Social Psych

self concept

the set of self schema that answer the question “who am I”

independent view of self

typical of individualistic cultures (western); focus on what sets us apart from the rest

interdependent view of self

typical of eastern/collectivist cultures; focus on how one fits into a group they are a part of and their roles in that group

Kim and Markus 1999 (Pen study)

presented participants with five pens (4 of 1 color and 1 of a different color); those from an individualistic culture tended to choose the different pen, while those from a more collectivistic culture tended to choose one of the common colored pens

individualistic culture individuals then seen as more independent view of self as they more commonly selected the pens that were different (even when the pen coloring was switched to two three) rather than the collectivists

Gabriel and Gardner men and women 1999

set out to see if north american men and women were differently oriented towards independent or interdependent concepts of self;

participants

1. completed 20 “who am I” statements

2. rated their identification with various independent or interdependent traits

3. were asked to describe a positive or negative emotional event to see if they’d include groups in their memory

the men and women did not differ on whether they included groups or not, but men included more collective large groups like teams, while women mentioned more relational (dyadic or one on one relationships)

relational bonds

dyadic or one on one relationships; women reported these more often

collective bonds

team/large group bonds; men reported these more often

introspection

the process whereby people look inward and examine their thoughts and feelings/motives

self awareness theory

when we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our behavior to our internal values and standards; certain situations may increase our awareness of self self, leading us to shift our behavior/attitudes to match our expectations.

Beaman et al. 1979 (mirror)

349 kids participated in study where researchers either asked them or didn’t ask them to only take one candy while the researcher was out of the room, and left them alone with the candy either in front of a mirror or without a mirror (so four groups: instruction/mirror, no instruction/mirror, instruction/no mirror, no instruction/no mirror); mirror was operationalized self-awareness

in the instruction group, the percent of the mirror group that took more than one piece of candy was significantly less than without mirror, and even the no instructions group the mirror group took fewer

spotlight effect

belief that others are paying more attention to us/our appearance than they actually are

Gilovich et al (Barry Manilow shirt)

participants split into two groups; one group sat last supper style all looking at the same spot in front of room, other half walked in wearing an embarrassing barry manilow shirt and stays in view for a while before leaving and rating what percentage of the viewers they thought knew/remembered what was on their shirt, to compare with the actual memory of the viewers

shirt group significantly overestimated the percent that recognized/remembered their shirt than actually did

a different group (not wearing shirt) was also asked to estimate how many would notice what someone’s shirt said if they were wearing smth embarrassing, and they provided far more accurate estimates (lower percent), supporting idea that we think people focus more on us

spotlight and egocentric bias

we are more likely to remember information when it pertains to us/our self schemas, so we are therefore more likely to notice/remember an embarrassing event and think people also noticed it

causal theories

our theories about causes of our own behaviors/moods/feelings; tend to overestimate the influence of external factors like sleep, hungriness, etc.

Wilson et al. 1982 (mood)

people predicted mood would be influenced heavily by sleep quality, time since last meal, etc. but once they kept mood diaries, it appeared there was very little correlation between these outside factors and their moods/behaviors

Nisbet and Wilson 1977 (film)

participants all watched a film; some heard a power saw coming from the next room during the movie while the others didn’t, and were then asked to rate the movie and if the saw noises impacted their ratings; the saw group said that the saw noises lowered their ratings, but on average their movie ratings were aligned with those of the no saw group

Nisbett and Wilson 1978 (stockings)

researchers set up a shopping mall stand and participants were asked to rate which stockings were the best quality (they were actually identical and the items were just rotated for each participant); the participants ranked them generally as the last (D) highest, then C, then B, then A (even though these were identical and order was swapped between individuals)

they gave quality based reasons for their rankings even though there were not quality based differences between the items (i.e. claimed that the stockings had a thicker fabric)

reasons generated attitude changes

TEMPORARY attitude change resulting from considering the concrete reasons for one’s attitudes; when we shift attitudes temporarily from reasoning some decision out (but if we base solely on those concrete, verbalize-able reasons, we overlook intangible reasonings that may have led to our original attitude)

serial position effect

last thing we look at tends to be what we focus on (and we may also therefore rank the last stocking we saw as best)

