Psych 203 - Midterm 2

Ch 13-14

What is personality?

Enduring patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour that distinguish individuals from one another. (introverted vs extroverted, anxious vs adventure-seeking, pessimistic vs optimistic)

Psychodynamic theory (Freud)

Personality is the result of NON-CONSCIOUS interaction between 3 psychic systems: id (individual desire, superego [social rules for right and wrong], and ego [balances the last 2])

Behaviorist theory

• Says personality is learned

• Operant conditioning determines which characters are maintained (rewards increases tendancy of a behaviour and vice versa for punishments)

• Social learning (observing parents, friends peers)

• basically says: people are a blank slate, so humans have to learn their behaviours

What is a trait? How can you tell what traits go together?

.A stable personality characteristic. Use factor analysis to figure out which traits go together.

What is the Big Five Theory? (By McCrae and Costa)

-Openness

-Conscientiousness

-Extroversion

-Agreeableness

-Neuroticism

OCEAN

Associated with Job performance, parenting style, psychological disorders + substance abuse, cognitive decline in older adulthood, happiness, academic performance

Openness

A personality trait characterized by imagination, creativity, and a willingness to explore new experiences and ideas.

(Openness to experience)

Concientiousness

Best predictor of workplace success

• Reliable

• Hard working

• Punctual

Extroversion

A personality trait characterized by sociability, assertiveness, and a tendency to seek stimulation in the company of others. Extroverts are often outgoing and energetic.

• Talkative

• Assertive

Agreeableness

• Appreciative

• Forgiving

• Generous

• Trusting

• Non-critical

Neuroticism

• Higher survival value

• Anxious

• Self-pitying

• Vulnerable

• Touchy

Is all behaviour determined by personality?

The situation affects behaviour, regardless of personality

• Personality can change

Internal Locus of control

Belief that experiences result from one’s own doing

Advantages:

• Takes initiative and takes responsibility

Disadvantages:

• Higher depression, stress, less sympathy towards others

“I didn’t get that job because I am not good enough”

“Poor people are just lazy”

External Locus of Control

The belief that experiences result from factors beyond one’s control

Advantages:

• Lower levels of stress, suicide rates

Disadvantages:

• More complacency

• Less accountability

Projective tests

Individuals have to create/interpret stimuli and project their personality onto it

Types of Projective tests

Rorschach test:

• Describe what is seen on inkblots

• Interpret an abstract thing

Sentence completion test:

• “I wish…”, “My father…”

Drawing test:

• Draw human figures and talk about them

Advantages and limitations of projective tests

Advantage: Provides supplementary information about the individual’s personality (and conflicts)

Disadvantage: Low reliability and validity; investigators can’t agree on what it means or how to interpret it

Personality assessments

True-false items: Relates things back to OCEAN

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): 500 self statements in which individual must say true, false, or cannot say

Big Five Inventory (BFI-10)

Neuroticism was predicative of future risk for serious mental illness

Perception

Perception of our own affects behaviour, and cognition (ABC)

(Whereas personality looks at characteristics we share with OTHERS)

Self-Concept

Description of one’s own characteristics:

• Age

• Gender Identity

• Employment/study status

• Personality

Self-Schema

Set of beliefs about oneself

“I am… loyal, kind, talkative” etc

True or False: Self relevant information is processed more easily than information about others

True! Called the self-reference effect

Thinking about the self is associated with what in the brain?

The Default mode network: Medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and inferior parietal love

A disruption of sense of self is associated with?

Poor information processing in schizophrenia, fewer reference to self-referential terms (I, me, my…)

What is self-esteem?

Personal judgement on the value of one’s self; based on overall self-worth or specific characteristics like intelligence, appearance. This is the emotional component of self-perception.

Define Self-Concept

Attirubutes assigned to the self, as in “I am a first-year biology major”

Define Self-Schema

Collection of all self-concept attributes, used to organize thinking about the self

Define Self-Awareness

Knowledge of the self

Define Self-Esteem

Judgement of the self’s worth

Many species are social by nature, what are some advantages of living in a group?

Safety in numbers, sharing in food, alerting to dangers, sense of love and belonging, shared responsibility of caregiving to the young

What is the cost of social isolation:

Social isolation increases risk of depression, death, and suicidality

What is Social Psychology?

Study of how individuals behave in the social context like in social interactions, obedience, conformity etc…

Why don’t we just study personality instead of considering the group?

People act differently in social settings as well as when placed in a group! This is because being part of a group requires adapting one’s beliefs, thoughts, feeling, and actions to match others.

What is attribution?

How we judge the cause of other’s behaviour. There are 2 types.

Dispositional attribution:

Attributing behaviour to their personal characteristics. For example, telling a homeless person they are homeless because they do not work hard enough.

Situational attribution:

Attributing behaviour to situational factors. For example, thinking a homeless person is homeless because they’ve been dealt the wrong hand rather than a reflection of their own failures.

(Q) Fundamental Attribution Error

Tendency to overemphasize internal factors (personality, character) and underestimate external factors (situational influences) while doing the opposite when explaining our own actions. “My friend was late because the roads were bad but this other person was late because they are unreliable.”

Self-Serving Bias

Tendency to attribute our positive behaviours to dispositional factors and personal failure to situational causes “I got this job because I am hard working and intelligent”

Correspondence Bias

Tendency to attribute other’s negative behaviours to dispositional factors

“They lost their job because they are are lazy”

Group-serving Bias

“Our team won because of hard work”

“Your team won because they were lucky”

Advantages:

Makes us feel good, special, unique

Disadvantages:

Xenophobia, racism, hatred for other teams/groups

What are attitudes?

