PBSI 315 Exam 2

William James

observed the self can be thought of as both the I AND Me

I =

subjective experience, inner voice of consciousness, the observer

Me =

the observed aspect of self, everything you can call yourself; the socialized or learned aspect of the individual

Self-Concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"

How many selves do we have?

according to many theorists, we have many selves

Working memory

We can only hold so many things in memory at one time

Working self-concept

a subset of self-knowledge that is brought to mind in a particular context

Example of working self concept

At a family dinner, you may act like the responsible older sibling. At a game night with friends, you may feel more playful and relaxed. The situation changes which part of the self becomes most visible, which is exactly what working self-concept describes.

The self is relatively ____

malleable (it can easily shift or adapt)

Self knowledge

the way we understand who we are and formulate and organize this information

Perceived self-knowledge is associated with

-decision satisfaction

-meaning in life

-moral behaviors

Authenticity

Following your true self

We often regret not living with authenticity

Integrity-Fluency Model

authenticity arises from 2 psychological cues

-self-integrity

-experiential fluency

Self-integrity

remaining true to your core values

Experiential fluency

the idea that authenticity emerges when a behavior flows naturally without friction or self-monitoring

Evaluating self-integrity

should be an objective evaluation (asking yourself "Am I being true to what I most care about?"), may be effortful to maintain self-integrity

Examples of self-integrity

-prioritizing long-term commitments over short-term impulses

-pursuing passions that you find meaningful

Sacred values

-values considered to be nonnegotiable

-not easily overridden by incentives, costs, or consequences

Value Congruent Behavior

acting in a way that matches your core values

Experiential Fluency has been linked to

states like flow, awe, mindfulness, intrinsic motivation, and environmental fit

Example of experiential fluency

being fully immersed in a task AKA 'in the zone'

Self-esteem

overall opinion of our self

Self-esteem has how many components?

2

Components of self-esteem

affective (a feeling) and cognitive (a judgement)

Which level of self-esteem is more prone to aggress?

inflated, high self-esteem

Characteristics of narcissism

-inflated self-esteem

-prone to aggression

-poor interpersonal adjustment

What is a common way we maintain or enhance our self-esteem?

social comparison

Downward social comparison

comparing ourselves to people who are worse than we are with regard to a particular trait or ability

Upward social comparison

comparing ourselves to people who are better off than you

Self-serving bias

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably

Examples of self-serving biases

-unrealistic optimism

-false consensus effect

-false uniqueness effect

Example of unrealistic optimism

believing your marriage will not end in divorce when 50% of marriages do

False uniqueness effect

the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors

False consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share your beliefs and behaviors

Unrealistic optimism

a phenomenon in which people see themselves as more likely than other people to experience good events, and less likely than other people to experience bad events

Self-serving attributions

attributing positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors

Better than average effect example

80-90% of ppl think they are above averge but in reality, by definition, only 50% can be above average in IQ

Self-handicapping

Creating obstacles to success so that potential failure can be blamed on external factors

Basking in reflected glory (BIRG)

Associating oneself with successful others and adopting their success as your own

BIRGing example

Students more likely to wear school apparel when they win games

Humans core psychological needs

-autonomy

-belonging

-coherence

Coherence

We want the world to make sense and our beliefs to feel consistent

Zeigarnik effect

The tendency to recall uncompleted tasks better than completed ones because we are trying to make sense of them

Why are we meaning makers?

We want to be able to predict and control

Dual-Process Theory

system 1 (fast-thinking) vs system 2 (slow thinking)

System 1: Fast Thinking

-automatic, intuitive, effortless

-unconscious and fast operation

-draws on heuristics, associations, and prior experiences

-prone to biases and systematic errors

System 2: Slow Thinking

-deliverate, analytical, effortful

-requires conscious attention and working memory

-used for novel, complex, or high-stakes problems

-can override and monitor system 1 (but is lazy and often defers to it)

Simplification strategies

heuristics, negative + conformation bias, magical thinking

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb" that often lead to a solution (but not always).

Heuristics help with what?

conserving mental energy

Representativeness heuristic

Tendency to judge the frequency of likelihood of an event by the extent to it resembles a typical case; our idea of random series

Example of representativeness heuristic

a big, muscular student at Ohio state is probably a football player (in spite the fact that fewer than 100 out of 60,000+ students are on the football team).

