PSY 159 Exam 2

intuitive system

quick, automatic, gut feeling

rational system

slower, more controlled, systematic, deliberate

two ways people process information

intuitive system and rational system

experimental vs rational systems

epstein

system 1 vs system 2

Kahneman and Tversky

naive scientist

want to predict and control one’s environment. need to understand others’ behavior

consistency seeker

we try to make everything fit together in a consistent way

motivated tactician

our motives/goals influence our thinking. social tuning and unfalsifiability

cognitive miser

our capacity is limited so we need to take shortcuts. information overload

social cognition

The study of how people process, interpret, remember, and use information about themselves and other people.

zero-sum mindset

one person’s gain is seen as another person’s loss

cost associated with zero sum mindset

less cooperation and more aggression

schema

a cognitive structure representing knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus, including its attributes and the relationships among them

self-schema

organized knowledge about oneself, such as whether one sees oneself as honest, independent, athletic, extroverted

person schema

organized knowledge or expectations about a particular person

event schema/script

knowledge about the expected sequence of events in a situation, such as what usually happens at a restaurant

what schemas influence

encoding, memory, inferences

Nisbett and Wilson (1977)

people may have limited introspective access to their higher-order cognitive processes. people may be unaware of a stimulus that influenced their response or how a stimulus influenced their response

chameleon effect

nonconscious mimicry of interaction partners’ postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behavior

Chartrand and Bargh (1999)

investigated whether mimicking a participant’s behavior affected how much the participant liked the other person. participants rated the other person more positively in the mimicry condition

Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996)

studied automatic behavior priming, including politeness/rudeness and elderly-related primes. rude-prime condition had highest rate of interruptions. Elderly-prime participants walked more slowly.

limitation of classic automated behavior priming findings

findings failed to consistently replicate

Lower et al. (2007)

performance was better in the intelligence-prime condition that in the neutral-prime condition

behavior associated with being primed with dogs

people acted more loyally

behavior associated with being primed with politics

people talked for longer

behavior associated with being primed with fast food

impatience

relationship between fast-food restaurants and household savings

over time, household savings went down as fast-food restaurants grew. neighborhood with more fast-food has lower household savings. cannot show causation

delayed-task study

people in a sit-down dining condition were more patient than people in a fast-food condition

call center workers primed with image of woman winning a race

collected more money

heuristic

mental shortcut used to make judgments or decisions

availability heuristic

estimating how frequent an event is based on how easily examples come to mind

how heuristics affect judgement

can held people make estimates and decisions, but can also lead them astray

how availability heuristic affects estimates of rare events

can lead people to overestimate the risk or frequency of rare events when examples are easy to recall

why someone might think they have it worse than others

they are aware of their own challenges but less aware of the challenges other people face

headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry

a cognitive bias where people easily notice, remember, and complain about obstacles (headwinds) while quickly ignoring or taking for granted supportive factors and advantages (tailwinds)

anchoring and adjustment

when judging under uncertainty, people start from an initial reference point (anchor) and adjust from there to reach a final judgement.

how initial asking price influences a car negotiation

The opening price becomes an anchor and can influence what each person considers a reasonable final price.
In the used-car example, why might the person who negotiated from $2,000 to $1,000 feel they got a better deal than someone who paid $900? Their starting anchor was higher, making the $1,000 price feel like a larger reduction.

mental simulation/counterfactual thinking

imagining alternative ways an event could have happened (thinking about what could have been)

why people engage in counterfactual thinking

it can help them prepare for the future and avoid repeating mistakes

downward counterfactual

imagining how an outcome could have been worse, which can make the actual outcome feel better

upward counterfactial

imagining how an outcome could have been better

two functions of counterfactual thinking

affective (emotional) functions and preparative functions

test takers changing answer

test takers are more likely to change a right answer to a wrong answer than a wrong answer to a right answer

how counterfactual thinking increases commitment/meaning

when people can easily imagine how events could have turned out differently, they may attach more meaning to what actually happened

Wegner et al. (2004)

suppressing thoughts about a person before sleeping leads to higher chance of dreaming of them

three instructions in Wegner et al. (2004)

suppress thoughts of a person; intentionally think of a person; go about business as usual

conscious operating process in thought suppression

an effortful process that tries to create the desired mental state by directing attention toward other information

automatic ironic monitor

an effortless, nonconscious process that checks for failures to maintain the desired mental state

rebound effect

trying to suppress a though can make that thought return or become more accessible. the mind’s automatic ironic monitor keeps checking for the unwanted thought.

examples where though suppression can backfire

concentration, negative emotions, traumatic memories, stereotypes

potential benefit of emotional writing

Writing for 20 minutes a day over 3–4 days about deep thoughts and feelings concerning a troubling past experience was found to have beneficial effects over time

skinhead writing example

when people were instructed to suppress stereotypes, they were less likely to write stereotypically, but they say farther away from the person’s belongings

construal level theory

the idea that people represent more distant events more abstractly and closer events more concretely

kinds of distance that can affect construal level

temporal distance, spatial distance, psychological distance

high level construals

more general, schematic, and decontextualized representations associated with greater distance

low level construals

more concrete, contextualized, and detailed representations associated with closeness

how psychological distance affects attributions

greater distance can make people less likely to consider situational factors and more likely to commit the fundament attribution error (FAE)

how construal level affects stereotyping

people may be more likely to apply stereotypes when operating at a higher construal level

how self-distancing affects reactions to a negative memory

viewing the event from a more distant, third-person perspective may reduce emotional reactivity compared with reliving it from a first-person perspective

