AP Psychology Unit 4

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4.1: Attribution Theory and Person Perception

Class Notes:

• Attribution

• Coming From your perspective about others

  • Why do people act and behave the way that they do?

  • How we explain a person’s actions

    • Myself and others

  • Dispositional- they are the way they are, character (accountability on them)

  • Situational- environmental/circumstances, more considerate (benefit of the doubt)

• Biases in Attribution

  • Fundamental Attribution Error

    • Tendency everyone has

    • How much I like the person will make me attribute others character based on dispositional or situational

    • More likely to attribute disposition to other people’s actions (assumption)

  • Actor-Observer Bias

    • Depending on either being Actor or observer, more likely to prescribe a factor

      • Actor- situational (bad), dispositional (good)

      • Observer- dispositional (bad), situational (good)

  • Self-serving Bias

    • Whatever makes me look good/better

  • Social distance impacts these views as well

    • How close they are to me (how much I like them)

    • Closer they are, the more interaction with them

  • Affect how we view and respond to others

• How much do we like Something?

  • How much have you interacted?

  • Mere exposure effect

    • More time you spend with them/exposed to, your affection as well as how much you like them increases

• Social Comparison

  • How am I doing compared to others?

  • Up or down

Video Notes:

• Attribution Theory: why behaviors happen

  • Dispositional factors:

    • Internal and relatively unchanging

  • Situational factors

    • External and temporary

  • Fundamental attribution error occurs when overestimating the effect of dispositional factors in an individual’s behavior and minimize situational factors

  • Regardless of the attribution nothing about the behavior changes

• Explanatory Style: how we explain why behaviors happen

  • Optimistic explanatory style:

    • External causes, relatively temporary causes, specific causes

  • Pessimistic explanatory style:

    • Personal causes, permanent causes, pervasive causes 

  • Regardless of the explanatory style nothing about the behavior changes

• Cognitive biases: influence the way we attribute our behaviors and thoughts 

  • Selection of potential cognitive biases 

  • Ex: availability/ representativeness heuristics, confirmation bias, anchoring bias and belief perseverance 

• Availability heuristic: 

  • Heuristic: thinking shortcut or rule of thumb

  • Distorts estimates of how likely something is to occur 

  • Ex: when buying a car, you take reviews from your friends and families on what their car works like to make the buying process easier for you 

  • Highly publicized examples

  • Sensational examples

• Representativeness Heuristic:

  • Heuristic: thinking shortcut or rule of thumb

  • Distorts estimates of how typical an example is of an entire category

  • Base-rate fallacy

  • Estimates of probability ignore base rates

• Confirmation bias:

  • Bias: unreasonable partiality or preferences

  • Focus on supportive examples

  • Dismissal of non-supportive examples

• Overconfidence bias:

  • Bias: unreasonable partiality or preferences

  • Excessive belief in our own abilities

  • The belief we did better than others

  • The belief that we are correct and others are wrong

• Locus of control: the amount of control people perceive they have over events or condition in their lives

  • Internal locus of control:

    • Life events or conditions are a result of one’s own efforts and abilities

    • One has control over what happens to them

  • External locus of control:

    • Life events or conditions results from things outside of one’s control

    • Things happen and there's not much that can be done about them

• Cultural influences:

  • Internal locus of control

    • Individualistic cultures may emphasize taking credit for one’s achievement

  • External locus of control:

    • Collectivist cultures may encourage the sharing of credit for achievement 

• Neither is ideal in all situations

  • Internal locus of control:

    • Self - blame when things do not go well 

    • Frustration with things truly beyond one’s control

  • External locus of control:

    • Not accepting appropriate responsibility for failures 

    • Learned helplessness

• Mere exposure effect:

  • Frequency = familiarity 

  • Familiarity = positivity 

• Self- fulfilling prophecy:

  • A false belief about a situation even if its false

  • Brings out a new behavior that can either be favorable or unfavorable

  • Making the false belief come true and we live up or down to our beliefs and expectations 

• Social Comparison:

  • Comparing oneself with others for self-evaluation 

    • Can make a person feel better or worse

    • Comparisons to less accomplished people

    • May increase self- esteem and confidence 

  • Comparisons to more accomplished people

    • Can be motivating if one feels successful

    • Can be discouraging if they feel the opposite 

    • Relative deprivation 

4.2: Attitude Formation and Attitude Change

Class Notes:

