Study Guide
Lecture 1 & 2
Social Psych.
Soc. Psych.: How ppl behave in soc. interactions and percieve interact.s
Floyd Allport wrote:
Studies the behavior of the individual in so far as his behavior stimulates other individuals or is itself a react. to their behavior; and which describe the consciousness of the individual in so far as it is a consciousness of social objects and social reactions
How we affect ea. other and think about ea. other
Gordon Allport wrote:
Attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others
Actual: ppl. can affect us directly when we are in their presence
Imagined: ppl. can affect us thru our stored mental represent.ts of them even when we are not in their presence
Implied: ppl. can affect us when institut.s or norms reminds of ppl’s ability to influence us
Camera presence makes us aware that we are being monitored
Soc. Psych: Scientific study of way individuals think, feel, and behave in soc. contexts
Scientific goals: objectivity, generality, validity, reliability, explanation !!
Theory-based & ruled by evidence & logic
Themes for the Course
The human mind was designed by natural selection to solve soc. problems
Natural select. shaped basic psychological processes, including attent., percept., categorizat., memory, learning, concept format., valuat., emot, motivat, and decision-making
Similar to how a hand formed to be able to do many things, human minds evolved to be complex
Evolved to be able to reproduce more; loll Prof. said you can think of mind as a sex organ
Allows us to process info from the world and make decisions that are fitness-enhancing
Similar to how our sense of sight, hearing, and smell developed
“The Cocktail Party” effect: ex of how our attention gets grabbed by other ppl. saying our name or loved ones — natural select. affects our attent.
Memory:
Ex) We can remember about 5k faces and names
Learning:
Ex) We can remember what foods make us sick
We evolved to make other ppl. predictable and we do so by building models of our social worlds — and of ourselves
Models that are better than no models at all; we use all types of info. to make a predictive model of behavior of other ppl. (likely over simplified, but likely better than chance)
We build an understanding of ourselves — desires, interests, goals; we observe own behavior and how ppl. respond to us
We evolved to care deeply about what others think of us
Positive beliefs often benefit us
For Prof: prof. eval.s & desire to be a good teacher —> want positive views from students
We have 2-track minds: behavior is driven by both automatic (unconscious, unintended, spontaneous) and controlled (conscious, intended, deliberate) activity
System One: Automatic (like riding a bike, habits, etc) — fast, unconscious, automatic, everyday decisions. error prone
System Two: Controlled (like learning how to drive) — slow, conscious, effortful, complex decisions, reliable
We learn how to be social thru:
Reinforcem. learning: changing behavior in response to rewards and punishm.; phylogenetically old method, interacting in the world
Soc. learning: seeing consequences of other ppl’s soc. behavior
Cultural learning: Learning from the norms, beliefs, preferences of a cultural group (ethno-linguistic group)
Conforming to the norms; learn diff. ways of being soc. by being at UCSD
History
Social. Psych. originated as a problem solving discipline
Aft. WWII, inc. in interest in soc. psych.
Propaganda, book burnings. assassinat.
Book to Read maybe: In the Garden of Beasts (literary non fict.)
Hitler & German Boy Scouts — Obedience and conformity, charisma, power
Concentrat. Camps, Gas Chambers
USA posters to pursuade ppl. to join war effort
WWII - USA posters to pursuade ppl. to join the war effort
Integrat. in the mil. - how to pursuade ppl. to efffectively collaborate
How to address prejudice? —> A big topic in Social Psych.
A deeper approach into soc. psych.
The Unity of Knowledge
Interdisciplinary
Humans are animals; we’ll be looking at some biology
Positivism - a rel. w/ the motto of order and progress
August Comte (1798 - 1857)
Interdisciplianry knowledge; from math to ethics; knowledge should be integratable, higher and lower levels of knowledge and diff disciplines
3 Big ideological forces: theological (gods, spirits, ancestors), metaphysical (speculate about concepts that could be driving the world), scientific
Math, Astronomy, Physics, Chem, Bio, (Psychology,)Sociology, Moral (steps up the Temple of Humanities)
In this class, we’ll be studying sociology and moral esp.; So we’ll look at bio
Bio
“Nothing in biology makes sense exceot in the light of evolut.” - Theodusius Dobzhansky; nothing is soc. psych. makes sense w/o knowledge of evolut.
Process that generates new species and adaptations; Charles Darwin in his The Origin of Species; The Reluctant Evolutionist
Organisms to evolve, variation, differential reproduct., heredity; algorithmic process; evolution by natural selection
Ex) Green and brown beetles against brow tree trunk —> Easier to eat by predators —> Green beetles will have less offspring and pass off less of their green genes; genes can go on forever, making exact replicas of themselves
Small differences over generations; even slight differences make a difference
Natural select. builds brains in the right way — to solve problems (such as problems our ancestors faced; some were soc.), to survive; the soln.s exist as brain circuits
Brain circuits solve those problems by taking in info. about the world, comparing it to rep.s of desired states and then producing behavior that creates apprpriate responses to the world
We have special endowm.s in the areas of attent.. sensat., percept., categorizat., and memory that enable us to process the right kinds of soc. info. from our worlds
Analyzing behavior at 4 levels of analysis
Mechanistic: What factors internal to to the individual cause the behavior? (What’s teh cicuit? What’s the matter)
Ontogenetic: How does the behavior develop over the life course? (Baby vs elderly)
Phylogenetic: How did the behavior become characteristic of the species? (Where along our phylogenetic tree did we develop our trait?)
Adaptive: What function did the behavior evolve to execute?
Example
Why do birds sing?
Mechanism: Neural systems that network to enable birds to sing
Ontogeny: Adult birds have the ability to sing, young birds and elderly birds don’t sing; bird songs develop thru interact. w/ others, as shown in how birds raised in the wild v. birds raised in isolat. have diff. songs
Phylogeny: How far back in the world did birds start to sing? Last common ancestor who was able to sing, and all ancestor species since then have been able to sing
Adaptation: To scare away rivals, to attract mates or friends
Why do people help others?
Mechanism: brain centers that create emotional empathy and concern
Ontogeny: When does empathy and desire to help others develop?
Experiment indicates that ppl would share money w/ other ppl.
Experim: As ppl grow up, more likely to give more of their money
Phylogeny: strong correlation b/t proactive prosociality and extent of allomaternal care (species helps others raise offspring that isn’t their own; take care of ea. other’s offspring)
Adaptation:
The Adaptive Level of Explanation
A helps B & B helps A
Reciprocal; helping each other
Why are our brains so big?
Relatively short period of time; brain size has increased almost 3 times
Extended period of growth & neural development (childhood)
Increased size of cerebellum (part of brain involved in physical coordination)
Brain wiring: How neurons manage to connect to other neurons (particularly, possibly in areas related to cognition, learning and control of the vocal tract)
Neoteny (delayed maturation; longer window for brain developm., esp. orbitofrontal cortex (implicated in social cognition and learning)); long period of growth
5 hypotheses:
Resource Hypothesis: result of selection pressure for solving ecological challenges; bigger brain to get more food
Me vs. Nature
Social Brain: social challenges; how to cooperate and compete w/ others (relationships)
Us vs. Nature
Cultural Brain Hypothesis: big brain is for learning; learning from cultural and community group
Machiavellian Intelligence: brains evolved to be better strategist and to be better at manipulation
Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince
Me vs. you
Parochial Altruism Hypotheses: brains worked to make for more effective, competitive unit to work against other group
Parochial schools serve a parish; one focus
Community
Us vs. Them
Simplified Mathematical experiment found that
Equal point value for brain, body development, and reproduction to overcome ecological, ____, and ____ challenges
60% of brain growth has been solved from ecological challenges
30% is cooperation
10% for group conflicts
Lecture 3: The Evolution of Human Social Life
Diff and similarity from then and now
What we know about how our ancestors lived tgt:
Reproduced sexually and had offspring
Had mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, etc.
