Study Notes on Extreme Social Behavior and Social Motives

Extreme Social Behavior

  • Introduction to extreme social behaviors and their implications in social interactions.
  • Discussion on perceiving and explaining our social world through
    • Attribution Theory

Attribution Theory

Fundamental Attribution Error

  • The tendency to overemphasize dispositional factors in others' behavior while downplaying situational factors.

Dispositional vs. Situational Attribution

  • Dispositional Attribution: Attributing behavior to personal characteristics or traits.
    • Example: "I failed my test because I am stupid."
  • Situational Attribution: Attributing behavior to external circumstances or context.
    • Example: "I failed my test because my dad had surgery and I didn't have time to study."
  • People's tendency to have a bias toward one or the other, affecting their self-perception and explanatory styles.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  • When an initial belief about oneself leads to actions confirming that belief.
    • Example: Believing one is stupid can lead to reduced effort on subsequent tasks, thus confirming the belief.
  • This can also apply to others, where teachers' beliefs about students (bloomers) influence their performance positively due to increased attention.

Actor-Observer Bias

  • The tendency to see dispositional attributions in others while attributing one's own behavior to situational factors.

Bias Blind Spot

  • The tendency to believe that we are less biased than others, leading to misunderstandings in social judgments.

Self-Serving Bias

  • The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself (dispositional) and negative outcomes to external factors (situational).
    • Good outcome: "I did well because I am smart."
    • Bad outcome: "I did poorly because the test was unfair."

Social Motives

  • Exploration of five core social motives that influence human behavior and overall well-being:
    1. Belonging
    2. Understanding
    3. Control
    4. Need to Matter
    5. Trust

Core Social Motives

1. Belonging
  • The intrinsic need for stable relationships and connections with others.
    • Social exclusion negatively impacts psychological health (as illustrated by solitary confinement).
    • Example: Effects of solitary confinement on mental health and perception of reality.
    • Reality Testing: The importance of social feedback in maintaining an accurate sense of self.
2. Understanding
  • The desire to predict and make sense of social situations and our environment.
    • Experimental study: Predictability of shocks influences stress levels in participants.
3. Control
  • The motivation to feel autonomous and competent in directing one’s own life.
    • Study in nursing homes demonstrated the link between feelings of control and better health outcomes.
4. Need to Matter
  • The drive to be seen as worthy or valuable to others, shaping motivations and behaviors.
    • Motivates community engagement and social change initiatives, such as the Black Lives Matter movement.
5. Trust
  • The need to view the world as a fair and safe place; broken trust leads to distress.
    • Victim-blaming behavior as an illogical means to restore trust and control.

Perceiving and Explaining Our Social World

  • Attribution theory relates to how individuals explain behaviors in themselves and others, prone to biases and inaccuracies.

Social Judgments and Context Effects

  • Judgments influenced by context, including contrast effects, schemas, and priming effects.
Contrast Effect
  • Evaluation of an object or person depends on comparison with others.
    • Example: The perception of wine quality can drastically change based on contextual pricing comparisons.
Schema Theory
  • Mental structures formed from experiences help categorize and process new information.
Priming
  • Subtle cues activate schemas, influencing perception and judgment of others.
Primacy Effect
  • The tendency for initial impressions to significantly influence later evaluations.

Mental Time Travel

  • The exploration of how people recall and predict their personal histories and future emotions.
False Memories
  • The construction of false memories that can align with perceived self-images.
    • Example: Methods of suggesting false childhood events that individuals may then recall with confidence.
Affective Forecasting
  • Difficulty in predicting future emotional states, leading individuals to overestimate the duration and intensity of their feelings post-events,
    • Study example of dorm living preferences illustrating misjudgments of future happiness.
Decision Making Influences
  • People often focus on desirability of an outcome rather than feasibility, impacting life choices and satisfaction.