• Attitude=beliefs

• Stereotype

  • Generalized concepts about a group 

    • Similar to Heuristic

  • Race/ethnicity used to group people as its is easily identifiable (nationally)

    • Other examples of categorizations include gender, age (teenagers), religion, socioeconomically

  • Can help when trying to Approach others

  • Helps us make quick judgements/decisions

  • Can lead to problems

    • Unfair judgements/decisions

• Implicit Attitudes

  • Underlying tilt toward or away from others based on stereotypes

• Related Ideas

  • Just World Phenomenon

    • Collective judgment about groups of people

    • Believe people get what they deserve

  • In group/out group bias

    • People out of group judged, assume all our bad in another group

  • Ethnocentrism

    • Belief that one’s own culture is superior to others

• Belief Perseverance

  • Idea that you believe something even when presented with facts on the contrary

    • Ex: religious beliefs proved wrong, confrontation with varying perspective, preserved

    • Not willing to give up something that makes them who they are

  • Can lead to confirmation bias

    • Only willing to consider/look at and accept information you already believe to be true

  • Can be because of cognitive dissonance (personal)

    • When attitudes and behaviors don’t match/line up

    • Mindset that makes you uncomfortable

    • Usually people change their attitude to fit their behavior

    • Ex: cheating circumstances

Video Notes:

• Stereotype: generalized belief about a group, a member of a group or a social category 

  • Mental shortcuts like heuristics in thinking that reduce cognitive load

  • Develop into our schemas or mental frameworks 

  • Mostly negative and exaggerated which is what can lead to negative situations 

• Prejudice is when a stereotype can lead to a negative attitude in advance of having experience with a person/group

  • The negative emotions can create strong negative emotions that can lead to hatred

  • Leads to discrimination when you are hostile to a rejected group

• Implicit attitudes/ bias can occur with no or little conscious awareness

  • Ex: applicants with ethnic sounding names were less likely to be contacted by applicants than those with identical non-ethnic names

  • Ex: gender is similarly biased towards certain groups 

  • Just World Phenomenon: the person sees the world as a fair place

    • Good people have good things happen to them and bad people have bad things happen to them

    • Helps reduce anxiety when difficult realities confront us 

  • Ingroup bias: tend to view our own group as having favorable attributes and likeable

  • Out group bias: tend to see other members of other groups as unfavorable 

  • Ethnocentrism: tend to view our own ethnicity or social group as being correct and most just compared to other groups

    • Can lead to misunderstanding of other ethnicity and social groups behaviors, actions or beliefs. 

• Belief perseverance: tendency to maintain a belief even when someone can refute or disprove the belief with evidence or facts

  • Confirmation bias: when someone seeks out evidence that confirms their pre-existing beliefs and expectations while dismissing evidence that clashes

    • Works alongside belief perseverance and they often strengthen each other 

    • Cognitively highlight confirming evidence and skirt past disconfirming evidence

• Cognitive Dissonance: 

  • When we have two things in are mind that are at odds with each other it creates a state of imbalance

  • If you believe something but then act in the opposite way then you have a dissonance

  • Creates a state of psychological discomfort forcing us to make a change

  • We can change the belief to align with actions or change the action to match the belief 

    • Ex: buying coffee everyday but also believe in protecting the environment

      • “Its my one bad habit and everyone does it” to justify your actions

4.3: Psychology of Social Situations

Class Notes:

• We are influenced by:

  • Group polarization- group tends to become more extreme

    • When we come together into groups, we tend to become more extreme/less moderate versions of ourselves

      • Development of attitudes, decision making, etc

      • Like minded people in a group move away from moderate decisions

    • Conventional wisdom on the other hand, is the notion that groups coming together tend to lean towards the middle or moderate consensus/decision making

  • Due to the internet with many people posting things about the most popular opinions for views, there are less diverse opinions 

  • Social norms- what is expected in society

    • Creates pressure on us; group doesn't force us, we stick to norms because doing so otherwise makes us uncomfortable

