Psychology Chapters 14-17 Quiz

Course Information

• Course title: PSYC 6392: Personality and Social Psychology
• Week: 6
• Chapter: 4, The Self in Action
• Instructor: Dr Arnaud Wisman

Instructor Information

• Name: Dr Arnaud (Rknow) Wisman
• Email: [email protected]
• Role: Lecturer in Social and Evolutionary Psychology
• Drop-in Hours: Tuesdays 16:00-17:00 & Wednesdays 12:00-13:00 via teams or by appointment

Main Readings

• Handbook: Social Psychology and Human Nature by Baumeister, R. F., & Bushman, B. J. (2020), Thomson Wadsworth International ed, paperback (Green slides)
• Background/Advanced: Advanced social psychology: The state of the science by Finkel, E. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (Eds.). (2019), Oxford University Press.

Themes of the Book (Orange Slides)

• The long road towards social acceptance
• Is bad better than good?
• Social psychology of sex
• Eating habits
• Duplex mind
• Evolution
• What relevance is there for me?

The Self in Action, Choices and Actions

• Part 1: Planning, goals, and meaning
• Part 2: Freedom and Choice
• Part 3: Self-Regulation, Irrationality and Self-Destruction (Self-regulation failure)

The Self in Action

• YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWJjsVitHhQ&feature=related

Skinner Failed to Acknowledge Meaning

• Likelihood of organism responding to stimuli
• Drive strength
• Incentive
• Hull, 1943
• Habit strength
• Stimuli intensity

What You Do, and What It Means

• Human actions are based on meaning, learned by culture
• Meaning is a network of meaning (e.g., "cartoon coyote" vs. "coyote")
• Thinking (self-simulator) allows use of meaning, perform actions mentally before physically

But... Is All Imagining the Same?

• Imagining something makes it more likely to happen (Taylor & Pham, 1996)
• Group A: Keeping track of how much you study; Group B: Imagine hard work and good results; Group C: Imagine doing well and walking home with a smile.

Levels of Meaning

• "By" test to differentiate level of meaning (making marks on paper, taking tests for education)
• Higher levels are more meaningful (bigger emotional impact)
• Focus on lower levels to solve problems; higher levels may invoke guilt
• Lower levels focus on details of operation

How to Become a “Good” Soldier?

• World War 2 (WW2) data: On average, in a squad of 10 men, fewer than three ever fired their weapons in combat.

Change of Views

• Focus on low-level meaning — vulnerable to influence & views change
• Focus on high-level meaning — change behavior by shifting to a lower level and then back to a high level

But... Can We Really Change? (Dweck, 1996)

• Entity theorists (internal): Enjoy success, learned helplessness, failure is internal
• Incremental theorists (external): Enjoy learning, strive to improve, failure is external

Goals

• Why do you have goals? (E.g., gender differences in risky jobs)

Goals & Plans

• Ideas of some desired future state
• Link between values and action
• Do we need the self? What about animals?
• Goals are influenced by inner processes and cultural factors
• Setting and pursuing goals is a vital job of the self

Goals, Plans, Intentions

• Setting goals: choosing possible goals, evaluating feasibility
• Pursuing goals: planning and behaviors to reach goals

Goals, Plans, Intentions (Mindsets)

• Setting goals = realistic
• Pursuing goals = optimistic (e.g., build a bridge)
• Goals help resume interrupted activity

Goals, Plans, Intentions (Goal Setting/Pursuit/Striving Tables)

• Function, Attitude, Mental Focus, Core Question, Style of Thought: (Tables outlining differences in goal setting/pursuit)

Pursue Goals

• Conscious and automatic systems
• Set goals
• Resume activity after interruption (e.g., goal shielding)
• Devise alternative plans
• Automatic system: Zeigarnik effect (guilty conscience), brain good at memorizing incomplete tasks.

How to Reach Your Goals? & Plans

• Interlinked, hierarchy of goals (distal & proximal goals)
• Problem with only distal goals?
• Problem with only proximal goals?
• Planning focus on reaching goals, specific guidelines to motivate

Daily Plans - Or Monthly - Or No Planning?

• Drawbacks of detailed or rigid plans, too much planning might be discouraging
• Plans are often overly optimistic

When Most Likely to Buy Expensive Ticket?