construal level theory and creativity

More likely to be creative for someone else than for ourselves when operating at higher level of construal

conformity

changing behavior to match existing norms

why conformity have a negative reputation

associated with oppression, peer pressure, and behavior that perpetuates the status quo

why some conformity is necessary

society relies on shared expectations and norms, such as how to behave in a classroom

relationship between childhood conformity and adult health

greater conformity in childhood is associated with better health outcomes in adulthood

why we think others are more likely to conform than us

we have introspective insight on ourselves

compliance

changing behavior in response to another person’s requent

obedience

changing behavior in response to a direct command from another person

three forms of social influence

conformity (matching norms), compliance (responding to requests), obedience (responding to commands

factors influencing people to be in cults

charismatic leaders, a sense of direction and purpose, indoctrination, isolation, sacrifice

how isolation helps a cult maintain influence

it limits access to outside sources of information, so members can only fact-check against other cult members

Sherif’s autokinetic study (1935)

• First, individually, tell people to look at the light and say how much it’s moving

  • Some people think moving a little, some people think it’s moving a lot

• Then, series of trials where people are with others, so they hear each other’s thoughts about it

  • The group converged their beliefs about how much the light was moving

  • A year later, the people still saw it moving by that amount

    • The norm persists

• shows informational social influence

examples of persistent social norms

• The time we eat meals

• What we eat for each meal

• Holding the door open for others

• Blessing someone when they sneeze

• How we dress (men wearing a tie; bride wears white for wedding)

• Greetings

new norms with covid

wearing masks, zoom, telehealth

Asch’s conformity experiments

• investigated how social pressure from a majority group affects an individual's independent judgment 

• The Task: Participants were shown a card with a single target line and another card with three comparison lines (labeled A, B, and C), and asked to state aloud which comparison line matched the target. The correct answer was always obvious. 

• The Group: Groups consisted of 7-9 actors (called confederates) and only 1 real, naive participant. 

• The Deception: The real participant believed the actors were fellow participants. The confederates were instructed beforehand to give unanimous, obviously incorrect answers on 12 out of 18 total trials. 

  • Starting on third trial, the confederates started giving the wrong answer

• 76% of participants conformed on at least 1 trial

• Conformity on 37% of trials

• normative social influence

normative social influence

conforming to gain social rewards, be liked, or avoid criticism and punishment from a group

informational social influence

conforming because one wants to be correct and often assumes that the majority is correct

mindlessness

 people may follow what others do without thinking

Langer (1978)

•  had assistants ask people to give up a copy machine to let them make copies.

  • Controlled condition: “excuse me, I have 5 pages to copy, can I use the machine?” (60% compliance)

  • Legitimate reason: “excuse me, I have 5 pages to copy. May I use the machine because I’m in a rush?” (94%)

  • Mindless reason: “excuse me, I have 5 pages to copy. May I use the machine because I have to make some copies? (93% compliance)

variables influencing conformity

• gender: neither gender consistently conform more than the other. depends on the situation

• group size: biggest impact with increases up to 3-4 influencers

• social support/ally: in the version of the Asch study where there was another participant who went against everybody else, it was much easier for the subject now to not conform.

• cohesiveness: a cohesive group is one in which the members are attracted/drawn to each other (they like other members of the group)

• Culture: conformity is higher in interdependent/collectivistic cultures

  • Genetics: traits with a stronger hereditary component may be less susceptible to conformity pressure

Bennington College study

• measured changes in the political and economic attitude of five separate entering classes during the years they spent at the college, where the faculty and upperclassmen tended to be more liberal (progressive) than themselves. All five classes marked a tendency to become more liberal after exposure to the Bennington college environment.

  • After college, they stayed liberal

  • Influenced who they married → they married liberal guys

cohesiveness with friends

• The biggest predictors of a teenager’s behavior is the behaviors of their clique

• Friends raise stress: if they are stressed, we are more stressed

• When one friend is gaining weight, their friend is likely to gain weight. Works the same for losing weight.

behavioral immune system

people may behave in ways that minimize exposure to foreign pathogens. Encourages conformity, especially when it comes to things like food, preparation, personal hygiene, public rituals

descriptive norms

describing what people generally do (“is”). informational

injunctive norms

describing what people should do (“ought”). normative social influence

salient norm

what people usually follow. If the descriptive norm is more salient, then tend to follow that. If the injunctive norm is more salient, then same thing

crying indian commercial

• Injunctive norm = stop polluting. 

• Descriptive norm = everyone is polluting

• Commercial may not be effective due to mixed message

Normative influence on recycling, energy consumption

Residents saw their energy use compared with their neighbors' use, with a smiley face for below-average use and a frowny face for above-average use; this encouraged lower energy use.

downside of showing people that they use less energy than average

they may increase their use to match the average if the descriptive norm is more salient

dynamic norms

messages about how a norm is changing can move people toward to new, desired norm. Even if a behavior isn’t that common now, if you say a lot of people are going it, people will want to get ahead of the curve and start doing it

automatic responding compliance technique

taking advantage of people’s tendency to respond to particular cues in predictable ways

positive moods compliance technique

make a request in a situation in which the target is in a good mood 

friendship/liking compliance technique

• we are more likely to go along with a request when it comes from someone we like, like a friend

  • If you have a dialogue with a stranger before asking them to do something, it’s more friend vibe so they are more likely to do the thing

ingratiation compliance technique

flatter someone so they like us and they are more likely to comply with a request if they like us