    • We don't want to stick out; breaking norms sheds light on us

    • We want to remain invisible so we follow norms

  • Social influence theory- we behave the way we do because society influences us

  • Persuasion elements

    • Way decisions are influenced based on how information is presented (how to get them to develop a positive attitude towards it)

    • Central vs. Peripheral route

      • Central= facts/data (numerical) about product

      • Peripheral= emotion/connection 

      • We like to say we are more influenced by facts/data, but we tend to be more influenced by emotion

  • Halo effect- idea that i assume positive thoughts about a person, so I assume positive things about them

    • I like things they like

• Persuasion techniques

  • Foot in the door (sales)

    • You go for a small ask so you can get bigger ask later

    • Once they say yes, now it is harder to say no

  • Door in the face (buyers)

    • No to the big ask to get yes to small ask

      • Framed in different perspective

  • In small, medium, large they usually want you to get/buy medium

• The Social Trap- pressure we feel when participating in zero sum (if others get some, I can't)

  • Only so many pieces of the pie (finite resources)

  • Make decision hurting group and themselves

  • Tragedy of the commons- people saw others overusing grasslands and felt that they should be able to too, which led to excess usage by everyone and overall negative outcome because of this

  • Notion some think that if everyone just behave themselves there would be no problem

• We are also influenced by…

  • Conformity- desire to be a part of group and act like them to remain safe and not stick out (social norms/pressure)

    • Solomon Asch did line experiment, where he put line Q and asked everyone in class outloud (everyone said A confusing the subject of experiment who clearly had another answer as the correct one)

  • Obedience- likelihood we are to obey, especially by an authoritative figure

    • miller gram experiment (people shocked people to “death” upon being told to do so by professional scientists)

  • Society

    • Individualism- good of you over the group

    • Collectivism- good of group more important (less likely to fall for social trap)

    • Multiculturalism- multiple cultures in play

  • Groups

    • Polarization- extreme when in groups

    • Group think- conform to ideas of group to not be seen as disagreeable

      • How willing are you to say something different from the group?

      • Ex: hesitant when there are powerful leaders in group

    • Diffusion of Responsibility- assume others will do something/take responsibility for me when there are many people in group

    • Social Loafing- Tend to do less when there are more people

      • More people tend to believe they only need to do less work

      • There should be an optimal number in group: large enough to manage everything but small enough that everyone feels the need to pull their own fear

    • Deindividualism- do things you wouldn't do in the group

      • Lose yourself in the group (identity loss)

  • Group influence

    • Social facilitation- performance improves when we are in front of a group

      • Creates level of stress in performance and enhances higher ability in an already high performer

      • Nerves facilitate the performer

      • Only happens with high level performers

  • Sell out:

    • Back in the day when music artists used to assimilate with a corporation it would be called a sellout

    • They were often seen as betraying their authenticity

    • Fans and other artists would accuse them of prioritizing money over creativity

• Influence on Decision making

  • False Consensus Effect

    • most/everyone agrees with you with your position

    • Confirms my beliefs, making me more entrenched with belief

    • Less likely to accept other beliefs

• Overcoming group differences

  • Superordinate Goals- group goals become more of a priority then other goals

• Giving into group differences

  • Social traps- make decision for me overgroup

    • Zero sum gains

    • Tragedy of the commons

• Industrial-organizational psychologists (I/O)

• Positive Influence of Groups

  • Altruism- doing something nice for someone without expecting anything in return

  • Social Reciprocity Norms- I do something for you so you do something for me in return

• Negative influence of groups

  • Bystander Effect

    • Expect somebody else to do it for you when in a group

    • Ex: Medical Emergency in public

Video Notes:

• Situational Factors:

  • Social Norms: your behaviors might vary in different situations due to the expectations of how we should behave at that time or place

  • Social Influence Theory: we might vary our behavior in different situations because we are going along with how others are acting 

    • Normative Social Influence: suggests you will apply so that your friend group doesn’t think less of you

    • Informational Social Influence: suggests you will apply because your friends have convinced that you are certain to be accepted 

    • Solomon Asch “Line” Experiment: crucial example of applying social influence theory 

• Persuasion Techniques:

  • Central: change attitude by using facts, details and logic 

  • Peripheral: change attitude by using peripheral cues (feel emotion connected to a product or behavior, how attractive it is, endorsements)

  • Halo Effect: when we assume one positive aspect of a person suggests other aspects are positive too 

  • Foot in the Door: make a small request that is agreed to, then return with a larger second request

  • Door in the Face: make a large request that is refused, then return with a smaller request 

• Conformity:

  • The adjusting of one’s opinions, judgements, or actions so that they are more consistent with others’ or the norms of a situation. 

