Psych Unit 4
Humanistic Theories of Personality
Abraham Maslow- Proposed that we as individuals are motivated by the Hierarchy of Needs
Hierarchy of needs - Labeled bottom up
1- Physiological needs - Food, water
2- Safety Needs - Shelter
3- Belonging Needs - Friendship
4- Esteem Needs - respect
5- Self-actualization- what is your main goal in life Mine is to be a parent
Carl Rogers
Unconditional positive response
An attitude of acceptance of others, despite theories
Self-concept- How one views oneself in relation to others
Social Cognitive Theory of Personality
Reciprocal Determinism - Interacting influences of behavior, environment, and internal cognition (continuous loop)
Self Concept In social cognitive theory- The way to describe a person
Self-esteem - The way you feel about these concepts the traits used to describe you
Personal Control = External Locus of control + Internal Locus of control
External locus of control- Stuff happens to you. Force is beyond your control
Example of external locus of control - UGH, of course it's raining the day I straightened my hair, why does bad stuff always happen to me?”
Internal locus of control - We can control our own fate
Example of internal locus control - “ I believe the only way to achieve straight A’s is by studying hard and turning in all of my work on time.”
Self-efficacy - Do you believe in your own confidence?
Definition of Self-Efficacy - People with high self-efficacy are optimistic about their own ability to get things done; people with low self-efficacy feel a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness
Collective culture/collectivism - Emphasizes the needs and goals of the group as a whole over the needs
Individualistic Culture - Stress the needs of the individual over the needs of the group as a whole.
How does it facilitate or constrain personality development? Trait theories
Trait Theories of personalities - You are made up of a bunch of traits
Personality involves a set of enduring characteristics and consistent ways of behaving
How are traits measured? Using personality quizzes (Personality inventory)
Using factor analysis to organize basic components of a trait
Example - Trait is kindness - if you are kind, you are also generous, thoughtful, and caring
Problem with this theory - It is a weak predictor of our behaviors, and it does not explain why an individual has a trait
Social Psych - Scientifically studies how we think about influence and relate to others
Attitude - Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly because other factors
Cognitive Dissonance - When our attitudes and actions are opposed - called cognitive dissonance
Examples of cognitive dissonance - Claim you are nice, then you do something mean. The mindset of cheating is bad, but then you cheat
How do you resolve the tension? You adjust your attitude to rationalize your actions
Persuasion
1- Central root persuasion - Thinking is influenced by carefully considering evidence and arguments - This is aimed to trigger favorable parts/ thoughts
2- Peripheral root persuasion - Thinking is influenced by incidental cues, such as speaker attractiveness - Fast result
Example of root persuasion - The halo effect - We believe famous and beautiful people are especially smart/ trustworthy
Elaboration likelihood model - Theory about how much a person thinks about the relevant information in a persuasive argument and impacts future beliefs - looking at both sides
Foot in the door phenomenon - The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply with a later, larger task.
Foot in the door example - Asking someone to take the eggs out of the fridge and them agreeing to make you eggs
Door in the face phenomenon- Asking an extravagant request and following up with a reasonable one
Door in the face example - Asking for $100 and being denied, but then asking for $10 and being accepted
Role-playing affects attitudes
Phillip Zimbardo (1972)
Created a two-week study where he assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role-appropriate attitudes
How long did the prison experiment last - 6 days
Results of the Sanford prison experiment: when you put good people in bad situations/ they do bad things.
Example- The guards become really harsh in their role because they believe that's what their job is.
Conformity - Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard
Confederate - someone who is in on the experiment
Who's the conformity guy- Solomon Asch
What are the two types of conformity? Informational social influence and Normative social influence
Information social influence - conforms to others of what they are doing/ might have better information
Example of information social influence - Partner quizzes
Normative social influence - Conform to what others are doing to fit in
Example of normative social influence - 3 people at a table, 2 of them have the same opinion, but you disagree, but you end up agreeing to fit in
Obidence - Complying with an order/demand. People also comply with social pressures
Stanley Milgram- designed a study that investigates the effects of authority on obedience
Milgram study - The teacher shocks the learner. The teacher thinks it's too harsh and asks the experimenter to stop. The question is, does the teacher comply
Module 4.1
Attribution theory - How to excuse someone's behavior
Two examples of attribution theory - Either the situation (situational attribution) or the person's deposition character
Fundamental attribution -The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and
Underestimating the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors of others leads to the fundamental attribution error.
Actor observer bias - Against something if you aren't doing it, but once you're in that position, it's rationalized
Example of actor observer bias - If you have your phone at the dinner table, it's okay because you're “so busy,” but if your brother had it out then it's a problem
Self-serving bias - The readiness to perceive oneself favorably, we take more credit for our successes than our failures
Just world hypothesis - The just world fallacy - the world is fair
Explanatory Style
Two types- Optimistic explanatory style + Pessimistic explanatory style
Optimistic explanatory style explanation - A person trusts that they can cope with a situation
Pessimistic explanatory style explanation - Negative events impact everything else, Negative events are the result of the person, which might result in self-blame.
Prejudice - Discrimination is behavior motivated by prejudice (attitude)
Implicit Attitudes - Thoughts and beliefs you might have that you are unaware of and don't acknowledge.
In out groups - An in-group is a group you are in. An example of an in-group is I take AP Psych, but I don’t take AP Bio. In that situation, AP Bio would be an out-group because that is a group you aren’t in.
Out-group homogeneity bias - Cognitive Bias in which people mistakenly perceive out-group members as similar to one another
Out-group bias example - “I'm not in AP Bio, but AP Bio seems hard, so all the AP Bio kids must be smart.”
Negative Emotions
Scapegoat theory - Prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame - Blaming all your issues on someone is a bad thing
Module 4.3B
Social Facilitation - If you are good at something, you will do better in front of a group; if you are bad at something, you will do worse in front of a group
Self-Loafing - The tendency of an individual in a group to exert less effort toward obtaining a common goal
Deindividualization - The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster around arousal
Group Polarization - enhances a group's prevailing attitudes through a discussion> when a group talks about how much they hate something, the group leaves hating it more than before
Group Polarization example - You have a sports team meeting about a team you hate - you leave having a deeper hatred for that team think about deep run
Groupthink- When a group starts to think alike, most seen in decision-making
Groupthink example - Hoco dinner
Altruism - A selfless act for the welfare of others
Alltrustim Example - Donating blood
Aggression - Can be any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally
The points of biology of aggression
Genetic Influences
Neural Influence
Biochemical Influences
Genetic Influences - Animals have been bred for aggressiveness for sport and at times for research. Twin studies show that aggression is possibly linked to a Y chromosome
Neural Influences- Some centers of the brain, especially the limbic system (Amygdala) and the frontal lobe, are intimately involved in aggression
Biochemical Influences - Animals with diminished amounts of testosterone become docile, and if injected with testosterone, aggression increases. Prenatal exposure to testosterone also increases aggression in hyenas
The 4 psychological factors of aggression
Dealing with aversice events
Learning aggression is rewarding
Observing models of aggression
Acquiring social scripts
Aversive events - Studies in which animals and humans experience unpleasant events reveal that those made miserable often make others miserable
Frustration-aggression hypothesis - The principle that frustration (the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal) creates anger, which can generate aggression