PSYC 308 MIDTERM 2
CONFORMITY Automatic mimicry
Mimicing posture, mannerisms, experssions Study → rubbing face, shaking food → other Ps did the same
Emotions and social relationships - Promoting commitment
Promoting commitment Commitment problem: long term relationships require sacrifice and trust that others will do the same Emotions solve commitment problem in 2 ways Expression of certain emotions signals our sincere commitment to others' well being Ex: sympathy → indicates concern of welfare of others, and can induce sacrifice on behalf of partner Emotions motivate us to put aside self interest and act in ways that prioritze others Guilt → motivate us to apologize, sacrifice, benefit oters Anger → motivate us to defend someone who has been wronged Nervous system fosters commitment in long term relationships Ocytocin → produced in hypothalamus and released in brain/ bloodstream Promotes commitment (pair bonding) aka preference for one mate over others Ocytocin → stay close with sexual partner Associated w love/ commitment in long term relationships Ex: when smiling, open hand gestures, eye contact is used → oxytocin rises Couples kissing → men have a rise in oxytocin Sex also Study → inhaling oxytocin in nasal spray = solved conflicts better than breathing just air
The Influence of Minority Opinion on the Majority Conformity pressures are powerful but majority opinion doesn't always prevail
Study → is this green vs blue When the minority varied their responses randomly between "green" and "blue," the participants said "green" after the others did so only 1 percent of the time, about the same as when they responded alone. But when the minority responded with "green" consistently, the true participants responded likewise 8 percent of the time. The influence of the consistent minority showed up in other ways as well. When the participants thought the study was over, the experi- menter introduced them to a second investigator who was also interested in color vision. This second person showed participants a series of blue-green colors and recorded where each participant, individually, thought blue left off and green began. Those who had earlier been exposed to a consistent minority now iden- tified more of these stimuli as green; their sense of the border between blue and green had shifted. Thus, when the minority opinion was consistent, it had both a direct effect on participants' responses in the public setting and a latent effect on their subsequent, private judgments.
Is dissonance universal
Study → japanese and canadian tested to see if dissonance effect was the same in people from these two different cultures Had to choose between two objects Canadians → dissonance in control condition (finding preciously unnoticed attractions in the chosen CD) and previously unnoticed flaws in the unchosen one, but no dissonance effect if they get positive feedback about their personalities Japanese → unaffected by self affirmation manipulation No dissonance effect in either condition Conclude that cognitive dissonance might be unique to westerners But dissonance was shown in an induced compliance paradigm → if they were led to think that other students were observing their behaviour East asians → more attuned than westerners to people and their reactions Show dissonance effects in induced compliance paradigm bc they question their actions when others are observing them Then they show dissonance effects in free choice paradigm if led to think about other people's possible reactions to their choice Study → Ps had to choose between two CDS Hanging in front of them at eye level was a poster → researchers wanted to see if the faces would prime the concept of social others to prompt japanese participants to show strong dissonance effect In free choice condition → japanese showed no evidence of dissonance reduction but in the poster condition they did Americans → showed less dissonance reduction in the poster condition than in standard condition Study → choosing CD for themselves or friend Eurocanadians, as well as asian canadians showed much larger dissonance effects when choosing for themselves than when choosing for a friend But asian canadians who strongly identified themselves as asians showed much larger dissonance effects when choosing for a friend than when choosing for themselves
Beyond internal/ external dimension
Study → people explain intentional actions by refereeing to actor's reasons Reasons to explain behaviour fall into two vclasses Desires Beliefs Ex: why did senator endorse amendment banning burning of american flag? Bc she wants to be reelected, believes she needs to appease people
Norm based approaches (based on social norms) Effective norm based appeals Descriptive and normative norms
Using Norms to Conserve Energy In this study, telling above-average energy consumers how much energy they use and how much the average household uses significantly reduced energy con- sumption (bars on the left) Providing this information to below-average energy consumers led to significantly greater energy consumption, unless it was accompanied by a simple symbol of approval (bars on the right). Telling people about social norms is likely to be most effective when the norm is misunderstood, such as when people overestimate the popularity of destructive behavior or underestimate the popularity of constructive behavior. Prentice and Miller asked Princeton undergraduates how comfortable they felt about campus drinking habits, as well as the comfort level of both their friends and the average undergraduate with alcohol. If the students were suffering from pluralistic ignorance on this issue, they would indicate that they were less at ease with drinking than they supposed most students were. The results, shown in Figure 9.9, indicate that this is exactly what happened. Hidden discomfort with alcohol existed side by side with perceived popular s
why do we think attitudes are strong predictors of behaviour when studies show otherwise?
