Social Psych Exam #3

12/8/22

In psychology, empathy generally refers to: Feeling the emotions that someone else feels (affective) Imagining how someone else thinks or feels (cognitive) Imagining how you would think or feel in someone else's situation () If you don't like someone who's suffering, imagining how that person feels may lead you to feel pleasure, not distress (that's what they deserve). When people lack empathy for each other (Correlational research): Tend to be more prejudiced (Racist, sexist, etc.) and more aggressive (bullying). Lack of empathy among parents is related to child abuse. A lack of empathy is correlated with high scores on the Likelihood to Sexually Harass Scale (Americans and Japanese). Male child molesters tend to have less empathy than do other men. Benefits of empathy: Empathy training is effective in reducing children's aggression and prejudice. Empathic accuracy and empathic effort (more strongly) are both positively related to marital satisfaction. Perspective is a magic bullet we can input in this situation (we can benefit from empathy). People high in empathy are more likely to help in bystander emergency situations. Person walked on crutches and trips. Of 30 people who intervened and 30 who didn't, the people who helped had higher empathy scores. People high in empathy are more likely to intervene in response to Facebook posts that involve antigay bullying. If you're extremely empathic, you might start to feel distress. Another study says that there's effort required in empathy. When you imagine how a person is feeling, people's bodies mirror how they are feeling. Hand experiment thing: When you get more empathy, the sound goes up. Development of empathy: A cross-cultural study of more than 100,000 people ranked the U.S. as 7th out of 63 countries in empathy. Empathic concern of American college students has been declining over time. A meta-analysis of 17,000 college students found that the empathy component of emotional intelligence declined significantly between 2003 and 2018. Empathy increases as people age. Empathy is partially genetic (about ⅓ of the variability of it). Empathy is stable and measurable in children under age 2. Researchers would enact things in front of toddlers (pretend to be hurt by a suitcase falling on hand). Empathy is not just genetic, but also related to parenting styles. Those with moms who took active steps to curb aggression were more empathetic. Also correlated with the extent fathers were involved. A meta-analysis found that meditation tends to increase empathy as well. Adolescents show higher levels of empathy-related brain activation and connectivity after 6 hours playing an empathy-building video game. The perspective-taking component of empathy can be learned, and its adoption leads to immediate benefits, such as the elimination of actor-observer biases in attribution. Told 36 randomly assigned students they would watch some social thing or be in a study on empathy. In both conditions, students read the same brief story about someone performing a good deed. Afterward, their job was to explain why the hero behaved as they did. In the control condition, students are told to read the story and picture the events clearly. In the empathy condition, students are told to read the story and try to empathize with the young man. Subjects in the control condition gave more dispositional attribution. Subjects in the empathy condition gave more situational than dispositional attributions.

Chapter 14 (clinic, part 1)

In the contest between heart and head, most psychological clinicians vote with their hearts. They listen to the whispers from their experience, a still, small voice that clues them. They prefer not to let cold calculations decide the futures of warm human beings. Someone observes a pattern of atypical or unwanted thinking and acting. A powerful group sees the desirability or profitability of diagnosing and treating this problem and thus gives it a name. News about this "disease" spreads, and people begin seeing it in themselves or family members. And thus is born body dysmorphic disorder (for those preoccupied with an appearance defect), oppositional defiant disorder (for toddlers throwing tantrums), hypoactive sexual desire disorder (for those not wanting sex often enough), or orgasmic disorder (for those having orgasms too seldom or too soon). As social phenomena, clinical judgments are vulnerable to illusory correlations, overconfidence bred by hindsight, and self-confirming diagnoses. To discover when such a perception is an illusory correlation, psychological science offers a simple method: Have one clinician administer and interpret the test. Have another clinician assess the same person's traits or symptoms. Repeat this process with many people. Are test outcomes in fact correlated with reported symptoms? Illusory thinking also occurs among political analysts, historians, sportscasters, personnel directors, stockbrokers, and many other professionals, including research psychologists. In hindsight, we can see the suicidal signs and the pleas for help. One experiment gave participants a description of a depressed person. Some participants were told that the person took their own life; other participants were not told this. mental health clinicians sometimes perceive illusory correlations and that hindsight explanations can err. A third possible problem with clinical judgment is that patients may supply information that fulfills clinicians' expectations. confirmation bias can lead to misdiagnoses and the behaviors of people undergoing psychotherapy come to fit their therapists' theories. In a meta-analysis of 36 studies of clinicians' judgments, there was only a weak correlation between the confidence they had in their judgments and the accuracy of their judgments. psychologists can offer useful predictions based on research studies examining specific past behaviorsProfessional clinicians are human; they are "vulnerable to insidious errors and biases." The depressed students were quite accurate in estimating their degree of control. It was the nondepressed people whose judgments were distorted; they exaggerated their control. This surprising phenomenon of depressive realism, nicknamed the "sadder-but-wiser effect," shows up in various judgments of one's control or skill. In more than 100 studies of 15,000 participants, depressed people have been more likely than nondepressed people to exhibit a negative explanatory style this explanatory style attributes failure and setbacks to causes that are stable ("It's going to last forever"), global ("It's going to affect everything I do"), and internal ("It's all my fault"). Our moods color our thinking. When we feel happy, we think happy. We see and recall a good world. But let our mood turn gloomy, and our thoughts switch to a different track. Thus, currently depressed people recall their parents as having been rejecting and punitive. But formerly depressed people recall their parents in the same positive terms that never-depressed people do. A depressed mood also affects behavior. When depressed, we tend to be withdrawn, glum, and quick to complain. Depression is natural when experiencing severe stress — losing a job, getting divorced or rejected, or suffering any experience that disrupts our sense of who we are and why we are worthy human beings. Depression-prone people respond to bad events with intense rumination and self-blame. when stress-induced rumination is filtered through a negative explanatory style, the frequent outcome is depression. When trouble strikes, men tend to act, women tend to think — and often to "overthink," she observed. And that helps explain why, beginning in adolescence, women worldwide have, compared with men, a nearly doubled risk of depression. studies of children, teenagers, and adults confirm that pessimistic people more often become depressed when bad things happen. The negative self-image, attributions, and expectations of a depressed person are, they reported, an essential link in a vicious circle that is triggered by negative experience — perhaps academic or vocational failure, family conflict, or social rejection Loneliness is a painful awareness that our social relationships are less numerous or meaningful than we desire. Yet in modern cultures, close social relationships are less numerous and in-person social interaction less frequent. Teens and young adults in the late 2010s spent less time interacting with friends in person than those in the 1980s. Like depression, loneliness is also genetically influenced (Spithoven et al., 2019). For example, identical twins are much more likely than fraternal twins to share moderate to extreme loneliness. Loneliness also increases the risk of health problems. Loneliness affects stress hormones, immune activity, and inflammation. Loneliness, therefore, puts people at increased risk not only for depression and suicide but also high blood pressure, heart disease, cognitive decline, cancer, and sleep impairment. When recalling an experience of exclusion, people estimate a lower room temperature than when thinking of being included. After being excluded in a little ball game, people show a heightened preference for warm foods and drinks. chronically lonely people seem caught in a vicious cycle of self-defeating social thinking and social behaviors. They have some of the negative explanatory style of the depressed. we feel social anxiety when we are motivated to impress others but have self-doubts. This simple principle helps explain a variety of research findings, each of which may ring true in your experience. Shy, anxious people overpersonalize situations, a tendency that breeds anxious concern and, in extreme cases, paranoia. They are especially prone to the spotlight effect; they overestimate the extent to which other people are watching and evaluating them. To reduce social anxiety, some people turn to alcohol. Alcohol lowers anxiety and reduces self-consciousness. The interdisciplinary field of behavioral medicine studies these behavioral contributions to illness. Psychology's contribution to this interdisciplinary science is its subfield, health psychology. Heart disease has been linked with a competitive, impatient, and — the aspect that matters most — anger-prone personality. Depression also increases the risk of various ailments. Depressed people are more vulnerable to heart disease, even after controlling for differences in smoking and other disease-related factors. The clearest indication of the effects of hopelessness comes from experiments that subject animals to mild but uncontrollable electric shocks, loud noises, or crowding. Such experiences do not cause diseases such as cancer, but they do lower the body's resistance. If uncontrollable stress affects health, depresses immune functioning, increases inflammation, and generates a passive, hopeless resignation, then will people who exhibit such pessimism be more vulnerable to illness? Indeed, a pessimistic style of explaining bad events.

Chapter 13 (Conflict, part 1)

