PSYC2600 Midterm Study Guide PDF

What is Social Psychology? Define social psychology – be familiar with: o Our lecture’s definition (“scientific approach to understanding the common principles …” ▪ it is the scientific approach to understanding the common principles that underpin human...

What is Social Psychology? Define social psychology – be familiar with: o Our lecture’s definition (“scientific approach to understanding the common principles …” ▪ it is the scientific approach to understanding the common principles that underpin human sociality and societies, and in turn how these principles give rise to diverse human experiences and behaviors to build this understanding, social psychology examines o intrapersonal process: is how people perceive, feel and think o interpersonal processes: such as social influences and group behavior o The classic Allport definition vs. Wegner & Gilbert’s definition o allport: scientific study of the way in which individuals thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people ▪ like ppl next to you, will change something about your behavior (may talk to them, or not man spread) ▪ while the in your head is the hmm what would my grandma say i should act here o Wegner and gilbert: can agree with quote above, but also social psychology center is not where we think but rather the center around which modern social psychology actually turns is the understanding of subjective experience ▪ aka: they are saying to study social psych, we must study what it means to be a human being o think about subjective experience, we may question what it's like to be a bat but can't physically can never be them, so we only truly know what it means to be “me” What are humans’ “ecological niche”? - Meaning how do species in a given context of its environment find ways to survive and thrive - ex: bison in the grass land → live in herds and would travel long distances to access grass. Also moved in herds to better survive the environment and adapt to it - where with dhole (wild dog): this creature adapts to forests and mountains which impacts how they hunt in packs (social behavior) and how they work together to make the most of their environment - now what about humans - versatile species that use tools and cultures to help us communicate - right it all helps us adapt to the environment - we have a broad range of ability to adapt to many different environments - but our niche is environment, physical and highly social - aka because human beings are social beings (we became human due to our sociality → ability to nurture and nature) What are Tinbergen’s four questions for studying animal biology and behavior? o Which of these four is social psychology best able to address? First development - Called ontogeny - it's the Origins and development for an organism in their life course (birth to death) - Development occurs all across the life span not just at birth → we always grow and develop - So how do we develop and evolve over time? (like how do we learn to interpret facial expressions) → these are questions we can ask at the level of development Second is mechanism - Also known as causation - its Asking about how a trait or behavior works - What process cause the trait or give rise to it - We also need to look at the context it happens in or the conditions that trigger it - Thinking on facial expression→ few factors to study to understand the mechanism - When u look at an expression must think about do you notice the person expression, is the face fully shown, can you see her body posture - Look at age, expressions change with generations, how well do you know the person - Is the emotion clear or ambiguous Third is the evolutionary history - Why did this trait or behavior emerge or evolve? - Why is it useful or not for a species - Here think when we toast do we clink or not clink glasses → why do we do this (where is this culturally practiced) i. In hungary its not proper to clink glasses where others find it to be → when the hungarians lost a war they saw the winners clink glasses so they then refused to ever clink - Winking vs not - Culturally who knows that meaning based on where you are - Cats and dogs - Cat slow wink means trust - Dog winks is non aggression - Gerbils do fast blinks for social safety and trust - So now after looking at animal behavior can maybe connect it to human behavior Last if function - aka survival value Purpose to action, like why do we continue to wink o Wink certain way in social situations as a visual cue to show safety ▪ So maybe humans do it too for social safety and trust o looking at what a trait is adopted, looking at the function and purpose of it What are the three principles of social psychology? 