every day experience show that attitudes and behaviour go together ex: people who picket abortion clinics have attitudes opposed to abortion ex: people who go bowling have a positive attitude toward bowling but this only indicates that if people behave a certain way, they are likely to have positive feelings about that behaviour - does not mean that those with a positive attitude toward a given behaviour are inclined to behave in a manner consistent with their attitude - ex: many instances where people like bowling but don't bowl or people like kids but don't have kids
Habits of happy people
gratitude give then receive focus on experiences
Social influence:
ways people affect each other
The influence of what almost happened When making causal assessments, sometimes we consider whether a given outcome is likely to have happened if circumstances were different Attributions are tus influenced by this knowledge Counterfactual thoughts:
considerations of what might have or should have happened if only a few minor things were done differently "If only i studied harder' → implies lack of effort was cause of poor test result Ex: woman who went to lunch with her boss to celebrate her promotion Boss ordered dish for her with something she was allergic to, went into convlsions, died Participants read this story in which boss had considered ordering a different dish that did not contain wine Other read where boss did not consider dish without wine Participant's attributions would be influenced by what almost happened Group 1 → imagined events where she would be fine Viewed boss's choice of meals as causally significant Group 2 → menu choice as less causally significant
Affect valuation theory:
emotions that promote important cultural ideals are valued and will tend to play more prominent role in social lives of individuals
decisions and dissonance Study → bettors on racetrack, before and after placing bets
- Act of placing a bet and choosing a particular horse causes bettors to reduce dissonance associated with chosen horse's negative features (doesnt do well on wet track) and positive features of the competing horses (perfect distance for one horse, the best jockey on another) - Dissonance reduction should be reflected in greater confidence on the part of those interviewed right after placing their bets -- Bettors who were interviewed as they waited in line to place their bets gave their horses a "fair" chance of winning the race -- Those interviewed after they had placed their bets and were leaving the ticket window gave horses "good" chance of winning - Making hard decisions triggers dissonance -- Which triggers processes of rationalization that makes us more comfortable with our choices --Ex: voters show more confidence in their candidates when interviewed after they've voted than before they voted --Dissonance reduction takes place after an irrevocable decision has been made
Decisions and dissonance
- Hard decisions come from feeling of dissonance - Decision is hard → rejected alternative must have desirable features and chosen alternative must have undesirable features or both - Because elements are inconsistent with the decision made → result is dissonance Ex: you move to LA from Midwast for good weather → you will enjoy hte sun but cost of living and hours spent in traffic will produce dissonance Once you've made decision to move to LA, you'll exert mental energy to reduce this dissonance → you will rationalize Ex: you will say that you never wanted to own a jome and tell your friends how much you've learned from audiobooks from time in car
Dos this mean introspection is harmful? No
- Our attitudes are easy to identify and articulate sometimes and in those cases, introspection produces no rift between the variables we think are guiding us and those that actually are - Introspection is bad when true source of attitude is hard to pin down -- Ex: when basis of attitude is largely affective -- When it's cognitive → reasons tend to yield real reasons and introspection isn't going to mislead us about our true attitude
Decisions and dissonance If in the process of making a decision, we see blemishes associated with what is emerging as our favourite option, why not start the process of rationalization beforehand to minimize/ eliminate dissonance altogether?
- rationalization/ distortion occur after people make decision also subconsciously take place before they make the decision - People distort subsequent information to support their initial preference
Components of emotion Five components
1. Appraisal process Gives rise to emotions Consist of patterns of construal by which we evaluate events and objects in our environment according to their relation to our current goals 2. Physiological responses Ex: blushing bc embarassed 3. Emotional behaviour 4. Subjective feelings Qualities that define what the experience of a particular emotion is like 5. Action tendencies Prompt us towards specifis actions/ behaviours Study → monkeys received cucumbers and performed task calmly When one of the two got a grape → half the monkeys receiving the bland cucumbers refused to exchange tokens for food and many threw cucumbers in anger Anger can motivate behaviour to restore justice Study → protestors against low wages, discrimination, violeng, etc Anger predicts which individuals will participate in events such as petititon / marches Anger activates left frontal lobes of brain → leads to acts to create social change Raises blood pressure, can lead to antisocial blood pressure → but can prompt su to restore justice
Cultural specificity of emotional expression Explanations for cultural variation
1. Emotional accents Highly stylized, culturally specific ways of expressing emotions Study → india vs US Ps judged two expressions of embarassment Both groups interpreted expression as embarassment But indians → saw tongue bite (an emotion accent in india) as embarssment while US Ps did not 2. Focal emotions Cultures are defined by particular emotions Tibet → compassion Mexic → proud Brazil → affectionate, flirtatious Focal emotions: common emotions in everyday lives of members of a culture, are expressed/ experience with greater frequency/ intensity Ex: cultures that value honour → sexual slurs/ insults are highly charged events htat trigger more enger than in non hnour socieites Anger → focal emotion in honour based cultures Interdependent cultures → embarassment / shame Ex: china (interdependent) → 113 words that describe shame/ embarassement china/ japan show more head droops, shoulder shrugs of shame in response to losing than US athletes (independent) 3. Ideal emotions Affect valuation theory: emotions that promote important cultural ideals are valued and will tend to play more prominent role in social lives of individuals Ex: US → excitement is greatly values, enables people to pursue cultural ideal of independence / self expression EA cultures → calmness and contentedness is values bc these emotions fold the individual into harmonious relationships Americans = more likely to participate in exciting/ risky recreational practices, adversitse excitment enhancing durgs, express preferences for upbeat music vs soothing ones, read books w excited protagonists Independent cultures → responding to emotional stimuli = more intense smiles of excitement Distinctions between young/ old Young → more likely to pursue enjoyment thru exciting activities than parents/ grandparents (who pursue happiness in quiter/ calmer ways0
We experience dissonance whenever we act in ways that are inconsistent with our core values and beliefs and