Wilson et al 1993 Posters

students given option between art (like starry night) posters and cat motivation posters; first they rated them, with some asked to write an essay on why they liked a certain poster (initially most students liked the art posters best, but the essay writers tended to highlight the cat posters because it had easier to articulate pros then the art); once selected the students took one of the posters back with them, and were asked to re-rate after a while with the poster —those that did the essay were more likely to dislike the poster (typically cats) they had chosen because they chose it due to a temporary reasoning generated attitude change (happiest were the people who did not reason out why they liked a poster, because once reasoned out, those reasons are eventually forgotten, but the poster you initially disliked remains)

automatic processing in appearance based judgements

using heuristics/effortless/quick processing to make judgements on someone’s credibility, expertise, personality, etc. (i.e. making the assumption that someone in professional clothes is qualified to lecture, or that someone that looks good is also nice, smart, etc. [can go in reverse with horns effect though])

representativeness heuristic

judging someone based on how well we feel they represent the model of that kind of person we have in our head (i.e. judging if someone is a professor/a good lecturer by looking to see if they look the part)

Thorndike military 1920

officers asker to rank their subordinate soldiers on non-appearance based measures (i.e. their wits, leadership, etc.) generally ranked the attractive soldiers better than the unattractive and came up with positive traits for those hotties

Dipboye et al. 1977

when asked to evaluate fake job applicants that varied on qualifications, attractiveness, and gender, the most variation came from qualification, but men were still preferred over women, and more attractive candidates were preferred over less attractive counterparts (even with same exact qualifications)

self perception theory

theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer our own attitude/opinion/feeling through our observations of our own behavior and the situation/environment where it occurs

over justification effect

when explaining our own behavior, we tend to overemphasize the role of extrinsic (external) over intrinsic (internal) reasons (i.e. if we enjoy pottery and then start a store selling it, we may over-blame the money as the reason we do pottery despite liking it before)

occurs in activities that had high interest to begin with and often a result of task-contingent (rather than performance-contingent) rewards (i.e. if we get paid for pottery regardless, more risk of us overemphasizing the role money plays in our liking of pottery and dislike it once we stopped getting paid, whereas if we must produce GOOD pottery to get money, then we are less likely to confuse our liking of pottery for liking the money from pottery)

Greene, Sternberg, Lepper 1976 (game)

children play new learning game and start with no rewards, only play because like to play, then some received rewards for playing and some didn’t; those that did receive rewards for playing were then less interested in playing the game in the following non-reward phase and played less than those that never received rewards to begin with

task-contingent rewards

completing a task earns the reward (i.e. if you make pot, then you get money); tends to lead to harsher over justification effect and more of a move from intrinsic enjoyment to extrinsic enjoyment

performance contingent rewards

must do well on task to get reward (must make good pot to get money) and therefore less susceptible to over justification effect because you are focused on doing well rather than sheer output

two factor theory of emotion

we experience physiological arousal and then seek an explanation for that arousal based on cues in our environment to label that emotion (i.e. see bear and feel effects of adrenaline, then recognize the bear is causing the response, so label it fear)

misattribution of arousal

we can misinterpret environmental or internal cues as to which emotion we are feeling and therefore put the wrong label of emotion on our physical arousal

Schachter and Singer 1962 (suproxin)

participants given a “vitamin compound” that was secretly just adrenaline; half were told accurate side effects (i.e. heart racing, sweaty hands, general physiological arousal), while the other half were told side effects unrelated to physiological arousal

the lied to group were far more likely to report being angry themselves after watching a confederate get angry, because they did not know why they were physiologically aroused and therefore misattributed it

