Psych 15 Midterm 1

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social psychology

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attempt to understand how individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others; many experiments may sacrifice ecological validity

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social behavior

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animals: coordinated and purposeful
boids: simple rules to complex behavior (alignment, separation/cohesion) but no single boid controlling

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the power of situations

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we tend to favor "person explanations" but actually situation is quite powerful

studies: asch (lines), false confessions (compliance, internalization, confabulation)

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automaticity

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affect by environment without realizing it

studies: priming (may be either diff brain triggers or diff motivations)

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cognitively impenetrable

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can't make a particular sense go away, even with logic. competition between automatic and controlled processes.

studies: poop

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absence of insight

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unconscious determines much of what we do

studies: rope puzzle, names

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social experiment designs

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within-subject design. problems: observation might sensitize to manipulation or second observation, some event other than the manipulation may effect

between subject design. randomization into exp/con. problems: randomization may fail, some difference other than the manipulation may occur between groups

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theoretical versus applied experiments

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theory: to be replicated, context unimportant, no interest in other determinants, intended to be generalized

applied: not to be replicated, context important, interest in all determinants, no intent to generalize

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artifact

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any variable other than the manipulation that influences the difference between observation

experimenter (intentional/unintentional)

participants (volunteer bias, evaluation apprehension, sensitivity to experimental demand--good, faithful, apprehensive, negative)

design confounds (the hawthorne experiment)

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how to solve the problem of artifacts

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camouflage, implicit measures

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ethics, problem with debriefing

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impression perseverance (even after debriefing on false feedback it is hard to erase effect)

push polling (just question but failure to debrief plants ideas in their mind)

permanent damage (even if you TELL people they will receive false feedback the same results are observed)

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milgram: obedience reduced with...

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proximity to victim, distance from experimenter

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what social psychologists study

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individuals on average

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proximal factors, distal factors

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the situation, how the individual perceives the situation, the processes of perceiving and reacting

evolution, culture

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channel factors

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situational circumstances that appear unimportant on the surface but that can have great consequences for behavior (either facilitating or blocking or guiding it)

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dispositions

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internal factors (real or imagined)

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fundamental attribution error

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failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behavior, together with the tendency to overemphasize the importance of dispositions or traits

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construal

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interpretation and inference about the stimuli or situations we confront

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Gestalt psychology

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objects are perceived not by means of some automatic registering device but by active usually unconscious interpretation of what the object represents ("what makes sense")

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prisoner's dilemma

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defecting vs cooperating etc

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schemas

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systematized knowledge stores, generalized knowledge about the physical and social world (such as what kind of behavior to expect)

regular expectations save us time...

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stereotypes

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schemas that we have for people of various kinds (facilitate and sometimes derail interactions)

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two types of processing (automatic and controlled)

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automatic and unconscious (often based on emotion, run in parallel, fast), conscious and systematic (often based on careful thought, run in series, slow)...can result in incompatible attitudes in people

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two types of *unconscious* processing

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skills that are learned and overlearned, production of beliefs and behavior

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theory of mind

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the understanding that other people have beliefs and desires, advantageous for social group living

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naturalistic fallacy

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thinking that they way things are is the way they should be (NOT so)

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cultural differences in self-definition

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west (individualistic/independent)
east (collective/interdependent)

east tend not to expect equality in relationships

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correlational research

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NOT random assignment, can't be sure of causality (longitudinal helps), suffers from self-selection

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poor external validity

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weakness in knowing how to related the stimulus situation in the experiment to elements of real-life situations

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reliability

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degree to which the particular way one measures a given variable is likely to yield consistent results

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milgram originally interested in

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conformity pressures!

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one sided vs two sided campaign

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"do this" (for little time, less smart) vs "tell both sides, one better" (for more time, more smart)

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Hovland's definition of attitude

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an implicit approach or avoidance response

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attitude vs. opinion

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an attitude is core, an opinion is transient

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where do attitudes come from?