Many problems that threaten our future — nuclear arms, climate change, overpopulation, low stocks of ocean fish — arise as various parties pursue their self-interests, often (ironically) to their collective detriment. Let's consider two such games, both examples of a social trap (a situation when conflicting parties are caught in mutually destructive behavior): the prisoner's dilemma and the tragedy of the commons. If Prisoner A confesses and Prisoner B doesn't, the DA will grant immunity to A and will use A's confession to convict B of a maximum offense (and vice versa if B confesses and A doesn't). If both confess, each will receive a moderate sentence. If neither prisoner confesses, each will be convicted of a lesser crime and receive a light sentence. Many people say they would confess, even though mutual nonconfession elicits lighter sentences than mutual confession. Perhaps this is because (as shown in the Figure 1 matrix) no matter what the other prisoner decides, each is better off confessing than being convicted individually. A metaphor for the insidious nature of social dilemmas is what ecologist Garrett Hardin (1968) called the tragedy of the commons. He derived the name from the centrally located grassy pasture in old English towns. Imagine 100 farmers surrounding a commons capable of sustaining 100 cows. When each grazes one cow, the common feeding ground is optimally used. But then a farmer reasons, "If I put a second cow in the pasture, I'll double my output, minus the mere 1% overgrazing" and adds a second cow. So does each of the other farmers. The inevitable result? The tragedy of the commons: a mud field and famished cows In today's world, the "commons" can be air, water, fish, or any shared and limited resource. The prisoner's dilemma and the tragedy of the commons games have several similar features. First, both games tempt people to explain their own behavior as due to external forces ("I had to protect myself against exploitation by my opponent") and to explain their partners' behavior as due to internal forces ("she was greedy," "he was untrustworthy") (FAE). Second, motives often change. At first, people are eager to make some easy money, then to minimize their losses, and finally to save face and avoid defeat. Third, most real-life conflicts, like the prisoner's dilemma and the tragedy of the commons, are non-zero-sum games. The two sides' profits and losses need not add up to zero. Both can win; both can lose. Each game pits the immediate interests of individuals against the well-being of the group. regulation has costs: costs of administering and enforcing the regulations, costs of diminished personal freedom. This was evident during the pandemic when many restaurants and bars went out of business. There is another way to resolve social dilemmas: Make the group small. In a small commons, each person feels more responsible and effective. In small groups, people also feel more identified with a group's success. To resolve a social dilemma, people must communicate. In the laboratory as in real life, group communication sometimes degenerates into threats and name-calling. In the laboratory, cooperation rises when experimenters change the payoff matrix to reward cooperation and punish exploitation (Balliet et al., 2011). Changing payoffs also helps resolve actual dilemmas. just knowing the dire consequences of noncooperation has little effect. Still, most people do adhere to norms of social responsibility, reciprocity, equity, and keeping one's commitments. Another way to increase altruism is by defining situations in ways that invoke cooperative norms. Communication can also activate altruistic norms. The win-lose competition had produced intense conflict, negative images of the outgroup, and strong ingroup cohesiveness and pride. Group polarization no doubt exacerbated the conflict. All this occurred without any cultural, physical, or economic differences between the two groups and with boys who were their communities' "cream of the crop." In collectivistic cultures, such as China, India, and rural Africa, justice is defined as equality or need fulfillment: everyone getting the same share or everyone getting the share they need. conflict is a perceived incompatibility of actions or goals. people in conflict form distorted images of one another. To a striking degree, the misperceptions of those in conflict are mutual. People in conflict attribute similar virtues to themselves and vices to the other. Negative mirror-image perceptions have been an obstacle to peace in many places (terrorism). Opposing sides in a conflict tend to exaggerate their differences. On issues related to abortion and politics, partisans perceive exaggerated differences from their adversaries — who actually agree with them more often than they would guess. When tension rises — as happens during an international crisis — rational thinking becomes more difficult. Misperceptions during conflict provide a chilling reminder that people need not be insane or abnormally malicious to form distorted images of their antagonists.

11/15/22 Lecture

The number one thing for attraction is proximity. In a study about this, they looked at a housing project on campus for married students with small houses arranged around a courtyard. The two major factors affecting friendships which developed were sheer distance between houses and the direction in which a house faced. Ten houses faced the street, which had a considerable effect on the lives of the people who lived there (by accident). Most popular residents in an apartment complex were those near the stairwell or mailbox. In another study, 54 first-year psychology students were randomly assigned to sit in a certain seat and row during an introductory section. Had to rate the degree of friendship of other students. Students who are closer friends with the people in their row was enough to shape friendship choices for a whole year. Similarity is another big one. People tend to be more attracted to others who are similar to them in age, education, etc. Opposites don't attract. Physical attractiveness is a factor The physical attractiveness of the date correlates more strongly with the desire to date that person than any other attribute that's studied. Men show more concern about attractiveness than women, women concern more about status. People judged as attractive are more intelligent, kind, sensitive, etc. People end up choosing partners who are about as attractive as they are (except if they were friends for a while first). Women tend to overestimate the thinness that men prefer, men overestimate the muscularity that women prefer. Physical arousal is a factor In a study, the interviewer was described as attractive and approached a dozen men, 18-35 who are not with a woman and asked the man if they wanted to fill out a questionnaire about scenic attractions. Half were crossing a bridge, another half was crossing a suspension bridge that's pretty scary. On the scary bridge, their hearts are racing. Experimental conditions were physical arousal/nonarousal and male/female interviewer. Men who were approached by a female interviewer on the suspension bridge wrote stories with more sexual imagery and tried to contact the interviewer more often (researchers gave the female/male interviewers two different names). They did the study again but with confounding variables (re-ran study by watching people go across the bridge and, by random assignment, interview some right away and wait 10 minutes for some others). Conclusion: physical arousal can lead to feelings of romantic attraction, even when arousal is misattributed to their excitement. Interracial Relationships Interracial dating has increased quite a bit in the U.S. About ⅙ U.S. newlyweds were married to a person of a different race/ethnicity as of 2015. Supreme Court gave gays right to marry in 2015. Before that ruling, APA set up a group of experts to see if LGBT relationships are more likely to be dysfunctional, unstable, etc. Answer was no. When the Supreme Court made its decision on same-sex marriage, it cited 10 pages of briefing. Predictors of Relationship Success (be mindful of random assignment limiting us to drawing causal conclusions and avoid generalization) Members of couple have similar personalities (super powerful) Members match demographically (also powerful) If married, older age at time of marriage (those who take it slower are more likely to be happy/stay together, only obtains throughout mid-20s) Couple has sex frequently (related to happiness, both in hetero and homosexual relationships. Doubling amount of sex also makes happiness go down in a study tho, so each couple is different) People report greatest happiness with only one sexual partner and not cheating on their spouse. If married, believe household labor is divided fairly (men not doing their fair share around the house does extreme damage). Couple rarely fights (not true, the amount of conflict in a relationship does not do a very good job of predicting the level of marital happiness. The overall ratio of positive to negative interactions is 5:1). Conflict is not a bad thing, but it has to be approached constructively.

Chapter 15 (part 2)

To gain insight into juror comprehension, researchers had mock jurors recruited from courthouse jury pools view reenactments of actual trials. Almost always, jurors first constructed a story that made sense of all the evidence before making their decision on whether to convict. After they have come up with a plausible story to explain the evidence, jurors must grasp the judge's instructions about the verdicts they can render. For those instructions to be effective, jurors must first understand them. A judge may also remind jurors to avoid premature conclusions as they weigh each new item of presented evidence. A further step would be devising and testing clearer, more effective ways to present information — something several social psychologists have studied. Individuals react differently to specific case features. Racial prejudice becomes relevant in racially charged cases; gender seems linked with verdicts only in rape and domestic violence cases; belief in personal responsibility versus corporate responsibility relates to personal injury awards in suits against businesses. Despite the excitement — and ethical concern — about scientific jury selection, experiments reveal that attitudes and personal characteristics do not predict verdicts as strongly as some might believe. A close case can, however, be decided by who is selected for the jury. In criminal cases, people who would oppose the death penalty under any circumstances cannot serve on the jury of cases where the death penalty may be imposed. The rest, who believe the death penalty is sometimes justified, are more likely to favor the prosecution, to feel that courts coddle criminals, and to oppose protecting the constitutional rights of defendants. States with a death penalty do not have lower homicide rates. Homicide rates did not drop when states initiated the death penalty, and they have not risen when states have abolished it. When committing a crime of passion, people don't pause to calculate the consequences (which include life in prison without parole as another potent deterrent). Moreover, the death penalty is applied inconsistently (in Texas 40 times as often as in New York). The law prohibits observing actual jury deliberations, so researchers simulate the jury process by presenting cases to mock juries and having them deliberate as a real jury would. Jury deliberation shifts people's opinions in other intriguing ways as well. Especially when the evidence is not highly incriminating, jurors often become more lenient over the course of deliberations, becoming more likely to render a not guilty verdict (MacCoun & Kerr, 1988). Even if only a bare majority initially favors finding the defendant not guilty, that bare majority will usually prevail. The "innocent-unless-proved-guilty" and "proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt" rules put the burden of proof on those who favor conviction. Perhaps this makes evidence of the defendant's innocence more persuasive. Deliberation also tends to cancel out certain biases and draws jurors' attention away from their own prejudgments and to the evidence. Twelve heads can be, it seems, better than one. resisting group pressure is far more difficult for a minority of one than for a minority of two. Psychologically speaking, a jury split 10 to 2 is not equivalent to a jury split 5 to 1. Not surprisingly, then, 12-person juries are twice as likely as six-person juries to have hung verdicts. Defendants have a constitutional "right to a fair trial and an impartial jury whose composition is not biased toward the prosecution." The dissenting judges argued that this right is violated when jurors include only those who accept the death penalty. Their argument, they said, was based chiefly on "the essential unanimity of the results obtained by researchers using diverse subjects and varied methodologies." By varying just one or two factors at a time in this simulated reality, the experimenter pinpoints how changes in one or two aspects of a situation can affect us. And that is the essence of social psychology's experimental method.

11/17/22 Lecture

Tragedy #1: At a parking lot in New York, a woman named Kitty noticed a man and then started to run. The man stabbed her twice in the back. Kitty screamed and lights went on in the apartment, with one person yelling for the man to leave her alone. She does. Winston then killed her by stabbing her in the throat. 38 respectable citizens had witnessed the killing, but no one called the police. Tragedy #2: Deletha Word in Michigan. Welsh rips Word out of the car and tears off most of her clothing. Welsh ultimately fell into the Detroit river and drowned. There were dozens of bystanders who did nothing as she died. In a field study was a result known as the bystander effect (tendency for people to offer less help in the presence of other bystanders than when alone). In Study #1, experimenter A got in a car and sat next to a subway rider (subject of study). Experimenter B got up and asked whether the subway was going uptown or downtown. In some of the cases, B directed this question to A or the subway rider. In all situations, experimenter A jumped in and gave the wrong answer. When experimenter B directed his question to the subway rider, 93% of the time, the rider will tell the truth. When experimenter B directed his question to both, 50% told the truth. 27% of the time for when experimenter B directed his question to experimenter A. Intervention is less common when bystanders feel interventions can put them at risk. Same experiment repeated, but instead they were always directed as a pair, but experimenter A had different personas. Low threat: 82% Control group: 50% Social threat: 28% Physical threat: 16% Bystander intervention in emergency situations Students were brought in and seated in a waiting room, either alone or with two confederates. Smoke starts to pour in. ¾ of students reported smoke when alone. 1/10 reported smoke with two passive confederates. 38% of the three-students groups reported smoke. 25% chance that three independent students don't report smoke (.25 times .25 times .25). The likelihood that at least one person in a 3-person group will report smoke is 1.00-.02 = .98 (98%). However, the number that was actually found was 38%. Students sat in a waiting room and heard someone fall and injure herself. 70% offered help when alone. 40% of two-person groups offered help when bystanders were unacquainted with each other. 7% of students offered help when with a passive confederate. You should see help around 91% of the time (found 40% intervention). Then there was a cute little theft study Created a small crime wave at a New York store that sold beer, where robbers would take beer and said out loud "They'll never miss this!" Experimental conditions were: One customer was at the checkout counter. Two customers were at the checkout counter. 65% of lone customers informed the clerk of the theft. 56% of the pairs contained at least one customer who reported the theft. A meta-analysis showed clear support that passive bystanders in critical situations reduce helping responses. Personality factors on whether someone can intervene or not. People who score high in masculinity (regardless of gender) are less likely to help in emergency situations. Bystander apathy is not apathy. The decision to intervene is shaped by situational factors (strangers vs. friends), but the presence of other people lowers the chances of intervention. Tendency to be influenced by situational factors is widespread at least in North America and Europe.