1. Free choice Study → college students offered either 0.50 or 2.50 $ to write an essay in favor of a state law banning communists from speaking on college campuses Against law→ so most students were opposed to it so their essays conflicted with true beliefs Freedom to agree/ decline to write the essay was emphasized For the other half, it was not No dissonance effect for these people Those paid 2.50$ expressed attitudes more in favor of the ban than those paid 0.50$ In free choice group → dissonance occured Those paid 0.50$ changed attitude more than those paid 2.50$ 2. Insufficient justification Last study → shows importance of insufficient justification in arousing dissonance If person's behaviour is justified by existing incentives, even behaviour that is in conflict with person's beliefs and values will not produce dissonance (or the rationalizations that arise to combat it) Those paid 2.50 for writing an essay → inconsistent with true beliefs, but felt no pressure to change attitude bc behaviour was justified by money Those paid 0.50 → no justification, felt tull weight of inconsistency 3. Negative consequences If nothing of consequences results from actions that are at variance with our attitudes and values it's easy to dismiss them as trivial People experience dissonance when behaviour results in harm Study → Ps tell someone boring experiment was very interesting by receiving small/ large incentive for doing so Hald time, person was convinced that experiment would be interesting Deceived → boring task was rated more favorably by participants offered little incentive to lie to another person and person believed the lie Half the time, person was unconvinced No negative consequences, no one was deceived 4. Foreseeability We don't hold people responsible for harm they've done if harm wasn't foreseeable Ex: guest is allergic to peanuts becomes ill → host is not blamed if they were not informed Negative consequences that are not foreseeable don't threaten a person's self image as a moral/ decent person → no dissonance Study → Ps write essay in favor to something they disagree on If negative consequences occur of writing the essay (ex: about whether classes in uni should be doubled) (essay shown to uni committee deciding whetherr to implement the policy)→ no dissonance and no attitude change in the direction of the essay they wrote If negative consequences were foreseen/ foreseeable (Ps knew their letter would be shown to committee/ knew it might be shown) → dissonance was obtained
Components and Measurement of Attitudes Three components of attitudes
1. Involve affect (or emotion) → how much someone likes/ dislike an object 2. Involve cognition → thoughts that reinforce feelings knowledge/ beliefs about the object, associated memories and images Ex: favorite city → your attitude about it includes knowledge about its history, memories there 3. Involve specific behaviours → behavioural tendency to approach/ avoid Rewarding object → approach costly/ punishing ones → avoid Specific attitudes can be primes → ex: seeing a kid crying prepares your mind to take care of the baby
Recalling happy moments 3 factors in recollection of pleasure
1. Peak moment (at start of event) Strongly predicts how much pleasure u remember later 2. End 3. Length of the pleasurable experience Not that important in recollection Duration neglect; not giving that much importance to length of emotional xeperience in judging/ remembering overall experience What matters most is peak and ending - same is tru for negative exps
Darwin and emotional expression Generated three hypothees about emotional expressios
1. Universality of facial expression People of all cultures communicate/ perceive emotion in same way Cross cultural research on emotional expression Study → photos show n to Ps all over world, showing angers, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise Across five cultures → accuracy rates = 70-90% for hese 6 emotions Flaw in study: Ps all exposed to western media Sought culture with little exposure (papa new guinea) Papa new guinea → seen no movies/ magazines, did not speak english Told a story → "___ died, and he felt sad" and asked to match story with appropriate expression Accuracy rates = 68-92% in 6 emotions For children = 81-98% Studies show that cultures that differ in religion, interdependence, politics, etx → agree a lot on 6 emotions and how they perceive it 2. Human emotions resemble other species (bc humans share evolutionary history with other mammals) Ex: chimps show threat displays in ways we also do Embarrassment When feeling embarassed -- people shift gaze down, smile self consciously, move heads down/ to side, exposing nxks, touch face or shrug with shoulders Cross species comparisons show that our expression of embarassment shows in other mammals Humans → embarassment is due to social transgressions, prompting forgiveness after violating social norms Ex: people showing embarassment are trusted more than those with pride Study → give more lottery tickets to these people Well time embarassment can serve people well JFK → took public ownership of failure and apologized Approval ratings spiked Embarassment can be good → elicits trust/ positive feelings in others Ex: lawyers take note of remorse related to embarssment in defendents Defendents who express remorse are judged less harshly 3. Blind people show similar expressions of sighted people (we have been encoded by evolutionary processes) Study → blind people's emotions similar to those of sighted people Study → blind ps = No visual input from culture about how to express emotions Olympic athletes → blind and sighted athletes both expressed pride w smiles and tilted heads back, expanded chest, raising arms in air after winning After losing → both dropped heads and slumped shoulders in shame
attitudes can conflict with other powerful determinants of behaviour Russel Crowe —> people have a hard time pinning down their attitude towards him bc they admire his skill but just don't like him highlights two important facts about attitudes
1. attitudes may conflict with each other 2. different component of an attitude may not always align - can be a rift between affective component (what we feel about RC) and cognitive (what we think about him) - when affective and cognitive components are inconsistent —> attitude may not predict behaviour -- cognitive component determines attitude we express -- Affective determines behaviour (or vv) ex: lapierre —> thought bad for business to serve chinese people but feelings aroused by a living, breathing chinese couple may have made it hard to deny service
When does inconsistency produce dissonance? Analysis of when we hold other people responsible for their actions helps us understand when we will hold ourselves responsible for our behaviour and experience dissonance as a result We experience dissonance whenever we act in ways that are inconsistent with our core values and beliefs and (4)
1. free choice 2. negative consequences 3. foreseeability 4. insufficient justicfication
Factors affecting conformity pressure
1. group size 2. Group unanimity 3. Anonymity 4. culture - people from interdependent cultures are much more concerned about their relationships with others and about fitting into the broader social context than are people from independent cultures - TIGHT → conformity 5. Gender - women and men tend to differ in conformity, but only slightly. - Ex: women conform more in stereotypically male domains (geography, hunting etc) Ex: men tend to conform in more stereotypically female domains (ex: children, cosmetics)
Induced compliance and attitude change Induced (forced) compliance
: compelling people to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs, attitudes or values People feel discomfort from mismatch between behaviour and attitudes To deal with inconsistency → people change original attitudes/ values (if behaviour can't be taken back( Study → Ps engaged in experimental drudgery for an hour Control condition → interviewed immediately afterward by someone from the psychology department who asked them how much they enjoyed their experiment Gave quite low ratings In two other conditions → told that experiment involved how performance on as task is influenced by expectations about it beforehand Led to believe that they were in control (no expectation condition)
Emotions influence moral judgment Moral dumbfounding
: firm conviction that act is wrong/ right without real reason