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genetic inheritance, developed through experience (mere exposure or classical conditioning)

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heritability

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how much of variability can be understood by genes (determined via twin studies)

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mere exposure hypothesis

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people have positive attitudes toward those stimuli to which they are frequently exposed (on logarithmic scale)

studies: black bag, propinquity and attraction, mirror image preferences, "turkish" word

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"demand effect" criticism (for mere exposure hypothesis)

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people guessed the hypothesis?! (solved by using newspaper study and unattended ear study)

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classical conditioning

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CS-->CR
UCS--->UCR

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the neurobiology of dopamine

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dopamine doesn't track reward but error signal (difference between reward you got and reward you expected)

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first-order conditioning

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pair stimulus with UCS that naturally produces attitude (ie shock)

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second-order conditioning

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pair stimulus with UCS that has acquired an attitudinal response by prior conditioning (ie other words)

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subliminal conditioning

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addressed critique that people knew hypothesis

studies: very fast photos

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prepared learning

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just as easy to acquire negative associations with bad/neutral things but differences comes in extinction

gradually unlearn when dissociated but happens slower with "bad" things

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embodied cognition

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states of the body (postures, arm movements, facial expressions) play central roles in cognition

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brain region for affect in decision-making

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VMPFC

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brain region for memory

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hippocampus

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motivation for milgram study

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the nuremburg trials

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baseline level of obedience in milgram study

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65% gave max shock

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criticisms to milgram's study

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unethical, teacher permanently damaged, make psych look bad (milgram notes that people were happy to participate and can't critique the outcome)

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when is belief enhanced in response to contradictory evidence? (festinger)

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belief is held with deep conviction, person has acted publicly on belief, belief is vulnerable to disproof, undeniable disproof occurs, individual believer has social support

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cognitive dissonance theory

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relationship between attitude and action...we think choices caused by attitudes but often attitudes are caused by choices

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dissonance equation

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(# of dissonant elements)/(# of consonant elements) = TENSION

minimize top, maximize bottom (often can't minimize dissonant elements) to bring attitude in line with choice

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post-decision dissonance

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horse race study, change attitude as resolution of dissonance after decision

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induced compliance

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if attitude can't be justified then assumed the the attitude is different

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effort justification (the partial reinforcement extinction effect)

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if not always rewarded for behavior, will persist longer in behavior after reward is removed

...seen with rats

...is it cognitive dissonance?

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Benjamin Franklin Effect

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liking a person as a function of doing him a favor

related: initiation severity studies

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insufficient deterrence

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severity of threat affects devaluation of forbidden behavior (mild threat-->low attraction)

studies: toys

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effects of choice

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post-decision changes in desirability of alternatives

"spreading" under conditions of high perceived choice (dissonance)
"crossover" under conditions of low perceived choice (reactance)

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self-relevance

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justifications related to identity

studies: eating a worm

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is cognitive dissonance rationalization?

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doesn't seem to be: anterograde amnesic patients still display dissonance reduction effect despite impaired hippocampus

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Elaboration Likelihood Model: central vs peripheral persuasion methods

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central (knowledgeable, important/relevant, feel responsible)...longer-lasting

peripheral (distracted, reduced motivation)

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sleeper effect

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noncredible source can have impact over time when message dissociated from source: item memory stronger (longer-lasting) than source memory because source is a peripheral cue and tends to fade a way while content stays

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philosophy of self-perception

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russell and rye-know ourselves the same way we know others

actions lead to self (NOT vis versa like the self-luminous official doctrine says)

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Bem's Self-Perception Theory

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knowledge of internal states is inferred from behavior, person not in privileged position (any observer would make same inferences), esp when internal cues are weak

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dissonance study reinterpreted under...

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...self-perception theory (INFER rather than CHANGE attitude)

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dissonance vs. self-perception

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dissonance (change attitude to reduce tension from conflict between prior attitude and chosen behavior)

self-perception (attitudes don't change--they are formed when behavior is chosen and person reflects on consistent attitude)

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in essay writing study: people weren't conscious of attitude differing. how would Bem "win"? how would proponents of cognitive dissonance "win"?

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Bem: more variation initially

cog diss: definite attitude to begin with and a change occurring in one direction

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intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

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extrinsic motivations undermine intrinsic motivations (think that you only did it for the extrinsic motivator)

studies: kids with markers, adults with deadlines, supervision during work

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cognitive evaluation of motivation

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controlling aspect: reward for participation (decrease in intrinsic motivation)

competence signaling: reward for performance (increase in intrinsic motivation)

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where does intrinsic motivation come from?

