PPE Exam 4

Evoked Culture

Cultural differences as a result of differences in physical environment

Two requirements for examining variation in evoked culture:

* universal underlying mechanism
* differences in environment that activate these mechanisms to varying degrees

Four examples of evoked culture:

* evoked cooperation
* evoked mating strategies
* culture of honor
* cultural differences in conformity

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High-variance conditions

* meat sharing in hunter-gather societies
* low variance food is not shared
* egalitarianism

Low-variance conditions

* economic inequality

“Fast” life strategy - Early Reproduction

* experienced harsh, rejecting, unpredictable childhood environment
* impulsive, earlier puberty and sexual debut, more short-term partners

“Slow” life strategy - delayed reproduction

* responsive, supportive, predictable childhood environment
* committed stable marriage

China (evoked mating strategies)

* longer marriage
* lower divorce rate
* extended and heavy parental investment
* slow life strategy (less partner switching)

Sweden (evoked mating strategy)

* many children born out of wedlock
* higher divorce rate
* intermittent parental investment
* faster life strategy

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Culture of honor

* insults are offensive challenges
* determined by economic means of subsistence
* herding economy, agricultural economy

Herding economy

Reputation is important for theft prevention

Agricultural economy

Theft of subsistence is less common

Northerners

historically an agricultural economy

Southerners

Historically a herding economy

* not more endorsing of violence (unless protecting from insults)
* higher murder rates (for defending ones reputation

Evolutionary prospective: pathogen prevalence

Behavioral immune system (BIS) → social avoidance

Salient and prevalent pathogen threat

* more introverted
* more conforming to group norms

Low pathogen threat

more tolerant of nonconformity

Transmitted Culture

Ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs transmitted through social interaction

THree examples of transmitted cultures

* cultural differences in moral values
* cultural differences in self-concept
* personality variations between and within cultures

Moral values are specific to ________

cultures

how are cultural differences in moral values transmitted across generations?

through teaching and observations

The way we define ourselves….

guides behavior in self-presentation

Independent self-view

Agency, individualism, western cultures

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Interdependent self-view

communion, collectivism, non-western cultures

Cultural differences in self-concept

* continuum not category
* variability in each category oversimplified
* too general

Cultural differences in self-enhancement

* tendency to describe and present oneself positively
* eastern asians: less positive self-evaluations
* reflect actual subjective experience
* people in all cultures self-enhance more or less

Between-culture variations (cultural differences in personality)

* similar across 26 countries
* stereotypes of personality based on nationality are inaccurate
* most robust between-culture difference : extraversion
* little variation across cultures

Within-culture variation (cultural differences in personality)

* SES, generation, local/evoked transmitted culture
* much variance within cultures

Cultural Universals

Features of personality found in all or most human culturesT

Examples of cultural universals

emotion expression, big five across culturesE

Emotion Expression

* experience of emotions is universal
* cultural differes in emotion expression
* higher emotional expression

Teo approaches to seek cross-cultural validation

“transport and test” and start from scratch

“Transport and test”

* translated exisiting questionnaires
* replicated the five factors in france, holland, spain, phillipines, croatia, japan, slovakia

Start from scratch

* dutch, german, hungarian, italian, czech, and polish
* replicated: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism
* fifth factor varied across cultures
* sixth-factor emerged: honest-humility
* HEXACO model of personality

Self-esteem

feelings about one’s worth and abilities

arguable sub-components of self-esteem

performance, appearance, social

Self-esteem based on internal standards

* different for every person
* depends on what your important standard for yourself are

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Changes in self-esteem across life-span

* lowest in adolescence
* increases over most of adulthood

Self-esteem can change quickly due to:

* standard violations
* meeting standards
* can change from hour to hour

why do we have self-esteem?

* it tells us how we are doing socially (am I being included/excluded?)
* motivates us to avoid behaviors that lead to rejection

Sociometer hypothesis

the idea that self-esteem is like a gauge of telling us how we’re doing socially

Criticism of sociometer hypothesis

* better explanation for short-term changes in self-esteem
* self-esteem doesn’t relate to actual traits
* self-esteem is also moderately heritable

explicit self-esteem

how you CLAIM to feel about yourself

* may be lying

Implicit self-esteem

how you REALLY feel about yourself

* may be unconscious

Implicit testing

measuring the strength with which you associate yourself with good vs bad words

What if you say that you like yourself, but implicit testing shows that you don’t?

* high explicit, low implicit
* fragile self-esteem
* correlated with narcissism
* very sensitive to self-esteem threat

What if you say that you DON’T like yourself, but this test shows that you DO?