1. principle 1# situatedness a. individuals are always embedded or “situated” within a larger context b. we are always inputted in a larger social context: think embodied, agentic minds (able to think, form intentions, are on our intentions and have bodies to help enact the minds intentions) surrounded by other people who are also embodied, agentic minds i. think what life would be like if we weren't situated around humans forever ii. hard to imagine, because humans are everywhere iii. but related to idea when children were raised by wolves → those children are found to have profound linguistic and social limitations as they were not exposed to language in vital periods of development 2. principle 2#: behavior (person, situation) a. noted thst behavior emerges as a function of both the quotes of the person and qualities of situation  i. others agreed if you look at personality traits like this person is aggressive and put them in a different environment or have them do a different interaction 1. the personality can't tell you how anyone will act in that social situation 2. aka said personality traits do not do a good job predicting people's behaviors b. a behavior is the function of a person by their behavior to illustrate this think about a server i. you find them to be short tempered and not being good at their job as the order was messed up,(so we compali nand say something is wrong with her as a person to act this way) but then a regular notes that she just broke up and is having a hard time, while also another server did not come so her work load is double 1. so now have context to tell us something else about her behavior 3. principle 3#: naive realism and the limits of self insight a. it's about the limits of self insight i. we have a limited perspective → we know the sun rises in east and sets in the west ii. if we went outside we could observe the pattern everyday 1. this observation lead many to incorrectly conclude earth was center of universe b. overall its a convocation that our senses can provide us with direct awareness of objects as they are i. with naive realism we underestimate the importance of relativity → your perspective matters in shaping how you see things (think the duck rabbit perspective) 1. our perspective changes what we see 2. What do we mean by “situatedness” and “the power of the situation”? power of the situation o think how other people's presence changes our behavior, when walking to class, merging around ppl, moving with the group or not. o sometimes there is alignment when everyone travels together o cohesion is when ppl approximate how distant they are from others and keep their own bubble o separation, is the steering away our around something or someone ▪ ex: whatever you call the game, say competitive game then see more be competitive then cooperative o What does it mean that social behaviors are “emergent”? ▪ we respond to the actual, imagined or implied presence of others, and interesting social patterns emerge that are not visible except in the hindsight or with statistics think fish family, one veres right into you and you then go i will vear right. but no one is telling you what to do ▪ baby names, ppl pick up what is cool or going around, and then pick it up What does this mean: Behavior is function of P x E? o What are person vs. situation explanations? ▪ person explanation is saying (can be negative or positive) that person must be rude… that person must be elitist….  that person must be a nasty person… ▪ while situation explanation is saying that person must have been in a hurry… that person must have misheard you… that person must have had a bad day.. o What is the fundamental attribution error? Can you identify it from an example ▪ this is our tendency to over emphasize internal or personality factors to explain why other ppl are foing what they are doing ex: that driver cut me off because they are a bad driver ▪ we then tend to underemphasize the external or situational factors → because we are not living in their skin ex: they are having a bad day o but our gut says they suck o why do we think and react like this → due to naive realism Understand distinction of personality versus social psychology What is naïve realism? What are the main problems of naïve realism? it's about the limits of self insight o we have a limited perspective → we know the sun rises in east and sets in the west o if we went outside we could observe the pattern everyday ▪ this observation lead many to incorrectly conclude earth was center of universe overall its a convocation that our senses can provide us with direct awareness of objects as they are o with naive realism we underestimate the importance of relativity → your perspective matters in shaping how you see things (think the duck rabbit perspective) ▪ our perspective changes what we see o or think story of the six blind men and the elephant ▪ We are all perceiving sometimes the same or sometimes the different parts of the elephant depending on where you're standing and touching it. problems with naive realism o the world revolves around me, my perceptions, beliefs, and experiences equal to reality o We each have our own relative, partial, incomplete perceptions, beliefs and experiences which are valid but are not necessarily a reflection of full reality. ▪ need to bring other perspectives and views so overall we underestimate how much our brains are pre processing and filtering what we perceive and experience leads us to have a construal: how people interpret or construed the meaning of a stimuli or events in a given situation o we see a cat, when we see it it has a different meaning to us then another (i hate cats other may love) Research Methods What are the 4 myths about science? How are they false? o Myth #1: There is one universal scientific method ▪ Scientist actually use multiple methods that very by person and discipline/field ▪ Scientific method in chemistry vs. Anthropology o Myth #2: experiments are the only valid way to gain scientific knowledge ▪ Causality ▪ Some questions are unethical difficult or even impossible to answer with experimental manipulations ▪ Correlation studies first to test early ideas