Chapter 15 (court, part 1)

Vivid anecdotes and personal testimonies can be powerfully persuasive and often more compelling than abstract information. There's no better way to end an argument than to say, "I saw it with my own eyes!" That helps explain why, compared with criminal cases lacking eyewitness testimony, those that have eyewitness testimony are more likely to produce convictions. Later studies found that jurors were more skeptical of eyewitnesses whose memory of trivial details was poor — though these tended to be the most accurate witnesses. Jurors find confident witnesses the most believable (Cash & Lane, 2020; Wells et al., 2002, 2006). Unless their credibility is punctured by an obvious error, confident witnesses seem more credible (Jules & McQuiston, 2013; Tenney et al., 2007). And indeed, confident witnesses are somewhat more accurate, especially when making quick and confident identifications soon after the event. eyewitness confidence does predict accuracy when police follow certain procedures for the initial identification, such as including only one suspect per lineup and cautioning that the offender might not be in the lineup. Why can eyewitness identifications be inaccurate? Errors sneak into our perceptions and our memories because our minds are not video recorders. Many errors are understandable, as revealed by change blindness experiments in which people fail to detect that an innocent person entering a scene differs from another person exiting the scene. Other studies of this misinformation effect found that after suggestive questions, witnesses may believe that a red light was actually green or that a robber had a mustache when he didn't (Loftus, 1979a,b, 2001). It also is troubling to realize that false memories feel and look like real memories. They can be as persuasive as real memories — convincingly sincere, yet sincerely wrong. This is true of young children (who are especially susceptible to misinformation) as well as adults. Given such vivid stories, professional psychologists were often fooled. They could not reliably separate real from false memories — nor could the children. Told the incident never actually happened, some protested, "But it really did happen. I remember it!" Fortunately, researchers have found some ways to tell — or at least predict — whether someone is recalling a true or false memory. People who were recalling false memories were more likely to use filler words such as "um" and "you know" and were more likely to pause as they were talking. Misinformation-induced false memories provide one explanation for a peculiar phenomenon: false confessions. Many of these were compliant confessions: confessions made by people who were worn down and often sleep deprived ("If you will just tell us you accidentally rather than deliberately set the fire, you can go home"). Many people who falsely confess have a naive faith that their innocence will be obvious, are otherwise vulnerable, or may just want to get the interview over with (Scherr et al., 2020). Other confessions are internalized confessions false memories believed after people were fed misinformation. Retelling events commits people to their recollections, accurate or not. An accurate retelling helps them later resist misleading suggestions. If a suspect has a distinguishing feature — a tie, a tattoo, or an eye patch — false identifications are reduced by putting a similar feature on other lineup foils (Zarkadi et al., 2009) or by obscuring the feature (Colloff et al., 2016). Suspects with angry expressions are also identified as the culprit more often, particularly if the foils have neutral or happy expressions. Another way to reduce misidentifications is to remind witnesses that the person they saw may or may not be in the lineup. Mistakes also subside when witnesses make individual yes or no judgments in response to a sequence of people, as shown in dozens of studies in Europe, North America, Australia, and South Africa. If witnesses view several photos or people simultaneously, they are more likely to choose whoever most resembles the culprit. Mindful of all this research, New Jersey's attorney general mandated statewide blind testing (to avoid steering witnesses toward suspects) and sequential lineups (to minimize simply comparing people and choosing the person who most resembles the one they saw commit a crime). although juror knowledge is increasing, jurors still fail to fully appreciate some of these factors known to influence eyewitness testimony To educate jurors, experts now are asked (usually by defense attorneys) to testify about the fallibility of eyewitness testimony. Communicators are more persuasive if they seem credible and attractive. Likewise, in courtrooms, high-status defendants often receive more leniency. Actual cases vary in so many ways — in the type of crime, in the status, age, gender, and race of the defendant — that it's difficult to isolate the factors that influence jurors. Baby-faced adults (people with large, round eyes and small chins) are judged as more naive and are found guilty more often of crimes of mere negligence but less often of intentional criminal acts (Berry & Zebrowitz-McArthur, 1988). Likewise, Blacks who kill whites are more often sentenced to death than whites who kill Blacks (Butterfield, 2001). Compared with killing a Black person, killing a white person is also three times as likely to lead to a death sentence in the United States. There is good news: When the evidence is clear and individuals focus on it (as when they reread and debate the meaning of testimony), their biases based on similarity or race are minimal. Several experimenters report that jurors show concern for due process (Fleming et al., 1999) but find it difficult to ignore inadmissible evidence. Perhaps such statements create reactance in the jurors. Or perhaps they sensitize jurors to the inadmissible testimony, as when we warn you not to notice your nose as you finish this sentence. Jurors are less able to ignore an emotionally provocative description of a defendant's record ("hacking up a woman") compared to a less emotional, dry legal description ("assault with a deadly weapon"). In some cases, jurors who bring up inadmissible evidence will be chastised by other jury members for doing so, thus limiting its influence on jury verdicts. Better yet, judges could cut inadmissible testimony before the jurors hear it — by videotaping testimonies and removing the inadmissible parts.

Chapter 13 (Peace, part 1)

We have seen how negative expectations can bias judgments and create self-fulfilling prophecies. But we have also seen that proximity — and the accompanying interaction, anticipation of interaction, and mere exposure — boosts liking. On the one hand, many studies conducted during and shortly after desegregation found whites' attitudes toward Blacks improving markedly. Among department store clerks and customers, merchant marines, government workers, police officers, neighbors, and students, racial contact led to diminished prejudice. Such findings influenced the Supreme Court's 1954 decision to desegregate schools and helped fuel the 1960s civil rights movement. Researchers have gone into dozens of desegregated schools and observed with whom children of a given race eat, talk, and loiter. Race influences contact. Anxiety around interracial interaction may explain why desegregation doesn't always lead to better attitudes. When students of different races are paired as roommates or as partners in an experiment, they are less likely to engage in intimate self-disclosure than those in same-race relationships. Other studies show similar benefits for prolonged, personal contact — between Black and white prison inmates, between Black and white girls in an interracial summer camp, between Black and white university roommates, between Black, Coloured, and white South Africans, and between U.S.-born people and immigrants. Group salience (visibility) also helps bridge divides between people. If you always think of that friend solely as an individual, your positive feelings may not extend to other members of the friend's group. The social psychologists who advocated desegregation never claimed that all contact would improve attitudes. Just as positive contact boosts liking, negative contact increases disliking. Social psychologists had expected poor results when contacts were competitive, unsupported by authorities, and unequal. In conflicts at all levels, from couples to rival teams to nations, shared threats and common goals breed unity. Such friendliness is common among those who experience a shared threat.. When facing a well-defined external threat during wartime, we-feeling soars. The membership of civic organizations mushrooms. When two groups face a common threat, their differences often don't seem that large anymore. Closely related to the unifying power of an external threat is the unifying power of superordinate goals, goals that unite all in a group and require cooperative effort. peace arises when groups become interconnected and interdependent and develop an overarching social identity. Several research teams therefore wondered: Could interracial friendships be promoted by replacing competitive learning situations with cooperative ones? All members contributed to their team's score by doing well, sometimes by competing with other students, and sometimes by competing with their own previous scores. Everyone had a chance to succeed. cooperative, equal-status contacts exert a positive influence on boy campers, industrial executives, college students, and schoolchildren. Over time, identification with a new culture often grows. Former East and West Germans come to see themselves as "German." Debate continues over the ideals of multiculturalism (celebrating diversity) versus colorblind assimilation (meshing one's values and habits with the prevailing culture). Compared with minority students at universities, those in the majority racial group — whether white or Black — have been more likely to favor assimilation. In the space between multiculturalism and assimilation lies "diversity within unity," an omnicultural perspective advocated by cultural psychologist Fathali Moghaddam. When husband and wife, labor and management, or nation X and nation Y disagree, they can bargain with each other directly. They can ask a third party to mediate by making suggestions and facilitating their negotiations. Or they can arbitrate by submitting their disagreement to someone who will study the issues and impose a settlement. Tough bargaining may lower the other party's expectations, making the other side willing to settle for less (Yukl, 1974). But toughness can sometimes backfire. Many conflicts are not over a pie of fixed size but over a pie that shrinks if the conflict continues. A time delay is often a lose-lose scenario. A third-party mediator may offer suggestions that enable conflicting parties to make concessions and still save face. Mediators' first task is to help the parties rethink the conflict and gain information about the others' interests. Conflict researchers report that a key factor is trust (Balliet & Van Lange, 2013). If you believe the other person is well intentioned, you are more likely to divulge your needs and concerns. Lacking trust, you may fear that being open will give the other party information that might be used against you. When the two parties mistrust each other and communicate unproductively, a third-party mediator — a marriage counselor, a labor mediator, a diplomat — can help. Some conflicts are so intractable, the underlying interests so divergent, that a mutually satisfactory resolution is unattainable. the parties may turn to arbitration by having the mediator or another third party impose a settlement. Disputants usually prefer to settle their differences without arbitration so that they retain control over the outcome. In cases where differences seem large and irreconcilable, the prospect of arbitration may cause the disputants to freeze their positions, hoping to gain an advantage when the arbitrator chooses a compromise. GRIT is a label that suggests the determination it requires. GRIT aims to reverse the "conflict spiral" by triggering reciprocal de-escalation. To do so, it draws upon social-psychological concepts, such as the norm of reciprocity and the attribution of motives. GRIT requires one side to initiate a few small de-escalatory actions, after announcing a conciliatory intent. The initiator states their desire to reduce tension, declares each conciliatory act before making it, and invites the adversary to reciprocate. Such announcements create a framework that helps the adversary correctly interpret what otherwise might be seen as weak or tricky actions. They also bring public pressure to bear on the adversary to follow the reciprocity norm. Next, the initiator establishes credibility and genuineness by carrying out, exactly as announced, several verifiable conciliatory acts. This intensifies the pressure to reciprocate.