Relationships
Lived in small, temporary bands of mult. families
Lived in societies w/ own customs, lang.s, and beliefs
Similarities
Chimpanzee - testicles almost same size as their brain,
Body weight & testes weight; in general, as get bigger, organs get bigger
Multi male and multi female system tend to have higher tes tesweight (polygony; promoscuity); sperm warfare - competition
Polygyny: no competition, one male mate to female mate Mongamy: single male, single female; sometimes, may mate w/ multiple female
Polyganies rel.
Physically compete (fight), competit. for
Gorillas basically have a harem; access is controlled by dominance; No need to have sperm warfare so smaller testes
Modern Family Experiemnt:
Controlled fertility: on avg is 2, range is 1.5 to 4.5
Modern Families - have on avg. 6.5 avg. ranging from 3.5 to 8.5
Human females (ages 16-50 yrs of age) - fair quick succession; every 3 yrs of so but much higher for other monkeys; shorter interbirth interval
Human life lives past their reproduct. ability but most monkey species die and stop reproducing around the same time
Humans live nearly 30 yrs after they stop reporudicing
Grandmother hypotheses: after women reach menopause, they still continue to get a reproductive benefit by taking care of grandkids
We evolved to be cooperative animals
Lived in multi-family groups
In Ancestral population, as few as 11 and as many as 41; on avg, living for 36 -18 days
A band needed a lot of space to extract resources from the envm
50 ppl. needed about 79 sq mi
Current city at 1.4 million ppl.
Differences b/t society then and now
Division of labor and transfer into currency; currency to buy diff stuff, makes transfer more efficient; Trade - People created value by specializing in work
Transportation
Ships (about 8 m/h) are fuel efficient
Housing density is higher so you can fit more people
Agricultural advances
Technological advances
Public Health advances; antibiotics & modern medicine helped extend life and decrease deaths in babies
Literacy
Auctions
Mismatch
Evolved psych.; the world is diff. than the world our bodies were evolved to adapt to (today v. 200k yrs ago)
Mismatch b/t appetite and availability of food
Human bodies evolved to find calories and stay close to food source and consume as much calories as you could; fat = energy; hard to lose weight b/c body wants to conserve energy
Modern world - easy to digest, widely available, highly processed, addictive foods (candy, chips, etc.) —> Diabetes and obesity
Mismatch to reproduction expectancy
Human families
Child birth and child rearing — an avg of 2.5 children w/ birth control v. avg. of >2.5 children w/o birth control
Mismatched to the interpersonal envm (hundreds of ppl. you might not know today v. only the 50 ppl you might know 200k yrs ago)
Built for cul.; 200k yrs ago, we would interact w/ same ppl. of cul., lang., and beliefs
200k yr.s ago and today, we live in sub societies w/ dialects
Mismatched to envm
We can live anywhere and travel v. back then, when you stayed within a 50 mi radius
Our evolutionary past influences our present behavior
Mating, childrearing, fam, small groups, friendships, large groups
Evolutionary mismatch
As we look to understand soc. psych., we should always consider how our ancient, evolved psych. produces the social-psych. phenomena we see today
Humans have stone-aged minds
Lecture 4: Scientific Knowledge, Experimentat., Causat., and Correlat.
How do we know our beliefs are correct? IAATOPE
Unscientific methods
Intuition (What feels true?)
Gut feeling
Anecdote (Let me tell you a story!)
Generalization about all ppl. based on one example - not reliable
Authority (What did respected/prestigious ppl tell us?)
Experts
Tradition (What have we always believed?)
Sometimes they’re true; sometimes they’re wrong
Scientific methods
Observation (systematic): Count & describe
6-13% of ppl in Scotland have red hair
Worldwide, it’s more like 1-2%
Prediction: Scottish have more of the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), associated w/ red hair
Experimentation: If we block MC1R, we can prevent Scottish babies from having red hair
Most unambiguous and reliable method
What are the hallmarks of science?
Ancient Science system motto: Words are null
Follow the evidence; don’t trust anyone’s words; find causal forces
A search for casual forces that create the things we can sense
Based on evidence, logic and reason
Offers conclusions that are subjected relentlessly to critique and always held tentatively
Conducted in communities; communal activity
You publish your findings in scientific journal
‼Science Norms
Communality
Open sharing
Universalism
Evaluate research on our own merit; conclusions and claims should be universal
Disinterestedness
Motivated by knowledge and discovery
Organized skepticism
Consider all new evidence, even against one’s prior work
Quality
Conduct the best work possible, even if it is slow to produce
Counternorms
Secrecy
Closed
Particularism
Evaluate research by reputation (”my”)
Self-interestedness
Treat science as a competition
Organized dogmatism
Invest career promoting one’s own theories, findings; all of my students should believe my POV and defend my POV
Quantity
Focus on publishing as quuckly as possible, even if it comes at the expense of quality
Causation and Correlation
Correlation:
Observations about two variables that have a relationship
‼Correlation does not prove causation
Why experiments>
Science is theoretical conjecture, based on evidence and logic, about the forces that cause the phenomena we can detect using our senses
We’re ultimately trying to figure out what causes what
Experiments give us a way to isolate individual forces in order to manipulate those forces w/ less causal ambiguity
Why Experiments?
Science is theoretical conjecture, based on evidence and logic, about the forces that cause the phenomena we can detect using our senses
Explaining the invisible w/ what is visible
We’re ultimately trying to figure out what causes what
Experiments give us a way to isolate individual forces in order to manipulate those forces w/ less causal ambiguity
Correlational designs (a graph that shows an association b/t 2 variables)
Ex)
May be reciprocal causal effect; x —> y, y —> x
All equally plausible
Maybe a third variable (Z), like less physical activity, may result in playing less video games and less aggression;
Confound is when a relationship is caused by a variable we might not have considered (Z)
Experiment
Condition
Random assignment
Unit of observation
Treatment
Exposure to condition (exposure, treatment, independent variable)
Measure
Dependent variable
Independent variables are independent of any other factor that could be responsible for an effect
4 types of experiments
Which of the following isn’t a valid type of experiment to determine causation?
Lab Experiment
Random Assignment: Yes, experimenter
Control over Independent Variable: Lots
Control over Dependent Variable: Lots
Example: Randomly assign subjects to play video games that feature combat w/ guns (simulated aggression) or paintball (simulated aggression). Observe aggression toward another person who has provoked them in some way
Field Experiment
Random Assignment: Yes, experimenter
Control over Independent Variable: Some
Control over Dependent Variable: Some
Example: Randomly unplug violent video games at some arcades. Observe subjects’ rudeness toward staff
Natural (Quasi-) Experiment
Random Assignment: Yes, nature; look for random assignment in the world
Lottery
Control over Independent Variable: None
Control over Dependent Variable: None
Example: Change in violent crime rates on the night after violent films are released (compared to rates on the same weekends in the previous year)
Found decrease in violent crime
“Quasi-Experiment”
Random Assignment: No
Control over Independent Variable: None
Control over Dependent Variable: None
Example: Do people who play Resident Evil 7 biohazard post more hurtful comments on Instagram?