Dutton and Aton scary bridge 1974

men walking across a scary bridge were stopped by an attractive woman halfway to ask some research questions and then give them her number; dependent var was whether they called that woman or not (operationalized attraction), with 12.5% of those on a steady non scary bridge calling and 50% calling from scary bridge (researchers claimed this showed they misattributed fear of bridge to be attraction)

didn’t sort groups so didn’t account for the fact that people choosing to go on scary bridge might be more adventurous to start, and also people calling might not have bee attracted, but wanted to learn more about their contribution to the study

Scary bridge revised

sorted participants into groups rather than letting them choose bridge (approached people who were either actively in middle of bridge or who had just crossed it and had time to calm down); those approached while on bridge called 70% of the time, while those who had had time to calm down only called about 30% of the time

social comparison theory

idea that we learn about our abilities and attitudes by comparing ours to others

upwards social comparison

compare yourself/situation to someone doing better than you (can be motivational)

downwards social comparison

compare yourself to someone doing worse in life (feel better about yourself/situation

false consensus

overestimate the # of people with the same thoughts, behaviors, skills, etc. as you (I bet everyone is doing this)

false uniqueness

underestimate how many people have your ideas, skills, behaviors, etc. (I bet I’m the only one who does this)

self presentation

how we convey ourselves to others

impression management

use of presentational strategies to create a certain impression in order to meet the goals of a social interaction

self monitoring

individual’s tendency to engage in self-presentational strategies (high self monitors = consistently employing these strategies/switching it up with different people in attempt to get more people to like you; low = generally not employing these strategies on diff people/acting generally similar between people)

strategies for self presentation

ingratiation

self promotion

exemplification

intimidation

supplication

ingratiation

being overly flattering/attempting to really strongly get people to like you (i.e. always giving big compliments to others)

self-promotion

bragging/making yourself seem important (like in a job interview)

exemplification

focus on moral behaviors to seem morally superior to others, and can include pointing out moral failings of others (i.e. I’m so good I always give the biggest tithe unlike Jessica who gives five bucks)

intimidation

attempt to push people away/want people to not bother you

supplication

put yourself down w/the hope/expectation that others will lift you up (self deprecation)

physical self handicapping

placing obstacles in the way of your success (i.e. staying up late before a final) so as to give you an excuse later (I was tired so I failed) or make you look better if you manage to do well (they did that well even though they were tired)

verbal self handicapping

telling people/making excuses for your performance prior to doing something so as to hedge their expectations (i.e. I’m not feeling well, my knee hurts, etc.) so that you have excuse if you fail and look cooler if you succeed

Berglas and Jones 1978 (Pandocrin/Actavil)

participants told about two fake drugs: actavil (which temporarily increases cognitive performance) and pandocrin (which temporarily decreases performance); then they take intelligence test that was purposely really difficult/had unsolvable questions but are told (regardless of actual score) that they did the best ever on that test

then they are told to choose pandocrin or actavil to take before retaking the exam (didnt actually have to retake)

most (particularly men) chose pandocrin (worse performance) likely because some people felt they got lucky with the first test score, and wanted something to blame future poor performance on (the drug, in this case) once they retook exam (physical self handicapping)

body image

our schema about our body

social comparison (the festinger model)

humans have drive to compare their opinions, abilities, and self-worth by comparing themselves to others when objective, real-world standards are missing (like in terms of body image, teens may be motivated to compare their body to those online)

data collection methods UTA lecture

60-90 minute semi-structured qualitative interviews with groups; survey

purpose of survey UTA

discover additional info from respondents 16-20 recruited through social media platforms

results UTA

two main themes

1. social media influenced adolescent self/body image (44.4% viewed social media negatively, 16.1% positively, 39.5% neutrally in relation to body image)