before running experiment o Myth #3: scientific models = reality ▪ Reality is incredibly interconnected, complex, beyond our ability to fully capture / represent ▪ Scientific models are very simplified measurable representations of what we think is going on in reality o Myth #4: Scientific theories and findings are absolute, static, unchanging ▪ Science is a conversation about which theoretical model is most accurate / valuable ▪ A theoretic model can always be improved to be more accurate or more valuable What is a hypothesis vs. theoretical model? o theoretical model is how you hypothesize things related to each other (often causal) ▪ what you think is happening a hypothesis is a testable, specific proposal about the relation between variables (constructs) or phenomenon, based on evidence from previous research o hypothesis ar demotivated by our mode o hypothesis is how we focus on specific relations between variables within your model ▪ ex: social anxiety leads to negative self image: hypothesis but then have to have a model of what social anxiety is to help formulate the hypothesis o statistical model is using statistics to INFER that a relation may exist between your measured variables (not causal) ▪ looking at data to see if it supports ▪ theoretical model: is a proposed theoretical framework for how different variables or constructs related to one another they are made up of many different hypothesis o theoretical models can be causal in nature. but statistics can NEVER “prove” causality. causality is hypothesized in your model and only can be tested/ demonstrated with the right study design What is operationalization vs. an operational definition? o The process of defining the measurement of a phenomenon that is not directly measurable, although its existence is indicated by other phenomenon ▪ Operationalization leads you to create o Operational definition the definition of a variable in terms of the measures or technique the researcher uses to assess or manipulate it ▪ How will I concretely measure the thing I want to study?  o How do you operationalize a phenomenon? o social anxiety is latent phenomena ▪ then have the observed manifest: how you will implement or test the phenomena is that we want to capture ▪ phenomenal how students do well in class → operationalization being the concrete specific quantifiable part → which is maybe testing it through mid term grades as a way to see if ppl are doing well in class. o operalization of a phenomenon → looking at agression ▪ the number and duration of shocks delivered to another person ▪ the number of times a child punches an inflated toy clown ▪ homicide statistics gathered from police records Three main types of research methodology used for empirical investigation: o Observational: trying to observe people and systematically record impressions of their behavior → used in describing behavior ▪ Advantages and disadvantages advantage: disadvantage: ▪ Interrater reliability ▪ Which fields tend to use this & in what way? (archival vs. ethnography) ▪ Social desirability bias o Correlational: not causation…. ▪ Advantages and disadvantages some experiments are not ethical, so this is a way to correlate a method to answer questions ▪ Correlation (the r) coefficient (direction of the relationship) ▪ Correlation & causation o Experimental: trying to answer causal questions o if we change x does it has an effect on the outcome ▪ Advantages and disadvantages ▪ Know key elements: Independent variable o one or more hypothesized cause - manipulated by the experimenter Dependent variable o one or more hypothesized outcomes  Random sampling (necessary for statistical inference) o draw from the population randomly so that you can randomly distribute individual differences between participants that might influence (confound) your variables ▪ ex: reaction time and gamers → cognitive test of reaction times gamers may be faster, so need random sampling and questionnaires to fix the biases o need to randomly collect from people over all states → very hard to get access and funding for this Random assignment (can’t due true random sampling, so we do this to help us still do statistical inference) o random assign participants to different conditions or levels in your study to randomly distribute individual differences across conditions ▪ solution to randomized sampling Randomization (to prevent order effects) o randomly order questions in your task or the order of task events to avoid order effects ▪ ex. doing a task after something bad happens o helps increase strength of random variable Why is a control condition so important? o the “unchanged” group or level(s) used for comparison with the experimental o needed… ▪ control condition matters: positive feedback, control and negative feedback → with a control group you have an anchor that can be used to compare the different feedbacks and how they are affected in your study ▪ WEIRD samples – what does this mean? Why is it an issue? ▪ Internal vs. external validity – what are they? - internal validity: making sure nothing besides the IVs can affect the DV - EX: LOOKING AT MOOD AND TEST TAKING but not looking at sleep - may need a questionnaire to look at what they ate today, what was their sleep level, any recent life stressors → all things that can impact the IV. so then analyze it can help avoid confounds - external validity: the extent to which results can be generalized to different situations and