Ex) If you ask ppl if they played Resident Evil 7 last night and then measure their aggression (no random assignment)
Correlational
LECTURES 5 & 6: ETHICS, VALIDITY, AND REPLICATION
Ethical Considerations in Human Research
Suffering
Ethical treatment of human subjects w/ Humans
Revelations of Nazi medical experiments on prisoners during WWII (late 1940s)
Nazi doctors performing experiments on subjects w/o consent; caused a lot of suffering
Freezing to death
Revelations of medical studies in the USA w/ questionable ethical practices
Tuskegee Syphilis study
Experiments on children w/ cognitive disabilities (1960’s - 1970’s)
Can’t give proper, informed consent
Concerns about social psychology studies (like the Milgram Experiments and the Stanford Prison Experiment) that were thought to possibly case long-term psychological distress
Randomly assigned to be a “prisoner” or “guard” in psych basement
Electrical shocks experiments that lead ppl to believe they has shocked ppl to death
The Belmont Report (1979) and IRBs
Identified 3 basic principles that form the basis of modern practice in protecting human subjects
Respect for persons (e.g. informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, careful consideration of deception, and debriefing)
Beneficence (e.g. maximize benefits & minimize risk)
Justice: the benefits and burdens of research should be equitable across the population; research subjects can not be exploited b/c of their circumstances (poor, imprisoned, cognitively impaired)
Additional requirements are defined by the federal gov and local institutional review board
Justice
Benefits for all
If we only studied part of the population (demographic), benefits wouldn’t be able to be shared by all
In many field of experiments, women were often excluded from experiments; concern of damaging fetuses
Poor
Money could be used to bribe ppl
Imprisoned
Is the work being done w/ ppl confined by an institution (jail, etc)? Not completely at liberty to structure their lives the way they want
Research w/ prisoners requires more steps
Cognitively impaired
Can’t consent to research b/c they don’t understand the long-term consequences of participating
Research proposal — reviewed independently by an institutional review board
Validity
Validity: The extent to which an observation from the world is an example of the thing you think it is and is caused by the thing you hypothesize, by theory, to have caused it
What sorts of things can have validity?
Independent Variables
Measures/Dependent variables
Relations b/t independent and dependent variables
Experiment
Play a game, where ppl can shock others if they win a round
Shock you 1x or 7x
They passed a table where they either saw a handgun or badminton to indicate that “violence is okay”
Operationalized anger due to provocation
Provocation or amusement manipulation?
Is this experiment a valid experiment to figure out if provocation leads to violence?
Hand gun might be seen as toy gun
DV - how much did ppl shock you?
The validity of the independent variables (the initial shocks & guns: anger & license to aggress, or amusement & license to have fun?)
The validity of the dependent variable: The second shocks: Retaliation or having fun?
The relationship of the independent variable and the dependent variable: Do anger & license to aggress produce retaliation, or do amusement and license to have fun produce more amusement?
Replication
Reproducibility is one of the hallmarks of science (Nullis in verba!).
If one scientist can do it in her laboratory, she should be able to do it over and over and over and over
And anyone else should be able to do it in their laboratory over and over and over.
Independently verifiable
When do you conform w/ your surroundings?
About 5 ppl; on about 1/3
About 1 other ppl; on about 5%]
Exact or Direct Replication
Reproduce experiment
Conceptual Replication
Validity?
Change important pieces of the aparatus and some imp features from the independent or dependent variables (slightly diff dependent variables); do w/ other ppl, other types of lines
Diff provocation manipulation (swearing, etc)
Have someone watching MMA
Exact/Direct Replication
Vital to ensuring validity of experiments
Asch Conformity Experiment
Identifying line out of 3 the same as the reference line
How often would you go against the wrong majority
Researchers have been able to reproduce the experiment
Conform to majority
Conceptual Replication
Vary some things (subjects, etc)
Vital to ruling out other alternatives
Establishes the generalizability of the experiment results
Theoretical Experiment
Replication
Anger due to provocation -
Aggression Cue - Gun
Violence - Give shocks
Conceptual
Anger due to provocation - Swearing
Aggression cue - Watching an MMA fight
Violence - give ppl hot sauce
Failures to replicate in social psych
Shrinking Results: The scientific evidence for many phenomena tends to get weaker over time: The decline effect (by Jonathan Schooler)
Impossible Results: (Daryl Bem) publishes a paper in the Journal of Personality and Soc Psych claiming to have found evidence that ESP exists; 7 experiments
Fraudulent Results: (By Diederik Stapel) investigated for scientific fraud (fake data); loses job, stripped of his PhD, 58 articles retracted
Engineered results: while collecting and analyzing data, researchers have many decisions to make, including whether to collect more data, which outliers to exclude, which measure(s) to analyze, which statistics to use
If these decisions aren’t made in advance — but instead, as the data are being analyzed, researchers may make them in ways that increase their odds of getting statistically significant results
Thus, rather than dispensing with entire studies that didn’t seem to replicate previous findings, researchers may dispense only w/ subsets of analyses that produce non-significant results
These behaviors cane to be known as p-hacking
How frequently could social psych journal findings be expected to replicate?
25% —> 40% - 60% —> 50% —> 43%
We don’t know what percentage of the findings you read about in a textbook wouldn’r replicate but it’s likely to be a lot
Much of the social psych you read is likely to be false
These facts have created h
Practices have improved a lot in the past decade
The Unpleasant Truths about Replicability
We’ll learn about many of the classic and widely taught research findings
We’ll think like scientists about them, criticiszing them based on theory, evidence and logic
We’ll emphasize experiments that adhere to the principles of Open Science
Open data
Open Source
Open Access
Open Methodology
Open Peer Review
Open Educational Resources
We’ll examine whether the findings are consistent w/ accepted theories and est findings
LECTURE 7: Nature and Nurture
Some questions to consider
Where does behavior come from?
Why do ppl from the same fam act and look alike?
Are we fundamentally good or evil?
Can we construct the perfect society?
Does parental treatment affect how we do in life?
Is edu effective?
Does our history define our destiny?
Do men and women, or people from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds, differ in any essential way?
Throughout history, thinkers have given most of the credit to nurture
Nature gets you started, nurture moves you along - paraphrased for Richard Mulcaster
Experience fills our mind with ideas - Paraphrased, John Locke
Differences in nurture, similarities in nature, lead to how ppl develop — paraphrased, Adam Smith
Behaviorism, can condition people from birth to become anything in the world — paraphrased, John Watson
Twins
Identical: monozygotic (one zygote), identical envm, (egg divides after fertilization), 100% shared genes
Fraternal: identical experiment, Dizygotic (”Two zygotes”): 2 eggs fertilized by 2 diff sperms, 50% shared genes
‼The 4 laws of Behavioral Genetics
All human behavioral traits are heritable; they are all affected to some degree by genetic variation; lots of genes having tiny little effects
The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes
A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families (not about home envm or genes; about unique person)
A typical human behavioral trait is associated w/ many genetic variants, each of which accounts for a very small percentage of the behavioral variability
Twin studies
Say you want to figure out the contribution of the genes and the envm to the trait of Extroversion
First administer the test to a bunch of twins (monozygotic v dizygotic twins)
Next, calculate the correlation b/t the extraversion scores of Twin A and Twin B for every pair of twins
-1 to 1 for correlation graph
Correlation for the MZ twins: .5
Correlation for the DZ twins: .3
Some heritable component to extraversion
We can divide that variation into 3 diff components if we know the correlation of the traits within the sample of monozygotic twins and within the sample of dizygotic twins
40% - genes, 10% - envm, 50% - other
Genetic effect on diff things
IQ, self-control, risk-taking, liberal v conservative, rel., attitudes about other things
More envm, more heritability (genetic effects get stronger w/ age)
Envms differ in how much they allow you to express your genes
As a kid, you’re forced to do things w/ family (religious, extroversion); when older, you can pick an envm that feels most comfortable
The more older you are, the more heritability
Genes via the envm
Genetic diff b/t ppl in even simple traits may involve small effects of thousands of genes
We can do a pretty good job of predicting human height based on genetic variation, but we have to take into account the very small effects of ~20k genes
Researches have discovered about 1000 genes that explain genetic differences in edu attainment; this model accounts for 11% in edu attainment
Remember 4 laws of behavior ‼
Genes don’t cause behavior directly
Instead, they case the mind, which causes behavior by processing info and the generating reosibses to it
Genetic unity and genetic diversity
Unity: Genes build species-typical brains w/ univeral psychological capabilities
Diversity: Genes influence how those evolved capacities operate; most ppl have genes that enable them to see green; others don’t. But the effects of those genes, which makes us different, are via their effects on a gene-driven, species-typical eye design (which makes us the same)
Thus, ”Additive genetic effects” understates the effects of genes on behavior while overstating the importance of our genetic differences
Lecture 8: Self
Self Knowledge: representations and evaluations of your physique, behavior, traits, and abilities
Self Presentation: the presentation of the self in everyday life
Self Control: homeostatic control of your behavior by intervening on your own mental processes
Not all animals recognize that image in the mirror is us
The rouge test - experimental design in an attempt to figure out which animals have a sense of self; they should know where their own body begins and ends and should be able to recognize when they’re reflected in a mirror; put makeup on some animals, see which ones recognize that it’s them
By 24 months, almost all kids can pass it
Some chimps weren’t able to pass it, some couldn’t be determined, some were able to pass it
Is recognition of self for social (following gaze, comprehension of pointing, initiation of pointing use of attention-getting behaviors) or physical tasks )spatial memory, object permanence, rotation, understanding auditory causality, tool use)?