emotions influence reasoning Broaden-and-build hypothesis
: positive emotions broaden our thougts/ actions and help us develop emotional/ intellectural resources like empathy or acquisition of knowledge Increase intellectual resources Which then builds social resources like friendships and social networks When led to feel positive emotions (ex: watching funny clip),Ps broaden and build in many ways Ex: rate themselves as more similar to outgroup members → broaden their way of looking at thmselves in relation to people from different groups
Negative state relief hypothesis
: taking an action to benefit someone else (esp for a good cause) to make oneself feel better
Emotional intelligence EQ: defined by four skills
Ability to perceive emotions Ability to understand one's own emotions Ability to use current feelings to aid in making good decisions Ability to manage one's emotions in ways that fit current situations
actor observer effect
Actors more likely than observers to make situational attributions for behaviour See own behaviour caused by situation when observers of same behaviour more likely to focus on actor's dispositions Study → ask Ps to explain collefe major they did vs bffs chose the major Ps referred to characteristics of person when explaining someone else's choice vs explaining their own Ex: psyc major → attribute it to fact that you find material interesting, professors are food But attibute friend's psyc major to "issues" he needs to work out
We are not good at predicting what makes us happy
Affective forecasting: predicting future emotions (if an event will lead to happiness or anger or sadness and how long) Study → ppl who had not yet broken up broke up reported overall happiness and then prdicted how unhappy they would be 2 months after the breakup (luckies) Leftovers → who had just broken up Leftovers were just as happy as luckies but luckied predicted they would be much less happy after 2 months after the breakup than leftovers were People overestimate how much a romantic breakup would diminish life satisfaction Study → profs evaluated after 6 years 5 years after → those not given tenure (permanent position) were not significantly less happy than those who did Prediction differed from reality Profs who got tenure → predicted level of happiness after getting tenure that was far above what was actually observed in profs that did get tenure Expected level of happiness after denial of tenure far below observed in profs that had been recently denied too
situational attribution vs dispositional attribution
All 3 together → situational attribution is called for when consensus, distinctiveness and consistency are all high Dispositional attribution: when consensus and distinctiveness are low, but consistency is high
Influence of exceptions vs routines
Another determinant of how easy it is to imagine an event not happening is whether it resulted from a routine action or departure from the norm Ex: study → reading about a man who was severely injured when a store was robbed In an unusual setting → people recommended more money to be compensated versus those who thought the injuries occurred in the victim's usual store Injuries seen as more tragive bc could have been more easily avoided Explains why those who put themselves in danger (ex: pilots, bullfighters) have rules about replacing someone else Extra anguish accompanies these tragedies
Causal attribution for independent vs interdependent people
Asians attribute behaviour to situation than westerners Coaches and sports players in US see positive outcomes as result of abilities in players and actions of coaches HK coaches/ players more likley to refr to other tieam and context → ex: i guess china was a bit tired.... Study → Ps were shown animated cartoons of one fish swimming in front of a group of fish Difference scenes → Individual fish scooted off from the approaching group Fish joined by group and they all swam off together Individual fish joined group Ps asked why these events occurred Americans = see behaviour of individual fish as internally caused Chinese → more likely to see behaviour of individual fish as externally causes This is due to cultural outlook that affect focus of attentione Asians → think of themselves in larger context, connected toothers See everyone/ thing as behaving as they do due to connection to others Westerners → see themselves as acting independently of social connections
What most people usually think of as attitudes about different classes of people are often expressions of attitudes about a prototype of a given category Ex: study → students expressing attitude about gay men
Asked what was the typical gay man Two months later → asked participants if they would be willing to show students around campus One visitor was described in a way that participants would think he was gay - Half of Ps were given his description - Other half was not Investigators found students' willigness to show the person around campus (behaviour) was predicted by attitude about gay men - Positive attitudes = willing - Negative attitudes = unwilling - But ONLY if the visitor matched their prototype of a gay man If visitor (John B) did not fit their image, their attitudes about gay people did not predict their behaviour
Decisions and dissonance Research on post decision dissonance
Attitude change shortly after people make decisions Ex: study → had participants evaluate a list of products (vacation destination) then participants chose two products that they had rated fairly equally, and provided their evaluations of all the vacation destinations once more Follows up with Ps 3 years later and obtained evaluations of the same set of vacation destinations again Rated chosen vacation more favorably and unchosen one less favorable, relative to initial evaluations Suggests that post decision efforts to reduce dissonance can have very long lasting effects
Emotional effects of counterfactual thinking Emotional amplification
Attributions affect emotional reactions to events Counterfactual thoughts do so as well Emotional reaction = more intense if event almost didn't happen Pain/ joy from an event = proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening Ex: someone survived a plane crash then hikes to safety before dying How much compensation should airline give? Would that change if he died a quarter mile from safety vs half a mile? In the study → when he died close to safety, they recommended more compensation bc the death seems more tragic and more worthy of compensation Psychology of coming to close → paradox Ex: olympic athletes winning silver vs bronze vs gold Silver → less happy than bronze Consumed by what they did not receive "If only i did better" Bronze → "at least I got a medal"
Implications of Discounting and augmentation principles
Can be difficult to conclude about someone who behaves "in role" but easy to figure out what to think about someone who acts "out of role" Ex: study → witnessing another person acting in an extraverted vs introverted manner Half participants believed person interviewing for a job as a submariner (job with close contact with many people over a long period of time, thus favored extraverted personalities) Others believed other half were interviewing to be an astronaut (long periods of solitude → favored introvertedness) Hald participants → witnessed behaviour conforming to the situation People exhibited traits for the job Difficult to judge whether behaviour truly reflected the person or the situation Other half → witnessed particiaptns defying situation Behaviour was seen as clear reflection of interviewee's true self Participants rates interviewees on a host of trait dimensions related to introversion versus extroversion, judgments followed discounting and augmentation principles
PREDICTING ATTITUDES FROM BEHAVIOUR Ex: religion → a lot of people resent going to church but huge number stick with it and eventually find religious conviction even though they once resisted Outward behaviour can influence attitudes Why?