different people - usually achieved by: - random assignment of participants to conditions - multiple operationalizations of your variables (measure your constructs in multiple ways) - psychological realism (how well do you recreate real life in your experimental design)  - say looking at study for uva students only, can this have impacts on other schools and students? ▪ Replicability vs. reproducibility – what are these and how are they different? replicability: can you recreate the same result using new data but the same study design o in 2011 → finding that this man who made different research studies → in these studies he fabricated all the data ▪ people decided to take studies and re do them with samples and from there only 36% of findings were replicated the rest failed and the data came out different o threats to replicability ▪ vague description of method ▪ small sample size need a lot of ppl to detect an effect ▪ false positive result reproducibility: can you recreate the same result using the original data provided? o threats to reproducibility ▪ vague description of analyses ▪ poorly documented data need to know how people managed their data so when reproduced ppl know how to ▪ errors in original analyses difference in analyses choice can cause change in results o What is an interaction? Note: NO abstract questions about main effects or one vs. two-level factor study designs will be asked. ▪ think two independent variables → aka two factor comparison looking at mood and sleep and that interaction with test taking o in lab have ppl stay up all night before lab, vs getting good sleep to then look at mood and get to the test taking scores ▪ a 3 by 2 factorial design with these two factor comparisons need a control group o aka neutral mood and the normal sleep - interaction: assess how the combination of two independent variables or predictors may work together to impact the dependent variable, above and beyond what effect each IV uniquely has on its own Social Cognition What is social cognition? How is different from social perception? - a field to learn how people think about themself and others - so how do we select, interpret, remember, and use social information in our social construals and judgments  - usually happening below the threshold of conscious awareness but can be conscious too - ex: not thinking oh her teeth are crooked, but we can judge ppl others ways below the threshold of awareness - social cognition is distorted - different from social perception - which is more about what information we are inferring about social others Two kinds of social cognition: Automatic vs. controlled processing (what are they?) automatic: quick and effortless - non conscious → so happening in the background (done by brain) but we are not focused on it→ - oftenly non conscious but not always controlled: slow and effortful - some call it backup system - sometimes surprises we weren't expecting → so brain takes this info to consciousness - consciously focusing on external or internal stimuli (self, social, others, events) to help deliberate on next steps - our brains automatically filter and are on autopilot to make quick decisions, think breathing and much of what we do is autopilot - considered more of a slow and deliberate thinking process o The more habitual a process, the more likely it is that it will be automatically happening passively in the background of the brain ▪ on autopilot: low effort thinking where we often size up a new situation very quick and thence quick conclusions can be correct o Why is automatic processing useful? - it is considered low effort thinking - we often size up a new situation very quickly and these quick conclusions can be corrected - helps us survive, something coming at us, quick automatic reaction - low effort thinking a lot of the time comes to a correct conclusion (walk into a room can tell its a classroom vs frat room) - this process is non conscious unintentional, involuntary, and effortless - our brains engage in an automatic analysis of our environment based on past experiences and knowledge of the world o What is a schema? ▪ the structures or categories tha people’s mind use to organize their knowledge about the world; organized around specific themes or subjects (related information - schemas influence the information people notice, think about, and remember (schemas are filtered) - schemas are wheel round which social cognition turns, moves, and acts - they are filters to filter and inform our autonomic processing o What is a stereotype? - when applied to any given group, a schema becomes a stereotype - schemas are ultimately rooted in how the brain and mind works - to understand social cognition, schemas, and stereotypes we need to first understand something else… a deeper fact about how the brain and mind work  Categorical thinking o What does it mean that we “think in categories”? What are some examples? - most phenomena exist on continuum ▪ our brains take in a continuous and break them down into categories with labels informed by our language, culture, and prior experiences much of early life and language acquisition is about learning the “correct” categories and label for things we encounter and experience o we think in categories or schemas because this helps… When you see just a line → humans will create categories and labels to help us break down distance or length into measurable and more estable units. or colors → we