UVM PSYS130 Exam 2

Thought Suppression (2 processes)

2 processes involved: Monitoring process (automatic) = finding instances Operating process (controlled) = coming up with a way to stop it, this becomes overburdened and may cause thoughts we don't want to flood in

Beaman, Klentz, Diener, and Svanum (1979): Halloween Candy Study

349 children in the study, one group is not instructed to do anything about the candy, one group is instructed that the adult is coming back after a brief exit, and one group is specifically told to only take one piece. A mirror is then used in some cases. Results: No instruction w no mirror = takes a lot of candy No instruction w mirror = takes slightly less Instruction w no mirror = takes only a few extras Instruction w mirror = very few take more than 1 piece

Attribution Theory

A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own behavior and other people's behavior

Kelley's Covariation Model

A theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person's behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence or absence of possible casual factors

Independent View of the Self

A way of defining oneself in terms of one's own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions and not in terms of the thoughts feelings, and actions of other people (common in Western cultures)

Interdependent View of the Self

A way of defining oneself in terms of one's relationship to other people, recognizing that one's behavior is often determined by thoughts, feelings, and actions of others (common in Asian and non-Western cultures)

Why is decoding sometimes difficult?

Affect blends

Two Step Attribution Process

Analyzing another person's behavior first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust the original internal attribution

Spontaneous Trait Inference

Automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behavior (ex. the librarian carries the old woman's groceries = she is helpful")

Belief in a Just World

Bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people

Self-schema

Beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information

Self-Promotion

Bragging/showing off, trying to get people to look up to us

Cat Poster Study

College students asked which they liked the most of the pieces (chose art piece), next group is asked which they like the most and told they could take it home (chose art piece again), final group is asked to list out reasons they liked and disliked each poster (chose cat poster) Which group is least happy with their choice? = final group

Upward Social Comparison

Comparing ourselves to people who are better than we are with regard to a particular trait or ability (can make us feel inferior)

Downward Social Comparison

Comparing ourselves to people who are worse than we are with regard to a particular trait or ability (can make us feel superior)

3 kinds of covariation information

Consensus, distinctiveness, consistency

Display Rules

Culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display (ex. American culture norms typically discourage emotional displays in men)

Ironic Processing

Deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts which can make them more likely to surface

Thin-Slicing

Drawing meaningful conclusions about another person's personality or skills based on an extremely brief sample behavior

Kim and Markus (1999): Pen Study

European American and East Asian participants asked to choose a pen from 4 different or 3 different pens, one of them being a different color and the others the same color. Results: American/European chose more uncommon color and East Asian participants chose less uncommon color

Self-Serving Bias

Explanation for one's successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for ones failures blame external, situational factors

Defensive Attributions

Explanations for other people's situations/outcomes that defend us from feelings of vulnerability or morality and protect self-esteem

Affect Blends

Facial expressions in which part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion (ex. someone tells you sometime horrible and inappropriate = you'd fell disgusted and angry)

Analytic thinking style

Focus on objects without considering surrounding context (associated with Western cultures)

Holistic thinking style

Focus on overall context, relation among objects/people (associated with Eastern cultures)

Self-Presentation Theory

For strategic reasons we express attitudes that make us appear consistent

Culture and Attribution Biases

Fundamental attribution error is more common in individualistic cultures while collectivist cultures are more likely to move to the 'second step' in the 2 step attribution process

Pervasiveness

Global and specific, specific meaning it only affects one specific time and global meaning that it affects other aspects of a person's life

Unrealistic Optimism

Good things are more likely to happen to us, bad things are less likely to happen to us compared to our peers

Gilovich, Medvec, and Savitsky (2000): Barry Manilow Study

Group of people in a room, one wearing a shirt w Barry Manilow. After they leave, person wearing shirt is asked how many people they thought noticed and then people were asked if they noticed. Results: Person wearing the shirt thought more people noticed than they actually did

What can interfere with this suppression system? (ironic processing)

