PSYC204 - Midterm Exam

van’t Veer & Giner & Sorolla

• Problems Addressed

  • P-hacking: fabricating results

  • Hypothesizing after results are known

  • Selective reporting

• Key Takeaways: 

  • This is a case for pre-registration, in which researchers specify their hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans before data collection

  • Pre-registration enhances transparency, reduces bias, and improves the replicability of research findings

Markus (1977)

• Problems addressed

  • Investigating how self-schemata (cognitive generalizations about the self) influence how people process, recall, and interpret self-relevant information

• Main takeaways

  • Process relevant information

  • Recall past experiences

  • Resist contradictory feedback

Medvec

• Problem Addressed: how we frame and interpret our experiences significantly affects our emotions, possibly more than the actual outcome

• Main takeaways

  • Counterfactual thinking influences emotional responses

    • Silver medalists compare themselves to gold medalists and feel regret

    • Bronze medalists compare themselves to those who didn't medal and feel relief

  • This highlights how subjective comparisons shape our experiences more than objective outcomes

Ross & Sicoly (1979)

• Problem Addressed

  • The paper investigates people’s tendency to overestimate their contributions to shared tasks and experiences 

• Main takeaways

  • People recall their contributions more easily than others due to differences in the availability of information

  • This leads to egocentric bias

  • The bias addresses perceptions of fairness with individuals believing they contribute more than they do

Fischer et al. (2004)

• Women report more intense emotions related to interpersonal relationships, such as sadness, fear, and joy

• Men express more socially dominant emotions such as anger and pride in certain cultural contexts

• Women in individualistic cultures were more likely to openly express emotions 

• Gender differences were more pronounced in cultures

Harmon Jones and Harmon Jones

• Problem Addressed

  • The paper explores cognitive dissonance theory, its merit and the evolution throughout the past 50 years

• Main takeaways

  • Over 50 years, research has shown that cognitive dissonance arises most strongly when people feel personally responsible for their inconsistencies and when the inconsistency threatens their self concept

  • But most importantly, they found sufficient evidence to support the original version of the theory

Social Psychology

The scientific study of the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals in social situations. The study on how people think and influence each other.

Kurt Lewins b=f(p+e)

Explains how people and their environment influence behavior

Fundamental Attribution Error

The failure to recognize situational influences on behavior. People instead blame traits.

Channel Factor/Nudge

Certain situational circumstances that appear unimportant on the surface, but can have great consequences for behavior.

ex: Sending reminders for a doctors appointment

ex: leventhal, singer, and jones

• increase number of students getting a tetanus shot by showing them scary material or giving them a map on where they need to go for the appointment

Good Samaritan Study

The Good Samaritan Study exemplifies the power of the situation concept.

• seminar students were asked to give a short seminar on the Good Samaritan, and they were given a a specific route to the sermon.

  • Results: People in a rush passed the man compared to people with a lot of time.

    • This shows that peoples behavior are influenced by their environment.

Construal

Perception of something + interpretation by the mind.

• Seeing a candle instead of two people looking at each other

Gesalt Psychology

People perceive objects by an unconscious interpretation of what the object represents as a whole.

• Construals and schemas allow Gesalt psychology to function. We use them to form the shape or idea of an image we interpret.

Automatic Processing

We perceive the world quickly, effortlessly, and without conscious thought.

• Used with low impact decisions, repeated actions, and when under threat

Controlled Processing

Effortful, deliberate, conscious processing

• Used in high impact decisions, new situations, and when something requires focus

Independent Cultures

Dont rely on each other, more solitary

Interdependent Cultures

Collective action, accepting of hierarchy

Differences between observational, archival, survey, and experimental research

Observational: Do not engage with what you are observing, just collect information

Archival: Collecting data using photos, newspapers, records, etc

Survey: Having people answer questions themselves

Experimental: Manipulating a research question to find causal results

Correlational Studies

Works to find out the relationship between two variables

No random assignment; just tests to find a relationship between variables

Experimental Research

Uses independent and dependent variables

Uses random assignment

Easy to be manipulated

Main components of an experiment

Independent Variable- the variable being changed

Dependent Variable- the variable being measured

Control Condition- the condition not being tested

Reliability

The degree to which measurements are consistent over time

Measurement Validity

The degree to which measurements are consistent over time

Internal Validity

Only the manipulated variable could produce the results

• hindsight bias, selective attention

External validity

Resembles real life situations so results can be generalized to such situations

Random Assignment

Assigning random groups to a condition

Random Sampling

Sampling people at random (everyone in the population has the chance to be chosen for the experiment)

Basic Research

Concerned with trying to understand some phenomenon in its own right

Applied Research

Concerned with solving real world problems

Institutional Review Board

Approves experiments and makes sure they are ethical

Informed Consent

Participants willing to participate in an experiment

Deception Research

Participants are misled about research

• The Stanford Prison Experiment

Self Schema

A cognitive structure derived from past experience that represents a persons beliefs and feelings about the self.

• We will be quicker processing accepting, and rejecting information about ourselves

Contingencies in Self-Worth

Self Esteem is contingent on success and failures in domains that are important to their self

• High self esteem when successful, and vice versa

• People who experience negative events will have negative self-esteem

Trait self esteem

An enduring level of regard for yourself

State self esteem

Current level of regard for yourself

Self discrepancy theory

People want to reduce discrepancies between their actual self and ought self

Ideal self

The person you want to be

Ought self

The person you think you should be.

• when these dont align, you feel guilty and anxious

Social Comparison Theory

People compare themselves to others to evaluate their own opinions, abilities, and internal states

Upward Comparison

To improve yourself, you compare yourself to those who are better then you.

