tory higgins Social Psychology - Midterm

First half of course

About truth and understanding. People as scientists and people as faulty computers

Second half of course

About control. How to manage your life with humans. How to deal with the social world

People as scientists

People function and reason like scientists. Use hypothesis testing, causal explanations, look for evidence. Asking questions and finding explanations that allow them to predict what is going to happen next time

People as faulty computers

People function as faulty computers. Have biases and errors, are limited in attention and memory. Inherently people are limited and limitations lead to mistakes. Starting when people began studying physics - recognized our limitations. Not insulting. We are limited.

People as civilized beings

Coordinate social roles, work in teams, follow norms and rules. People are motivated to share beliefs, experiences, understandings, political views etc. (shared reality). Work to be on same page, essential to who we are and to have language, civilization and culture (language arbitrary).Large groups necessitated this.

People as selfish beasts

Competing with each other, survival of the fittest, about power, in-groups vs. out-groups, aggression, self-centered. Humans are selfish and would do anything to satisfy their drives. Neo-Darwinism and Freud - motivated by id (sex and aggression).

Trade off

Every mechanism in psychology is a trade off. Both theories are true. There are pros and cons to every mechanism. There is no positive or negative psychology, only one with benefits and costs. Can maximize benefits and minimize costs with effort.

Inner states

Our ability as human to take into account other people's feelings, motives, and interests. Essence of what it means to be human. People have multiple motivations.

Social intelligence

Having a correct mental model or implicit theory of what motivates other people

Economic model

That humans are rational and motivated solely by maximizing profits and outcomes. Limited in reality. There is an importance of social or interpersonal motives: equality (if both get nothing more fair than one getting more), fairness (varies, some people think person in control deserves more).

Ultimatum game

Player 1 sets a demand, if player 2 accepts or both get nothing.

Reciprocity problem

Sense of future obligation.

Social psychology

Science of being effective in the social world. Understand how others work, what motivates them, how to manage our choices and decisions.

Subjective utility

Multiply outcome (money offered) by the percentage of people choosing to accept that outcome

Cultural motivation

Motives in ultimatum game can depend a lot on culture. Some culture care a lot about fairness and reciprocation

Accessibility

Learning is the accessibility of past experiences. Leads to some mistakes (don't know why something comes to mind). Momentary and chronic. When something in memory activated it becomes accessible.

Shared reality

Allows us to have language, civilization, and culture - however, creates conflict and hatred with other groups that don't share our reality and create a different shared reality

Scala naturae

As above, so below. Idea that people are scientists started in Renaissance. Natural, god given hierarchy. In universe, society, and self: God = king = intelligence, angels = nobles = tripartite soul, humans = commoners, animals = non Christians.

Social processes

The ways in which input from the people and groups around us affect our thought, feelings, and actions

Cognitive processes

The ways in which our memories, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and motives influence our understanding of the world and guide our actions

Two fundamental axioms of social psychology

Construction of reality and pervasiveness of social influence

Construction of reality

The axiom that each person's view of reality is a construction, shaped both by cognitive processes (the ways our minds work) and by social processes (input from others either actually present or imagined)

Pervasiveness of social influence

The axiom that other people influence virtually all of our thoughts, feelings, and behavior, whether those others are physically present or not

Three motivational principles

People strive for mastery, people seek connectedness, people value "me and mine"

Striving for mastery

The motivational principle that people seek to understand and predict events in the social world in order to obtain rewards

Seeking connectedness

The motivational principle that people seek support, liking, and acceptance from the people and groups they care about and value

Valuing "me and mine"

The motivational principle that people desire to see themselves, and other people and groups connected to them, in a positive light

Three processing principles

Conservatism, accessibility, superficiality vs. depth

Conservatism principle

The processing principle that individuals' and groups' views of the world are slow to change and prone to perpetuate themselves

Accessibility principle

The processing principle that the information that is most readily available generally has the most impact on thoughts, feelings, and behavior. The ease and speed with which information comes to mind and is used.

Superficiality versus depth

The processing principle that people ordinarily put little effort into dealing with information, but at times are motivated to consider information in more depth

Attribution

What might have caused the behavior. Trait attribution vs. situation attribution.