High cognitive load (distracted, tired, preoccupied) or time pressure

Lau and Russel (1980)

Hypothesis: players and coaches are more likely than sports writers to show self-serving biases in attributions Results: when they win the game = both say it was due to internal attribution and when they lose the game = a little bit more say its actually internal as well (so somewhat an example of self-serving bias)

Overjustification Effect

In seeking to explain one's own behavior, overemphasizing the rate of extrinsic reasons over intrinsic reasons

Two cultural influences on self-concept

Independent and interdependent view of the self

Distinctiveness information

Information about the extent to which one particular actor behaves the same way to different stimuli

Consensus information

Information about the extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does

Consistency information

Information about the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

Self-Presentation Strategies include:

Ingratiation, Self-promotion, exemplification, intimidation, and supplication

Locus of causality

Internal (dispositional) and external (situational)

What are the dimensions of attributions?

Locus of causality, stability, and pervasiveness

Emblems

Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; they usually have direct verbal translations, such as OK sign (ex. flipping someone off, NOT universal)

Gabriel and Gardener (1999): relational vs collective interdependence

Participants are North American men and women who are asked the same 20 'who am I" statements, identification with various traits, and then selective memory excursive (describe a positive for negative event) Results: Men tend to emphasize collective (group-based) bonds while women tend to emphasize relational bonds (more 1 on 1)

Wegner, Erber, and Bowman (1933): don't be sexist experiment

Participants asked to answer exact same questions and asked to NOT be sexist Group 1 was under a time pressure and Group 2 was not Results: participants in high time pressure group are primed to not be sexist, thus, they are much more sexist than those is low pressure group

Mood Diaries Study

Participants kept mood diaries for one month about their mood and things going on in their environment, they were also asked if they thought their environment had an impact on their emotions. Results: Participants thought there was a high correlation between environment and their moods, but researchers found no direct correlation

Power Saw Study

Participants watched a film and in one group there was a power saw going off in the other room and in the other group there was no distraction. They were all asked to rate how much they enjoyed the film and filled out an evaluation. The power saw group was also asked if they thought the noise altered their experience. Results: results were the same BUT interruption group did think that the power saw had impacted their opinions more than it truly did

Suproxin Studies

Participants were injected with a substance and told their side effects were either arousal/fast heartbeat or stomachache/headache. Then filled out questionnaire with extreme/inappropriate questions, some were alone and some with what they thought was another participant (was a researcher) who gets angry and storms out. Results: IF participants got false information about side effects (headache/stomachache) they thought arousal was due to the participant but if they got correct information about side effects (arousal/fast heartbeat) they correctly attributed arousal.

Behavioral Self-Handicapping

People act in ways to reduce the likelihood that they will succeed on a task so that if they fail, they can blame it on obstacles they created other than their lack of ability (more extreme)

Implementation Control

People's specific plans about where, when, and how they will fulfill a goal

Target

Person we are making the attribution about

Ross, Amabile, and Steinmetz (1977): Quizmaster Study

Randomly assigned participants to the role of either questioner or contestant, questioners then make up their own questions (that they know the answers to) and asked contestant. Results: Questioners are perceived as smart by contestants, but we ignore the fact that they know the answer to the question already (example of fundamental attribution error)

Reported Self-Handicapping

Rather than creating obstacles, people devise ready-made excuses in case they fail (less extreme)

Self-Monitoring

Refers to an individual's tendency to engage in self presentational strategies

Exemplification

Refers to moral character, trying to present ourselves as morally superior

Performance-Contingent Rewards

Rewards that are based on how well we perform a task

Task-Contingent Rewards

Rewards that are given for performing a task, regardless of how well the task is done

Stability

Stable and Unstable, stable meaning non-changing/permanent/stationary and unstable meaning that it can change and it is not permanent