Chapter 16 (part 1)

When the climate changes, agriculture often suffers, leading to increased famine, epidemics, and overall misery. Poorer countries, with fewer resources, are especially vulnerable (Fischer. Higher temperatures and rainfall extremes, such as drought and flood, predicted increased domestic violence, ethnic aggression, land invasions, and civil conflicts. Despite knowing the statistical rarity of shark attacks and plane crashes, vivid images of such — being readily available in memory — often hijack our emotions and distort our judgments. People may discount climate threat because they are natural optimists or because they misinterpret uncertainty about the extent of temperature and sea-level rise as uncertainty about the fact of climate change. But if also given an argument from "both sides," people then believed that expert conclusions were more ambiguous. Imagine if people heard that medical experts agree that vaccines do not cause autism but then also read arguments from both pro- and antivaccine people. The "false balance" — there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism — will likely weaken their perception of the medical consensus. One component in a sustainable future is improved technologies. We have not only replaced incandescent bulbs with energy-saving ones but also replaced printed letters and catalogs with e-mail and e-commerce, and coal burning with solar panels and wind farms. We've also replaced commuter miles with working remotely — a practice that became even more common during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second component of a sustainable future is controlling consumption. As today's poorer countries develop, their consumption will increase. As it does, developed countries must consume less. Another way to encourage greener homes and businesses is to harness the power of immediate feedback to the consumer by installing "smart meters" that provide a continuous readout of electricity use and its cost. Turn off a computer monitor or the lights in an empty room, and the meter displays the decreased wattage. the top reason people gave for buying a hybrid car was that it "makes a statement about me" Social psychology can help by suggesting ways to reduce consumption and exploring why materialism does not routinely lead to happiness..

Chapter 11 (part 1)

When the need to belong is satisfied and balanced with two other human needs — to feel autonomy and competence — the typical result is a deep sense of well-being Humans in all cultures, whether in schools, workplaces, or homes, use ostracism to regulate social behavior. The silent treatment is "emotional abuse" and "a terrible, terrible weapon to use," say those who have experienced it from a family member or a co-worker. Ostracism treats a person as if she doesn't exist at all Students randomly assigned to be rejected by their peers (versus those who were accepted) became more likely to engage in self-defeating behaviors (such as procrastinating by reading magazines) and less able to regulate their behavior Ostracized people show deficits in brain mechanisms that inhibit unwanted behavior Outside of the laboratory, rejected children were, 2 years later, more likely to have self-regulation issues, such as not finishing tasks and not listening to directions Those ostracized by the other players experienced more negative emotions and became more likely to conform to others' incorrect judgments. Exclusion, whether it's cyberostracism or in the real world, hurts longest for anxious people (Zadro et al., 2006). It hurts more for younger than older adults Ostracized people exhibit heightened activity in a brain cortex area that also activates in response to physical pain Ostracism's opposite — feeling love — activates brain reward systems. When looking at their beloved's picture, university students feel markedly less pain when immersing their hands in cold water People remember and relive past social pain more easily than past physical pain One powerful predictor of whether any two people are friends is sheer proximity. Proximity can also breed hostility; most assaults and murders involve people who live close to each other. But much more often, proximity prompts liking. Sociologists long ago found that most people marry someone who lives in the same neighborhood, or works at the same company or job, or sits in the same class, or visits the same favorite place Even more significant than geographic distance is "functional distance" — how often people's paths cross The chance nature of such contacts helps explain a surprising finding. Consider this: If you had an identical twin who became engaged to someone, wouldn't you (being in so many ways similar to your twin) expect to share your twin's attraction to that person? One factor is availability; obviously, there are fewer opportunities to get to know someone who attends a different school or lives in another town. Proximity enables people to discover commonalities and exchange rewards. But merely anticipating interaction also boosts liking. The phenomenon is adaptive. Anticipatory liking — expecting that someone will be pleasant and compatible — increases the chance of forming a rewarding relationship Proximity leads to liking not only because it enables interaction and anticipatory liking but also for a simpler reason: More than 200 experiments reveal that, contrary to an old proverb, familiarity does not breed contempt. Rather, it fosters fondness The mere-exposure effect violates the commonsense prediction of boredom — decreased interest — regarding repeatedly heard music or tasted foods there is such a thing as too much exposure; if repetitions are incessant, liking eventually drops Mere exposure has an even stronger effect when people receive stimuli without awareness People's instant feelings of liking or disliking were more affected by exposure than by their more considered, conscious judgments Mere exposure's negative side is our wariness of the unfamiliar — which may explain the automatic, unconscious prejudice people often feel when confronting those who are different. We even like ourselves better the way we're used to seeing ourselves. Advertisers and politicians exploit this phenomenon. When people have no strong feelings about a product or a candidate, repetition alone can increase sales or votes (McCullough & Ostrom, 1974; Winter, 1973). After endless repetition of a commercial, shoppers often have an unthinking, automatic, favorable response to the product. The belief that looks are unimportant may be another instance of how we deny real influences upon us, for there is now a file cabinet full of research studies showing that appearance matters. The consistency and pervasiveness of this effect are astonishing. Good looks are an asset. a young woman's physical attractiveness is a moderately good predictor of how frequently she dates, and a young man's attractiveness is a modestly good predictor of how frequently he dates (Berscheid et al., 1971; Reis et al., 1980, 1982; Walster et al., 1966). However, women more than men say they would prefer a mate who's homely and warm over one who's attractive and cold More recent studies have gathered data from speed-dating evenings, during which people interact with a succession of potential dates for only a few minutes each and later indicate which ones they would like to see again Overall importance of physical attractiveness in dating is fairly large — especially when dates stem from first impressions (Eastwick et al., 2014). However, once people have gotten to know each other over months or years through jobs or friendships, they focus more on each person's unique qualities rather than their physical attractiveness and status. those who knew each other for longer and were friends before dating were less similar in physical attractiveness than those who had known each other a shorter time and were not friends before they dated they get real and pair off with people who are about as attractive as they are. Experiments confirm this matching phenomenon. When choosing whom to approach, knowing the other is free to say yes or no, people often approach and invest more in pursuing someone whose attractiveness roughly matches their own Perhaps this research prompts you to think of happy couples who differ in perceived "hotness." In such cases, the less-attractive person often has compensating qualities. Does the attractiveness effect spring entirely from sexual attractiveness? Clearly not, as researchers discovered when they used a makeup artist to give an otherwise attractive accomplice a scarred, bruised, or birthmarked face. Adults show a similar bias when judging children. We assume that beautiful people possess certain desirable traits. Other things being equal, we guess beautiful people are happier, sexually warmer, and more outgoing, intelligent, and successful — although not more honest Added together, the findings define a physical-attractiveness stereotype: What is beautiful is good. If physical attractiveness is that important, then permanently changing people's attractiveness should change the way others react to them. To say that attractiveness is important, other things being equal, is not to say that physical appearance always outranks other qualities. attractiveness and grooming affect first impressions in job interviews — especially when the evaluator is of the other sex Do beautiful people indeed have desirable traits? For centuries, those who considered themselves serious scientists thought so when they sought to identify physical traits (shifty eyes, a weak chin) that would predict criminal behavior. These small average differences between attractive and unattractive people probably result from self-fulfilling prophecies. Attractive people are valued and favored, so many develop more social self-confidence. For cultures with scarce resources and for poor or hungry people, plumpness seems attractive; for cultures and individuals with abundant resources, beauty more often equals slimness To be really attractive is, ironically, to be perfectly average Computer-averaged faces and bodies also tend to be perfectly symmetrical — another characteristic of strikingly attractive (and reproductively successful) people Psychologists working from the evolutionary perspective explain the human preference for attractive partners in terms of reproductive strategy. Evolutionary psychologists also assume that evolution predisposes women to favor male traits that signify an ability to provide and protect resources. Evolutionary psychologists have also explored men's and women's response to other cues to reproductive success. Men everywhere in the world are most attracted to women whose waists are 30% narrower than their hips When judging males as potential marriage partners, women, too, prefer a male waist-to-hip ratio suggesting health and vigor. They rate muscular men as sexier, and muscular men do feel sexier and report more lifetime sex partners During ovulation, women show increased accuracy in judging whether men are gay or straight (Rule et al., 2011) and display increased wariness of men outside their own social groups To men who have recently been gazing at porn magazine pictures, average women or even their own wives tend to seem less attractive If others get their teeth straightened, capped, and whitened, and you don't, the social comparison may leave you more dissatisfied with your normal, natural teeth than you would have been if you were surrounded by peers whose teeth were also natural. not only do we perceive attractive people as likable, but we also perceive likable people as attractive. Those portrayed as warm, helpful, and considerate also looked more attractive to the students. Love sees loveliness: The more in love a woman is with a man, the more physically attractive she finds him (Price et al., 1974). And the more in love a heterosexual couple is, the less attractive they find those of the other sex Birds that flock together are of a feather. Friends, engaged couples, and spouses are far more likely than randomly paired people to share common attitudes, beliefs, values, and personality traits The principle that similarity attracts is a key selling point for online dating sites such as chemistry.com and eHarmony.com that match users with similar others via secret formulas based on personality and attitude questionnaires. We have a bias — the false consensus bias — toward assuming that others share our attitudes. We also tend to see those we like as being similar to us Whether people perceive those of another race as similar or dissimilar influences their racial attitudes. Whenever one group regards another as "other" — as creatures that speak differently, live differently, think differently — the potential for conflict is high. Black culture tends to be present-oriented, spontaneously expressive, spiritual, and emotionally driven. White culture tends to be more future-oriented, materialistic, and achievement driven. We are physically attracted to people whose scent suggests dissimilar enough genes to prevent inbreeding Are we not attracted to people whose needs and personalities complement our own? Would a sadist and a masochist find true love? Given the idea's persuasiveness, the inability of researchers to confirm it is astonishing. Some complementarity may evolve as a relationship progresses. Yet people seem slightly more prone to like and to marry those whose needs, attitudes, and personalities are similar Proximity and attractiveness influence our initial attraction to someone, and similarity influences longer term attraction as well. If we have a deep need to belong and to feel liked and accepted, would we not also take a liking to those who like us? Does one person's liking another cause the other to return the appreciation? People's reports of how they fell in love suggest so (Aron et al., 1989). Discovering that an appealing someone really likes you seems to awaken romantic feelings. Students like another student who says eight positive things about them better than one who says seven positive things and one negative thing Whether we are judging ourselves or others, negative information carries more weight because, being less usual, it grabs more attention Flattery will get you somewhere. But not everywhere. If praise clearly violates what we know is true — if someone says, "Your hair looks great," when we haven't washed it in 3 days — we may lose respect for the flatterer and wonder whether the compliment springs from ulterior motives Do we attribute the flattery to ingratiation — to a self-serving strategy? Is the person trying to get us to buy something, to acquiesce sexually, to do a favor Someone who really loves us will be honest with us but will also tend to see us through rose-colored glasses. The happiest dating and married couples (and those who became happier with time) were those who saw their partners more positively than their partners saw themselves reward theory of attraction: Those who reward us, or whom we associate with rewards, we like. We not only like people who are rewarding to be with but also, according to the second version of the reward principle, like those we associate with good feelings. When an experimenter was friendly, participants chose to interact with someone who looked similar to her, but if she was unfriendly, they avoided the similar-looking woman This simple theory of attraction — we like those who reward us and those we associate with rewards — helps us understand why people everywhere feel attracted to those who are warm, trustworthy, and responsive