Cognitive consisteny theories maintain that impact of behaviour on attitudes reflects tendency we have to justify/ rationalize our behaviour and minimized inconsistencies between attitudes/ actions Ex: cognitive disonnance theory (one of these theories)
3 types of covariation info are significant:
Consensus What most people do in a given situation Does everyone behave the same way? Do few people behave that way? Distinctiveness What someone does in different situations Is this behaviour unique to a specific situation or does it occur in many situations? More someone's behaviour is confined to a particular situation (when distinctiveness is high), less it says about the individual and more it says about the actual situation Consistency What someone does in a given situation on different occasions Is behaviour same now as in the past or does it vary? More the reaction varies across occasions (when consistency is low), the harder it is to make a definite attribute either to the person or to the situation
Attribution and imagining alternative actors and outcomes Judgments people make aren't always based on what's actually happened, sometimes they base them off what they imagine would happen Discounting and augmentation principles
Discounting principle: idea that people should assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other plausible causes might have produced it Using general knowledge about the world to infer how most people would behave in a situation in question and they combine that knowledge with a bit of logic to arrive at an attribution Ex: nearly everyone would act nice in an interview to get a job → can't assume everyone is sunny since everyone would act the same way Augmentation principle: idea that people should assign greater weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other causes are present that normally would produce a different outcome Great confidence that a particular cause is responsible for a given outcome if other causes tre present that would produce a different outcome
Informational social influence and sherif's confromity experiment Sherif put individual participants in a darkened room, presented them with a stationary point of light on trial after trial, and had them estimate how far it "moved" each time. Some people thought, on average, that the light moved very little on each trial (say, 2 inches), and others thought it moved a good deal more (say, 8 inches). bring several participants into the room together and have them call out their estimates. He found that people's estimates tended to converge over time. Those who individually had thought the light had moved a fair amount soon lowered their estimates; those who individually had thought it had moved very little soon raised their When participants came back for individual testing up to 1 year later, their judgments still showed the influence of their group's earlier responses
Due to informational social influence: the reliance on other people's comments and actions as an indication of what's likely to be correct, proper, or effec- tive Less we know about something → more likely to be victim to this
Motivating coordinated action
Emotions coordinate interactions Ex: Touch Study → toucher and touchee sat at table w black curtain between them, preventing communication other than touch Toucher attempted to convey emotions by touch for 1 second on forearm Touchee had to select which emotion had been communicated Ps could reliably communicate love, sympathy, gratitude with contact Study → teachers touched some students in friendly fashion and didn't touch others Students who were touched = more likly to go to blackboard and solve difficult problem Touch also helps sports teams perform better Touchers → high fives, fist bumps, head slaps, bear huds Touching more early in season = played better later on
Darwin and emotional expression
Emotions derive from actions that wee useful during evolutionary pass Ex: anger → (furrowed brow, showing teeth) displays threat and attack behaviour needed in adversial encounters
Dispositions: fixed of flexible
Everyone is inclined to put emphasis on situational vs personal determinant of behaviour, everyone is inclined to think both ways Big Five personality dimensions Extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience Play a big role in judging personalities for asians and westerners Although koreans and americans rated importance of personality the same → koreans reported situations to be more important Study → asked Ps questions about beliefs regarding how fixd/ flexible personality is Koreans → saw personalities as changeable Behaviour = influenced by external factors Characteristic of interdependent people than independent Americans → value education more than asians do, but americans spend less time studying than asians do Belief in the value of effort to overcome inadequacy = rooted in china, korea and japan cultures Conclusion is that making attributions/ forming impressions are handled in many ways the same in different cultures and in other ways quite differently Interdependent people → live interconnected social world more attuned to environment Inclined to see context more Asians, like westerners can be victims of FAE But are more attuned to situational contexts Making them more likely to correct judgments when context is highlighted
Emotional expression: univeral vs culturally specific
Evolutionary approach → enable adaptive reactions to survival threats Univerasal Cultural approach → emotions influencd by roles, values, institutions and socialization practices that vary across cultures
Effort justification Study → discussion group about sex
Females read aloud a list of words to the male experimenter Those assigned to a mild initiation condition read aloud mildly embarrassing words (prostitute, petting, virgin) Severe initiation group --. Obscene words and passages from the book of a sexual intercourse All passed screening During discussion group → heard a discussion about sex life of invertebrates Boring discussion Produced dissonance for those who has undergone severe initiation to join the group "I suffered to get into this group" is inconsistent with the realization that "this group is worthless and boring" To reduce dissonance → convince themselves that the group and the discussion were not boring At end → people in severe condition rated it more favorable than those in the other two conditions
Priming culture Most people have spent a lot of time in both independent/ vs interdependent societes
HK people can think in either interdependent vs independent ways when presented with images that suggest one culture of the other Fish study → fish swimming in front of a group of fish, joining group, departing from group, etc Had Ps explain why fish was behaving this way Ps who saw American pictures before hand→ focused on motivations of individual fish vs context than those who saw chinese pictures Seeing neutral pictures gave explanations that were in between those of the other two groups Due to fact that NA of asian descent think of themselves as partly asian/ partly western Study → Asian americans Ps askd to recall an experience that made their identity as american apparent to them or an experience that made their asian identity salient Showed students a group of highly abstract cartoon vignettes suggesting physical movmenets Ex: object falling to the bottom of container of liquid Had them rate how much they thought the object's movement was due to dispositional factors Ex: shape, weight vs contextual factors (gravity, friction) Ps with american identity primes → rates causes internal to the objects as being more important vs participants who had their identity primed Also possible to prime religious concepts and affect degree to which attributions are dispositional Research → protestants are more concerned than catholics with state of souls and are more likely to make internal dispositional attributions for behaviour When Protestants are primed to think about the soul, this increased their internal attributed still further Same manipulation has no effect on the attributions of catholics
Mismatch between general attitudes and specific targets Studies show that consistency between attitudes and behaviour is higher when both are at the same level of specificity
Highly specific attitudes do a better job of predicting specific behaviours General attitudes typically do a better job of predicting how a person behaves in general across a number of different instances (ex: of environmentalism, political activism, xenophobia, etc) Ex: Lapiere's study → involved one chinese couple with a specific demeanor and dressed in a specific fashion - Result would have been different if LaPere has asked merchants whether they would serve well dressed Chinese could who seems pleasant and agreeable -- If you want to predict specific type of behaviour accurately, you have to measure people's attitudes toward that specific type of behaviour What most people usually think of as attitudes about different classes of people are often expressions of attitudes about a prototype of a given category - So if we encounter a person who doesn't fit that prototype then our behaviour won't reflect our stated attitude