    • Include outright compliance or be more subtle

• Milgram Shock Experiment:

  • Obedience to Authority: Participants obeyed the experimenter, seen as an expert in a lab coat, increasing compliance.

  • Responsibility Diffusion: The experimenter took responsibility, shifting moral accountability from the teacher.

  • Gradual Escalation: The shocks began low and increased gradually, making it easier for participants to rationalize their actions.

  • Social Pressure: The authority figure’s presence and reassurances created pressure to conform and continue.

• Culture’s effect on individual behavior

  • Individualistic countries (US) tend to promote personal success and achievement 

  • Collectivist countries (Asian and African countries) promote the success of the group 

  • Ethnocentrism is the belief that your culture is superior to others

• Groupthink:

  • Happens when group members do not speak up with concerns about a decision when they care more about the group’s well being rather their own interest 

    • Cuban Missile Crisis 

• Group Polarization:

  • Happens when one attends a group meeting, afterwards altitudes are strengthened about issues from the meeting 

    • Attendees leaving a political convention feel stronger about positions and candidates after they leave

• Diffusion of Responsibility

  • For example, if everyone walks by a homeless person and ignore them then you will do the same

  • This behaviour would change though if there was not such a large group or if there wasn’t people around 

  • The group rule is that this person is not worth helping and it's an implied rule that everyone follows

  • Connected to the Bystander effect and Kitty Genovese

• Groups can help or hinder

  • Social facilitation (helps)

    • Happens when an individual performs better at a task when others are observing than when performing alone

  • Social loafing (hinders)

    • Happens when an individual puts less effort into a task when they are part of the group 

• Deindividuation (usually hindering)

  • Happens when individuals lose awareness or their sense of self control when they are anonymous or part of a group

  • Connected with antisocial behavior (cyberbullying or violence in large events)

• Superordinate Goals

  • When a goal of the group becomes more important than other goals 

    • Can lessen conflict 

• Social Traps

  • Happens when groups look to their own interests ahead of an action that would benefit the entire group

• Altruism- selfless behavior

• Kitty Genovese Case

  • Kitty Genovese was returning home when she got assaulted and she escaped but then was caught again for a second assault

  • 37 people saw but not one of them helped or called 911 

    • Example of how a group can influence your behavior 

    • People were less likely to help because no one else was and they didn’t want to be the one that stood out

• Latane and Darley Decision Tree

  • Will you help? The mental process your brain takes before you take action

• Diffusion of Responsibility

  • Situational variable: includes the presence of others and our cost/ benefit analysis applied to the situation 

  • Attentional variable: refers to where we notice 

  • Diffusion of responsibility: effect the presence of others has on our decision to help

  • Bystander effect: we are less likely to help because we may assume that others will; the social “rule” becomes to not help

• Reciprocity Norm 

  • If we incur social debt from another, we are more likely to help them 

  • We feel the need to return the help of those who have helped us 

    • Your friend gave you a ride to school so now you feel obligated to give her a ride to the football game

    • “Even the score”

• Social Responsibility Norm

  • One should assist those in need when possible

  • Doing the right thing

  • Promoted by many religions

  • Individualism vs. collectivism 

    • Donating blood

• I/O focuses on how management treats you, your relationship with coworkers, how do people feel about work (do they feel burnout)

4.4: Psychodynamic and Humanistic Theories of Personality

Class Notes:

• Psychodynamic Theory:

  • Conflict of the self 

  • Id, superego and ego are all at conflict with each other as one thing tries to overpower each other

  • Id: primal self that represents what you would do if there was no rules and restrictions

  • Superego: ideal self, expectations that often come from society 

  • Ego: conceptualization of who we are, attempts to balance out the superego and id

• Protecting the self from (protecting ourselves from what threatens our ego)

  • Denial: refusing to accept what happened

  • Displacement: when you can’t express your emotions on someone so you take it out your emotions on someone else

    • Typically someone weaker than you so they can’t fight back

  • Projection: you take what emotion you are feeling and project it onto others to avoid confrontation your emotions

    • You are mad but you claim everyone is mad at you when they really aren’t 

  • Rationalization: when something bad happens, you come up with reasons on why what happened was good.

