas tank

What do upward comparisons provide? (Cognitive/Informational consequences)

Upward comparisons (the ones that don't feel so good) tend to be more informative. We ask "What are they doing differently/better than me?" Idea: We can learn more by watching and observing people that are more "superior" than us

Why do we have altered illusions?

It is actually much better for your mental health to think you will have a better outcome Ex. Those who had cancer, and believed they will have a better outcome, actually physically altered their T-cell count

What are two theories of the self-esteem?

1. Coping Resource - Self-esteem helps us cope with threats 2. Sociometer hypotheses - Related to what the 'generalized other' thinks of us

What are the 2 main options for Dissonance Reduction

1. Justify/minimize conflict between two cognitions Ex. "There's a conflict but it doesn't matter that much" 2. Change attitude/cognition (if can't justify) Ex. We can change one of the cognitions, if we do this, it'll actually make the conflict disappear because one of the cognitions that was in conflict as now been altered in some way to remove the conflict

Two solutions for objective self-awareness (plus 1 more)

1. People either escape the situation 2. Or change behavior to meet standards 3. Escape OSA by - Distraction/Engagement - Brain chemistry (drugs, sex, alcohol)

Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)

2 kinds of comparisons: Upward comparisons and Downward comparisons

What is Magical Thinking?

Always goes on the direction, on average, me thinking I have a better chance controlling this event, even if it's a random event if I'm the one setting that random event in motion, than you do

Helping After Failure (Brown & Smart 1991) (Theory of SE: Coping)

Another thing people will do to make themselves feel better or at least will have the effect of making them feel better whether they realize or not is helping other people Important: After failure, people with HSE are more likely to volunteer to help someone else than those with LSE

Should we try to boost self-esteem?

Benefits of self-esteem are shown through correlations (education, crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy). So, no... depends whether it's an indicator or a coping resource. If self-esteem is an indicator of how society views you even if you don't realize that's what it is, raising self-esteem in an experimental manipulation is the worst thing you can do to a person. It's actually very harmful

Illusion of Control

Better outcome if I throw dice, than if you do Ex: Researcher asks: If you have to roll a 6 on a single die, what is the probability of you rolling the die correctly? The probability is 1:6. But, I believe that I have a higher probability of rolling the 6 than you do, this is called Magical Thinking

How does deindividuation work?

CIRCUMSTANCES changes the way the MIND responds which then changes how you BEHAVE

The Burden/Curse of the Self

Causes us to be aware of others around us and think about what who we are to society. If you have an accurate self-representation, it can be a good thing for us - It can guide us, remind us of goals, and keep a record of our personal story

How do we know what kind of person we are and how good we are at different things?

Compare ourselves to others to find out where we stand in comparison to them. It's hard to know in an absolute sense unless you compare yourself (Relative Judgement). But, we CHOOSE our standard of comparison or reference point.

Social Comparison

Comparing oneself to another, one might feel better about themselves

Why is it a problem that we choose our own reference point in relation to self comparison?

Don't even realize we are choosing our standard of comparison but it turns out we secretly choose the reference point where it's beneficial to us

"Talented" Motivated Cognition (David Dunning (1989))

Dunning is asking, "How talented are you?" and "Where do you think you rank, percentile wise, in terms of being talented?" If you ask randomly, "how talented are you?" - Most people will say they are more talented. But, Dunning wanted to add more to it so he came up with 6 categories Results: You find people who had no criteria specified, they give themselves high marks on how talented they are and same for the 6 criteria - Those who were given less criteria, said they aren't talented - This demonstrates how people go criteria shopping More criteria you have to work with = the more ways you have, to find a criteria that is self-enhancing

Threatened Ego & Aggression (Bushman & Baumeister 1998)

Either praised for succeeding or threatened and told something bad about their identity and who they are. Competing against someone else in a trivia game, but, when you buzz in first, you not only get the point for giving the answer, but you actually get to set how much of a really annoying noise blast the other person is going to get in their headphones (hurt other person through loudness of noise and how long the noise will last for within limits) Big Question: Experimenters are interested in how much aggression and hostility will people demonstrate after they have been praised or threatened Results: Those who have HSE are the ones that administer the most painful noises in comparison to everyone else

What made us more positively biased about ourselves?