apply our culture and experience, to make categories of colors o think color orange, came from the fruit and with time categorized it ▪ basically created boundaries for each color category ▪ we think in categories effortlessly as its more efficient, automatic and effortless - cognitive and developmental science shows that sensory perceptions would be overwhelming for our brains to process without categories - easier to recall and use information that we have categories for o What is the value or benefit to thinking in categories? when you think in categories things get more simple → so humans created categories or labels to help us break down distance or length into measurable and more easily estimable units - thinking in categories is more efficient, automatic and effortless - cognitive and developmental scene shows - sensory perceptions would be overwhelming for our brains to process without categories - easier to recall and use information that we have categories for - linguistics, social psychology, and anthropology shows - language, social communication, understanding ourselves and others, even emotional experiences would be difficult if not impossible without categories o What are the 3 downsides to categorical thinking? - can create sensory and cognitive blind spots - linguistic as an example: phonemes which are perceptually distinct units of sound in language that help distinguish one word from another - ex: p and b or d and t in the english words, pat, pat, bad, bat - language divides sounds groups of famous differently → where we hear a clear difference between two similar sounds, speakers of different languages might not - second is we pay too much attention to boundaries - focus on differences where there are qualitatively not really much of any differences.. or we even miss the bigger picture - say D vs F grade → letters have meaning to us by categories were made up  - all this leads us to underestimate the difference two facts or things may be when they are grouped into one category - leads us to overestimate how different two facts or things are when they happens to be a boundary in between them - third is it leads to the pitfall of essentialism - the tendency to assume that categories derived from human language and perception are due to seemingly inherent “natural” essences - this is a form of naive realism - ex: adam and eve and all the names he gave → metaphor for power in names - look at features and colors of things to come up with names - done with race and gender, physical substances, and biological species - its the view that for any specific entity (like animal, group of ppl, physical object) there is a set of attributes which are necessary or essential to its identity and function ▪ Be comfortable with identifying or giving examples for each of these 3 pitfalls Essentialism o What is essentialism? ▪ the tendency to assume the categories derived from human language and perception are due to seemingly inherent natural essences a form of naive realism ▪ the view that, for an any specific entity (like animal, group of people, physical object), there is a set of attributes which are necessary or essential to its identity and function o What are the 4 key criteria for essentialist thinking? (don’t just know what they are; understand what they are & how they are essentialistic) ▪ assumption of individual causal mechanism assumption that an individual (human, tiger, ball, cactus) has some inner property which causes it to behave in a consistent way o a chair moving on its own, we know how chairs act and that's not right so something must be doing it ▪ assumption of innate potential assumption that an object will fulfill its predetermined course of development o expect a child to become an adult at some point ▪ assumption of immutability despite transforming something into another thing, it is still that thing “inside” unchanged o say tiger cursed to a cactus, deep down its still tiger even though in cactus form o tiger didn't lose it essence ▪ assumption of inductive potential  the assumption that entities may share common features but are essentially different o however similar two beings may seen on the surface, they will still differ deep down in their essence ▪ i could be an identical twin, but still my own person and different from my sibling o What are the 2 broad types of essentialism? What are examples of each that you can think of from real life? ▪ biological essentialism belief that a given biological attribute or trait is fundamental to somethings identity and functioning o say red hair, it gives to your personality like that you are more feisty so can either be physical appearance or something about genetics can impact who you are as a person o ex: genetics: hitler that certain genetics make some ppl more superior than others → no evidence that one race is better o or fixed species, that wolves are fixed and will never evolve → disproved aka genes do not determine phenotypes in a fixed way → genes are randomly combined and never express themselves in a pure way o environment is always acting on our genetic expressions ▪ psychological essentialism belief that a psychological (mental) attribute or trait is fundamental to somethings identity and functioning o ex: soul, mind, ghost ▪ my mind or soul (internal essence) is what makes me “ne” and is separate from whatever happens to my body or physical self behaviors emerge as a function between the qualities