Availability heuristic

making a decision based on the answer that most easily comes to mind

Availability heuristic example

If someone asks you whether or not you are more likely to be injured by a shark or a parrot, you might reply "shark" because of the number of media reports about shark bites, when in fact parrot bites are much more common

Negativity Bias

the tendency to focus or remember the negative aspects of experiences more than the positive ones

Confirmation bias is the tendency to:

-pay attention to information that confirms one's beliefs

-distort, mislabel, or ignore info that contradicts beliefs

Confirmation bias contributes to

illusory correlations and "self-fulfilling prophecy"

Illusory correlations

the perception of a relationship where none exists; usually invovles overestimating extent of relationship

Illusory correlation example

money and happiness

-people overestimate the correlation between this relationship

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A belief or prediction that influences behavior in ways that help the belief come true

Example of self-fulfilling prophecy

Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968): teachers led to believe some were gifted and some not (NOT TRUE) and those in gifted group ended up performing better

Results of Rosenthal and Jacobson

Teachers' behaved in ways that helped confirm their (false) beliefs, and students reacted to; gifted students had improved performance

Magical Thinking includes

sympathetic magic, law of contagion, law of similarity

Law of Contagion

States that objects that have come into contact can exchange essences

Law of Similarity

The law of similarity states that objects that resemble each other share fundamental properties

ex) someone wearing the same perfume as a loved one makes you more likely to like them

Attributions

help us make sense out of experience; linking an instance of behavior to a cause; "causal attributions"

2 broad causes of behavior (Heider & Simmel)

dispositional causes; situational causes

Dispositional causes examples

personality, traits, individual characteristics

Situational causes

environment, constraints, circumstances, social roles

Relationship attributions example

Distressed couples explain a partner's bad behavior dispositionally ("you're selfish") and good behavior situationally ("you were just in a good mood"). Happy couples do the reverse.

Kelly's covariation model: 3 Dimensions of Causes

We explain behavior by noticing what it covaries with: what's present when the behavior happens and absent when it doesn't

3 kinds of information based on Kelly's covariation model

-consensus

-distinctiveness

-consistency

Consensus

Do other people act the same way toward this target?

Distinctiveness

Does this person act this way only toward this target (e.g., me), or toward everyone?

Consistency

Does this person act this way toward this target every time?

Biases in attribution process

-fundamental attribution error (FAE)

-actor-observer effect

-self-serving bias

Fundamental attribution error

Tendency to attribute others' behavior to DISPOSITIONAL factors and to undervalue the role of SITUATIONAL factors

Fundamental attribution error example

Your friend fails an exam that you both took. She always seems to get a low grade. You begin to think that she is lazy but really she's more involved in activities other than studying

Consequences of FAE

COST: distorts perception of why things happen

BENEFIT: cognitive shortcut (saves mental energy)

Actor-Observer Effect

Actors and observers give different explanations for the same events

Observers tend to make ____ attributions for actor's behavior

dispositional

Actors tend to make ____ attributions for their own behavior

situational

For observer, overestimate is to

disposition

For observer, underestimate is to

situation

In the actor's perspective, underestimate (disposition) and overestimate (situation) =

reverse of fae

Self-Serving bias

tendency to take personal credit for success and make excuses (external attributions) for failure

How do we conserve mental effort?

heuristics, conformation bias, magical thinking

Attitudes

favorable or unfavorable evaluations of something or someone

Is there a relationship between attitudes and behavior?

Attidues don't always predict behavior

Example of whether attitudes determine behavior

LaPierre traveled with Chinese couple in 1930s

-people from south said no to accepting visitors on phone, but more said yes in person

-money proposed and face-to-face interactions had impact

Kraus (1995) meta-analysis of whether attitude determines behavior

Attitudes do predict behavior, but only under certain conditions

average correlation of 0.38

Attitude Specificity

Attitudes best predict behavior when both are measured at the same level of specificity (Ajzen & Fishbein)

Davidson & Jaccard (1979) study on attitude specificity

General attitude toward birth control: r = .08

Attitude toward using the pill in the next 2 years: r = .57

Strong attitudes

-predict behavior better

-comes from direct/first-hand experience

Regan & Fazio (1977) example of attitude strength predicting behavior

during a Cornell housing shortage, students who actually lived in crowded temporary housing acted more consistently with their attitudes (e.g., petitioned) than students who had only heard about it

Situations impact on behavior

-behavior reflects situation as well as the person

-strong social norms can override behaving based on private attitudes

-attitudes predict best when situational pressures are weak

Ambivalence

holding both positive and negative evaluations of the same thing AKA mixed feelings

Example of ambivalence

"I love how fast food tastes, but I know it's bad for me"

Ambivalence (ABC) model

-Affect: how we feel about it

-Behavior: how we act toward it

-Cognition: what we believe about it

Consistent Attitude on ABC model

all three components are aligned

you might avoid a spider (B) because you are scared of spiders (A) and believe they can harm you (C)