* low explicit, high implicit
* correlated with depression
* can result from being bullied

if you have observers rate physical attractiveness….

no relation to self-esteem

high self-esteem does not

promote success in school or at work

people with low self-esteem ____ more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs

are not

High self-esteem is linked to

* social confidence
* lower risk of depression
* persistence in the face of failure

Persistence

People accept feedback consistent with their self-concept

People with high self-esteem respond to failure by

* focusing on other areas of life that are going well

Slef-complexity

when one’s self-concept is made up of many roles

Low complexity

one failure might be devastating because it makes up a huge portion of self-concept hi

high complexity

failure in one domain is lessened because there are many others

High self-complexity individuals perform ______ in times of stress

better

High self-control is related to:

* good school outcomes
* better work performance
* better planning/decision making
* healthier relationships
* saving money
* exercise and health
* high conscientiousness and high agreeableness

Low self-control is related to

* risky driving
* addictive behaviors
* behavioral problems
* aggression
* crime

your personality can influence your ______

physical health

Stress

the feeling produced by threatening or uncontrollable events

Stress is a _________ to a situation

Response

Stressors

external stimuli that cause stress to a personth

Three things that stressors do

* produce a feeling of being overwhelmed or overloaded
* produce opposing desires
* seem uncontrollable: outside your power

Two things necessary for a person to perceive an event as stressful

Primary appraisal, secondary appraisal

Primary appraisal

Perceiving event as a threat to your goals

Secondary appraisal

Feeling like you won’t be able to cope with the event

Stages of stress

Alarm, resistance, exhaustion

Alarm Stage

* fight or flight response
* stress hormones released to face the challenge

Resistance stage

* body tries to resist feeling stressed
* uses up a lot of energy

Exhaustion stage

* energy and mental resources are depleted
* most susceptible to illness

Student stress test score meanings

300+: risk of developing health problems from stress

150-300: 50% chance of developing health problems in the next few years

Most of the stress we experience is caused by ______

daily hassles

Daily hassles

Minor, but chronic stress

Frequent Daily Hassles

* concerns about weight - 52%
* health of a family member - 48%
* rising prices of common goods - 43%
* home maintenance - 43%
* too many things to do - 39%
* misplacing or losing things - 38%
* yard work - 38%
* property, investment, taxes - 37%
* crime - 37%
* physical appearance - 36%

Minor stressors show a similar link to health as major stressors:

Those who experience more minor stressors are more likely to experience psychological symptoms and physical symptomsE

Effects of stressors (both minor and major) are _____

Additive

Attributional style

How people explain events in their lives

Dimensions of attributions

* internal vs external
* stable vs unstable
* global vs specific

Attributional style reflects a person’s level of ___ __or__ _____

optimism, pessimism

Internal/external

Did you blame the situation on yourself? other people? on the situation

Stable/unstable

Did you think the situation would continue? or did you see it as something that would be resolved soon?S

Specific/global

Did you think the negative situation affected multiple aspects of your life or of yourself?

What are the two attributional styles?

Optimism and pessimism

Optimists

* tend to make external, unstable, and specific attributions for negative events

Pessimists

* tend to make internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events

Optimism:

External:_______

Unstable:______

Specific:_______

* blame on situation or others
* it is not permanent
* affects only one aspect of their life

Pessimism:

Internal:_______

Stable:________

Global:________

* blame themselves
* this negative situation will keep happening
* affects other aspects of their life

People level of optimism is related to:

* self-reported health
* better immune system functioning
* quicker recovery from cancer
* longer life
* doctors ratings of person’s health

How is optimism linked to health behaviors?

* exercising regular
* avoiding fatty foods
* drinking in moderation or not at all
* taking care of oneself when sick

What kind of situations do pessimists prefer?

Risky and dangerous

____________ are better at problem-solving

Optimists

Pros of suppressing emotion

* sometimes it is socially inappropriate to express our negative emotions
* emotion suppression is an important social skill we develop as children (3y/O)

When does emotion suppression become problematic

when suppression is chronic

Daily dairies allow people to

express emotions in appropriate contexts

* higher happiness
* lower anxiety
* lower guilt

Disclosure

Telling someone something private about oneself

What happens when we write about trauma?

Feel more distressed, have higher blood pressure. but leads to fewer illnesses in the future

Why is writing effective?

allows person to re-interpret and reframe the event. they begin to search for positive meaning

Type A personality

* competitive achievement motivation
* time urgency
* hostility (easily irritated)

Researchers have found a link between type A personalikty