Evolution created this... It's a biased that's wired into us, the majority of the population. There are those who vary and don't show this bias, like people who have depression. But, the majority of us see ourselves in a more positive manner

Deindividuation in the Dark (Gergen, Gergen & Barton 1973))

Idea of study: Sitting in a dark room for an hour, you literally can't see your own body 20 people in light room for an hour and 20 people in dark room for an hour Results: Dark: 100% of people touched accidentally, 90% touched purposefully, 50% hugged another, 70% sexually aroused, 80% moved seats Light: 5% touched accidentally, 3% touched purposefully, 0 hugged, 35% sexually aroused, 15% moved seats Conclusion: Showed that when your deindividuated, you do things that you wouldn't. People got much more comfortable in the dark situation Gergens says that these people are deindividuated, and from the advantage point, these people were less restrained and were engaging in more communal behavior - positive behaviors (at that time)

Demo of Better Than Average Effect: How good of a friend are you to your friends?

Idea: This demo is an example of the Better Than Average Effect Basically, people always think they're better than 75% of people no matter what the researchers ask - This is a bias - Better than average effect works on any large group with almost any phenomenon

Self-esteem is our (brain's) estimate in light of generalized other as our proxy

If the generalized other has an opinion of us, self-esteem is essentially that opinion because the generalized other is a simulation of others according to those who talk about that Problem with this theory: We never find ourselves thinking about in that moment what other people think of us, it feels like it's a personal "what do I think of me?"

Self as impulsive vs. self as institution (Turner 1976)

If the self is the controlled, then by definition you are more yourself when the control is not happening - If you're being controlled by something else, then you're not expressing yourself So, you can make the argument: The control itself is yourself exerting yourself over your impulse Idea: It depends on if you identify more with your impulses or your capacity to control your impulses

Escaping The Self through altering brain chemistry

If we have shut down these processes during this escape, the generalized other can't impose standards because we shut down the connection between the generalized other and the rest of us or the connection is severed -Might leave us in a situation where we follow our impulses rather than following the dictates of the generalized other

How does behavior of nearby others become more contagious? (Deindividuation)

If you're not focused on who am I, what am I doing that separates me from everyone else? You end up just going along with what's going on around you without giving it a lot of deep thought in terms of what it says about you if you go along with those things

How does the study, "Talented" Motivated Cognition (David Dunning (1989)), demonstrate Motivated Cognititon?

In order to be accurate, you would have to think of how other people can engage in criteria shopping like yourself and we don't have a large agreed upon definition of "talent." But, people don't do that. People rather say "I am better than most people and I do criteria shopping, but I don't count on everyone else doing criteria shopping. I assume that they have to be talented on the same dimension as me or it doesn't count"

Why did the idea of deindividuation arise?

Post WW2 : Trying to resolve the fact that 40 year olds were like "why are 20 years olds doing these things? It must be because they are deindividuated

What are rationalizations driven by?

Rationalizations that we come up with are driven from the motivational need to be consistent and authentic

Self-esteem

Regard oneself with respect

What is self-control?

Self-control is basically restraining our own impulses for the good of the group - There are times when we restrain ourselves and it benefits us, but there are times when it only benefits in society and we still practice self-restraint

Sociometer hypothesis of Self-Esteem

Self-esteem as an internal indicator. It's our estimate of whether we are meeting society's standards and thus likely to be accepted

What are 2 things social comparison can do to us?

Social comparison allows us to LEARN about ourselves or FEEL GOOD about ourselves (but rarely both)

Why do HSE folks feel better than LSE folks after failure? (Theory of SE: Coping)

Some representations in our mind are more accessible to consciousness than other representations in our mind

Roy Baumeister said that there are extreme ways to escape The Self, what are those ways?

Suicide, eating disorders, and how those things can be an extreme way to try and escape the self even though they have harmful consequences

Why do we call Flow and Deindividuation different things?