Chapter 16 (part 2)

Although the Earth asks that we live more lightly upon it, materialism — a focus on money and possessions — undermines proenvironmental attitudes. Nevertheless, materialism has surged, most clearly in the United States. Think of it as today's American dream: life, liberty, and the purchase of happiness. Evidence of rising materialism comes from the Higher Education Research Institute annual survey of nearly a quarter-million entering collegians. In poor countries — where low income threatens basic needs — being relatively well-off does predict greater well-being (Howell & Howell, 2008). In affluent countries, where most can afford life's necessities, affluence (and financial satisfaction) still matters — partly because people with more money perceive more control over their lives. Part of the happiness-income correlation is attributable to happier (and more optimistic and outgoing) people being more likely to graduate from college, get hired and promoted, and have higher incomes (De Neve & Oswald, 2012). Moreover, having one's psychological needs met (for respect, relationship, and empowerment) predicts positive, happy feelings better than does income. Economic growth has provided no apparent boost to human morale. We excel at making a living but often fail at making a life. We celebrate our prosperity but yearn for purpose. Seek extrinsic goals — wealth, beauty, popularity, prestige, or anything else centered on external rewards or approval — and you may experience anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic ills. Materialists tend to report a relatively large gap between what they want and what they have and to enjoy fewer close, fulfilling relationships. Wealthier people and world travelers also tend to savor life's simpler pleasures less. The adaptation-level phenomenon is our tendency to judge our experience (for example, of sounds, temperatures, or income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience. We adjust our neutral levels — the points at which sounds seem neither loud nor soft, temperatures neither hot nor cold, events neither pleasant nor unpleasant — on the basis of our experience. We then notice and react to up or down changes from those levels. To be sure, adaptation to some events, such as the death of a spouse, may be incomplete, as the sense of loss lingers. We also sometimes "miswant." When first-year university students predicted their satisfaction with various housing possibilities shortly before entering their school's housing lottery, they focused on physical features. "I'll be happiest in a beautiful and well-located dorm," many students seemed to think. But they were wrong. Much of life revolves around social comparison, a point made by the old joke about two hikers who come upon a hungry bear. One reaches into his backpack and pulls out a pair of sneakers. "Why bother putting those on?" asks the other. "You can't outrun a bear." "I don't have to outrun the bear," answers the first. "I just have to outrun you." As we climb the ladder of success or affluence, we mostly compare ourselves with peers who are at or above our current level, not with those who have less (Gerber et al., 2018). People living in communities where other residents are very wealthy tend to feel envy and less satisfaction as they compare upward. Moreover, the pay gap between big-company CEOs and typical workers is much larger than most people would prefer. In the United States, for example, the actual pay ratio of S&P 500 CEOs to typical workers (about 300:1) far exceeds the ideal ratio (7:1). Adaptation to a simpler life can also happen. If we shrink our consumption by choice or by necessity, we will initially feel a pinch, but the pain likely will pass. Social psychology also contributes to a sustainable and survivable future through its explorations of the good life. If materialism does not enhance life quality, what does? - Close relationships - Faith communities - Positive thinking habits - Experiencing nature - Flow

At Home

Are we in control of our own decisions? Illusion with the tables—you always think that the vertical table is longer. Intuition fools us in a repeatable, predictable way. Countries that give a lot of organs vs countries that don't Countries we think are similar are very different (Sweden/Norway, Germany/Austria, etc). A lot of decisions don't reside within us, but people who design the form. Example: DMV. We have such a feeling we're in the driver's seat, it's hard to accept the idea that we have an illusion of making a decision. Example: 67-year-old farmer suffered from hip pain, and physicians decided nothing was working so they referred him to hip replacement. Half were like "hey you didn't try tylenol." Most physicians pulled them back, but when there were two possible medicines that weren't tried, physicians let them go get hip replacement. Example: Magazines where you could get A, B, or A/B all for the same price. Most people wanted the combo deal, and no one wanted option B (knock-off deal). Once that was gone, the most popular became the least popular and vice versa. When it comes to building the physical world, we understand our limitations and we build around them. But to the mental world, we forget the idea that we are limited. If we understood our cognitive limitations, we could design a better world. Science of Persuasion Reciprocation People are obliged to give back to others something they received first. At a restaurant, the giving of a mint actually has an influence over how much is tipped (quadruples if mint goes up to 2). Be the first to give, make it personalized and unexpected. Scarcity People want more of things they can have less of. Sales took off for flights in London that had to do with something idk scarcity. Point out benefits, what's unique, and what's at stake. Authority People follow credible knowledgeable experts (therapists with diplomas on their wall). Make it ethical and costless to implement. Consistency Activated by looking for and asking for small initial commitments that can be made. Make it voluntary, active and public commitments, and get them in writing. Appointments missed were reduced by 18% just because they were written. Liking The three important factors are similarity, compliments, and cooperation. 90% of people came to agreeable outcomes when they found similarity. Consensus People look to the actions/behaviors of others to determine their own. Draw attention to benefits that reuse can have on environmental protection, for example. Even more effective is saying 75% of guests reuse towels during the stay (specifically, say the room). Power of a Uniform to Command Obedience A guy dressed in a blue suit and conductor's hat and told a stranger when the other person tried to run away, he should hit him with a taser. Half of the people gave the shock. Very difficult to refuse an "authority figure." Out of uniform, it's hard for people to comply. With uniform, 70% of people comply. Marry Two Strangers There was a fake wedding with two actors. The witness is a real person. The witness was married to the husband. She said vows and put the ring on the finger and everything—she did it cuz she was told to and everyone else seemed to think it was fine. Deadly Conformity There was a woman sitting in a room, which was rigged with fake smoke and an alarm. When she was alone, she investigated to find out what to do. When she was with people who didn't respond, she didn't leave until she was asked to after 20 minutes (one guy rebelled tho). Don't Get Hangry Two most important keys to success in life are intelligence and self-control. In the marshmallow experiment, kids who waited had more activity in the prefrontal cortex. Best predictor of criminal behavior is poor self-control. In a hangry study, college students fasted for 3 hours prior. They first drank lemonade either with sugar or splenda. They then participated in a study where the winner blasted a loser with loud noise (volume from 1-10, also get to control noise duration). Those who drank splenda were more aggressive since splenda doesn't have calories for the brain. Another study where they did the noise blast test, but instead the partner was a spouse (also something with voo-doo dolls). Those with low glucose stabbed more and blasted more noise. Self-control exercises are working on posture, using non-dominant hands for mundane tasks, speaking in complete sentences, and keeping track of what you eat. Thanksgiving One of the greatest contributing factors to happiness is how much gratitude you show. In an experiment, people wrote down what a person means to them. They then had to call them and read what they wrote. After they made the call, happiness increased between 4-19%. The person who had the biggest jump in happiness was the one who had the biggest jump in happiness. Improve a Marriage Honor your partner's dreams. A person heard this answer and was stunned cuz they didn't know his wife's dreams. Memory Reliability ¾ of false guilty cases are due to faulty memory. Many people believe memory works like a recording device. In a study, they used a suggestion to plant rich, false memories that when you were a kid you nearly drowned and had to be rescued by a lifeguard.

