Lecture 13 - Self & Introspection

• what is the social comparison theory?

• Leon Festinger (1954)

  • We compare ourselves with other people as a source of information when judging attributes about the self

    • comparisons are more likely when objective information is unavailable

    • similar others offer a more information comparison

Describe the Mr. Clean/Mr. Dirty study that investigates the social comparison theory.

• Procedure:

  • Male students applied for a job and were asked to fill out self-esteem scale

  • Two Conditions:

    • Mr. Clean (confederate w/ smart suit, science books)

    • Mr. Dirty (confederate w/ cheap clothes, cheap sex novel)

  • Students then asked to fill out another self-esteem scale

• Results:

  • Mr. Clean condition → self-esteem decrease

  • Mr. Dirty condition → self-esteem increase

• what was the big claim made during the self & introspection lecture?

• what study sought to investigate these claims? describe it.

• Big Claims

  • People do not know their own beliefs and preferences

  • They infer them from their own behavior and situational cues

  • Psychology should NOT rely on introspection

• Insufficient Justification Paradigm Study

  • Procedure:

    • Subjects do a boring task

    • Then paid $1 or $20

    • Subjects are asked to persuafe others to do it. Many agree to do it

  • Result:

    • Subjects paid more find the task more aversive; less likely to do it again, less likely to persuade others, etc.

    • Subjects paid less find the task more pleasant more likely to do it again, more likely to persuade others, etc

what are two possible interpretations to the Insufficient Justification Paradigm Study?

• Leon Festinger’s dissonance-reduction explanation\

  • Descrepancy between attitude and behavior (persuasion) induces unpleasant internal tension

  • I feel an internal experience of dissonance

  • I change my own preference to reduce the internal tension (eliminate the feeling).

• Daryl Bem’s self-perception interpretation:

  • Why did I do this?

  • “If I did it, and was only paid $1, it couldn’t have been all that bad. I must have liked it.”

  • similar ex. “Do I like brown bread? Well, I buy it so I must like it.”

Describe the study researching the inference of our own preferences.

• Researchers give participants false feedback on choices

  • participants do not notice the switch

  • they give rationalizations for “choice” they did not make

  • they change later preferences to align with their own “choices”

  • Paradigm works with jams and ethical dilemmas

Describe the study about telling more than we can know. (procedure & results)

• Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Procedure:

  • Participants view a movie

    • with a loud noise outside

    • without a loud noise outside

  • Participants rate the movie

    • how interesting was it? how much did you like the main character?

  • Participants assess the impact of the noise (causal report)

    • did the noise increase / decrease your ratings?

• Results

  • 55% claim the noise decreased their ratings

  • But, there was no actual effect of the noise!

  • People are horrible at judging what causes their own behavior. They make us causal stories

• Similar effects:

  • People have no insight into the impact of the initial spatial position on product evaluation

Given the past few studies that were covered, what conclusion can we make with regard to introspection?

• Participants do not have introspective access to the causes of their own behavior

• Causal reports are just “stories” that people make up afterwards to explain their own behavior

what are some beneficial effects of self-focus?

• Self-focus improves access to some internal states, as reflected in more accurate reports of:

  • attitudes

  • levels of arousal

  • sensations

• Self-aware people behave more in line with their attitudes:

  • Halloween candy jar study (Beaman et al, 1979). Children made self-aware with a mirror were more likely to take just one candy, as instructed

• Describe the study that implemented introspection and self-focus to study causal reports.

• Procedure:

  • Participants listen to an audio-taped short story:

    • no noise

    • background noise

  • Participants respond to the story:

    • rate various aspects of the story

    • recall the details of the story

  • Participants rate the influence of noise:

    • “how did the noise influence your ratings”

    • “how did the noise influence your recall?”

  • Self-Focus Manipulation

    • some participants just respond to story and noise questions

    • other participants respond after they were made self-aware with a mirror

• Results

  • Noise had no actual negative effect on ratings and recall. This is a replication of Nisbett and Wilson

  • Subjects were inaccurate reporting the negative effect of noise. This is a replication of Nisbett and Wilson

  • Self-aware people were just as inaccurate in rating the impact of noise as non-self aware people. Self-focus manipulation did not help at all

Describe the study that investigated whether people can use bodily response to detect the emotion of a subliminal face.

• Procedure:

  • Target face (.02s) → Mask or Neutral Face → “Which emotion did the briefly presented face display?”

  • Facial EMG measured throughout the trial

• Two Conditions:

  • Look Strategy shown to participants:

    • LOOK hard at the place where the face was presented

  • Feel Strategy shown to participants:

    • Try to sense how you FEEL about the face

• Results:

  • “use your feelings” strategy is ineffective! Numerically slightly better but NOT significant

  • No statistical improvement over “look
    or “none” strategy

• Note: ineffective even for people scoring high on “interoceptive awareness” scales