Downward Comparison

When you want to feel good about yourself, you compare yourself with people who are worse

Why do we engage in social comparisons

There is no clear objective standard

You experience uncertainty about yourself in a particular domain

Better Than Average Effect

Most westerners think they are better than average on most personality traits; most likely to occur for vague traits

• we judge others based on their average, but we view ourselves based on our “best”

• Driving

Self verification theory

People strive to have stable, accurate beliefs about the self

• Swann et al found that our memory is more selective for self-consistent info

  • This gives us a sense of coherence

Sociometer Hypothesis

An internal subjective index or maker of the extent to which a person is included or looked favorably by others

Helps us assess how we are doing socially

Cultural Differences in Self-Esteem

Women- refer to relationships when destroying self and attuned to external cues

Men- prioritize differences and uniqueness, more attuned to their internal responses

Independent- internal causes of behavior; more solitary

Interdependent- connected with everyone

How do we maintain positive self-evaluation?

We shift our definitions to match how we act

• driving, self affirmation and self enhancement

Pluralistic Ignorance

A situation in which the majority of group members have a private belief in A, but they seem to believe in B, leading you to do the same.

Primacy

Information presented first has strong influence on later judgements

Recency

Information presented last has strong influence on later judgements

Framing

The influence on judgement resulting from the way the information is presented

Confirmation Bias

people will find evidence that supports their own proposition

can lead to false information and false beliefs

impacts how info is gathered, stored, and recalled

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Have an expectation about what another person is like, this influences how they act towards a person, which causes that person to behave consistently

Temporal framing

How actions and events are framed within a particular time perspective

Distant = abstract

Close = concrete

Schemas

Mental structures

How do schemas impact memory

THey are stored in memory.

We are more likely to remember stimuli that has caught our attention

Impacts encoding and retrieving memory

How can schemas impact behavior

Priming impacts our behavior as it influences our actions without us consciously thinking about it

Heuristics

Decision making short cuts to make quick and efficient judgements

Availability Heuristic

If something comes to mind easily, people think its common

Peculiar Rudy and his occupation

Representativeness Heuristic

The tendency to compare things or individuals to the prototype of their category

Look at his U of I polo, he must be a frat boy

8k in greek life out of 52k

Covariation Principle

Behavior should be attributed to potential causes that co occur with the behavior

Consensus

Do most people do this in this situation?

yes- situation

no- person

Distinctiveness

Does the person only do this in this situation?

Yes- situation

No- person

Consistency

Does this person do this all the time in this situation?

Internal Attribution

Consistency and distinctiveness is low, but consistency is high.

The person is the root of it.

External Attribution

When consensus and distinctiveness is high, but consensus is low.

The situation is the root of it.

Augmentation Principle

Great weight is given to a particular cause of a behavior

Wearing a tie dye shirt to an interview, we would likely attribute this to his personality.

Discounting behavior

Less weight is given to a particular cause of behavior if there are alternatives present.

The interviewee is only pleasant because it is an interview

Counterfactual thinking

Imagining alternative outcomes to past events that have already happened

Self serving bias

The tendency to attribute failures to external factors. and successes to internal factors

Heine (2001)

-Participants were given false feedback (failure or success) about performance on a creativity task

-Japanese participants who were told that they failed worked longer on the second task.

-Canadian participants who were told that they succeeded only worked longer on a second task when they were told they performed well

McGuire and Padawer-Singer (1978)

Children describe themselves by how unique and different they are compared to their classmates

McNeil et al. (1982)

Doctors were asked if they would recommend a surgery in two different ways, and their responses to if they would depended on how the statement was framed.

“100 patients had the surgery and 90 survived post op”

“10 patients died post op”

Todorov

Snap Judgement: People make inferences about a person in a very small time period.

Participants were asked to rate someones attractiveness, aggressiveness, like

Gilbert (1989)

Cognitive load impacts functional attribution error.

i dont know man

Tracy and Matsumoto (2008)

People who were blind are blind at birth show the same expressions as sighted people

-Athletes who are blind show the same expressions as sighted athletes after winning or losing

Knox and Inkster (1968)

Bettors on a horse track were interviewed before ticket purchase and gave their horse a “fair chance of winning”

When interviewed after the ticket purchase they gave their horse a “good chance of winning”

• Shows greater dissonance reduction.

Wilson et al (1984)

When people are able to think about a product selection more in depth, they are more likely to regret it.

Aronson and. Carlsmith

The researcher showed children some toys, children ranked how much they liked each toy.

The researcher said he was going to leave, and to not play with the toy.

Mild threat: If you play with this toy, experimenter will be annoyed.

Severe threat: If you play with this toy, experimenter would be “very angry and never return”

No child played with the toy, but reevaluated all toys.

The children changed their attitude toward the toys so there would be no inconsistency

Zanna and Cooper

Cognitive dissonance causes arousal

Three groups were part of an experiment where they were given an essay that went against their attitude.

They were given placebo pills where

• one would make them feel tense

• one would make them feel relaxed

• one would have no side effects

Shows that cognitive dissonance makes us feel uncomfy

Petty et al (Testing the ELM)

Gave undergrads a list of arguments for comprehensive exit exams

Manipulated arguments, source expertise, and personal relevance

Stronger arguments and expertise were shown to be more trustworthy. Relevance matters as well, as it determines if you use central or peripheral processing.

McGuire and Papageorgis (1961)

Had participants evaluate cultural truisms on a 15- point scale.

Received an attack on the truism, told to argue against the attack.

Recieved an attack on this trusim, given additional material to support initial truism,

After a few days, participants were asked to read a strong one-page argument against the truism. They still defended the truism.