Heider's Lay Scientific Theory of Behavior

People as scientists - Theory of attribution that suggests that perceivers take both the actor's disposition (attitudes/traits) and immediate situation into account in determining the cause of a given behavior. Actor's disposition + immediate situation = behavior. 5 (person) + 5 (situation) = 10 (behavior).

Discounting

If people think the situation could have produce the individual's behavior, then they make less extreme person attributions. Attribute more to situation. Impact of personality is discounted. 3 (person) + 7 (situation) = 10 (behavior)

Augmentation

If situation should have produced behavior opposite to what was observed, impact of personality may be augmented. An even stronger judgment about the person executing the behavior. 13 (person) + -3 (situation) = 10 (behavior)

Scientific theory

A statement that satisfies three requirements (It is about constructs, it describes causal relations, it is general in scope - though the range of generality differs for different theories)

Constructs

Abstract and general concepts that are used in theories and that are not directly observable

Interventions

Practical steps taken to change people's behavior or to solve social problems

Construct validity

The extent to which the independent and dependent variables used in research correspond to the theoretical constructs under investigation

Independent variable

A concrete manipulation or measurement of a construct that is thought to cause other constructs

Dependent variable

A concrete measurement of a construct that is thought to be an effect of other constructs

Social desirability response bias

People's tendency to act in ways that they believe others find acceptable and approve of

Self-report measures

Those based on asking the individual about his or her thoughts, feelings, or behaviors

Observational measures

Those based on directly watching and recording people's behavior, including online behavior

Archival measures

Those based on examining traces of past behavior

Performance measures

Those that ask participants to perform some task as well as they can

Physiological measures

Those based on measurement of some physiological process such as heart rate or muscle movements

EEG

Electro-encephalographic. Use electrical signals on the scalp to very accurately detect the times at which specific neural events occur.

fMRI

Indirectly measures the activation levels of specific brain regions

Internal validity

The extent to which it can be concluded that changes in the independent variable actually caused changes in the dependent variable in a research study

Research design

A plan that specifies how research participants will be selected and treated

Nonexperimental research design

A research design in which both the independent and dependent variables are measured

Experimental research design

A research design in which researchers randomly assign

Random assignment

The procedure of assigning participants to different experimental groups so that every participant has exactly the same chance as every other participant of being in any given group

Manipulate

Intentionally varying some factor as the independent variable in an experimental research design

Confederate

A research assistant playing a specific role in the study, such as pretending to be just another participant

External validity

The extent to which research results can be generalized to other appropriate people, times, and settings

Individualist cultures

Those in which people are particularly likely to think of themselves as separate from other people and to define themselves in terms of their uniqueness

Collectivist cultures

Those in which people tend to think of themselves as linked to others, and to define themselves in terms of their relationships to others

Demand characteristics

Cues in a research setting that lead participants to make inferences about what researchers expect or desire and that therefore bias how the participants act

Field research

Research that takes place outside the laboratory

Replication

Conducting new studies in an effort to provide evidence for the same theoretically predicted relations found in prior research

Meta-analysis

A systematic technique for locating studies on a particular topic and summarizing their results

Informed consent

Consent voluntarily given by an individual who decides to participate in a study after being told what will be involved in participation

Deception

Keeping participants uninformed or actively misleading them about particular aspects of a study

Debriefing

Informing research participants - as soon as possible after the completion of their participation in research - about the purposes, procedures, and scientific value of the study, and discussing any questions participants may have

In-role

If behavior is in-role, we discount the influence of personality. Lawyer is CEO personal attorney. Social roles can be situations.

Out-of-role

If behavior is out-of-role, we augment the influence of personality. Lawyer is attorney general. Social roles can be situations.

Jones & Harris 1967 (speech writing)

People as scientists - Pro-Castro speech. If chose freely, more pro-Castro than when forced to write it.

Jones et al. 1961 (job applicant)

People as scientists - Job applicant, either astronaut or submariner. Varies as sociable or not sociable. If behavior is in-role, not sociable for astronaut or sociable for submariner - then discounting (they may be acting this way to fit the role). If out-of-role, sociable for astronaut or not sociable for submariner - then augmenting (they must be extremely x if acting this way even when not expected of their role).