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biology? culture? we enjoy doing things where skill is matched to the challenge of the task

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apparent mental causation

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people experience conscious will to the degree that they infer thought caused action, the experience of conscious will signals that the action was authored by the self, self-perception can happen during action

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priority principle

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first event must happen before (but not too long before) second to give the sense of causation (inferring a causal connection is BEMIAN)

studies: I Spy...merely having thought makes you think you caused it, rubber hand illusion

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brain region activated with rubber hand illusion

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premotor areas when illusion is significant

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split brain studies

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when cerebral hemisphere connection is severed (the corpus collosum)...language from left explains why right brain did something (still makes sense)

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others vs self in brain

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different regions are activated. when thinking about people who are very similar enhage "self" regions.

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evidence for the evolution of expression

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similar expressions seen in animals, emotions (and facial expressions!) play functional roles, social emotions built out of similar emotions (cyberball)

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Plutchik's Theory

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emotions are fast, reliable responses to situation because they are pre-complied action plans that developed over time as ancestors encountered certain situations again and again

different degrees and action tendencies of various emotions

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anterior cingulate cortex

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brain region activated in response to affective portion of pain (originally associated with physical pain, now social)

...there is also a sensory component of pain

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what is the function of facial expression? how do we know?

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communicating messages to each other, we only show facial expression to other people in response to a social context (not event/thing itself)

specifically: contagion, interaction, genuine communication in cooperation, deceptive communication in competition

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why communicating through the FACE?

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eye contact--complete mutual knowledge

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emotional contagion

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more for negative feelings because more important, feeling what others feel is the simplest means of communication

studies: disgusting smells, which activate the left insula brain region, just have to be witnessed to activate the same region

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Ekman's Theory of Emotion

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cross-cultural: certain basic emotions and related expressions are recognized across cultures, people agree on meaning and there are no "new" expressions

but cultures do vary in display rules

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automatic and controlled expressions

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duchenne could stimulate muscle contraction electrically in people who couldn't voluntarily move face muscles, but for "real" (duchenne) smiles no stimulus was needed

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cues to facial deception

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morphology, asymmetry, too short/long duration, abrupt onset, jagged offset, subtle microexpressions

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Facial Action Coding System

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by Ekman, comprehensive of muscle contractions, tend to co-occur in a limited number of action units that combine for all various expressions

studies: artificial expression, yearbook photos, recovery after loss of spouse

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General Theories of Emotion

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Viscera (James-Lange): body changes lead to emotional response of brain

Central Theory (W.B. Cannon): emotional experience in brain leads to other changes

Cognitive Labeling Theory (Schachter and Singer): emotions are undifferentiated (just good/bad hi/lo arousal) but we construe them more specifically through cognitive conceptual interpretations

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somatic vs autonomic nervous system

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somatic (senses and muscles), autonomic (sym and para)

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"Limbic System"

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set of brain structures originally thought to be controlling of emotion (actually all over brain)

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somatosensory cortex

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sensory info, for emotional state of others based on body movement

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orbitofrontal cortex and VMPFC

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value (good/bad)

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amygdala + genetics

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emotion, fear, other things...orients brain to emotionally negative things

genetics: short allele, more emotion reactivity to fear faces thus more vulnerable to environmental stress

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important cognitive labeling theory studies

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very personal survey with drug effects and confederate, bridge experiment in natural setting

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facial feedback

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posed faces affect respective emotions

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emotions as strategic devices

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emotions create a binding commitment by forcing us to engage in certain actions in response to certain events without thinking/choice, this automaticity is what makes our claims credible (both positive and negative)

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when does inconsistency produce cognitive dissonance?