Looked to see where the 3 groups of chimps were
Chimps who could recognize self had better social ability; having sense of self is smth we use to navigate our social world
The Self as a Schema
As we interact w/ our world, we gather info that we need to organize in a way that we can obtain it again when needed
We store it in memory and retrieve it when we encounter the person/object/concept at a later time
One of these organizational systems is called a schema
Schema theory
Schema
organizational system to create concepts that facilitate understanding of things
The farther away the traits are from the node (central circle), the more not central it is to identity
Recall if you recognize words you saw
The process varied in memorability
Self-reference has highest recall rate
Deploy schemas to apply to self
“The Social Me” or “The Looking-Glass Self"
Look at relationships w/ others to see who we are
Defining ourselves based on other ppl’s reactions
Self Esteem
“Do you like or dislike yourself?”
Knowledge of yourself and your attitude about yourself
Where does self esteem come from?
Social psych - interaction with others
Some ppl believe that b/c of self esteem, we act in certain ways (causal influence)
Other ppl believe in sociometer theory (more evidence to support it)
Sociometer Theory of Self Esteem
Self esteem
internal gauge of social acceptance
Comparison to gasoline gauge
Doesn’t affect the car’s performance but indicates how much of an important resource is available
Based on the gauge, the organism can implement strat.s to increase availability of the resource
Measures access to social acceptance; “how much I like myself is determined by how much I think other ppl accept me”
Prediction: Social acceptance increases self esteem; social rejection reduces self esteem
Study: Meta analysis of 192 studies created an avg result and found:
Experimental manipulations of social acceptance increased self-esteem
Experimental manipulations of social rejection don’t reduce self-esteem (in the lab)
Insecurity may be driven by worry that you won’t be accepted
Social anxiety makes you sensitive to other ppl’s expressions; notice expressions of disapproval and cues of rejection more
Social comparison theory
Ppl compare themselves to others in order to obtain info on their abilities and internal states
Upward comparison
Increases self-esteem: “I’m similar to this person better off than me”
Downward comparison
Increases self-esteem: “I’m unlike this person worse off than me”
❓ Does downward/upward comparison indicate who on perceived social ladder one is comparing themselves to? Or does it also indicate positive/negative view of who they’re comparing themselves to (”similar”/”unlike”)?
Evidence
Lab - ppl choose to compare upward 85% of the time; when threatened w/ unflattering info (like if you know you did poorly on a test), 74% still compare themselves to better performers
When ppl compare — whether down or up — they contrast
Think more highly of themselves after comparing w/ a lower ability person; think less highly after comparing to higher-ability person
Result:
We tend to look up, toward those who are better than us; as a result, we adjust our self-perceptions downward; self comparison generally has negative effects on self
Imposter syndrome: upward comparison; perception that others are doing better than you, and looking at how much better they’re doing better than you
Self Presentation
How do we build sense of self and then deploy the self?
When a others meet you, they often seek to gain info about you (your traits, attitudes, etc) or use what they already know about you
Use this info to make informed decisions about how to sway you; what to expect from each other
But also, you may want others to think highly of you; or want them to think that you think highly of them or to know how you actually feel about them or to have an ambiguous impression
You may want to leave diff impressions or create diff reactions
Useful to try to control conduct of others and how they respond to you
Some ppl are rlly polite as a way to present themselves, in the hopes that others will reciprocate and by polite and nice in turn
Experiment - Asked ppl to recall a grade they received in the course
Tendency to inflate self understanding
Ppl who received an A will accurately recall their grade; recall gets lesser as we
Hide away unflattering info
Connect info to self (and have scenarios in mind)
Lecture 9 & 10: Self Control
Self Control
Self control: the self-initiated regulation of thoughts, feelings, and actions when enduringly valued goals conflict w/ momentarily more gratifying goals
difficult b/c many temptations exist
Easy way isn’t always best way
Cylinder test example: Chimp wants food —> food inside opaque blue tube —> Chimp hand goes into tube and gets food; if tube is clear allowing chimp to see the food —> chimp hand tries to grab at the food directly; easier route; limited self control
Diff species will pass and some will fail the self control test; diff results b/t animals of same species as well
How do we know that we’re testing for self control? What if the animals were just curious about the clear cylinder since they had neevr seen it before
Sigmund Freud
Most famous psychology
Est. psychoanalysis
Need to be able to picture long-term goal; self control from immediate gratification
Fun fake example: Going on Instagram or Study
Pleasure principle & reality principle
The id - Part of self that’s very poorly controlled
Ego - part of us that walks around making decisions; healthy functional self; need to postpone pleasure; reasonable
Super goal - very principled
Govern your life more around reality
Self control influences
School performance
Crime and delinquency
Quality of close relationships (ex. marriages last longer)
Moral reputation/character (ppl like ppl w/ self-control)
Aggression and violence
Consumer behavior (what you buy)
Health behaviors (decrease smoking; increase exercise)
Addiction
Cooperation and Prosocial behavior
Self control — the case of academic achievement
💡Study w/ Angela Duckworth !!
🌸 How important is what you’re doing right now important for your future? Which is more important/valuable for your future?
[ ] Insert academic achievement pic
[ ] Insert immediate enjoyment and future importance graph
Marshmallow Test
Self control dilemma for kids - they can either eat a marshmallow right now or wait and get a second one later
The typical kid waited ~5 minutes in order to get 2 treats rather than 1
For half the kids, 2 treats after 5 minutes was subjectively worth less than 1 treat before 5 minutes
Delay discounting: The decline in the present value of a reward as the delay until you receive it increases
Time delays make rewards seem less valuable
This is true for pigeons, rats, kids, and adults
Delay discounting in rats
Right bar gives them 5 pellets (but would have to wait 0-32 seconds)
Left bar gives them pellets immediately
Delay discounting and future reward; discounting the future
[ ] Insert subjective value of food pellets decline over time for rats?