Favourable or unfavourable evaluations that affect behaviour about people, objects, or issues

Advantages and Disadvantages with attitudes?

Advantages:

Allows predictions (Will this person also like Jimi Hendrix?), allows us to decide what we should think about other people.

Attitudes are generalizations that make life easier.

Disadvantages:

Stereotyped views about others. We can’t escape having attitudes.

Just-world belief

Assuming that people get what they deserve. “The homeless person doesn’t try hard enough to get off the streets, so it’s fitting that they are homeless”.

(Q) Describe cognitive dissonance and how it is resolved. Also, describe the main findings of of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)

Cognitive dissonance is discomfort caused by a mismatch between attitude and behaviour. To resolve it, simply change your action or belief to match the other. For example, you love meat but you care about animals. You have 2 options: change behaviour (stop eating meat), or change attitude (stop thinking about where it comes from).

What are some uses of cognitive dissonance?

Encourages healthy behaviour (dangers of smoking), make people buy expensive stuff (this limited edition item is only available for 2 days!)

What is persuasion?

Persuasion is attitude change because of information provided by others.

(Q) Describe the ELM model of persuasion. Describe any 3 factors affecting peripheral path to persuasion.

Central route to persuasion:

• Carefully considering the information

• High elaboration state

(Relies on logic and facts)

Peripheral route to persuasion:

• Responding to peripheral cues

• Low elaboration state

When is the central route used?

When you are motivated to learn about the topic, knowledgable about the topic, or when you have time to consider the information carefully

When is the peripheral route used?

When responding to peripheral cues, or spontaneous decision-making.

List some factors that affect peripheral persuasion?

• Number of messages

• Popularity/credibility of speaker

• Emotional appeal

• Format of presentation

• Age and intelligence (in this case, lack thereof)

What are some limitations of peripheral route to persuasion?

People may go in denial when too many negative emotions are invoked. Additionally, intelligent, well-educated adults are less likely to be persuaded spontaneously.

What are the 2 forms of persuasion?

Conformity and Obedience

What is conformity?

Matching our behaviour to perceived social norms.

How many people constitute a “group”? Does a further increase in group size result in more or less impact on persuasion?

3-4 people constitute a group. Further increases in size has minimal impact.

Using the idea of conformity, how can we reduce police brutality?

We unconsciously conform to the roles assigned to us in society so we can reduce police brutality through changing role expectations.

Why do humans conform?

To know how to behave in a specific role (nurse, lawyer, instructor), to fit into the group, peer pressure

What is obedience?

Compliance to request of an authority figure

(Q) Describe Milgram’s obedience study and it’s findings in brief.

There were teachers and learners. Teachers would be asked by experimenter to administer incremental shocks if the learner made mistakes. No actual shocks would be administered but the teachers did not know this. Learners were actually confederates who pretended to receive the shocks and would plead for the shocks to stop. Teachers would show distress/concern for the learner yet most teachers administered the maximum possible shock.

(Q) List factors that increase obedience:

Proximity: The closer the authority figure is to the person, the more likely they are to comply with the authority figure’s demands. Furthermore, it is easier to get people to hurt others if they don’t see or hear them.

Deindividuation: Behaviour differs when in a group, as opposed to when alone and identifiable

Group polarization: Attitudes become more extreme after discussion with like-minded group (MAGA hate)

What factors contributes to dissent? (lack of obedience)

One person disagreeing with a group can increase others following suit

What is social facilitation?

The presence of others changes one’s performance (e.g. home advantage in sports!) Only works when the person is highly skilled in the domain. If the person is not skilled at the task, they will probably do worse.

What role does arousal have in social facilitation?

Arousal (caused by having an audience) has curvilinear relation with performance called: Yerkes-Dodson Law. Essentially, simple tasks are enhanced when aroused and complex tasks are quickly impaired when the person doing them is unskilled.

What is social loafing?

When individuals working in a group put less effort in than if they were alone

Difference between social loafing vs facilitation?

Facilitation: Intertwined with the presence of spectators

Loading: Presence of others doing the same thing/work

True/False: A more boring task will result in more social loafing

True, and vice versa if the task is more enjoyable!

What does Adam Smith say about cooperation and competition?

Says that we should expect people will look out for themselves and their own interests.

What does John Forbes Nash say about cooperation and competition?

Everyone benefits when one does what is best for themselves AND for the group

Why does tit for tat work in examples like the prison dilemma?

You start with trusting your partner, defection is punished, and it is rewarding/forgiving.

How does the prison dilemma explain human nature?

Explains how a society rewards fairness an cooperative behaviour. Essentially, eventually, everyone realizes it is better to cooperate. Lone-wolves don’t get very far in the long run.

Do animals have the same cooperation/ competition instinct within their own group?

Yes, animals have a sense of fairness and cooperation too. Capuchin monkeys for example, will happily exchange pebbles for cucumbers till they see another monkey getting raisins for the same work.

Social psychology has implications for..?

• Understanding complex decision-making (behavioural economics)

• Reducing conformity in groups (industry)

• Managing crowds and mobs (legal system)

• Understanding persuasion and attitude change (marketing)

• Understanding mental illnesses (FAE, positive illusions)