2. efforts to promote a healthy self/body image (seeking body content for positive results, avoid harmful content, female appreciation for body positivity movement)

takeaways UTA

negative impacts reported more by women than men for social media body content (potentially more appearance dependent self-schemas due to societal pressures on adolescent girl bodies)

more negative feelings when similarity perceived by viewer about creator

internalization of thin and muscular ideals correlates with internalization of unhealthy ideals

body positive content improves self-schema, may improve self-image

men but not women reported concern that body positive content supports unhealthy lifestyles

cognitive dissonance

feeling of discomfort/motivational drive state (driven to get rid of this state) caused by performing an action that is discrepant from one’s typically positive self-concept

unpleasant and we are motivated to reduce by behavior (less common, more difficult) or attitude/perception change (more common, easier, shifting the way we view a behavior/ourselves so that our self concept is unaffected)

Hypocrisy paradigm

1. make person aware of conflict between their attitudes and their behavior

2. this hypocrisy creates dissonance

3. reduce the dissonance by changing the behavior

Stone et al., 1994 (safe hypocrisy)

participants asked to either just give a taped a speech on safe practices to high schoolers, read educational material on it, or make a commitment to practice safely all purchased fewer condoms/maintained fewer safe practices then those who were made aware of their hypocrisy (thought on times they didn’t practice safe sex) and did all those things

self affirmation

identify some other unrelated positive about yourself to reduce dissonance form other thing (i.e. I may be a smoker, but at least I have a PhD)

cognitively reduce dissonance

frame a thought differently so as to minimize dissonance (i.e. yeah it’s bad to smoke but all my family smokes)

Jones and Kohler segregation 1959

participants who were pro, neutral, or anti segregation and showed them reasonable/unreasonable pro/anti segregation arguments then tested how many they remembered of each type (reasonable in this case meaning plausible not valid)

the neutral group didn’t show much difference in how many of any type they remembered, but pro segregationists were more likely to remember reasonable pro and unreasonable anti arguments, while anti were more likely to remember reasonable anti arguments and unreasonable pro arguments

Teel et al 2006 drilling

took people that were pro or anti drilling in the artic and presented them with leaflets in support or against drilling in the artic; anti drillers were more likely to rate the leaflets as more trustworthy/reasonable than those of the pro-drilling and vice versa

Westen et al politicians 2006/2016

1. participants read a statement about a candidate (either one they like or a rando person they don’t gaf about)

2. read statement that shows that person’s contradictory behavior

   1. tell them to consider whether they believe the candidate’s statements and actions are contradictory

   2. rate how much they agree the statements/actions are contradictory

3. given exculpatory statement

   1. told to consider whether the target’s statements and actions are not quite as contradictory as they first appeared

   2. rate how much they agree that statements are not as contradictory as once appeared

when presented dissonant information about candidate they liked there was less brain activity in reasoning areas, and the emotion areas were more active; they were more likely to come up with alternative conclusions

with consonant (exculpatory) information, the reward areas lit up more

consonant information

lights up reward pathways; exculpatory information

dissonant information

less activity in frontal lobe and more activity in negative emotional areas

justification of effort

tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they worked hard for (seen often in hazing rituals)

Aronson and Mills discussion group 1959

participants signed up for psych of sex discussion group; controls just let in; mild initiation group had to read info on sex to themselves; severe initiation group had to read sexual content to a crowd

all then watched a prerecorded, dry discussion and then rated how interesting they found it: control rated it at about ~80%, mild initiation ~85%, and severe about 95% showing an attempt to lessen dissonance of having done smth embarrassing for boring class

post decision dissonance

when making a decision between two things we value similarly, we tend to overvalue whatever we chose and devalue what we didn’t so as to reduce the feeling of dissonance (made the wrong choice)

Brehm 1956 (shopping quality)

shoppers asked to evaluate appliances and then given a choice between two they rated similarly; told it would take 20 minutes to get it ready so they waited the time, then came back and re-rated them; participants rated the chosen appliance higher and the unchosen lower in value/rating

alternative spreading

enhancing a choice’s positives after making it and devaluing the unchosen, thus spreading two previously similar options apart