Delay discounting in humans
[ ] Insert pic of 10$ tmrw vs today
[ ] Insert pic of 100$ in a yr vs today
More effective self control
The Resource Model of Self Control
“Effortful self-regulation depends on a limited resource that becomes depleted by any acts of self-control, causing subsequent performance even on other self-control tasks to become worse”
Almost like rods and cones in our eyes; if we overuse them, we may see after images
Self control as a cognitive resource; limited
Need self control to stay awake and present in class —> Feel exhausted after finishing class
Ppl in the “Eat radish” condition had minimal will to persevere
[ ] Insert graph of Resource model of self control
[ ] Copy the steps 1-3
P value so low that provides confidence in the hypotheses
d value represents the amount of difference b/t 2 distributions of
d= standard deviation unit b.t diff groups;
If Radish has 8 min avg and 18 min avg
Standard deviation: if take a subject’s score at random, how far will the score be from the mean?
d= nearly 2 standard deviation of differences
Very small samples
(2016) Conceptual Replication
23 independent labs’; 2141 subjects
Depletion manipulation: Letter e task
Saw series of words on vid screen and press a button when a word w/ letter, unless “e” was next to or 1 letter away from another vowel
B
Depletion variable: Complex task rgar unvloved suppressing cognitive interfereence when making decisions about stimuli
True effect could’ve been 0
Avg of all
Effect size is .04
98% distribution
Replication
36 labs, 3531 subjects
Similar results as previous
The Process Model of Self Control
[ ] Insert pic of cycle; Duckworth
Situational strategies
Study in a place conducive to studying but not to playing w/ your phone (like the library) rather than the opposite (like your room)
Study in quiet, well-lighted spaces
Sit in front of classrooms
Stay off distracting sites on laptop during lectures
Put your phone on mute; turn off all social media and e-mail notifs; use social media blocking apps
[ ] Cycle pic
Attentional Strategies
Diverting gaze; this strat. works best when combined w/ situational strat.s
Divert internal imager (think of how cool your math prof is instead of whether someone liked your Insta photos)
Pay attention to your own behavior; are you studying or goofing around on your phone? Keep a record (like a hatch mark on paper for ___
[ ] Copy this slide
[ ] Insert pic of Memo to Self: Stop!
[ ] Insert cycle pic
Appriasal Strategies
Frame the situation: Studying is a stepping-stone to becoming a great psychiatrist, not a waste of Friday night
View studying as relevant to your identity, goals, or moral character
Re-appraise emotional rxn: Frustration is a sign of effort; boredom is a sign that the work requires an extra-high level of detail
Re-appraise a large demand
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Response Strategies
“Just do it,” “Just say no”
Brute force:
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Shortcut Strategies
Plans
s
Rules
s
Habits: These emerge from teh repeated applications of
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Take it by mile, it’s a trial; take it by the inch, and it’s a cinch
Schelling - if you want to do something to make it an exception to your rule, have it be for a non-arbitrary rule
🌸 In action
MATH 20B: How are you going to study for your math class? This includes homework and studying time to review and practice more problems
Homework
Weekly math problems ~20-25 each week
Read through textbook
Study time
Review notes right after class
Write down all questions and wonderings to ask during OH
YouTube, Lecture videos, Khan Academy videos to review material
Write formulas and notes from textbook into notebook; do problems
Practice problems !! Practice tests
Flashcards to test formulas and definitions
Concept map summary for each topic
PSCYH 6: How will you study for Psych 6, including hw and study time?
Homework
1 MCQ - do it by Thurs
Study Time
Review notes right after class
Note down any questions
Flashcards to test for definitions
PSYCH 3R: How will you study for Psych 3R, including hw and study time?
Homework
Lab Assignment
1-2 hour video
Quiz answers
Study Time
COGS 10: How will you study for Cogs 10, including hw and study time?
Homework
Readings
Study Time
MUIR 90H: How will you prep for Muir 90H, which is mostly pre-assignments?
Pre-assignment
Pre-readings
Search guest speakers on LinkedIn & search org up on Google
What will your study routines looks like?
3 min - meditation
7 min - planning
Determine study time and break time
Timer
Review notes routine
d
[ ] Finish this action list
Lecture 11: Percieving Causality and Anmacy
How do we know what a person is
Need to be able to percieve:
Cause and effect
What is alive
What has goals
What has beliefs
Topics we will cover:
Perceiving causality: How do we recognize when one thing is causing something to happen?
Perceiving animacy: How do we recognize something as alive?
Perceiving goals: How do we infer that something wants something or wants to do something?
Perceiving people’s beliefs: How do we know that people have minds?
Perceiving individual people’s personality attributes: What are individuals like? What can you expect of the individual people you observe or interact with?
Perceiving the causes of individual people’s behavior: Why did they do that? Topics we will cover
Seemingly stupid question—essential social task (another psychological power we don’t get for free)!
If you can’t recognize people, you can’t:
Mate
Cooperate
Help people you should help
Et cetera
How do you get machine to recognize people?
Artificial Intelligence: Feed it images, give it yes/no feedback, tell it to find commonalities among the images that improve classification (brute-force learning).
The criteria that computers use are probably impenetrable to those we use
AI recognition works well enough, but it has weaknesses that show how dissimilar the AI strategies and the human strategies are.
WHAT HIMAN PERCIEVERS DO IS DIFF FROM WHAT AI OBJ IDENTIFIERS DO
Perceive causation
Perceive animacy
Perceive goals
Perceive human-specific movement and anatomy
Perceive beliefs
AI machines build a repertoire of “yes-human” and “not-human” images and compare w/ given image to recognize human
Humans build up image
We recognize causal, animacy
Heuristics - rule of thumb for identifying ppl
PERCIEVING CAUSATION
We recognize cause and effect
Launching: A hits B, B moves —> Cause and effect
Triggering: A bumps into B, B moves & speeds up —> Cause and effect
Launching w/ spatial gap: A moves right, stops, no hit B, B moves right —> No Cause and effect from Baby perception
Entraining: A moves right, takes B with it when it touches B —> Cause and effect
Launching w/ temporal gap (no perception of ___): A hits B, B pauses, B moves right —> No Cause and effect from baby percetion
Tool effect: A hits B which hits C —> Cause and effect
Pulling: A pulls along B and C —> Cause and effect
Smashing: A hits B, B splits into pieces —> Cause and effect
More perceived animacy:
The angle of change in direction (ɸ) approaches 90°
The object changes speed (Vf/V0) when it changes direction
The object changes orientation when it changes its direction Moving Objects Direction of Movement
PERCIEVING ANIMACY: WHEN DO WE INFER THAT OBJ.S ARE ALIVE
Agentic (and not just causal) Movement
Self-initiated movement
Action at a distance (one object moves shortly after another in proximity moves, but the second movement is more like launching with spatial or temporal gaps than like launching itself)
Violations of causal physics when an object is in proximity to another (objects begin to follow non-linear trajectories when the approach another object, or another object approaches them
Changes in speed, direction, and orientation
Coherent, jointed movement
Interactions with other objects that seem to move agentically
High animacy: White rectangle has a “head” and changes its orientation to parallel the direction of movement
Medium animacy: White circle has no “head,” so no orientation to change
Low animacy: White rectangle has a “head” but does not change its orientation to parallel the direction of movement
Agentic movement: action at a distance; 1 obj. moves shortly after another one but second obj is like launching w/ spatial gap
Lecture 12: Percieving Animacy, Goals, Beliefs
Vid - Series of pics to create motion film of animals
Point-Light displays fixed onto joints
Johansson Experiment
Ppl can identify humans in movement based on simple point-light displays along joints
Unique Human Anatomy: The Case of White Sclera
People have anatomic attributes that make them diff from other animals (like white sclera: white spaces in eyes)
Most chimps don’t (or have brown sclera)
Maybe sclera are one way to distinguish b/t ppl and chimps?