The same underlying psychological state from a first-person perspective is present in both cases, but we just call them different things from the outside based on if we like the behavior the person in engaging in or whether we think it's socially inappropriate

Rationalization

To provide or create alternative/new belief in order to put oneself in a better light (typically to explain an undesired outcome)

Why do older kids show bigger effect when it comes to the Trick or Treat study? (Beaman, Kletnz, Diener, Svanum (1981))

o At 13, our brain changes where its approximately for the moment where we start becoming far more concerned of what other people think of us o Halloween costumes that cause deindividuation, might be a bigger release for these kids (adolescents) than for the younger kids. o Halloween costumes may produce a bigger release for these kids who have started spending a lot of time suppressing their impulses

What are characteristics of Flow?

o Complete immersion o No self-evaluation o Positive experience - Engaged, in the moment, rather than happy per se o In control without exerting control - No effort in exerting control o Automaticities match behavioral demands

What's a good example Dr. Lieberman uses to express deindividuation?

o Concerts are what creates deindividuation - Mosh pits are an example on top of being drunk or high

What conditions did Phil Zimbardo (1969) suggest cause deindividuation?

o Each of things contribute, you don't need all of them. Zimbardo just says that these are the things that drive people into that state - Anonymity - Lack of accountability - High arousal - Large group - Sensory overload - Altered states of consciousness · Via drugs, alcohol, and lack of sleep

Deindividuation and Taboos (Singer, Brush, & Lublin (1965))

o First classic study on deindividation o Housewives in 1962 were brought in and were told they were auditioning to be in a book club o Half of the groups are deindividuated by wearing smocks and are told not to use their names. Half of them are individuated, so they are wearing what they want to wear and said their names o They were asked to discuss pornography Results: Those who were deindividuated, 60% used taboo language in comparison to those who weren't. Only 15% of those who weren't deindividuated used taboo language

3rd (outsider) vs. 1st (personal) person perspective about Flow and Deindividuation

o From 3rd person perspective, people have argued that flow is good and deindividuation is bad o From a 1st person perspective, these are psychologically pretty much the same psychological state and they're judged differently by the people on the outside based on behaviors that you engage in

Deindividuation and inflicting pain (Zimbardo (1969))

o Half the people were deindividuated, half the people were not - This was a study done with the hoods Nobody you knew who you were. You put on the hood before you saw the experimenter, and before you saw the person you will be shocking Idea: They were looking at how much you would shock the person when they made mistakes as a function whether or not you were deindividuated Results: They increased the shock level remarkably when they were deindividuated. More people would use higher shock levels if they were deindividuated in comparison to those weren't. Conclusion: People do more socially deviant behaviors when they are deindividuated

Why does context matter when it comes to self-awareness and self-control?

o If you make people lose self-awareness, and you let them shock people they will o But, if you make people less self-aware and give them something positive, they will also practice that Idea: They will be sensitive to sort of what the context is providing, as the opportunities

Why are we positively biased about ourselves & our friend-ness?

o Motivational mechanisms - Unconscious self-protective mechanisms - Wired to see self-positively o Cognitive mechanisms (intuitive scientist-ish) - Others don't give us negative feedback (MUM effect) - Think of how your friends would answer about you Have more insights into your own attempts to be a good friend than you do for other people (Ross & Sicoly, 1979)

Why do we give biased answers?

o Motivational mechanisms o Cognitive mechanisms o Motivational cognition

How do researchers deindividuate subjects?

o No names o Smocks (so you couldn't see your own individual clothing anymore) o Hoods (sometimes)

Trick or Treat (Beaman, Klentz, Diener, Svanum (1981))

o Put a mirror by candy bowls and wanted to see if that would affect how much candy kids would steal o Sanctioned deindividuated day Results: Those who are older and wore masks stole a lot more candy than those who didn't

What are the psychological consequences of deinidivduation according to Phil Zimbardo? (1969)

o Time distortion o Diminished subject-object dichotomy o Minimizes self-awareness o Minimizes concern for social evaluation

What are the behavioral consequences of deinidividuation?

o Uninhibited/impulsive behavior o Behavior not guided by the "generalized other" o Behavior of nearby others becomes more contagious o Reduced memory for actions

In neuroimaging, adolescents brain lights up way more than adults when asked to reflect on themselves (Pfiefer, Lieberman, Dapretto 2009)

o When kids engage in the self, they light up way more than the adults o It's developmental trajectory