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free choice, harmful consequences, foreseeable future, insufficient justification

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attitude

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evaluation of an object in a positive or negative fashion, includes components of affect, cognition, behavior

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Likert scale

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for measuring attitude, 1-7

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measuring accessibility of attitude

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via response latency, degree to which the attitude is ready to become active in an individual's mind

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measuring centrality of attitude

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measure a variety of attitudes within a domain and calculate the extent to which attitudes are linked

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utilitarian function of attitude

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signaling rewards and punishments

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ego-definsive function of attitude

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protect against undesirable beliefs against themselves

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value-expressive function of attitude

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reflecting values that people want others,especially references groups, to acknowledge

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knowledge function of attitude

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organizing how people construe the social world and guiding how people attend to, store, and retrieve information

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systems of Persuasion (basically the same)

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heuristic-systematic model, Elaboration Likelihood model

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central (systematic) route to persuasion

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listen carefully, consider relevant info and logic in detail

esp when message is relevant, people are knowledgeable, the message evokes personal responsibility

people more persuaded by high quality messages

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peripheral (heuristic) route to persuasion

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attend to superficial aspects of message

esp when little motivation or time or ability to attend to deeper meaning

people more persuaded by source characteristics and message characteristics

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elements of persuasive process

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source, content, target (-->receiver characteristics)

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effect of images of identifiable victims on persuasion

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more effective, fear-evoking communications that provide fear-reducing courses of action are most effective

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third-person effect

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most people believe that other people are more likely influenced by the media than they are (actually media has surprisingly weak effects...consumer, political, psa)

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agenda control

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media shape *what* people think about

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what makes people resistant to persuasion?

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bias, commitment, knowledge, often pay attention to info that supports them

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thought polarization

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movement towards extreme views that can be hard to alter, occurs after public commitment to a position (thinking about it!)

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attitude inoculation

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exposing a person to weak arguments helps resistance to persuasion

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theory of reasoned action

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attitudes guide behavior through deliberation process that takes into account conscious attitudes towards object and subjective norms

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theory of planned behavior

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the influence of conscious attitudes and subjective norms on behavior depends on people's beliefs that they can perform a given behavior and that the behavior will have the desired effects

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why is it hard to predict behavior from attitude?

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attitudes are ambiguous and inconsistent, in conflict with other determinants, based on secondhand info, at different levels of generality, and some behavior is automatic

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cognitive consistency theories

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consistency of attitude and behavior is important to most people so behavior can have significant effects on attitude

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balance theory

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early consistency theory, people want to balance beliefs/sentiments

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cognitive dissonance theory

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people experience discomfort when attitudes and behavior are inconsistent and thus try to reduce by bringing their attitudes in line with behavior

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cultural differences in dissonance

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east--tend to experience dissonance only when asked to think about how another person would choose

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when does "mere" self-perception account for attitude change? (as opposed to also cognitive dissonance)

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in situations where attitudes are weak or unclear to begin with

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less cognitive dissonance when something is...

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self affirming!

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speed of emotion

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brief, seconds to minutes (unlike moods)

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specificity of emotion

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emotions are generally specific

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purpose of emotion

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goal-based, motivate people to do things (especially preserving social bonds)

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part of nervous system involved in emotion

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autonomic nervous system

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sympathetic nervous system

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fight or flight

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parasympathetic nervous system

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rest and digest

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two processes involved in emotion

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expression (for communication) and cognition (for labeling and shaping memory, judgment, and attention)

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cultural differences in emotion expression

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display rules and ritualized displays, number of words used to represent, triggers/emotional cues, similar construal process but the construal of particular events differ

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william james on emotion

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emotionally exciting stimulus generates a physiological response, the perception of which is emotion with a distinct bodily response

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two-factor theory of emotion

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undifferentiated physiological arousal is construed based on situation

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importance of cognition in emotion, as seen in two-factor theory of emotion

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may be misattribution of arousal

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Directed Facial Action task (by Ekman)

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found that making the faces of various emotions resulted in different autonomic patterns for those emotions

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unconscious elicitation of emotion

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ie through subliminal priming, automatic

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Zanjonc and emotion

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unconscious perception of emotion can change evaluations of subsequent presented stimuli

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primary appraisal and secondary appraisal

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primary--people evaluate whether ongoing events are congruent with their goals, experiencing positive emotions if they are and negative emotions if they are not

secondary--people determine why they feel as they do and what to do about it (different responses and possible consequences)

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good and bad ways to deal with emotion

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good (write), bad (ruminate)

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how are emotions rational?