Knox and Inkster horse betting 1968

asked people pre or post betting to rate their confidence in their bet (i.e. how confident they were that their bet would be right before or after making it) and people who had just made the bet rated their confidence higher than that of those who did not yet

Gilbert Ted Talk Photos

students in photography class took some photos which were then developed, asked to choose between two of them; half given option to return later and swap photos, half were told they could not swap after they made the decision; those that were not allowed to swap rated themselves as happier because they experienced dissonance about their decision and therefore went through dissonance relieving processes (i.e. justification, alternative spreading)

Egan, Santos, Bloom post decision dissonance in children and monkeys

children asked to rate stickers on a smiley face scale and then choose between two equally rated stickers; then, they get to pick again, this time between the initially rejected sticker and another equally rated one, and they chose the new one—not the rejected one most of the time

the monkeys given a choice between different colors of m&ms, then given two colors they appear to like similarly then given a second choice between the initially rejected and a new color; chose the new color most of the time

the control group for monkeys/kids was researchers making the first decision and then presenting the kids the second round choice; no dissonance and 50/50 between which sticker they chose because they never rejected the first sticker—sufficient external justification of “researchers choice” not mine

indicates post decision dissonance is at least somewhat innate as both kids and monkeys demonstrate it

lowballing

induce a person to buy a product at a very low price, but then subsequently claim it was an error and then raise that price (bait and switch); works because we’ve already fougt past post decision dissonance for the low price item by dehancing alternatives, enhancing this option and have had anticipation of the positive event with the illusion of irrevocability (decision feels permanent) and justification of time (already spent time evaluating options)

insufficient justification effect

When we can’t come up with sufficient external justification for our actions, we attempt to internally justify our behavior by changing or modifying our attitudes

counterattitudinal advocacy

stating an opinion or attitude that runs counter to one’s private belief or attitude

Festinger and Carlsmith forced compliance 1959

cognitive consequences of forced compliance: participants complete very boring peg rotating task and then are offered either $1 or $20 to tell the next guy that it was really fun and then to rate it themselves; group only offered $1 then rated the task as more enjoyable than the $20 group, because they had to justify their lie to themselves as they had insufficient external justification

Festinger accuracy of “forced compliance“

not forced, and if it was forced, then they would likely not experience dissonance because there would be sufficient external justification to not experience dissonance over their lie

Zanna and cooper 1974 essay

participants given placebo pill, one group told it would arouse, one that it would relax, and one that it would do nothing; all three then asked to write essays in support of a ban on controversial speakers on campus (unsupported opinion); half asked to volunteer to do it, half just told to do it

in the no side effects group that volunteered to write, the participants shifted higher to support that ban than the ordered to group and the relaxed, volunteered group shifted highest of all (misattribution of phys. arousal as like for policy/essay and no justification of “they made me do it”)

insufficient punishment

if there is not enough threat of punishment to explain why someone decided to do/not do something, then they will come up with internal reasons (i.e. I didn’t want to do it anyways)

Aronson and Carlsmith forbidden toy 1963

kids rated all the toys in the room and the researchers then said “you can play with any toy while I’m out of the room, but not that one [the one kid rated highly]” with either mild threat of punishment (I will be annoyed) or severe punishment (I would be very angry, I would take all the toys and never come back); kids then rerated toys after the researcher returned

none of the kids played with the forbidden toy, but the mild punishment group rated the toy as less appealing than initially and compared to severe group, because they had to internally justify not playing with the toy while severe had enough external justification

Freedman 1965 forbidden toy two

new researcher returns to original forbidden toy kids a few weeks later, and tells them they can play with any of the toys (including the former forbidden toy); kids in the prior mild punishment played with the forbidden toy less because they devalued that toy to justify not previously playing with it, while severe punishment played with that former forbidden toy more, as they had justified it through external reasons