12/1/22 Lecture

Clinical applications of social psychology Barnum effect is the tendency to accept certain information as true, such as horoscopes, even when the information is so vague it is worthless. The personality profile thing we did. Research results tend to be aligned with the Barnum Effect. Personality tests were administered to 57 students. One week later, each student was given a profile where 53/57 rated the interpretation as either good or excellent. When 79 students administered a test to someone they knew, 59/79 subjects said the description was good or excellent. Scores of childhood sexual abuse checklist and a Barnum inventory were statistically correlated (Bad). Answers to the checklist did not distinguish women who were abused from others. People's tendency to rate personality profiles as self-descriptive is correlated with their tendency to rate horoscope profiles as self-descriptive. Not all personality descriptions are wrong: psychology students who learned about the barnum effect were later significantly less likely to perceive an illusory correlation between two unrelated variables (debiasing). Medical student syndrome is the tendency for medical students to believe they suffer from symptoms of diseases they're studying. Hypochondria is a preoccupation or excessive worry about having a serious medical problem. Psychology student syndrome is a tendency for psychology students to believe they suffer from the psychological disorders that they're studying. People are prone to the Barnum Effect when they read a single, positive ambiguous description/one type of profile, but when you have students studying multiple psychological disorders, they don't keep saying they have each individual disorder. Covariation Assignment: SYMPTOM X (below) DISEASE A Present Absent Present 80 40 Absent 20 10 Which table cells do you need to examine in order to determine whether Symptom X is associated with Disease A? There is no relationship (confirmation bias-esque, ration is 2:1) Is Symptom X associated with Disease A? No Same thing but whether or not God answers prayers. How closely are the Rorschach results related to the interview results? They are not related because the ratio is 2:1 again. In psychological treatments, people rely on one cell. But if you're educated on this, you need the full table in order to tell. Illusory Correlation Perception that two variables are more related than they really are. In an experiment, the words on the left side of the screen were always "bacon / lion / blossoms / boat" On the right side, it was either "eggs / tiger / notebook" (randomly paired). Although there were an equal number of pairings, when bacon was on the left side, 47% of the time thought eggs were on the right (thematically related). In another experiment, experimenters wrote brief descriptions of six types of patients and asked the people in the experiment what type of personality traits they would draw. More than 90% of clinicians said that a suspicious patient would draw large or atypical eyes. More than 80% said that people worried about their intelligence would draw a large or emphasized head. Additional findings: Illusory correlations do not disappear if people are allowed to view test materials on 3 consecutive days or are offered $20 for accuracy. Even with training, illusory correlations are hard to eliminate. Study on college women They viewed 75 photos of other college women who looked happy, sad, or neutral and whose photo was digitally altered to make them in some cases thinner or heavier. Participants then rate each photo on a variety of dimensions. They recalled the thin women as seeing happier, even though it didn't vary by women. Women who scored high in eating disorder symptoms were twice as likely to see an illusory correlation between weight and happiness. Confusion of the Inverse People have difficulty assessing what's known as conditional probabilities. Confusion of the Inverse: An error in which the probability of "A given B" is mistaken for the probability of "B given A" Suppose you feel that a patient has a 1% chance of having breast cancer. Just to be on the safe side, you order a mammogram. The results indicate that the breast mass is malignant. The probability of this reading being accurate 95/100 physicians estimated the probability at around 75%. In reality, the chances are 7.5%. Question physicians were answering not what are the chances of cancer given a positive test result, but what are the chances of a positive test result given cancer.

Chapter 14 (clinic, part 2)

Experiments confirm that what we say about ourselves can affect how we feel. Those induced to present themselves in self-enhancing (rather than self-deprecating) ways later feel better about themselves. If depression, loneliness, and social anxiety maintain themselves through a vicious cycle of negative experiences, negative thinking, and self-defeating behavior, it should be possible to break the cycle at any of several points. Depression, loneliness, and shyness are not just problems in someone's mind. Being around a depressed person can be irritating and depressing. As lonely and shy people suspect, they may indeed come across poorly in social situations. In these cases, social skills training may help. By observing and then practicing new behaviors in safe situations, the person may develop the confidence to behave more effectively in other situations. The vicious cycles that maintain depression, loneliness, and shyness can be broken by social skills training, by positive experiences that alter self-perceptions, and by changing negative thought patterns. Some people have good social skills, but their experiences with hypercritical friends and family have convinced them otherwise. After improvement is achieved, it endures best if people attribute it to factors under their own control rather than to a treatment program. As a rule, coercive techniques trigger the most dramatic and immediate behavior changes (Brehm & Smith, 1986). By making the unwanted behavior extremely costly or embarrassing and the healthier behavior extremely rewarding, a therapist may achieve impressive results. Peripheral cues, such as therapist credibility, may open the door for ideas that the therapist can now get the client to think about. But the thoughtful central route to persuasion provides the most enduring attitude and behavior change. Therapists should therefore aim not to elicit a client's superficial agreement with their expert judgment but to help clients change their own thinking. Close relationships predict health. Married people likewise tend to live healthier, longer lives than their unmarried counterparts. More than marriage per se, it's marital quality that predicts health. there is a link between social support and health. Why? Perhaps because close relationships give us people to confide in, bolstering our self-esteem and helping us overcome stressful events. poorer people are at greater risk for premature death (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). Those in the top 1% of income in the United States can expect to live 14.6 years longer than those in the lowest 1% of income. So how does poverty "get under the skin"? The answers include (a) reduced access to quality health care, (b) unhealthier lifestyles (smoking and opioid abuse are much more common among less-educated and lower-income people), and, to a striking extent, (c) increased stress. People also die younger in regions with great income inequality. Being attached to friends with whom we can share intimate thoughts has two effects, observed the seventeenth-century philosopher Francis Bacon: "It redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half." In other words, close relationships are good not just for the body but for the soul. Real-life friends bring many benefits; Facebook friends may not. A mountain of data reveals that most people are happier attached than unattached. Survey after survey of many tens of thousands of Europeans and Americans have produced a consistent result: Compared with those single or widowed, and especially compared with those divorced or separated, married people report being happier and more satisfied with life, as well as less lonely. More important than being married, however, is the marriage's quality. People who say their marriages are satisfying — who find themselves still in love with their partners — rarely report being unhappy, discontented with life, or depressed. Certainly, happy people are more fun to be with. They are also more outgoing, trusting, compassionate, and focused on others (Myers, 1993). Unhappy people, as we have noted, are more often socially rejected. Depression often triggers marital stress, which deepens the depression. Marriage enhances happiness for at least two reasons. First, married people are more likely to enjoy an enduring, supportive, intimate relationship and are less likely to suffer loneliness. Second, marriage can offer the roles of spouse and parent, which can provide additional sources of self-esteem and social identity.

12/6/22 (attraction, COVID day lol)

Guy had something similar with mammogram stuff. Barnum effect: brutally facts about bladder / Chinese menu about the year of the dog. What does it take to lead a happy life? When you ask people what they want out of life, one of the top choices that people say is happiness (hasn't been researched a lot recently). Subjective well-being: the degree to which people feel they are doing well / thriving. Researchers have found that happiness is thought of as an emotion you experience, whereas life satisfaction is a cognitive judgment where you're remembering the past. Some researchers think they're the same. According to the World Happiness Report, the average happiness rating is 6.9-7.0. Effectively, the rating of life satisfaction in the United States remains stable. (16/146 countries studied, before and after pandemic) Stable results when people are asked "How happy are you these days in your life?" ⅓ Americans say very happy, ½ say pretty happy, 15% say not too happy, 1% say I don't know. Percentages are similar for women and men. In May 2020, there was a historic low of Americans saying they were very happy (14%). Also increases in anxiety, stress, worry, sadness, etc. Research results are mixed when it comes to age—there used to be simple narratives that happiness increased as people age, but the jury is out. 43% of married people reported they were very happy, but 42% of college graduates report being very happy. No bump in happiness with retirement. Finland has the highest level of happiness, and Afghanistan has the lowest level of happiness. Happiness countries are cold, dark places where people need to cooperate in order to survive. In terms of genetics, happiness is about 30-50%. This does not mean a person's level of happiness is heavily fixed. You will have a biological endowment that will bring you down to that baseline (regression towards the average). The part that isn't genetic is: Relatively stable characteristics (age, gender, race, income) Has more influence on happiness because people generally adapt to whatever is constant in their life. Thoughts and behavior that people choose minute to minute (Exercise, shopping). We are not good at affective forecasting (predicting what's gonna make us happy or sad). Impact bias is an affective forecasting error. People feel worse after a romantic breakout than when it occurs. People experience the least average of happiness when watching TV, and most when exercising. iPhone app contacts people at random times what they're doing and how they're feeling. "This Emotional Life" video: Louise said that she chooses the thoughts that make her feel good, but that somebody who has depression is choosing thoughts that make them feel rotten. People who are happy probably out-achieve and out-reproduce the other people. Married people are happier than unmarried people, but parents are often less happier than non-parents. In terms of money, the more people have, the happier they tend to be. People were asked either before or after they worked out whether they wanted food or water if they were in the woods for 2 days. More likely to say water after they exercised because they were thirsty at that moment. When we think about how we feel about the future, our thoughts are shaped by how we feel in the present. Hedonic adaptation is when human beings are incredibly good at getting accustomed to adapting positive changes to their lives (new car, new house). That's a reason why we keep buying more stuff. Experiment with buying posters: one was stuck with it, one had the opportunity to exchange it. Those who were stuck with the posters liked the poster's more because they knew they had no choice so they adapted. One of the best studied techniques for improving well-being was on a mountain. In the study with the Dalai Lama, we see in the brain when people are meditation is heightened activation instead of relaxation. More activity in the left prefrontal cortex (positive emotions). Your emotional state is highly contagious. Link between happiness and money: Relationship tends to be small and comes with some hidden costs. Somewhere in the 3-4%, happiness is a result of income. Along with increases in income and equality, the U.S. has a growing socioeconomic class divide when it comes to happiness. Materialism and income inequality are actually negatively correlated with most people's happiness. In a study, people were given $40 on two consecutive weekends and had to spend money on a material purchase or a time-saving purchase. Time-saving purchases led to more positive emotions, less negative emotions, and less time stress. When researchers asked a different group of people, only 2% said they would make a time-saving decision.