    • You are hurt but don’t want to accept it. Not recognizing reality

  • Reaction Formation: saying you fee, the opposite about how you feel

  • Regression: something happens that makes you feel bad so you go back to a time when you were better 

    • Coping mechanisms in a way

  • Repression: you actively try not to remember 

  • Sublimation: you take the energy you feel and put it towards something else

    • Done when you don’t want to deal with it 

• How to test for it:

  • Projective tests:

    • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) ex: inkblot test

    • How you perform on tasks reveals things about you 

      • Affiliation Arousal: motivated by relationships

      • Achievement Arousal: motivated by achievement 

• Humanistic Theories

  • Unconditional positive regard

  • There are certain things that bring me down and cause me to act out sometimes and prevent me from being the ideal version of myself

  • The most ideal self is when we reach self actualization but we must meet all the previous standards such as basic needs, love, esteem etc. 

    • Self transcendence is one level higher

    • We are always striving to be the best version of ourselves and reach the highest level

  • The pyramid level is fluid meaning you can reach self actualization but that doesn’t mean that you’ll still be there the following day 

    • There are too many external factors that affect your position 

Video Notes:

• Personality is the patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting

  • It is persistent in your life and influences behaviors

  • Psychodynamic, humanistic, trait, and social-cognitive theories can help us understand our enduring characteristics

Psychoanalytic vs. Psychodynamic Theory

• Psychoanalytic- Sigmund Freud

  • He believed there were four things that dictated our personality

    • Childhood

    • Unconscious

    • Sexual and aggressive impulses 

    • Anxiety driven defense mechanisms

• Believed that there were three part to our personality that work together to control our impulses and make final decisions

  • Id= earliest part of our personality that seeks immediate gratification, willing to do anything to satisfy our needs and desires

    • Solely in the unconscious/below the surface

    • Operates on the pleasure principle

    • Strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive needs and drives

    • Can get us in severe trouble if this is unchecked

  • Ego= develops in early childhood, that is our reality check that helps us understand how we will respond to the real world and the consequences of our actions based on the decisions we make

    • Present in both conscious and unconscious minds, but mostly in conscious mind

    • Operates on the reality principle

    • Mediator of the id, superego, and reality

    • Wants to realistically bring pleasure over pain

  • Superego= develops around the age of five, and is the voice of our conscious that helps us strive for perfection and wants us to be proud of the decisions we make

    • Present in both conscious and unconscious minds 

    • Driven by our moral compass (our conscious)

    • Focuses on how we ought to behave

• Psychodynamic- Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney

  • They believed the following characteristics dictated our personality 

    • Childhood

    • Unconscious

    • Anxiety-Driven Defense mechanisms

*Note: Freud emphasized sexual and aggressive impulses while the others didn't

• So many of the decisions we make in our behaviors are not made with our conscious mind

Anxiety Reducing Defense Mechanisms

• Psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theorists believe that these defense mechanisms play a role in us being able to get through stressors of our everyday life

• Unconscious ways in which we work on reducing our anxiety on a daily basis through our ego

• Helps us see how our unconscious helps us in stressful situations

• 8 Defense mechanisms:

  • Denial- refusing to believe a painful reality

    • Ex: Terry thinks he and his boyfriend will get back together

  • Displacement- shifting tension to a less threatening target

    • Ex: Kim yells at her friends when she is upset with her teacher

  • Projection- attributing unacceptable impulses onto someone else

    • Ex: Iris got fired and talks about how mad her parents are at her boss

  • Rationalization- giving a logical reason to justify unacceptable behavior

    • Ex: Dillon was OK cheating on a test because everyone else was too

  • Reaction Formation- unacceptable impulses are replaced with their opposites

    • Ex: Jane is upset with Sue, but treats her with a lot of kindness

•  Regression- resorting to an earlier stage of development

  • Coach Smith stomps his feet and yells when his team is losing 

• Repression- pushing unwanted memories into the unconscious 

  • Ex: Forgetting about a major deadline that is approaching

• Sublimation- aggressive drives are channeled into something acceptable

  • Elane takes a Pound class when she is upset

Assessing Personality: Projection Tests

• Ink Blots- used by Hermann Rorschach, usually where a symmetrical black & white picture given and participants are asked what they saw (looking for trends in answers)