Reasons for mimicry - ideomotor action - preparing for interaction
Ideomotor action: thinking about behaviour = makes behaviour more likely Ex: thinking about eating ice cream = more likely to eat it brain regions responsible for perception over- lap with those responsible for action. when we see others behave in a particular way, the idea of that behavior is brought to mind (consciously or otherwise) and makes us more likely to behave that way ourselves. Preparation for interactions with others Establishing some rapport Ex: thinking about older people → makes us act older (taking longer to walk, etc) Adopting behaviours of members of groups Only tru for those w positive attitudes towards groups . Individuals with positive attitudes toward older adults tended to walk more slowly when the category "elderly" was primed, but those with negative attitudes toward older adults tended to walk faster Studies have found that people tend to like those who mimic them more than those who do not, even when they're unaware of being mimicked people who have been mimicked tend to engage in more prosocial behav- ior immediately afterward, such as donating money to a good cause, or leav- ing a larger tip for the person who mimicked them
Effort justification
If you pay a high price for something (time/money/effort) and turns out disappointing → you will experience dissonance As a result → effort justification: you are more likely to devote more mental energy to justifying what you've done
Happiness has 2 measurable components
Life satisfaction - How well u think life is going Emotional well being - Tendency to experience more positive emotions than negative emotions at any moment in time
Measuring attitudes
Mostly determined through self report measures, such as survey questions - Likert scale: lists of set of possible answers with anchors on each extreme Ex: 1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree - Measuring accessibility of the attitude → how readily it comes to mind → Response latency: time it takes a person to respond to an attitude question -- Someone who takes less time answering a topic is someone who usually has a stronger attitude on this topic than someone who takes a long time -- Ex: study → US pres election measured how long it took Ps to say how good a president each of the opposing candidates would make --- Response time is a strong predictor of who they believed won the first debate and which candidate they voted for 6 months later - centrality : measuring variety of attitudes within domain and calculate how strongly each one is linked to the others -- Ex: ask opinion about abortion, stem cell research, fracking, same sex marriage, etc --- If your point of view in one topic is important to you, it should highly correlated with attitudes about certain issues --- Ex: abortion is important to you → strongly correlated with attitudes about stem cell research and sex education, same sex marriage and taxation - Implicit attitude measures: an indirect measure of attitudes that does not involve a self report implicit measured allow researchers to tap into non-conscious attitudes —> people's immediate evaluative reactions they might not be aware of researchers might also use non verbal measuring (ex: smiling behaviour or degree of physical closeness as hints or signals of positive attitudes of others) physiological indicators (ex: heart rate, sweaty palms due to fear) can capture people's attitudes
Dissonance: state that is aroused when people experience inconsistency between two cognitions
Motivates us to restore the consistency Makes us want to change the cognition to make it more consistent with the behaviour
Cognitive dissonance theory
One of most influentiral theories in SP People are troubled by inconsistency among thoughts/ sentiments and actions and will expend psychological energy to restore consistency
Pursuing happiness What influences our happiness?
Relationships matter Ppl reported being alone the day before survey → reported lower life satisfaction and lower emotional well being Relationships of all kinds lift people's spirits Religious engagement = greater happiness due to sense of community and trust Older people reported greater life satisfaction than younger people and less negative emotion/stress As age increases, so does capacity for happiness As people age → circle of friends shrink limiting relationships to important ones only People who dont matter that much have no place in your lives Older people = better at construing events in ways that make them happy Better able than younger people to let things go and not be affected by hassles Money → little money = associated with more unhappiness More likely to suffer unemployment, poor nutrition, diseases, civil strife Study → US residents poorest people = least happy Poorer participants were also twice as likely as better off participants to feel sadness, worry when alone, or divorced or suffering from health issues Health probles, divored, etc are more stressful with little money Impact of money on happiness is different for those who are financially well off Study → life satisfaction tended to increase the richer they were but only up to an income of 75000$ Beyond that → money did not buy them anything in terms of life satisfaction Could be due to longer commutes, less time with friends/ family, reduced chances for relazation that comes w making more money Money buys more experiences of pleasure vs overall satisfaction → benefits of making more money buys more beyong 75000$
Culture and FAE
STUDY → people assume speech/ essay by another person represents that person's own opinion despite presence of situational demands FAE is more common for westerners than easterners Westerners pay little attention to situational factors Asians pay attention to situations In a diff variation of the study → Ps had to write an essay favoring a position specified by experimenter before seeing someone else write a similar essay Koreans recognized how powerful situation ws and mae no assumption about attitudes of a target individual they observed next Americans learned nothing from the experiences of being pressured to write the did Koreans also more likely to recognize implications of consensus information If many people behave in a particular way in a given situation, they recognize that the situation is probably the main determinant of behaviour Asians less likely ot make initial dispositional inference in circumstances where such inferences are made by the great majority of westerners Study → Ps presented with info about a person that could be expected to lead them to make an inference about the person's personality Ex: she checked twice to see if the gas was on in the stove before she left → make Ps believe she was careful When later shown picture of person alond the word reckless → American Ps showed pattern of brain activity associated with surprised Koreans did not Asians are more likely to notice situational cues that might correct dispositional inference Less likely to also make dispositional inference in the first place Differences in American subcultures Puerto ricans → use fewer traits when describing themselves than anglo-american children Less likely to use traits to describe other people's behaviour Mexican americans/mexicans less likely than Angloamericans to make trait inferences
Errors and biases in attribution The self-serving attributional bias
Self-serving attributional bias: people attribute failure / bad events to external circumstances But attribute success to themselves Internal attributions for success → hard work paid off, i'm smart External attributions for failure → questions were ambiguous, etc Athletes → attributions to one's own team much more common for victories vs defeats People are prone to this because it makes them feel good about themselves Also a motivational bias, driven to maintain self esteem BUT even a person unaffected by motivations to feel good might make the same pattern of attributions and justified in doing so Self-serving pattern could be bc success is much more tightly connected than failure to our intentions and effort When we try to succeed at something → success is partly due at least to our efforts and warrants some credit Failure → occurs despite our efforts, and requires looking elsewhere Study → tutoring → assessed after one round then the second one For half participants → student's performance remains poor at the 2nd assessment For half → shows improvement Teachers tend to take credit for improvement but blame students for poor performance International attributions for success and external for failure Seems like teachers are trying to feel good about themselvs and are making less than rational attributions to do so Suppose researchers programmed a computer with no feelings and have no need to feel good about itseld with software What attributions would it make if programmers gave the computers these inputs? Student did poorly initially Teacher redoubled his or her effort or changed teaching strategy Student did well or poorly in the second session The fun