Researchers changed chimp’s eyes to have white sclera;
[ ] Insert pic of graph - babies staring at the pics
Numbers above 50% indicate preference; small, but robust effect
Make inference by seeing what people do
HOw do we make inferences about what other ppl want?
Cognitive systems where we look at behavior and lead to our thoughts like
This person has beliefs
This person has goals
Inferring goals
A form of attention — Habituation: See smth surprising but it stops being surprising; you get used to it being there
Woodwords paradigm to study babies’ beliefs about goals
Babies are expecting ppl to be driven by hidden goals
Study - Show baby a movie or hand behind a screen; show someone’s left hand grabbing the ball on the left side, after est. expectation, show the baby an image of left hand grabbing teddy bear on left side or left hand grabbing ball on right side
[ ] Insert pic of inferring goals
Looking time is higher if hand seems to have new goal but is following the same path
Babies find it surprising when person changes goals; makes the inference that person wants to grab something
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Increase in looking time indicates that it surprised the baby
We paint goals onto ppl’s activities
Inferring beliefs
Inferences by studying behavior
Sally-Anne test - indicates if one understands other ppl’s beliefs
[ ] Image
Ability to pass the test develops over time
Autism affects ability to pass the test
[ ] Image of graph of pass rate
Nuerotypical brain - able to pass the Sally-Anne test after 8
[ ] Insert pic of graph, normal, downs, autism
Many of ppl with downs syndrome have developed social skills; autism impacts social abilities
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You have to be able to put yourself in other ppl’s shoes
Autism - Temple Grandin
Inferring and Acting on social info
Many of social psych’s most basic questions are about perceiving other ppl
Our inferences about others’ attributes, skills, abilities, interests, etc influence our expectations of them and our choices about how to interact w/ them
Remember — we make models of our soc. worlds to help us thrive in them; soc. inferences are a critical part of this model-making process
We bas these inferences on many types of info
Are these inferences accurate; do they influence our decisions? Should they?
What info do we use to infer ppl’s traits?
Physical features (dress,, build, height, weight, etc)
Demographics (sex, gender, race, age, etc)
The words they use (lang, vocab, frequency of speech, etc)
Facial expressions (emotions, structure of face, etc)
Eye contact
Nonverbal behavior (posture, expressions, “body lang”, etc)
Context (we take stock of the context in whcih the non-verbal behavior takes place)
Clusters (look for patterns that are consistent w/ a speciifc interpretation)
Congruence (correlation among many sources of info, both verbal and non-verbal)
Direct interactions w/ others (is the person nice/mean? boring? interesting? etc)
Observations of others’ interactions w/ third parties (what’s other ppl’s experience been like? etc)
Reputation (what have you heard about this person?)
Identifying the fundamental dimensions from faces
100+ photos of Caucasian adult faces obtained from the internet
Adults rated them on several traits psychological (aggression, approachability, trustworthiness, cconfidence, dominance, intelligence) and phsyical features (smile, health, attractiveness, age, babyfacedness, sexual dimorphism (masculinity/feminity), skin tone))
The 20 faces rated the lowest on each trait and the highest on each trait were blended (statistically) to create high and low “morphs”
The high and low morphs were then blended (statistically) in 10% increments (100/0%, 90%/10%, 0%/100%) to create morphed faces that varied from very low on each trait to very high on each trait
Later, other adults rated each of the morphs on the same traits
[ ] Insert pic
Factor (?) analysis
[ ] Insert pic
Top 3 factors that matter are approachability, youthful-attractiveness, dominance (leadership)
Key takeaway: Ppl try to take in these 3 factors to make quick determinations about ppl
What we infer from a face case studies
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The numbers under each columns shows how high the correlation is
We make very quick judgements; minds were under selective pressure to make quick judgements —> signal sent to our emotional centers to form a response
We trust our perceptions and act on them
“Can people detect?” - Study
Subjects (5 yr olds, 10 yr olds, adults) play repeated rounds of an investment game
(a) They could invest tokens w/ other players, each token invested could produce additional tokens (if partner behaved fairly)
On some trials (b), subjects saw photos of partners’ faces (high or low in trustworthiness)
On other trials (c), subjects saw info about how they had treated others in previous games
[ ] Insert pic of investment game
[ ] Insert pic of data from game
Study
Facial judgements of trustworthiness predict which convicted murderers (371 male Floridas inmates) recieved death sentences vs life in prison
1 study found that more percieved trustworthiness (30% lower odds of death sentence)
This association maintained even after controlling for apparent race, attrativeness, facial maturity, eyeglasses, tattoos, etc)
[ ] Insert pic of trustworthinesss
However, ppl actually can’t guess ppl’s trustworthiness from their faces
When ppl ruly on their judgements of facial trstworthiness, they optain worse outcomes in social interaction
Better to adjust one’s trust to the base rates of trustworthiness in the envm
If ppl are mostly trustworthy, then you sjould be biased toward trusting everyone and ignoring their face
If ppl are mostly untrustworthy, then you should be biased toward trusting no one and ignoring their faces
So why do we trust our inferences of ppl’s trustworthiness (based on their faces) at all?
Perhaps b/c resting faces look angry and anger makes ppl look untrustworthy
[ ] Insert pic of face unhappy
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Pay attention base rates and reputation rather than faces
What about baby face?
[ ] Insert pic of comparisons for face
Attractiveness Heuristic
“What is beautiful is good”
Halo Effect: Ppl w/ 1 desriable charactectiersi, are judged to have many more chracteristic
Judged more favorably on different
Meta Analysis: take data from several different studies
Seen as more social competence, viewed as better adjusted to life (no narcotics), more potency, more intellectual competence, more integrity, viewed as more good than bad, viewed as having moral integrity; phsyically attractive ppl. b/c they are percieved positively are given differential treatment
Leads to ratchetting effect
Physical attractiveness brings opportunities
We should try to ignore biases based on physical attractiveness
Some ppl enhance their pics b/c they know attrativeness helps
The positive attention they recieve actually ends up making them slightly narcicistic
[ ] FInish copying notes
[ ] Insert pic of chart before the slide
Lessons learned about trait inferences
Primacy of Apprachability (trustworthiness, warmth, morality), Competence (Agency, Dominance) and Youthfulness/Attractiveness
Targets have high agreement on judgments of characteristics
Inferences based on looks can be reliable but they’re often not valid
Relying on invalid cues always leads to inefficient social decisions
Focus on what matters: base rates, direct xp, reputations
Lecture 14: Causal Attribution
The explanation for a person’s behavior; what is determined to be the cayse of the behavior
Causal attributions are most likely to be elicited when behavior is:
Negative
Unexpected
Personally relevant
If one’s car fails to start, then the disappointed driver asks, ”Why has this happened?” This won’t be the case if the car functioned as intended (a positive and expected outcome)
Ppl often make attributions very quickly, w/o thinking (System 1; automatic and intuitive)
We don’t usually have the motivation, time, or ability to consider ever piece of info and weigh it appropriately
Two Approaches to Causal Explanation
[ ] Insert pic of chart
Why is the grass wet?
Psychological (beliefs and desires) and physical explanations by repeatedly asking “What was the cause of that?”