Supplication

Strategy where we put ourselves down and we have others pick us back up

Scary Bridge Studies

Study 1: Long bridge over high gorge and a short hard wood bridge. Researcher is an attractive woman who approaches male participants, asks them questions for a study, then gives them her number. She approached males at either short bride or long bridge. Results: if approached on short bridge 12.5% call her and if approached on long bridge 50% call her. Study 2: Same study, BUT no short bridge and people were approached either on the long bridge or after they walked across it. Results: When people had rested 30% called her and when approached on the bridge 65% called her. BOTH examples of misattribution of arousal

Social Neuroscience (FMRI) experiment - (cultural differences in social thinking)

Study used East Asian participants and European American participants, they were all presented with lines in different contexts and asked to find shortest line Results: even results when asked, BUT when asked to use a different thinking style there was more effort/brain activity. (Chinese participants had more focus on central image in congruent setting.)

Reasons-Generated Attitude Change

Temporary attitude change resulting from considering the concrete reasons for one's attitudes

Self-Control

The ability to subdue immediate desires to achieve long-term goals

Impression Management

The attempt by people to get others to see them as they want to be seen

Spotlight Effect

The belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance or behavior than they actually are

Intrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in activity because we enjoy it or find it interesting, not because of external rewards or pressures

Extrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures, not because we enjoy the task or find it interesting

Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

The idea that emotional experience is the results of a two step perception process in which people first experience physiological arousal and then seek an appropriate explanation for it

Growth Mindset

The idea that our abilities are malleable qualities that can cultivate and grow

Fixed Mindset

The idea that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot change

Social Comparison Theory

The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people

Self-Awareness Theory

The idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their internal standards and values

Internal Attribution

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality

External Attribution

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he/she is in; the assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation

Self-Concept

The overall set of beliefs people have about their personal personal attributes (ex. red dot test, where children are able to recognize that they are an individual)

Social Tuning

The process whereby people adopt another person's attitudes

Ingratiation

The process whereby people flatter, praise, and general try to make themselves likable to another person, often of a higher status

Introspection

The process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives

Misattribution of Arousal

The process whereby people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do

Perceptual Salience

The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people's attention (ex. when you face actor A rather than actor B, you perceive them as doing/contributing more)

Self-Handicapping

The strategy whereby people create obstacles and excuses for themselves so that if they do poorly on a task, they can avoid blaming themselves

Social Perception

The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which other peoples behavior result from internal, dispositional factors, and to underestimate the role of situational factors

Belief Perseverance

The tendency to stick with an initial judgement even in the face of new information that should prompt us to reconsider

Bias "Blind Spot"

The tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases compared to ourselves

Non verbal communication/behavior

The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words; nonverbal cues include facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position, movement, use of touch, and gaze. (each being their own channel)

Causal Theories

Theories about the causes of one's own feelings and behaviors; often we learn such theories from our culture (ex. 'absence makes the heart grow fonder')

Self-Perception Theory

Theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer these states by observing our behavior and the situations in which it occurs.

Self-awareness

Thinking about the self

Encode

To express or emit nonverbal behavior, such as smiling or patting someone on the back

Decode

To interpret the meaning of nonverbal behavior other people express, such as deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kindness

Gilbert's Theory of Automatic Believing

We accept information --> we assess truthfulness --> we then accept or unaccept truthfulness

False Consensuses

We overestimate how common things are, associated more with negative behaviors

Actor/Observer Difference

We see our own behaviors as caused by situational factors, while the same behaviors in others are perceived as dispositionally motivated

False Uniqueness

We underestimate how common things are (we do something good that we did then we underestimate how many others have done it) associated more with positive behaviors

Why do we make self-serving attributions/biases?

We want to maintain our self-esteem, we fail at something we feel we can't improve at, and the kind of information we have available

Egocentric bias

When participating in a group, we tend to exaggerate the amount and importance of our own contributions with respect to those of others

'What are you thinking about?' study

When you are trying to figure out what people are thinking about at random times, the self actually comes up fairly rarely (not engaged in deep thinking about the self at all times)