Social class and attribution
Social class: amount of wealth, education and occupational prestige individuals and families enjoy Higher SES = greater welath, education, prestige SES affect causal explanations Lower class/ working class → like interdependent cultures in attributional tendencies Study → ps had to make attribution s for positive life events (ex: getting into grad program) and negative life experiences (suffering with a health problem) Lower / working class people more likely to invoke situational causes, those with higher SES tended to invoke dispositional causes When shows person w particual facial experession surrounded by people with same or difference expressions Lower Ses = more likely to be swayed by emotions of faces in context Lower SES = less likle yto rate smiling target as happy when people in background were frowning Lower SES (like asians) = live in worlds where attntion to other people is more necessary for effective functioning than for higher SES
Perceptual salience and causal attributions
What influences whether a potential cause springs to mind or how readily it springs to mind? How much the cause stands out perceptually or how salient it is Features of an environment that more readily capture our attention = more likely to be seen as potential causes of an observed effect People are notiveable / interesting → they catch our attention more than the environment Study → participants watch a videotape of a conversation between two people Some participants saw one that showed only one of the individuals Some saw version with both people Those who could only see one person → assigned more responsibility vs those who saw both people well
Attribution and cognition
What we should be doing is: Behaviour + context → interpretation of significance or meaning of behaviour → causal explanation But instead, we do this: Behaviour → identification of behaviour → automatic characterization of person → effortful adjustment for context → causal explanation We only look to the situation later, but by then a dispositional inference has been made and revising it is too effortful and insuffieicient We rapidly characterize people based on behaviour Ex: someone acting compassionately = compassionate Situation is only taken into account late We are tired/ unmotivated / distracted → commit FAE Study → watched a videotape with a woman who appeared anxious Was responding to anxiety inducing questions )about sexual fantasies/ failures) But told Ps that she was responding to topics such as world travel, books, etc Hypothesis: Ps told that she was discussing anxiety inducing topics → would take into account situation P's told otherwise → assume she's just an anxious person Another twist → gave two groups of Ps same info as first two but had groups memorize list of words while watching the videotape Made them less able to carry out the deliberative stage of the attribution process in which they would adjust their initial characterization of the person to account for situation When busy memorizing words → didn't have cognitive resources to adjust initial impressions, rated woman as being an anxious person (despite discussing anxious topis) Conclusion: takes cognitie resources to carry out corrective phase of attributional analysis
Factors of AOE
a) Assumptions about what needs explaining can vary for actors and observers Ex: when asked "why did you choose this college" person might interpret this as "considering who you are, why did you choose this college?" → person is taken as a given CULTURE AND CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION b) perceptual salience of the actor and surrounding situation is different for actor vs observer Actor is oriented outward, toward situational opportunities and constraints Observers in contrast are typically focused on the actor and the actor's behaviour Actors attribute behaviour to situation while observers attribute same behaviour to actor c) Actors and observers differ in amount/ kind of info they hav about actor and their behaviour Actors know what intentions influenced them to behave in a certain way Observers can only guess at those intentions Ex: observer sees someone slam dor → conclude that the person is an angry person Actor in contrast know that this is an unprecented outburst
Biases in predicting future happpiness
a) Immune neglect: tendency to underestimate capacity to be resilient in responding to challenges Leads to overestimation of how much problems will reduce personal well being Psychological immune system allows us to overcome stress and trauma We are very capable of overcoming problems but we fail to consider these → makes us bad at predicting future happiness b) Focalism: focus too much on most immediate searing events (ex: breakups) We forget to consider that after these depressing events, many other events will also influence our happiness
An attitude :
an evaluation of an object along a positive negative dimension
Causes of FAE Motivational influence
and belief in a just world Dispositional inferences can be comforting Twists and turns of life can be unsettling We can attribute people's behaviours or life experiences to something about them rather than fate or chance We can reassure ourselves that nothing bad will happen to us if we are the right kind of person We tend to attribute behaviour and outcomes to dispositions in part because there is a motive to do so Just world hypothesis: belief that people get what they deserve in life Ex: victimrs of rape are viewed as responsible for their fate → rooted in belief that this is due to flaw or past actions, if not in this life then in past lice Ex: children who have been sexually abused thought to have been sex offenders in past life Research in this area shows that people tend to derogate the victim → rate unfavorable the character of those who suffer unfortunate experiences that are beyond personal control
Testing for arousal No arousal = no attitude change (CDT) Self perception theory =no arousal involved people coolly and rationally infer what their attitudes must be in light of their behavior and the context in which it occurred
as dissonance theory predicts, acting at variance with our true beliefs does indeed generate arousal If arousal is generated in dissonance experiments, it should be possible to influence the impact of that arousal—that is, whether it will lead to attitude change or not—by altering how it is interpreted Study → Ps took drug (placebo) and told it would have no effect, it would make them tense or relaxed Ps wrote essay arguing inflammatory speakers barred from college Free choice vs no choice Ps who thought drug would have no effect → dissonance and greater attitude change in favor of banning speakers for free choice Largest dissonance effect → for participants told drug would make them relaxed Ps freely chose to write esssay would experience arousal → internal state inconsistent with experimenter's earlier statement that the drug would make them feel relaxed
attitudes can conflict with other powerful determinants of behaviour
attitudes compete with other determinants of behaviour one potent determinant of a person's actions that can weaken the relationship between attitudes and behaviour is that person's understanding of the prevailing norms of appropriate behaviour - ex: lapiere's study —> restaurants might have wanted to turn away chinese people but didn't do it bc it would cause a scene attitudes can be inconsistent Russel Crowe —> people have a hard time pinning down their attitude towards him bc they admire his skill but just don't like him highlights two important facts about attitudes attitudes may conflict with each other different component of an attitude may not always align can be a rift between affective component (what we feel about RC) and cognitive (what we think about him) when affective and cognitive components are inconsistent —> attitude may not predict behaviour cognitive component determines attitude we express Affective determines behaviour (or vv) ex: lapierre —> thought bad for business to serve chinese people but feelings aroused by a living, breathing chinese couple may have made it hard to deny service
Emotion based approaches 1. Positive mood 2. Negative mood
better to request a favor when the person's in a good mood positive mood tends to increase compliance for two main reasons our mood colors how we interpret events likely to view requests for favors as less intrusive and less threatening when we're in a good mood good mood increases compliance involves mood maintenance feels good to feel good ertain bad moods increase compliance Ex: gf flirts with someone, you call her out, you can ask her for something Guilt → motivated to do whatever to get rid of feeling In one study, watching an adorable lab rat get "accidentally" jolted with an intense shock led participants to donate more money to a charitable cause than those who hadn't seen the unfortunate event Negative state relief hypothesis: taking an action to benefit someone else (esp for a good cause) to make oneself feel better A full stomach counts, so hit your dad up for the car keys after dinner, not before.