Bersheid, Boye, Walster 1968 stress learning

participants given role of teacher or observer, and then half were told that the roles would eventually be switched; teachers were able to punish the learners for poor performance; those who thought the roles would NOT switch were more likely to derogate/think poorly of their victims (rated them as more disliked), because they had to deal with the dissonance of them hurting someone that will not have the opportunity to retaliate (the retaliation dispels dissonance because it’s seen as a “we’re even” or “I’m only doing what’s gonna be done to me”) the no retaliation group also rated the victim as having suffered less

Martens et al (2007, 2010, 2012) killing begets killing

participants were told they would be grinding bug up (by placing it in a coffee grinder contraption, but the bugs were actually unharmed); prior to study all were sorted based on their prior attitudes towards bugs/killing bugs (i.e. high or low comfortable killing bugs or not rated by how similar one thought they were to bugs) half of the high and half of the low comfort participants were told to practice on one bug, and the others practiced on five. Then they were asked to kill as many as possible in twenty seconds

in the high perceived similarity group that did a five bug practice run, significantly more bugs were fed to the machine, because they had to go through the dissonance of “i like bugs” and “i’m killing five bugs” and managed to work through that during the initial five bug run, while the 1 bug did not force the person to work through/form strategies for avoiding dissonance, and the low bug similarity had less dissonance to work through (killed similar to the high similarity, 1 bug practice group)

Ben Franklin effect

doing someone you dislike a favor makes you like them more, because it creates dissonance of “why help someone i don’t like” and makes you adjust attitudes on that person to make you like them more

Jecker and Landy 1969 unfriendly experimenter

participants offered a small reward for quiz experiment and the experimenter was unfriendly/a little hostile; at the end, experimenter writes a receipt for that person to go get their money from the psych dept secretary, but they ask half of the participants to return the money, because they’ve run out of funding and are paying out of pocket; other half were asked by the psych department to return the money to an overall psych research fund; some were not asked to return money at all

all participants filled a survey out on their experience, and the no favor group rated the experimenter as 5.8 liked, while those that did the favor for the experimenter rated them as more likeable and those that did it for the psych department rated the experimenter less likeable

affectively based attitudes

most of these attitudes founded on how we feel rather than the properties of the attitude-object; social identity products

social identity products

things that make us feel good or like others are jealous of us (i.e. a designer bag) that we value because of this feeling of superiority or goodness

behaviorally based attitudes

based on our observations of how we behave toward an object (weakest kind of attitude), ties into self perception theory, where we observe our actions/feelings to see what our feelings are towards an object or activity

cognitively based attitudes

based on your objective beliefs about the properties of an object (utilitarian objects/products like a dishwasher)

Yale attitude change approach

WHO (the communicator) says WHAT (message) to WHOM (audience)

credibility

the speaker’s expertise and trustworthiness as assessed by the audience

sleeper effects

remembering the message someone gives, but not their credibility, leading to information from not credible sources being remembered as a credible fact (i.e. seeing a conspiracy post on facebook then forgetting where you actually heard it after a while and spreading it around as though it came from actual good sources)

attractiveness

part of WHO; the physical appeal (more attractive speakers = more persuasive) and the perceived similarity of the speaker to the audience member (more similar = more persuasive)

WHAT - design to influence

messages that overtly try to influence or that we perceive as trying to influence are less effective as we do not like to be influenced

one-sided appeal

only presenting the arguments in support of your attitude/product without any counterarguments

two-sided appeal

giving the positives of your message and also anticipating and shooting down potential counterarguments (generally stronger/more persuasive so long as you have a good way of shooting the arguments down)

primacy effects persuasion

if there are multiple speakers, and then a long gap before the audience makes up their mind, then it is better to have been the first speaker as people tend to remember the first speaker better/more positively