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they tend to promote order in social relations

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emotion-congruence account

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emotions help us make rational assessments of complex situations (make anything associated with a particular emotion more accessible and ready to guide judgment)

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feelings-as-info account

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emotions provide rapid and reliable information for judgments when we don't have time for detailed and complex evaluation

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processing style account

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different emotions lead us to process information in different ways (positive=broad, negative=narrow)

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why is our ability to predict happiness flawed?

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immune neglect and focalism

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immune neglect

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the tendency to underestimate our capacity to be resilient in responding to life's difficult events (which leads us to overestimate the extent to which they will reduce our personal well-being)

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focalism

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a tendency to focus too much on a central aspect of an event while neglecting to consider the impact of ancillary aspects or other events

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duration neglect

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the relative unimportance of the length of an emotional experience, be it pleasurable or unpleasant, in judging the overall experience

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things that have small vs. large effects on happiness

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small (gender age money), larger (social and cultural factors)

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affective forecasting

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predicting our future emotions

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appraisal processes

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ways by which we evaluate events and objects in our environment according to their relation to our current goals

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core-relational theme

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distinct themes that define the essential meaning for each emotion

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encoding hypothesis

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the experience of different emotions is associated with the same distinct facial expressions across cultures

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decoding hypothesis

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people of different cultures can interpret distinct facial expressions for different emotions in the same ways

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free-response critique

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critique of emotion studies, researches provided terms for labeling facial expressions rather than allowing free-response

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forced-choice critique

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critique of emotion studies, accuracy rate in judgment of emotional expressions may have been inflated by allowing guessing

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hypercognize

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represent a particular emotion with numerous words and concepts

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why our our judgments biased?

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they are based on misleading information (even when firsthand!)

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pluralistic ignorance

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people are reluctant to express misgivings about a perceived group norm, thus reinforcing the false norm (this can taint info firsthand)

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problem with memories

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people believe they are the product of automatic recording but they are actually reconstructions based on general knowledge, abstract theories, and fragments (may give rise to false memories)

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flashbulb memories

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powerful images of a moment that one learned dramatic news, subject to error despite everything

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why is secondhand info biased?

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speakers do not provide full account or may be motivated to stress certain elements

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sharpening

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when people describe events they emphasize points of interest

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leveling

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when people describe events they de-emphasize some points

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how does order effect judgment?

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primacy effect: info presented first is more influential (influences the way subsequent info is interpreted)

recency effect: info presented last is more influential (info more likely to be available in memory)

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knowledge structures such as schemas

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top-down tools for understanding the world, influence our interpretation of info by influencing what we attend to, guiding our inferences and construal of info, and directing our memories to recover what is relevant

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bottom-up processes

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"data driven" mental processing in which one takes in and forms conclusions on the basis of the stimuli encountered in one's experience (tools are perception and memory)

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what determines the likelihood that a given schema will be applied to incoming info

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the degree to which the info matches the critical features of the schema (not always a good match), also the recency of the schema's last activation

(doesn't need to be conscious)

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two systems for processing info

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intuitive (automatic, rapid, associative) and rational (analytic, slower, rule-based)

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intuitive heuristics

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mental shortcuts that provide us with sound judgments most of the time but sometimes lead to errors in judgment

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availability heuristic

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people judge the frequency or probability of some event by the readiness with which relevant instances come to mind

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representativeness heuristic

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people try to categorize something by judging how similar it is to their conception of the typical member of the category, or when they try to make causal attributions by assessing how similar an effect is to a possible cause

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base-rate information

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information about the relative frequency of events or of members of different categories in the population often overlooked due to representativeness heuristic

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planning fallacy

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the "inside" perspective for making judgments that causes us to be unrealistically optimistic about how quickly we can complete a project (really we should attend to the "outside" perspective or the history of finishing related tasks in a given time)

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illusory correlations

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when availability and representativeness operate together people think two variables are correlated both because they resemble one another and because the co-occurrence of two similar events is more memorable than the co-occurrence of two dissimilar events

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top-down processes

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"theory-driven" mental processing in which one filters and interprets new information in light of pre-existing knowledge and expectations

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encoding

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filing info away in memory based on what is attended to and the initial interpretation of the information

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framing effect

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the influence on judgment resulting from the way info is presented, including order

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retrieval

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the extraction of info from memory

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subliminal

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below the threshold of conscious awareness