• Likelihood of buying a ticket (expensive vs. cheap) for an event tomorrow vs. next year (graph included)

Recap Part 1

• Human behavior depends on meaning
• Incremental vs. entity theorists
• Goals are ideas of desired future states
• Pursuing goals requires planning
• Conscious & automatic systems help with goal pursuit
• The Zeigarnik effect (remembering incomplete tasks)
• Goals shielding
• People's plans are often overly optimistic

Part 2: Freedom and Choice

• Free will? (YouTube links for lectures)
• Experiencing "More or Less Free" (external constraints)
• Perceived freedom produces benefits
• Manipulated absence of free will — amoral behavior (cheating)
• Experiment: Panic button effect, or how to solve puzzles with loud blasts of noise.
• Reactance theory:
• 'Reverse psychology', Consequences of restrictions, reasserting freedom, aggression toward restrictions

Making Choices

• Two steps: Narrowing down choices, Carefully comparing remaining options (e.g., buying only Nike shoes)

Making Choices (Alternatives)

• Are more options better? Balance between not enough, or too much choice.
• (Scheibehenne, Greifeneder, & Todd 2008;White et al., 2008)

Is Bad Stronger Than Good? Avoiding Losses Versus Pursuing Gains

• Bad outcomes of losing — a stronger effect than good outcomes of winning (gambling examples)
• More willing to gamble compared to a certain loss
• Influenced more by what they stand to lose
• What will you remember more vividly: loss or gain?

Influences on Choice

• Risk aversion (bad is stronger than good)
• Temporal discounting (immediate reward vs. delayed reward for example $10)
• Certainty effect (certain outcome over probability)

Influences on Choice (Cont.)

• Keeping option open
• Status quo bias (doing nothing,default option)
• Omission bias (default option thinking: e.g internet)

The Social Side of Sex, Gender, Sex and Decisions,

• Genders base sex on various factors ( women can have sex anytime)
• Error management theory (evolutionary roots)
• Considering temporal discounting, risk aversion, keeping options open and certainty effect to avoid errors.

The Aroused Mind

• Temporal discounting and attractive opposite sex - effect increases
• Attractive vs unattractive: men prioritize immediate gratification (present)
• 12 pictures of attractive vs. unattractive people (DV)
• Present reward vs. delayed reward (10$) (See also Wisman & Thomas, 2022)

Recap Part 2

• Belief in free will => pro-social actions & flexibility
• Panic button effect — escape option reduces stress
• Certainty effect, status quo bias, omission bias, risk aversion, temporal discounting
• Error management theory: different types of errors for both genders

Part 3 - Self-regulation/Self-control

• What's the common factor (e.g., transmitted diseases, crime, relationship issues)?
• Self-regulation's influence on health, sex, criminal behavior, money, relationships

Self-Regulation

• Effective self-regulation relies on standards (what not to do)
• Monitoring: keeping track of behaviors (thermostat: TOTE model)
• Capacity to change (willpower) and aligning behavior with standards

Undermining Monitoring

• Examples of undermining: dieting (eating more TV), alcohol intoxication (lose track of monitoring)

Self-Regulation (Capacity to Change)

• Willpower/ego-depletion: willpower can be depleted (resisting temptations)
• Willpower strengthens with practice

Let's Look at Replication issues

• Depletion clip (Baumeister)
• Replication issues
• General comments on replication issues from Gilbert

Classic Willpower Study (Baumeister et al., 1998)

• Results of a study on willpower (e.g., eat radish, eat chocolate, no-food control) (graph included)

Food for Thought (Dieting)

• Self-regulation Principles for effective dieting (Committing to standards)
• High level and low level goals
• Monitoring (Self-satnav)
• Keeping track of what you eat and what you weigh
• Increasing willpower and decreasing other demands
• 'First line defense approach'

Irrationality and Self-Destruction

• Why do we behave so self-destructively?

Self-Defeating Acts: Why Self-Destructive?

• Paradoxical: rational beings acting irrationally
• Death wish/fear of success
• People almost never directly seek failure
• Self-defeating actions from tradeoffs (e.g., sex now, risk of STD later)

Pathways to Self-Defeating Behaviors

• Self-defeating tradeoffs (immediate reward, delayed cost/e.g., smoking)
• Self-handicapping ("I do my best work under pressure")
• Faulty knowledge, strategies, such as procrastination

Tradeoffs - Now Versus Tomorrow

• Overemphasize the present, delay of gratification
• Capacity to delay gratification
• resisting temptations (avoiding sight/thought)

Recap Part 3

• Self-regulation(altering response)
• Three components of self-regulation (standards, monitoring, willpower/capacity)
• TOTE loop
• Willpower functions like a muscle
• Self-defeating behavior — suffering
• Capacity of delay, short-term sacrifice for long-term reward

What Makes Us Human?

• Elaborate inner system for controlling behavior
• Making choices in novel ways
• Linking here-and-now with distant realities
• Using complex reasoning processes (better-developed self-regulation)
• Capacity for self-destructive behavior

Classic Mischel Studies Clip

Extra Slides (Not Exam)

• Emotion regulation skills to reduce procrastination
• Tolerating, modifying negative emotions.
• Remembering toughness/resilience.
• Creating/increasing affective commitment to task.

Additional Notes/Other

• Course website or platform (Active-Class.com, sign-up instruction)
• Weekly schedule (January 2022)

Test your knowledge of the key themes and concepts from Chapters 14-17 of the psychology reading material. This quiz covers important factors related to goal setting, self-regulation, and theories of human behavior. Challenge yourself to recall details about background readings and key concepts discussed in these chapters.