Chapter 11 (part 2)

The first step in scientifically studying romantic love, as in studying any variable, is to decide how to define and measure it. Some elements of love are common to all loving relationships: mutual understanding, giving and receiving support, enjoying the loved one's company. Some elements are distinctive. Passionate love is emotional, exciting, intense. Elaine Hatfield (1988) defined it as "a state of intense longing for union with another" (p. 193). If reciprocated, one feels fulfilled and joyous; if not, one feels empty or despairing. Passionate love is what you feel when you not only love someone but also are "in love" with him or her. a given state of arousal can be steered into any of several emotions, depending on how we attribute the arousal. An emotion involves both body and mind — both arousal and the way we interpret and label that arousal. If indeed passion is a revved-up state that's labeled "love," then whatever revs one up should intensify feelings of love. being aroused by any source should intensify passionate feelings — provided that the mind is free to attribute some of the arousal to a romantic stimulus. Scary movies, roller-coaster rides, and physical exercise have the same effect, especially with those we find attractive There is always a temptation to assume that most others share our feelings and ideas. We assume, for example, that love is a precondition for marriage. But in some cultures, notably those practicing arranged marriages, love tends to follow rather than to precede marriage. Once in love, however, women are typically as emotionally involved as their partners, or more so. They are more likely to report feeling euphoric and "giddy and carefree," as if they were "floating on a cloud." Although passionate love burns hot, like a relationship booster rocket, it eventually simmers down once the relationship reaches a stable orbit. Unlike the wild emotions of passionate love, companionate love is lower key; it's a deep, affectionate attachment. The flow and ebb of romantic love follows the pattern of addictions to caffeine, alcohol, and other drugs (Burkett & Young, 2012). At first, a drug gives a big kick, a high. With repetition, opponent emotions gain strength and tolerance develops. An amount that once was highly stimulating no longer gives a thrill. Stopping the substance, however, does not return you to where you started. Rather, it triggers withdrawal symptoms — malaise, depression, the blahs. The cooling of passionate love over time and the growing importance of other factors, such as shared values, can be seen in the feelings of those who enter arranged versus love-based marriages in India. The cooling of intense romantic love often triggers a period of disillusion, especially among those who believe that romantic love is essential both for a marriage and for its continuation. decline in intense mutual fascination may be natural and adaptive for species survival. The result of passionate love is often children, whose survival is aided by the parents' waning obsession with each other Love is a biological imperative. We are social creatures, destined to bond with others. Our need to belong is adaptive. Cooperation promotes survival. Researchers have found that different forms of a particular gene predict mammalian pair bonding. Injections of hormones such as oxytocin (which is released in females during nursing and during mating) and vasopressin produce good feelings that trigger male-female bonding Our dependence as infants strengthens our human bonds. Soon after birth, we exhibit various social responses: love, fear, anger. But the first and greatest of these is love. Deprived of familiar attachments, sometimes under conditions of extreme neglect, children may become withdrawn, frightened, silent. Some elements are common to all loving attachments: mutual understanding, giving and receiving support, valuing, and enjoying being with the loved one. Passionate love is not just for lovers. The intense love of parent and infant for each other qualifies as a form of passionate love. Year-old infants, like young adult lovers, welcome physical affection, feel distress when separated, express intense affection when reunited, and take great pleasure in the significant other's attention and approval Approximately 7 in 10 infants and nearly that many adults exhibit secure attachment (Baldwin et al., 1996; Jones & Cunningham, 1996; Mickelson et al., 1997). When placed as infants in a strange situation (usually a laboratory playroom), they play comfortably in their mother's presence, happily exploring this strange environment. If she leaves, they become distressed; when she returns, they run to her, hold her, then relax and return to exploring and playing (Ainsworth, 1973, 1979). This trusting attachment style, many researchers believe, forms a working model of intimacy — a blueprint for one's adult intimate relationships, in which underlying trust sustains relationships through times of conflict Approximately 2 in 10 infants and adults exhibit avoidant attachment, one of the two types of insecure attachment. Although internally aroused, avoidant infants reveal little distress during separation and little clinging upon reunion. Avoiding closeness, avoidant adults tend to be less invested in relationships and more likely to leave them. Avoidant individuals may be either fearful ("I am uncomfortable getting close to others") or dismissing ("It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient" Approximately 1 in 10 infants and adults exhibits the anxiousness and ambivalence that mark anxious attachment, the second type of insecure attachment. In the strange situation, infants are more likely to cling anxiously to their mother. If she leaves, they cry; when she returns, they continue to cry and be distressed. As adults, insecure individuals are less trusting, more fearful of a partner's becoming interested in someone else, and therefore more possessive and jealous. Their eagerness to form relationships can hamper their efforts because others perceive their anxiety and the interaction becomes awkward Thus, sensitive, responsive mothers — mothers who engender a sense of basic trust in the world's reliability — typically have securely attached infants, The effects of attachment can last a lifetime: In a 22-year longitudinal study, infants who were insecurely attached to their mothers became adults who struggled to feel more positive emotions avoidantly attached people were less satisfied and supported in their relationships, and anxiously attached people experienced more relationship conflict Two securely attached partners would seem to be ideal, and pairings in which at least one partner is insecurely attached may have more issues. The most difficult pairing appears to be an anxious woman and an avoidant man; these couples showed the highest levels of stress hormone when they anticipated talking over a conflict and found it more difficult to give and seek care from their partner Therefore, our society teaches us to exchange rewards by the equity principle of attraction: What you and your partner get out of a relationship should be proportional to what you each put into it You lend me your class notes; later, I'll lend you mine. I invite you to my party; you invite me to yours. Those in an enduring relationship, including roommates and those in love, do not feel bound to trade similar benefits Previously we noted an equity principle at work in the matching phenomenon: People usually bring equal assets to romantic relationships. Often, they are matched for attractiveness, status, and so forth. If they are mismatched in one area, such as attractiveness, they tend to be mismatched in some other area, such as status. Those who perceive their relationship as inequitable feel discomfort: The one who has the better deal may feel guilty, and the one who senses a raw deal may feel strong irritation. Deep, companionate relationships are intimate. They enable us to be known as we truly are and to feel accepted. We discover this delicious experience in a good marriage or a close friendship — a relationship where trust displaces anxiety and where we are free to open ourselves without fear of losing the other's affection (Holmes & Rempel, 1989). Such relationships are characterized by self-disclosure Experiments have probed both the causes and the effects of self-disclosure. When are people most willing to disclose intimate information concerning "what you like and don't like about yourself" or "what you're most ashamed and most proud of"? The most reliable finding is the disclosure reciprocity effect: Disclosure begets disclosure (Berg, 1987; Miller, 1990; Reis & Shaver, 1988). We reveal more to those who have been open with us. But intimate disclosure is seldom instant. Some people — most of them women — are especially skilled "openers"; they easily elicit intimate disclosures from others, even from those who normally don't reveal very much of themselves (Pegalis et al., 1994; Shaffer et al., 1996). Such people tend to be good listeners. What are the effects of such self-disclosure? Humanistic psychologist Sidney Jourard (1964) argued that dropping our masks, letting ourselves be known as we are, nurtures love. Having an intimate friend with whom we can discuss threats to our self-image seems to help us survive stress Intimate self-disclosure is also one of companionate love's delights. The most self-revealing dating and married couples tend to enjoy the most satisfying and enduring relationships 75% of those who prayed with their spouses (and 57% of those who didn't) reported their marriages as very happy, a finding replicated in later academic research (Ellison et al., 2010). Those who pray together also more often say they discuss their marriages together, respect their spouses, and rate their spouses as skilled lovers Individualistic cultures (where love is a feeling and people ask, "What does my heart say?") have more divorce than do communal cultures (where love entails obligation and people ask, Even in Western society, however, those who enter relationships with a long-term orientation and an intention to persist do experience healthier, less turbulent, and more durable partnerships Severing bonds produces a predictable sequence of agitated preoccupation with the lost partner, followed by deep sadness and, eventually, the beginnings of emotional detachment, a letting go of the old while focusing on something new, and a renewed sense of self When relationships suffer, those without better alternatives or who feel invested in a relationship (through time, energy, mutual friends, possessions, and perhaps children) will seek alternatives to exiting the relationship.

Chapter 12 (part 2, helping)

Bystander passivity during emergencies prompted social commentators to lament people's "alienation," "apathy," "indifference," and "unconscious sadistic impulses." Bystanders who were part of a group were less likely to help than lone bystanders, a phenomenon known as the bystander effect (Latané & Nida, 1981; Stalder, 2008). In internet communication, too, people are more likely to respond helpfully to a request for help if they believe the request has come to them alone and not to several others as well Sometimes the victim was actually less likely to get help when many people were around. an illusion of transparency: a tendency to overestimate others' ability to "read" our internal states. In their experiments, people facing an emergency presumed their concern was more visible than it was. More than we usually suppose, our concern or alarm is not very noticeable (smoke room thing). Failing to notice and misinterpretation are not the only causes of the bystander effect. Sometimes an emergency is obvious. Even when bystanders don't intervene directly, they can make a difference by reporting the incident immediately, by interrupting the interaction by talking to the potential victim, or by just being very distracting. The bystander intervention experiments raise an ethical issue. The researchers were always careful to debrief the laboratory participants. Remember that the social psychologist has a twofold ethical obligation: to protect the participants and to enhance human welfare by discovering influences upon human behavior. Prosocial models do promote altruism. Across 88 studies of more than 25,000 people, people were more likely to help when they saw others helping. Because similarity is conducive to liking and liking is conducive to helping, we are more empathic and helpful toward those similar to us. The similarity bias applies to both appearance and to beliefs. Like similarity, familiarity breeds compassion. No face is more familiar than one's own. That explains why, when Lisa DeBruine (2002) had McMaster University students play an interactive game with a supposed other player, they were more trusting and generous when the other person's pictured face had some features of their own face morphed into it. Few people want to appear prejudiced. Perhaps, then, people favor their own race but keep that bias secret to preserve a positive image.