  • One of the ways psychodynamic personality theorists believe you could gain some access into your unconscious

  • Some people who use this test believe it can reveal information about our unconscious personality

  • Some use it as an ice breaker to get to know new people and their personality within

• Thematic Apperception Test- you are given a picture and you are asked to tell a story

  • Looking for same underlying unconscious motives in stories being told 

4.5: Social-Cognitive and Trait Theories of Personality

Class Notes:

• Social Cognitive Theory: I behave in a way that can influence the situation or the environment influences me

• Reciprocal Determination

  • I learn what behaviors are acceptable based on the reactions of those around me

• Personality traits are an outflow of my environment 

  • Self Concept is developed through high levels of self efficiency and esteem 

    • Comes from how others respond to me 

  • Revolves on how others treat you so there's no sense of self agency 

• Trait Theory: a set of particular characteristics (temperament)

  • Big 5:

    • Agreeable: how easy are you to get along with. Do you go with the flow or are you stubborn?

    • Openness: how susceptible are you to new ideas or experiences?

    • Extraversion: how outgoing are you?

    • Conscientiousness: how considerate are you?

    • Emotional stability (neuroticism): how mentally and emotionally stable are you?

  • Universal because everyone has some of each category

Video Notes:

4.6: Motivation

Class Notes:

• What motivates us:

  • Physical Drives: biological response 

    • Our bodies drive us to behave a certain way

  • Drive Reduction Theory: our body simply responds to the environment to keep homeostasis. 

    • If we are hungry then we eat and when we eat we go to the bathroom 

    • We simply respond to our body’s signals so that we can maintain homeostasis

    • Shortcomings: when your body tells us something but you don’t respond accordingly. Like you are hungry but you don’t act on the hunger. 

  • Arousal Theory (alertness)

    • Yerkes- Dodson theory: there's an optimal level of arousal for peak performance 

    • The more difficult the task, the less arousal we need. When something is easy, we have a higher level of arousal 

  • Self Determination Theory: we want to feel good about ourselves and feel competent 

    • Intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation 

    • We want to do it vs what we will get if we do it 

• Lewin’s Motivational Conflict Theory:

  • Conflicts need resolution (this is the motivation)

    • You can’t not choose anything or choose both 

  • Approach- Approach: you are presented with 2 good options and you have to choose the one that appeals to you the most.

    • Choosing between a burger or taco

  • Approach- Avoidance: you are presented with something you want and something you want to avoid but if you choose what you want you will have to face the bad thing 

    • You want to eat candy but if you then you will get sick

  • Avoidant- Avoidant: you are presented with 2 options that you want to avoid. You have to pick the one that you are fine with dealing the most

    • Eat brussel sprouts or get sick if you don’t

• What motivated you (extreme behaviors for those that seek thrill)

  • Sensation seeking Theory: explains why people that seek out thrill and adventure (skydiving) since it goes against Darwinism and wanting to be able to pass along genetics because by putting themselves in that situation they are decreasing their chances of surviving

    • Disinhibition: they are not able to tamp down on their want for thrill. The need for adrenaline is their homeostasis.

    • Boredom Susceptibility: they are afraid of being bored so they go do exciting things 

    • Distribution: most people are in the middle of the spectrum but there's a few people that are on each extreme end of a lot of adventure and no adventure at all 

  • Food: your brain tells your body that you are hungry or full

    • Hormonal balance: Ghrelin (similar to melatonin in the fact that when its present you feel hungry and depletes as you get full) and Leptin 

    • Hypothalamus and pituitary gland to send out hormones and signals to the brain

Video Notes:

4.7: Emotion

Class Notes:

Video Notes: