sl psych pt 2

Deindividuation

Loss of self awareness and individual identity (think of collective mind)

What Deindividuation does to our mind

It minimizes self awareness and concern for social evaluation, time distortion, it makes us more impulsive, we are guided by others, reduces memory

What type of behavior does deindividual lead to?

All of the above

Research in deindividuate subjects

No names, smocks or hoods sometimes. This would show results that people who were anonymous would chose the more negative outcome

• ex: Zimbardo shock experiments, Halloween (2×2, being in group and being deindividuated more likely to get more candy

Is losing self awareness and self control bad?

No, think unity. (Study in the dark. Most people were more physical in the dark

Flow

Think of flow state, complete immersion, positive experience. Control without exerting control (automaticity)

Zen

Nothing definite is thought, planned, striven for, desired or expected which aims in no particular direction which is at the bottom of purposeless.

• lazy and aimless

Is loss of self awareness good?

Depends on context

• we tend to do what others do

Self as impulse vs self as institution

Is the self controller or controlled in “self controlled”, are we Dionysian or Apollonian. Different eras are different

Why give bias answer?

Cognitive mechanism: we don’t give negative feedback

Motivational: unconscious self protective mechanism, high self esteem

David dunning change of standards/construal

Participants were asked how important some standard were regarding friendship (i.e. fun, kind, loyal etc) and then were told that they were not that thing. Participants who scored standard high initially then hearing that they aren’t that standard would rate it lower.

Self serving bias experiment Ross

Married couples rated how they and their spouse took responsible for 20 household tasks. On average participants thought they handled 16 while partner only does 4

Self serving bias experiment employ and whitchurch

Morphing your face with an unattractive face and an attractive face. We often think we are more closer to the attractive face than unattractive

• motivational explanation

Self esteem

What is our general attitude of ourself. Regard with respect

Sociometer hypothesis mark Leary

Our estimate of whether we are meeting societies standards and likely to be accepted.

Coping: terror management theory

Self esteem helps us with existential fears (ex: 9/11) helps us cope with anxiety and when we are reminded of our mortality we try to make us feel better

Self esteem brown and Dutton study

Regardless of high or low self esteem when receiving positive feedback we feel good, but when receiving negative feedback low self esteem has it worse than high

Accessibility of passivity and negative cognition after failure

For low self esteem people, when failed weakness become more accessible while people with high self esteem strength becomes more accessible when success.

Watching comedy after failure

People with high self esteem are more likely to want to watch comedy after failure than low self esteem

Helping after failure

High self esteem people would more likely help after failure than low self esteem

Gambling after failure

High self esteem more likely to keep gambling after failure than low

Threatened ego and aggression

People with high self esteem who are threatened are more likely to blast noise to other person than low self esteem

Does high self esteem lead to hurting or helping?

Both, depends on context and opportunities. Is high self esteem better? (Tank vs gage, we need to earn high self esteem not just give it out)

• think of education and self esteem. If everyone gets a trophy nobody will put in effort

How do we know what kind of person we are?

We compare ourselves to others, we choose the standard. It allows us to learn about ourselves (hypothesis 5)

• ex: If I got a 90 I compare myself with someone who got a 60, but also compare myself with someone who got 100

Social comparison theory

Upward comparison to someone better and downward comparison to someone worse

• downward feels good upward feels worse. But upward is more informational

Basking in reflected glory study

We want our friends and connections to do well

• think if ucla wins “we won” if ucla lose “they lose”

Self evaluation maintenance theory

Weak social ties: we are happier for stranger in a self relevant field. In non self field though we are happier for friend

Strong social ties: we are happier when friend does good in an activity that does not relate to us. But if it does relate to us we don’t like it

Self evaluation maintenance study

Participants gives clues to either friends or strangers

• for friends if it’s just a game they give lots of clues if it pertains to our intelligence then not a lot of clues

Social feedback

Used to evaluate ourselves, prefer to hear positive

Self enhancement theory

Tell me im good no matter what, pushes positively, we want to be liked by others

Self verification theory

Tell me the truth, i want to believe what I think is the truth

• want consistency even if its not 100% accurate

Test 1 for enhancement and verification (swann, et al)

5 qualities about self and how positive, then asked how much would we enjoy getting feedback on highest and lowest rated quality.

• result: want more feedback on positive quality

• enhancement

Test 2 for enhancement and verification (swann, et al)

asked if we prefer favorable or unfavorable feedback on worse or best attribute

• We prefer favorable feedback for best attribute and unfavorable feedback for worst attribute

• Verification

Test 3 for enhancement and verification (swann, et al)

How accurate was feedback that was given?

• result: High self esteem believed favorable feedback more than unfavorable feedback. Low self esteem believed unfavorable feedback more than favorable feedback

• Verification

Test 4 for enhancement and verification (swann, et al)

How good do you feel after getting the feedback?

• result: high self esteem feels better when given favorable feedback but so does the low self esteem group

• Enhancement

Why chose negative feedback

It helps us improve, want to feel authentic, we want to feel known by others

Social comparison: a barrier to happiness

Unhappy individuals are more affected by social comparison leading to increased negative emotions

• Unhappy people look more at comparison while happy people look at themselves

How to enhacement well being by reducing social comparison

Set internal standards, practice gratitude, be kind to others, limit triggers, stay mindful

Prophecy failure

Marian Kerch believed that world is going to end on December 21, 1854.

• nothing happened but she said that god saved the world due to their devotion

• Cognitive dissonance reduction or rationalization

Cognitive consistency/balance theory

When one thing disturbs our balance we try to rationalize whether we change it positive or negative

• Ex; i had a friend who was really nice and kind, but found out she was a cheater so it threw off my perspective. So I could either think that cheating isn’t that big of a deal or I could think that the friend is not good.

Rationalization

We do this everyday, it affects us by making us seem inathuentic and we do this because we need to feel consistent

• hypothesis 5

Cognitive dissonance theory

Intrapersonal conflict. Two cognitions conflict causing dissonance

• Main option to reduce this is change attitude or justify (we can change behavior as well but often can’t)

Study 1: insufficient justification

Dissonance, People do this boring experiment and after its over they are either given 20 dollars or 1 and ask to lie to other participants to say its fun

• results: people who were paid 1 convinced themselves that the experiment is fun

Study 2: free choice

Dissonance, We needed to rank 8 appliances and after rating, we would then get the 4th ranked or the choice to pick either 4th or 5th ranked. Then they were asked to ranked again

• result: when they had choice (4th and 5th) the one we chose would go up and the one we rejected would go down

  • No choice was similar to their first ranking

Study 3: effort = liking

Dissonance, Invited to join women discussion group

• three groups: control, mild initiation and severe initiation (sexual and taboo)

Asked if they liked the later conversation

• Results: people who were in the severe initiation were more committed to the discussion group (if I put in more effort it must be worth it)

Study 4: counter-attitudinal essays

Dissonant, they needed to write an essay on x or they have a choice to write on x or y. They measured initial attitudes and then measured a week later

• results: free choice convinced themselves that they like the topic. They also misremember what they put down

Why misremembering attitude

To serve current goal, attitudes aren’t stored with tags

• ex: if I paid for college I want to believe the class expanded my thinking even if it doesn’t

Process of cognitive dissonance

Misattribution of dissonance arousal

Given a pill (placebo) either an arousal pill or a relaxation pill or none at all. Then asked to write a counter-attitudinal essay

• result: if you freely chosen the essay you will change your attitude when you take a relaxation pill or no pill at all, but if you take an arousal pill your attitude will not change

  • Could blame arousal pill on what they are thinking on not them so they don’t change

  • Can’t blame it on relaxation because it’s suppose to relax you

Study amnesia and cognitive dissonance

Is cognitive dissonance conscious?

Compared amnesiacs and healthy controls and used the same 8 appliance free choice study

• results: the same thing happened to amnesiacs to healthy controls, they don’t need to remember in order to have cognitive dissonance

• Automatic

Study monkeys and kids

First round, Monkeys given choice of green or red M&M. Second round they got rejected color and new color M&M

• results: more likely to chose the new color, but they don’t get this effect if they were given first round color. Needs to be free choice

Heider and simmel demo

Shapes going around a room and we try to make up a scenario

• people with autism have trouble with this

• we can also think of the IKEA AD

Invisible states and traits

If we predict traits → states → intention → behavior

• we can predict broad to narrow but…We don’t do that we do this:

Behavior → intention → state → trait

Dispositional factor

Also called traits

Joe kicked Fido why was he angry? Use dispositional and situational factors

Dispositional: he has bad temper

Situational: Fido hit him

Situational factors

Context

Covariation model

3 factors: distinctiveness(across situations), consensus(across people), consistency(over time)

• we often can’t do this due to not following people around and getting data

Joe kicked Fido why was he angry? Use covariation model

Distinctiveness: is joe mean to lots of people?