of the person and the qualities of the situation or environment o (both nature and nurture not one or the other) both biological and psychological essence go hand in hand - because someone or something has a certain appearance or shares a certain genetic heritage (race, gender, sex) - we assume that the individual or thing is more likely to behave in a similar manner or have an internal psychology to match the that biology idea wolf vs dog → know the biological difference and know can pet dog but not woolf, but sometimes some wolves are tempered - so we can make wrong assumptions o How does epigenetics challenge biological essentialism? - genes do not determine phenotypes in a fixed way - genees are randomly combined (this process initial variation) - genes never express themselves in a pure way - environment is always acting on your genetic expressions o think short gene or tall gene for flower, depending on the soil the flower is in impacts the way the gene is expressed ▪ rich soil more growth, poor soil less growth  o What is the naturalistic fallacy? ▪ naturalistic fallacy: this is/oight fallacy just because something is the way it is doesn't mean it ought to be that way ▪ just because humans tend to think in essentialistic social categories, doesn't mean that's how we ought to think all the time ▪ How do we change it? area of active social psych research, data suggests to practice keeping an open mind, engaging with diverse social others, trying to make your automatic thoughts more conscious through self reflection and self observation What are heuristics? o experiments demonstrate that the mind uses categories as mental shortcuts to process all the variability quickly o it's a generalized rule of thumb or intuition that can be used in judgments about other people, objects, and the world in general o What is the cocktail party effect? o when talking to someone, you may hear background noise around you ▪ may unconsciously hear a point of interest and jump into conversation ▪ basically can focus on a particular stimuli while filtering out other stimuli like noise ▪ can focus in one one person's words and points through all the other voices o How do schemas guide our memory? - they help fill in the blanks when perceiving and remembering - help us fill in the perceptual blanks when a stimulus is ambiguous or unclear - guides our attention i what to focus on perceiving in lime with schemas - filters what information you recall in line with your schemas - we can remember information that was never there in our experience - our minds add this information without conscious awareness per se say we look at shapes made by dotted lines, while the shape is not fully there, our minds close the gaps to know the shape o Study: Are women more emotional than men? (Know this classic study) ▪ this study had independent variables and dependent independent was gender: men vs women. and then type of measure: which was retrospectively (from memory) verser momentary (in the moment) the dependent variable was the level of emotional intensity reported from the men and women o overall there was questionnaires one that was retrospective (global memory) vs experience sampling which was in the moment ▪ results: in general men and women reported around same emotionality, so men and women did not differ in the moment no emotional schema difference, but when they have more retrospective reflection on emotions during that past week  o see more difference with women o shows memories become consistent with schemas ▪ with time schemas form paths of least resistance they tie to our automatic processes → give us to ability to have our thoughts and feelings to come more easily and effortlessly o Which schemas do we apply? o schemas are the knowledge or categories we have acquired and formed ▪ heuristics are how we apply schemas in our construals and inferences efficient, fast, automatic don't have to fully search through your brains entire history of experiences ▪ What is accessibility? ▪ schemes that are currently most accessible accessibility is the extent to which schemas are at the forefront of people's minds and are therefore likely to be used when we are making judgments about the social world o just how easily is that thing ready in our brian to pull out and use as information ▪ What are the 3 ways in which schemas can become accessible 1. chronically: accessible due to repeated past experiences (frequent exposure) a. see a name brand over and over, when you then think about toilet paper, now you can think of tha tone name brain (chronically accessible in the brain) 2. temporarily accessible because its relevant to a current foal (goal currency) 3. temporarily: accessible because a schema related experience just occurred (recent exposure) ▪ What is priming? - process by which recent exposures or experiences temporarily increase the accessibility of a schema, trait or concept o Availability heuristic – know definition + problems with this heuristic + be able to figure out from a scenario if there is availability heuristic being used vs. another heuristic ▪ a mental rule of thumb based on how easy it is to bring something to mind we decide that if it was easy to being examples of something to mind (it is more available), then thus must be the truth o availability heuristic example with doctor ▪ patient comes in and has symptoms that could be symptomatic for many different disorders like stiff neck, chills, fever → first think to assume is its flu (normal and what's right in ur head) o so if a diagnostic comes easier to mind then they will interpret the symptoms as that trouble: sometimes what is easiest to remember is not typical of the overall picture, leading to faulty conclusions  ▪ May be helpful to study the examples provided in lecture slides ▪ another example when you think about crime, first thing you think of is violent crimes o but most crimes in the us is property crime so like stealing or destroying property o so even though violent crimes are less common, we all first think of that ▪ relates to media and how we always see things on social media and it changes are statistical base range of what we think is in the world → but not normally an accurate representation of what's actually going on in the world o Representativeness heuristic – know definition + problems with this heuristic + be able to figure out from scenario o a mental shortcut where we over generalized traits or information from our mental schema as representative of all individuals within a given group or class of people, animals, objects, and things ▪ May be helpful to study the examples provided in lecture slides examples: what is your representation of a bunny rabbit o might be small fluffy, o but not all rabbits meat your typical representativeness of a rabbit ▪ example in a movie, the rabbit attacks a night and kills him → rabbit was just completely different then what we thought o another example: pitbull ▪ certain expectations and ideas of them, but actual owners learn they are kind o Base rate information – know definition + problems with this + be able to figure out from scenario o if presented with general base rate information (generic information) and specific information (information only pertaining to a certain case) the mind tends to ignore the former/first and focus on the latter, last ▪ Is this related to representativeness heuristic? yes ▪ May be helpful to study the examples provided in lecture slides ▪ ex: meet man steve and he is shy so think is he a sales person or librarian o librarians are shy so steve must be one ▪ but in reality seeing how many ppl are shy and in sales is much higher then those who are librarians and shy what about personality insight? - you tend to be o The Barnum effect – what is this? What are some possible real-world examples? ▪ occurs when individuals think that certain personality descriptions are highly accurate and tailored to them ▪ except these descriptions are vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people if i aks vague information that is not specific to anyone, makes it easier to apply to anyone o think personality insight test when they ask if your critical of yoursel or have a great deal of unused capacity which you are not turned to your advantage o Counterfactual thinking – what is this? What is the example given in lecture? ▪ when people mentally reinterpret some outcome in the past to consider what could have been Who do you think would be happier? someone who won a silver medal at the olympics or someone who won a bronze? surprisingly research shows that silver medalists are often less happy because they can more easily image how they might have come in first and won a gold o Planning fallacy – what is this? ▪ tendency for people to be overly optimistic about how soon they will compete a task or project we are overly optimistic about how soon we can complete a project or task, even when we have failed to get similar things done on time in the past o but then sit down for project and ends up being alot longer o Sunk cost fallacy – what is this? ▪ reluctance to abandon a strategy or course of action because one has already invested so much effort into it even if its probably cheaper and wiser to abandon and put resources elsewhere Self-Fulfilling Prophecies What is a self-fulfilling prophecy? o Definition ▪ The self fulfilling prophecy is a false definition of the situation evoking anew behavior which makes the originally false conceptions come true ▪ Occurs when we have a belief or expectation about ourselves or another person that leads us to react or behave in a certain way that then lead our belief or expectation to become fulfilled ▪ We have an expectation about what a person is like which: influences how we act toward that person which: o causes that person to behave consistently with our original expectations, making the expectations come true ex: meet some and think they are a snob, cause you to treat them like they are. For example don't wave to them, which then makes that person think you are a jerk. so the next time they treat you rudely and it proves your idea of them. o What are the three broad categories of self-fulfilling prophecies we discussed? ▪ Expectancy effects have an expectation that something will happen expectation influences your behavior towards another person your behavior causes that person to behave consistently with your expectations your expectation comes true o same example of the snob as noted above ▪ Confirmation effects people get social feedback over time and learn what categories and stereotypes other people are most likely to have of them behave in manner typical of stereotype that behavior then “confirms” the stereotype, makes it seem more “real” or “valid” ▪ Self-perception effects self fulfilling prophecies that apply to yourself the target is your self, or aware others have a view looking