11/29/22 Lecture

Illustrations: Person who drew the dorms at Wes, all their friends lived in Butts (proximity). New Yorker cartoon "there's someone I'd like you to meet." — opposites don't attract. Ditzy guy with pretty girl (opposite of matching, misattribute it to their product). Dollar Auction: People bid $1.95 for $1. Good return investment for Plous. Highest point of return is when the two highest bids add up to more than $1. Both sides are operating with the same pressure and incentive. Behavioral Traps: a situation in which an individual or group embarks on a promising course of action that later becomes undesirable and difficult to escape from. You don't want the other side to have the upper hand (think about kids harassing the tailor). There are five different types of traps: Time delay traps: short-term gratification contrasts with long-term consequences (unprotected sex) Ignorance traps: consequences aren't understood in the beginning (picking a college major just cuz it sounds cool) Deterioration traps: things start well but worsen over time (heroin addiction) Investment traps: leads to sunk cost effect (waiting on hold) Collective traps: the pursuit of self-interest can harm the group (prisoner's dilemma) Entrapment is a psychological dynamic in which people escalate their commitment to a failing course of action in order to justify prior investments. Example: $10 million goes to consumer products or industrial products. In half the cases, students are responsible for making the choice; in the other half, someone else is. Students are told the chosen division outperformed the other. The other half were told they underperform. Low / High responsibility for choice + Positive / Negative outcome Results: where people invested is when they made the decision and there was a negative outcome. Putin is under pressure when he's the one who made the decision about the Russian/Ukraine war. Entrapment occurs as readily with groups as with individuals. Entrapment is most likely when: The situation involves competition Passivity maintains the status quo People publicly commit themselves to the course of action When Obama described the war in Afghanistan as a war of necessity, he committed himself in a way that increased entrapment. You can reduce entrapment by: Avoiding publicly locking yourself into a particular course of action. Consider the costs of exiting before you enter. Set limits in advance when you'll reassess participation. Ask whether you'd still participate if you were just starting now. Have different people decide whether to continue than those who started.

Chapter 12 (part 3, helping)

There are individual differences in helpfulness that persist over time and are noticed by one's peers (Hampson, 1984; Penner, 2002; Rushton et al., 1981). Five-year-olds who most readily shared their treats were, at ages 23 and 32, most socially progressive in their political views The personality trait that best predicts willingness to help is agreeableness, indicative of someone who highly values getting along with others Personality influences how particular people react to particular situations Status and social class also affect altruism. Across several studies, Paul Piff and his colleagues (2010; Robinson & Piff, 2017) found that less privileged people were more generous, trusting, and helpful than more privileged people, likely because they felt more compassion for others and felt less entitled to special treatment When faced with potentially dangerous situations in which strangers need help (such as with a flat tire or a fall in a subway), men more often help In safer situations, such as volunteering to help with an experiment or spend time with children with developmental disabilities, women are slightly more likely to help. Finally, women tend to be more generous. They are more supportive of government programs that distribute wealth and are more likely to distribute their own wealth. The world's four largest religions — Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism — all teach compassion and charity (Steffen & Masters, 2005). But do their followers walk the talk? With God on their minds — after unscrambling sentences with words such as spirit, divine, God, and sacred — people become much more generous in their donations. Follow-up studies have found that religious priming increases other "good" behaviors, such as persistence on an assigned task and actions consistent with one's moral beliefs. the religiously committed have reported volunteering more hours — as tutors, relief workers, and campaigners for social justice — than have the religiously uncommitted. In addition, the links between religion and planned helping seem to be relatively unique among communal organizations.

Chapter 12 (part 1, helping)

helping behavior benefits the helper as well as the helped. Why? One explanation assumes that human interactions are guided by "social economics." We exchange not only material goods and money but also social goods Rewards that motivate helping may be external or internal. The New Yorker who jumped onto subway tracks to save a man who had fainted ("I was thinking, if he gets hit, I can't go to work"), was motivated by the external rewards of his time-and-a-half Sunday pay Rewards may also be internal, often focused on increasing positive emotions. Nearly all blood donors agree that giving blood "makes you feel good about yourself" and "gives you a feeling of self-satisfaction" Helping's boost to self-worth explains this do-good/feel-good effect. One month-long study of 85 couples found that giving emotional support to one's partner was positive for the giver; giving support boosted the giver's mood Making donations activates brain areas linked with reward (Harbaugh et al., 2007). Generous people are happier than those whose spending is self-focused (Giving increases happiness) This cost-benefit analysis — people help because it makes them feel good — can seem demeaning. In defense of the theory, however, it is a credit to humanity that helping can be inherently rewarding The benefits of helping also include reducing or avoiding negative emotions. Near someone in distress, we may feel distress. A woman's scream outside your window arouses and distresses you. Throughout recorded history, guilt has been a painful emotion that people avoid and seek to relieve Cultures have institutionalized ways to relieve guilt: animal and human sacrifices, offerings of grain and money, penitent behavior, confession, denial. To examine the consequences of guilt, social psychologists have induced people to transgress: to lie, to deliver shock, to knock over a table loaded with alphabetized cards, to break a machine, to cheat. Afterward, the guilt-laden participants may be offered a way to relieve their guilt: by confessing, by disparaging the one harmed, or by doing a good deed to offset the bad one. The results are remarkably consistent: People will do whatever can be done to expunge the guilt Our eagerness to do good after doing bad reflects our need to reduce private guilt and restore a shaken self-image. It also reflects our desire to reclaim a positive public image. Should we always expect to find the "feel-bad/do-good" phenomenon? No. One negative mood, anger, produces anything but compassion. Another exception is profound grief. People who suffer the loss of a spouse or a child, whether through death or separation, often undergo a period of intense self-preoccupation Happy people are helpful people. This effect occurs with both children and adults, regardless of whether the good mood comes from a success, from thinking happy thoughts, or from any of several other positive experiences In experiments on happiness and helpfulness, the person who is helped may be someone seeking a donation, an experimenter seeking help with paperwork, or a woman who drops papers. Often, we help others not because we have calculated consciously that such behavior is in our self-interest but because of a subtler form of self-interest: we ought to. One universal moral code is a reciprocity norm: We should return help, not harm, to those who help us Reciprocity within social networks helps define the social capital — the supportive connections, information flow, trust, and cooperative actions — that keep a community healthy. The norm operates most effectively as people respond publicly to deeds earlier done to them. When people cannot reciprocate, they may feel threatened and demeaned by accepting aid. Thus, proud, high-self-esteem people are often reluctant to seek help we should offer our children and our friends needed support but not provide so much support that we undermine their sense of competence The social-responsibility norm decrees that people should help those who need help, without regard to future exchanges Responses are thus closely tied to attributions. If we attribute the need to an uncontrollable predicament, we help. If we attribute the need to the person's choices, fairness does not require us to help; we say it's the person's own fault Women offered help equally to males and females, whereas men offered more help when the persons in need were females. Women not only receive more offers of help in certain situations but also seek more help Evolutionary psychology contends that life's essence is gene survival. Our genes drive us in adaptive ways that have maximized their chance of survival. When our ancestors died, their genes lived on, predisposing us to behave in ways that will spread them into the future. Kin selection — favoritism toward those who share our genes — led the evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane to jest that although he would not give up his life for his brother, he would sacrifice himself for three brothers — or for nine cousins. The kin selection principle implies that nature (as well as culture) programs us to care about close relatives Genetic self-interest also predicts reciprocity. An organism helps another, biologist Robert Trivers argued, because it expects help in return. Reciprocity works best in small, isolated groups in which people often see the others for whom they do favors. To a much lesser extent, humans exhibit ingroup loyalty by sacrificing to support "us," sometimes against "them." We are like employees who compete with one another to move up the corporate ladder, while cooperating to enable their business to surpass competitors. Especially when we feel securely attached to someone, we also feel empathy, a more other-focused emotion (Mikulincer et al., 2005). For example, loving parents suffer when their children suffer and rejoice over their children's joys. When we feel empathy, we focus not so much on our own distress as on that of the sufferer. Genuine sympathy and compassion motivate us to help others for their own sakes. In humans, empathy comes naturally. Even day-old infants cry more when they hear another infant cry. Primates, elephants, dogs, rats, and even mice also display empathy, indicating that the building blocks of altruism predate humanity. other findings suggest that genuine altruism does exist: With their empathy aroused, people will help even when they believe no one will know about their helping. Their concern continues until someone has been helped.

Chapter 12 (part 4, helping)

helping should increase if we can prompt people to correctly interpret an incident and to assume responsibility. Personalized nonverbal appeals can also be effective. To reduce anonymity, researchers have had bystanders identify themselves to one another — by name, age, and so forth — after which they were more likely to offer aid to a sick person. Helpfulness also increases when one expects to meet the victim and other witnesses again. Personal treatment makes bystanders more self-aware, and self-aware people are more attuned to their own altruistic ideals. Labeling people as helpful can also strengthen a helpful self-image. After they had made charitable contributions, Robert Kraut (1973) told some Connecticut women, "You are a generous person." Two weeks later, these women were more willing than those not so labeled to contribute to a different charity. Moral exclusion — omitting certain people from one's circle of moral concern — has the opposite effect. It justifies all sorts of harm, from discrimination to genocide. More exclusion also describes restrictions in the public empathy for the human costs of war.. A first step toward socializing altruism is therefore to counter the natural ingroup bias favoring kin and tribe by personalizing and broadening the range of people whose well-being should concern us (religious teachings). If, however, we see or read about someone helping, we become more likely to offer assistance. If they had earlier witnessed someone helping a woman who'd dropped books, female shoppers were more likely to assist someone who had dropped a dollar. Brief nudges about norms can also be effective. When people are reminded of social norms with a simple question ("What do you personally think is the morally right thing to do?"), they donate 50% more to charity than those not reminded. If the viewer watched prosocial programs instead of neutral programs, he would [at least temporarily] be elevated from the 50th to the 74th percentile in prosocial behavior. Other media also effectively model prosocial behavior, partly by increasing empathy. Recent studies from across the world show positive effects on attitudes or behavior from prosocial media, including playing prosocial video games and listening to prosocial music lyrics. When children act helpfully, they develop helping-related values, beliefs, and skills.