Consensus: is everyone mean to Fido?

Consistency: does joe always kick Fido?

Correspondent inference theory Ned jones

Attributions based on singular behavior,

Behavior = dispositions + situational factors

Situational constraints (correspondent inference theory)

We all share knowledges of social norms

Normative behavior (correspondence inference theory)

No disposition, inference should occur when social norms creates the behavior

Counter normative behavior (correspondent inference theory)

Correspondence between the behavior and ones internal dispositions

Mark punched bill because bill was sleeping with marks wife use correspondent inference theory

Behavior = punch

Situation = bill sleep with marks wife

Disposition = marks is not a hostile person situation calls for it

Mark punched bill because bill bump into mark on accident use correspondent inference theory

Behavior = mark punched bill

Situation = bill bumped into mark

Disposition = mark is aggressive in general

The Castro study

Either pro or anti Castro essay written by students and we are trying to find out whether the author is pro or anti Castro themselves. Subjects believed that essay is either freely chosen or required

• results: freely choice makes them believe they are pro Castro and if they didn't have a choice it was reduced a little but they still think it represent them

Correspondence bias or fundamental attribution error

We overlook situation (situations are invisible), inaccurately theory of situational influence, salience (we only do this with other not ours), incomplete correction (automatic —> automatic → controlled), culture

Gilbert, Pelham, kurll

How anxious is this women everyday? See list of discussion topics

• results: cog busy - they are similar, not busy - anxiety provoking is less

stereotype

beliefs that associate a group of people with certain traits. can be positive or negative

• cognition/association

3 ways stereotypes can be wrong

overall generalization can be wrong, the generalization misapplied to individuals, we can misunderstand the cause of the true stereotype

prejudice

negative feelings/attitudes towards others because of their group behavior membership

• affect

discrimination

negative behaviors towards others because of their group membership

• behavior

implicit associations test

a test that makes you categorize white and positive connotations and black and negative connotation. we have to do it fast. it is to see what you automatically associate

• results: 75% of people automatic white preference, shows discriminatory behavior

why do we stereotype cognitive accounts?

saves cognitive effort, reduces ambiguity

why do we stereotype motivational account

if they are ___, then I am better by comparison. stereotyping enhanced when threatened

stereotyping and cognitive effort macrea, Milne, and bodenhausen

adjectives about Julian, some are stereotypical and others don’t see label

• 50% traits fit label and 50% random trait

stereotype reduces ambiguity (kinda and Sherman Williams)

scenario: hit someone who annoyed them(ambiguous) , decked a neighbor who teased them (aggressive) and spanked a child(not aggressive). then was told it was either a housewife or a construction worker

• results: aggressive and not aggressive was right but when it was ambiguous they rated constructive worker as more aggressive than housewife

motivational account of stereotyping (Spencer. fein, and frog)

when doing task, primed with Asian assistant or no Asian assistant. when completing words they checked how many stereotypical completions were made

• results: when Asian assistant was there, a lot of stereotype completions more than white assistant, and more negative ones

stereotype threat

fear of doing a stereotype that was based on your group

• ex: fear of dropping out of school and being labeled as a
  Hispanic dropout

• Experiment: primed stereotype behavior in one group which led them to not have working memory capacity

self fulfilling prophecies study Rosenthal and jacobsen

teachers were told that a test revealed late bloomers, measured IQ beginning and end of quarter

• no such thing the results were: bloomers got a major IQ jump

self fulfilling prophecy

when an originally false social belief leads to its own fulfillment

maze full and maze bright rats

students were given “dull” or “bright” rats, we see that the ones labeled dull did much slower getting through the maze than the ones labeled bright. could be due to students not putting effort for the dull

snyder, tanke and berscheid study

men led to believe they were talking to either a ugly or pretty woman. if pretty they said she was more friendly than ugly one

• they prob had been more friendlier to the pretty one

nonverbal communication

anything but words, appearance, facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, posture