causes of FAE
cognition salience motivation culture (lecture
COMPLIANCE Reason based approaches Norm of reciprocity:
expected to benefit those who benefit us Study → ps given soda by confederate bought twice as many raffle tickets as those who were not
Attribution and covariation Assessing causality everyday → try to identify cause that seems to always be present when the effect occurs and what's absent when it doesn't occur Covariation principle:
idea that behaviour should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the observed behaviour
Social intuitionist model of moral judgment:
idea that moral judgments are product of fast, emotional intuitions, like gut feeling that incest is wrong, which influence how we feel about the issue
Explanatory style and attribution Explanatory style: habitual way of explaining events, assessed in 3 dimensions:
internal/ external stable/ unstable global/ specific
Asch's conformity experiment Eight par- ticipants were gathered together to perform a simple perceptual task: determin- ing which of three lines was the same length as a target line there was less conformity in his study than in Sherif's, but the rate of caving in to the group was still surprisingly high. Three-quarters of the participants conformed to the erroneous majority at least once. Overall, par- ticipants conformed on a third of the critical trials. informational social influence doesn't seem to be the main source of conformity
normative social influence: the desire to avoid being criticized, disapproved of, or shunned
Causal attribution:
process people use to explain behaviour Affects thoughts, feelings and future behaviour
Terror management theory
processes peoply use to deal with anxiety associate with knowledge of death to get on w their life Maintain it's only physical body that will come to end Many people believe living exists after death Immortality thru parental role Symbolic immortality → connected to culture, worldview, values after death But must be in good standing with instituion / religion Must maintain high self esteem for morality Making death salieft → makes people want to uphold values of institutions they identify with and that will live on after them Ex: more commitment to ingroups, more hostile to outgroups, more eager to punish those who break laws, more reluctant to use cultural artifacts for utilatrian purposes Influence on Politics Because Bush, as the incumbent president, was the head of the country and was seen by many as the leader of the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, the investigators predicted that survey respondents would be more favorable to Bush and less favorable to Kerry after a mortality salience manipulation
reason based approached Reciprocal concessions (door in the face) technique Thats not all technique Foot in the door technique
reciprocal concessions technique: first favor is so large and unreasonable that the target inevitably refuses, slam- ming the door in the face of that request but then keeping it open just a crack for the subsequent, smaller request. Thats not all technique: a compliance approach involved adding something to original offer, creates pressure to reciprocate Foot in the door technique : compliance approach involved initial small requrest which everyone complies to, followed by larger request involving real behaviour of interest
Compliance:
respond- ing favorably to an explicit request by another person
Conformity:
s changing one's behavior or beliefs in response to some real (or imagined) pressure from others.
introspecting about the reasons four our attitudes do you know why you like your crush? sometimes we don't
study -> asked students about a person they were dating - in one group, Ps gave overall evaluation of relationship - in another, listed reasons they felt the way they did and gave an overall relationship evaluation - contacted them 9 months later and asked about status —> in first group, much more accurate predictors of that current relationship status than the attitudes of participants in the first group - Thinking about why we like someone → can mislead us in terms of our true, full attitude toward that person and weaken link between attitude we report after generating reasons and our subsequent behaviour - Applies to other things, not just attitudes about romantic partners -- Introspection may lead us to focus on the easiest to identify reasons for liking / disliking someone -- Research → when people think carefully about reasons they prefer one product over another (instead of just stating a preference), they are more likely to regret their choice later --- Choices are less likely to correspond to the true value of the product determined by experts
predicting behaviour from attitudes
study —> went around US for 2 years, prejudice/ discrimination against Chinese were common at the time and LaPiere and his companions were denied service by only one of the 250 places they visited wrote to all the places and asked whether their policy was to serve Orientals 90% ~ said they would not —> went against his experiences earlier anti-chinese prejudice was real ⁃ suggests that attitudes don't predict behaviour well surprising/ unsettling —> treated attitudes as determinants of people'
informational social influence:
the reliance on other people's comments and actions as an indication of what's likely to be correct, proper, or effec- tive Less we know about something → more likely to be victim to this
The fundamental attribution error
the tendency to see people's behaviour as a reflection of the kind of people they are rather than as a result of the situation they find themselves in[]\p]\\\n
obedience:
when the power relationship is unequal and the more powerful person, the authority figure, issues a demand rather than a request, to which the less powerful person submits.