We often use beliefs & desires to explain things
Social psych truned away from the study of ppl’s folk-psychological theories
Presumably assimh that ppl didn’t build their models of “Why did they do that?” on mental-state categories, such as agents, intentions, beliefs, and reasons
Instead, they turned to the assumption that ppl make inferences about ppl’s behavior
[ ] FInish notes
Attributing Causality: To the Person or the Situation
Attribution Theory: the tehory of how ppl explain others’ behavior
Dispositional attribution: attributing behcaior to the person’s dispositions and traits
Situational attribution: attributing behavior to the envm
Misattribution: mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source
[ ] Insert pic - chart
Two attributional theories; frameworks rather than solid theories
Covariation Theory
[ ] Insert pic of Covariation theory pic
Where do we see correlation/regularity? We look at distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency
Correspondence Theory
When judging who/what caused a behavior, we consider several questions:
Was the person free to choose? If “yes” —? dispositional attribution
Was the behavior normative or socially desirable? If “yes” —> Situational
Being nice tells you little about how nice someone is b/c niceness is highly desrible but being mean does tell you that someone is nasty
Social role: was she acting as part of a social roel; if “yes” —> Situational
How many effects? If the behavior caused only one effect —> Dispositional factors (goals); if more than one —> no attribution
Ex) I wake up and start answering students/ emails. I accidentally wake up my wife. Was mt behaviour caused by a trait (dutiful as prof? inconsiderate?)? In such cases, ppl will tend to avoid making an attribution
How many causes? If behavior seeems to have only 1 cause, we evalualte whether it is dispositional or situational. If > 1, we refrain from causal attribution.
Discounting Principle; example: I leave an envelope outside my office for you. Before you can get it, someone steals it. Will you decide that the efffect (you didn’t get the package) was caused by my carelessness, or by the their? If you can’t decide, you refran from making a causal attribution
Philosopher Story: Who killed the person?
Correspondence Bias
Tendency to attribute behaviors to personally held beliefs, attitudes, proclivities, even in the face of strong evidence that the behavior was caused by forces outside the actor’s control
We tend to think the behavior corresponds to an underlying dispositional influence, even in the presence of strong situational influences
Ex) Experimenters exposed participants to a speech supporting a given topic created in response to an authority figure’s directions (like a debate coach who requested a pro-marijuana speech). Despit the obvios, percievers still inferred that the speaker held a personal attitude
[ ] FInish notes
Participants read an essay that supported or opposed Castro’s communist regime in Cuba and were told either that the writer was free to write whatever, or the position was assigned to him and then asked to rate what they believed the author’s true position was
[ ] Insert graph of Castro feelings
[ ] Insert graph (figure 4)
Ppl assumed that the questioners were more knowledgeable than contestant
The Correspondence Bias
Why do we posses the correspondence bias?
Tendency to attribute behavior to traits
We observe others from a diff perspective than we observe ourselves
Ex: Camera perspective bias
When recalling the past, we are like observers of someone else
We also find causes where we look for them
We study
Two factors that help us avoid the correspondence bias
Perspective-taking
Study: Subjects saw a vid of someone reading an essay that presents a position about meritocracy (for or against) —> then asked to indidicated what they believed the reader’s position on the essay was —> subjects were told in advance that the reader was not free to choose a position
Half of subjects had been previously randomly assigned to perspective-taking training (”you” vs “me”; “now” vs “then”; “here” vs “there”)
Others were randomly assigned to control tasks
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Attitude attribution: how strongly do the subjects believe the essay readers believe
Subjects w/ perspective-training reduced the corespondance bias for them
This study was replicated
Study: Subjects were also either (a) told ahead of time that their responses would remain confidential, (b) told ahead of reading the essay that they would have to explain their judgmenyts to other ppl or (c)
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Correspondence bias helps explain
Study: subjects are willing to shock ppl if they believe the researcher wants them to
Eichman sentenced to death for his role of the Holocaust; he said that he was just following orders
Reduced culpability if you believe that situation impacted behaviour
Stanley Milgram experiment
Attempts to model forces that impact behavior
Do ppl do bad things b/c they’re following orders? Or are they intrinsically bad?
Lecture 15: Attitudes
What are attitudes?
Attitudes:
Summary evaluative judgements of psychological objects
Esteem for self, others, etc
Captured in attribute dimensions
Good/bad, harmful/beneficial, pleasant/unpleasant
Can be formed both automatically and deliberatively
Can be implicit or explicit
Implicit: system 1 (automatic)
Explicit: conscious, system 2 (deliberate)
Social psychologists are curious about attitudes about:
Social issues (abortion, gun control, etc)
Individuals (Fidel Castro, Barack Obama)
Social groups (racial, ethnic, age, gender, idealogical, religious, pol.)
Products or issues (esp in marketing, consumer behavior, poli sci, etc)
Formation of attitudes
Direct xp, Cultural exposure
Mere Exposure Effect: The more you see it, the more you like it
Students’ liking for English words is correlated w/ their frequency of use in the Eng lang; ppl like the words “elm, apple, corn, rose” better than “acacia, mango, parsnip, cowslip”
Mere exposure effect obtains even for subliminally presented stimuli
Can expose a pic briefly, 15 thousandth of an sec, person isn
If expose word/pic more frequently, subject more likely to say they like it more
Expert psychologist: Protr, Winkielman
Study: Change subjects’ attitudes subliminally
Either showed a given 1 repetition of 25 diff things or 5 repetitions of 5 diff things
Like it better when you’ve seen 5 reps of 5 diff things; when shown new stimuli similar to what the subject saw previously, they are more likely to like it more
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How Attitudes Form
Expectancy Value model of Attitude Formation
Attitudes form spontaneously as we develop beliefs (expectancies) about the obj and develop evals (values) of those beliefs
Beliefs and values assemble multiplicatively to yeild a net attitude toward a given attiude obj
As you come to believe things, and value the target of the beliefs; func. of beliefs of obj.
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You like classroom b/c familiar w/ classroom; predictable
[ ] Attitudes and behaviour examples pics
[ ] pic of predictors of behavior
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Attitude and behavior, can sometimes diff however
Cognitive Dissonance
Attitudes can cause behavior but behavior can also cause attitudes
Ppl want to be consistent in their thoughts, feelings and behaviors
Inconsistency creates an unpleasant feeling (cognitive dissonance) that motivates one to resolve the inconsistency
Hypocritical = inconsistent attitudes and behavior
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Famous forced compliance experiment
Participants complete a series of painfully boring tasks for 30 minutes; paid either $1 or $20
Afterwards, the researcher asks participants if they would be willing to tell the next participant that the study is rlly interesting
Subjects paid $1 said they liked the study better (not enough justification to lie so cognitive dissonance); subjects paid $20 (knew they had enough justification to lie)
[ ] Pic of graph
Cognitive Dissonance can Change Behavior: The Induced Hypocrisy Paradigm
Two stages:
(1) Advocacy: Subject makes a case for a behavior
(2) Mindfulness: Subject recalls a time when they did not engage in the behavior
The combo of the 2 generates dissonance, causing ppl to change their behavior to better fit w/ their attitudes
[ ] Insert pic of experimental
[ ] Insert pic of meta-analysis of experiments on induced hypocrisy
By stating a stance and recalling opposite moment, we can induce hyprocrsiy and change behavior
The Theory of Planned Behavior
A theory for predicting attitude-behavior
Esp useful for imp, meaningful behaviors that are self-relevant (whether or not to pursue a certain career, enagge in a certain health-promotive behavior)
Mostly wifely studied in the domain of explicit attitudes (rather than implicit ones)
[ ] Insert pic of theory of planned behavior
Lecture 16: Stereotype Formation: Accuracy and Cultural Evolution
Stereotypes aren’t necessarily bad or inaccurate
Discrimination: Behavior toward individuals
Stereotypes:
[ ] Insert pic of stereotype, discirimination, prejudice
Origins of the word “Stereotype”
Stereotype: a solid plate of type metal, cast from papier-mache or plaster mold taken from the surface of a form of type
Movable type —> Mold —> Stereotype (stamp; you can use to repeatedly print)
Stereotype: preconceived and oversimplified notion of characteristics typical of a person or group
Stereotypes: Are they Ever accurate?