Seligman et al. 1985 (pizza)

People as scientists - Pizza delivery field experiment. Dependent variable = amount of tip. Manipulation 1 = 1 early or late. Manipulation 2 = 2 person or situation attribution. When person explanation 3X as much tip when early than late (augmentation). When situation explanation, little difference between both (discounting).

Implications (Heider) for justice system

Role of defense attorney is to convince jury to discount (attribute to situation), prosecutor is opposite (attribute to person).

Implications (Heider) for gender roles

Assertive and helpful behavior expectations. Females aggressive behavior and males nice behavior augmented with identical behavior. Females nice behavior and males aggressive behavior discounted. Female nice behavior ignored and male aggressive behavior ignored. Female thought of as especially aggressive and male thought of as especially nice.

Theory of performance (success/failure)

Given same situation and behavior, self-as-target were much less likely to take personal responsibility for the failure and preferred situational causes. Stranger-as-target were more likely to assign personal responsibility. Can still reflect people as scientists.

Mental representation

A body of knowledge that an individual has stored in memory

Mere exposure

Exposure to a stimulus without any external reward, which creates familiarity with the stimulus and generally makes people feel more positively about it

Salience

The ability of a cue to attract attention in its context

Automatic

Refers to processes that operate spontaneously (without the perceiver's deliberate intent) and often efficiently and without awareness

Association

A link between two or more mental representations

Priming

The activation of a mental representation to increase its accessibility and thus the likelihood that it will be used

Subliminal

Presentation of stimuli in such a way (usually with a very brief duration) that perceivers are not consciously aware of them

Correspondent inference

The process of characterizing someone as having a personality trait that corresponds to his or her observed behavior

Correspondence bias

Jones. The tendency to infer an actor's personal characteristics from observed behaviors, even when the inference is unjustified because other possible causes of the behavior exist

Superficial processing

Relying on accessible information to make inferences or judgments, while expending little effort in processing

Systematic processing

Giving thorough, effortful consideration to a wide range of information relevant to a judgment

Causal attribution

A judgment about the cause of a behavior or other event

Primacy effect

A pattern in which early-encountered information has a greater impact than subsequent information; an example of the principle of cognitive conservatism

Perseverance bias

The tendency for information to have a persisting effect on our judgments even after it has been discredited

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The process by which one person's expectations about another become reality by eliciting behaviors that confirm the expectations

Fundamental attribution error

Ross. The tendency to explain someone else's behavior by making personal attributions and overlooking the importance of situations. However, eastern cultures look at situation first, whereas western cultures look at person first. This is learned rather than innate.

Heider's lay scientific theory of performance

People as scientists - Person (can + want) + situation (may) = performance. Can = ability. Want = motivation or effort. May = opportunity or task difficulty.

Wiener's formulation of Heider's performance theory

People as scientists - Locus of causality (internal or external) and stability (stable or unstable). Internal and stable = ability. Internal and unstable = effort. External and stable = difficulty. External and unstable = luck. Have control over unstable. Success only training doesn't work.

Dweck 1975

Learned helplessness. Telling kids they got answers right because they are smart make them believe they are not smart when fail at something. Should use effort, not ability as explanation. Don't want failures to be treated as a stable ability attribution that they cannot change. Entity = fixed mindset. Incremental = growth mindset.

Attitude

A mental representation that summarizes an individual's evaluation of a particular person, group, thing, action, or idea

Attitude change

The process by which attitude form and change by the association of positive or negative information with the attitude object

Persuasion

The process of forming, strengthening, or changing attitudes by communication

Explicit attitude

The attitude that people openly and deliberately express about an attitude object in self-report or by behavior

Implicit attitude

Automatic and uncontrollable positive or negative evaluation of an attitude object

Knowledge function

The way an attitude contributes to mastery by organizing, summarizing, and simplifying experience with an attitude object

Instrumental function

The way an attitude contributes to mastery by guiding our approach to positive objects and our avoidance of negative objects