They can be somewhat accurate when applied to groups; not so much for individuals
The Lens Model of Social Perception
[ ] Insert diagram of lens model of social perception
Stereotype: dutch men are tall; on avg, they are pretty tall even if some individuals are shorter
[ ] Insert diagram of height for dutch men
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[ ] insert invalid cue pic
[ ] Insert other intelligent unknoen valid pic
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Often, we lack good first-hand info about a group’s typical attributes
Our first-hand info about many groups likely came from small, non-representative samples (which may or may not be valid): We meet a few ppl w/ an attribute and then generalize to all who share that attribute
When we lack reliable first-hand info, we rely on cultural info (TV, folk tales, other ppl’s stereotypes) which may not be valid
If we’re working w/ unreliable info, we will still make iunferences (stereotypes), but those inferences will not be valid
For many groups, the stereotypes you possess — your personal stereotypes — are mostly invalid. Your personal interactions w/ members of the group are too unreliable to representative of the group’s typical traits.
We try to create models of other ppl and the world
The “Wisdom of Crowds” Effect
Personal v Consensus Stereotypes: The “Wisdom of Crowds” Effect
Stereotypes are relative to some control group; we compare groups to other groups
More xp w/ the group, the better your estimate is to the group’s avg
Personal stereotypes will have lots of error
Some ppl overestimate, some will underestimate to the target group’s attributes
Error is less for ppl w/ high-quality xp, expertise, and good pattern recognition
If you combine many ppl’s est., the individual errors cancel out, leaving only info from the envm that is a
Ppl from info contribute
Need exposure, expertise, and experience
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EX) Accuracy in age stereotypes of personality
Most of us have some exp w/ ppl of diff ages (b/c of communities)
Representative samples of ppl should have had contact, on avg, w/ random representative samples of ppl of diff ages
Thus, if there are any actual diffs in the personalities of ppl of diff ages, the consensual stereotypes will reflect them
[ ] Insert pic of the graph study
How stereotypes form:
Ppl possess biases that affect the types of info they attend to, encode into memory, and retrieve from memory
Ppl care about Warmth, Competence, Attractiveness
The same is true of soc. info.: some info. is more learnable than other info.
Ppl. simplify soc. info. by applying a simple heuristic — if 2 individuals are alike on X, might assume they are also alike on Y
As soc. info. is passed from one individual to another, it begins to change in predictable ways; it becomes
Simpler
More structured
More easily learnable
More transmissable
What is transmitted is what is easily remembered and accurately decoded
Thru these processes alone, info will be transmitted not on the basis of its accuracy but on the basis of its learnability
Study
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Over time, the attributes in accuracy for unseen aliens goes up
By the 7th generation, the pool of possible descriptors declines; it has become simpler
With each generation, attributes you assign to seen aliens to unseen aliens
More similar physical traits —> assumed more similar behavioral traits
People do a good job of remembering the traits of the aliens they actually see.
They incorrectly attribute traits to aliens they did not see, but they do so in a patterned way: They assume that aliens that share physical features (e.g., green color, square shape, squiggly movement) share psychological features as well
Over generations of cultural transmission, people narrow down the pool of traits they use and recall
As the pool of traits shrinks, people create false memories of unseen aliens’ traits based on the rule of thumb that aliens with similar physical features have similar psychological features.
As a consequence, people can seem as though they are able to predict the traits of aliens they’ve never even seen!
The mind is a model-maker: it picks up regularities between objects (including people) and the attributes associated with them, and then uses those regularities to predict “out of sample” (i.e., to make guesses about what’s going to happen next).
Stereotypes can be accurate if they are based on the experiences of many people who have expertise, experience, and good pattern-recognition abilities
However, individual people’s stereotypes—and the applications of those stereotypes to individuals—have some inaccuracies built in as well. That’s because the mind develops stereotypes based on any information that conveys linkages between groups and their attributes.
Depictions in the media, the news, education, etc.
Cumulative cultural evolution
Garbage in, garbage out
If some people get high-quality information, and enough people’s stereotypes are combined, then it is possible to get consensual stereotype accuracy
(But this, too, assumes there are actual group differences—think Dutch height)
o matter where they come from, and no matter whether they are accurate or inaccurate, people often apply their stereotypes when they interact with members of target groups.
Lecture 17: Stereotype Content Discrimination
Stereotype content
We focus on 2 dimensions when we stereotype: competence and warmth
‼ Possible MCQ question
Competence: “as viewed by society, how ___ are members of this group?” (competent, confident, independent)
Warmth: “as viewed by society, how __ are members of this group?” (tolerant, warm, good-natured, sincere)
Critical for soc. interact.: We need to know (a) who wants to help/harm us and(b) has the power to do so
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Study - American participants rated diff occupations based on warmth and competence; stereotypes of occupations
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Study - Chinese participants rated occupations based on warmth and competence
The Implicit Association Test
We have stereotypes in System 1 (implicit)
Vid - Experiment on ; concepts tend to coactivate in your mind (”doctor” may activate “nurse”); evaluate goodness/badness of group association by testing faces of diff ppl/demographics and use keys on keyboard for identity of the groups and how quickly you recognize good/bad words after seeing those faces
Has been used to study black v white stereotypes and how we associate them w/ bad v good
If implicitly associate black faces with bad and white faces with good —> faster speed for black-bad/white-good trials v. speed on black-good/white-bad (incongruent) trials
Implicit bias doesn’t necessarily mean you treat black/white ppl diff
Extent to which we slow down when are faced w/ incongruent trials is called D-Distribution
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The rate at which one is slowed down; D-Statistic 0 means no difference and D-statistic > 0 means slow down so associates blackness w/ badness
However, as society changes, these implicit associations at the pop. lvl. can also change
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D-statistic trend changes over time; decreasing
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Age, body weight still has a common stereotype
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Breaking the data down by white/black
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Decreasing across countries; analyze across countries to determine the extent of implicit associations
💡 Interesting since there’s so much talk in USA about racial biases and injustices
Weapons Identification Effect
How quickly do we identify a weapon/tool after seeing a black/white face
Trials w/ 1000 ms response times - allow ppl to recognize when they have
Trials w/ 500 ms response times - reveal implicit associations
Shooter Bias Effect
Correll et al. created a video game in which participants had to decide, for ea. of 80 individuals, whether to “shoot” or “don’t shoot”
IV1: White v. black target
IV2: Gun v. other object
Subject must decide whether to shoot, earning points for correctly shooting an armed person and correctly not shooting an unarmed person
Conclusions:
Ppl are faster to choose not to shoot unarmed white targets v unarmed black targets
Ppl are faster to choose to shoot armed black targets v armed white targets
Evidence that ppl make more mistakes w/ black ppl v white ppl w/ phones or w/ white ppl (v. white ppl) w/ guns is mixed
Discrimination in hiring
Experimenters submit resumes (or online app.s) for jobs, send actors to interview
Resumes/app.s are identical except applicants’ names and/or other cues to subjects’ races/ethnicity
9 nations (permitting cross-cul comparisons)
5 racial/ethnic groups most frequently studied
Black, white immigrants, MENA, Hispanic, Asian
Dependent variable: The Discrimination ratio
% of white native applicants called NOT FINISHED