at the beliefs you have of yourself o ex: placebo effect Expectancy effects – define or describe what happens with expectancy effects o Pygmalion effect: believing can make it so (in our minds at least!) ○ Study: Rosenthal and the rats How is this an example of expectancy effects? This is an example of expectancy effect experimenters believed (unconsciously) that some of the rats were smart ○ likely giving them extra time and attention (because they convinced themselves they are smarter, important to know before ethos none of the rats were smart → no difference at all) ○ thus, the “smarter” rats actually performed better on tasks  What did they do in the study & what did they find? experimenters were told that lab rats were either “genius” or “stupid” ○ rats completed the same learning task experimenters found that the “genius” rats learned much faster than the “stupid” rats What is a double-blind experiment? How does it relate to expectancy effects? neither the experimenter nor the participant know which study condition they are in ○ as experimenter don't want to know if they are in drug or placebo experiment because it can change how you treat or act around the different people in the cases ○ or if the person in the study knows if they are taking the drug or placebo also can cause this expectation or idea to be made ○ Study: Rosenthal and the Late Bloomers (great name for an indie band) How is this an example of expectancy effects? they administered a fake test to all the students, then told teachers some of the students where academic boomers based on fake test results from here Students that teachers believed to be “academic bloomers” received more attention, time, feedback, opportunities ○ Thus, students that were believed to be intelligent became more intelligent What did they do in the study & what did they find? In an elementary school, administered a fake test to all students Told teachers that some students were academic bloomers based on the fake test results at the end of the school year gave all students IQ test ○ academic bloomers showed to have higher IQ point gains by the end of the year How did teachers’ expectations impact teachers’ behaviors? students that teachers believed were bloomers did better the teacher’s beliefs actually helped the regular students labeled as “academic bloomers” become academic bloomers their expectations effect how students can develop ○ Created warmers emotional environment for bloomers ○ Challenged bloomers more ○ Gave bloomers more feedback ○ Gave bloomers more opportunities to respond in class were all subtle subconscious things done Confirmation effects – define or describe what happens with confirmation effects ○ What is the “beautiful is good” stereotype? people attribute positive qualities to beauty see on tik tok or other social media ○ if someone looks good then they are maybe also a nice person kewpie doll effect cuter, more attractive infants are held more by their caregivers ○ How does the “beautiful is good” stereotype sometimes become a reality? Understand the steps that lead someone who is attractive to actually develop better social skills; study the arrow figure on “Behavioral Confirmation of Stereotype” slide  physically attractive individual → expectations of others about physically attractive person (beautiful=good) → preferential treatment of physically attractive individual → actual development of better social skills in physically attractive individual people who have more narcissistic and psychopathic personalities are more likely to use highly effective physical adornments attractive people are considered more: sociable extroverted popular sexual happy assertive get higher teaching evaluations from undergraduate students more likely to get elected as political official more likely to get hired ear 15% higher income less likely to be found guilty during studies with mock trials ○ western strong, assertive, dominant ○ eastern sensitive, trustworthy, generous ○ Beliefs about attractiveness: Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid study recruit heterosexual college men to a dating study. given fake pictures and packet of info about potential women who they would talk to on the phone fake pictures were tiger highly attractive or less attractive woman mean then talked to real women the women who men though were more attractive ended up behaving more warmly, were more likable, poised, and fun to talk to, as rated by independent experts Self-perception effects – define or describe what happens with confirmation effects ○ What is the placebo effect? (Just know what it is in general and be able to identify or apply in real-world examples) The placebo effect is when a person's health improves after taking a placebo, or a treatment that appears real but has no therapeutic benefit. doctor gave salin date running out of morphine, and when talking to patients and telling them they are getting the medication, found them feeling better as a result of beliefs, your brain actually makes it real believe that a pain relieving drug is coming- your brain actually starts releasing certain pain relief processes ○ What is fixed vs. growth mindset? (Know what these are and be able to identify or apply them in real-world examples) fixed mindset: belief that a given ability is stuck at a certain level or innate capacity leads to behaviors such as easily giving up at the first sign of failure or difficulty avoiding challenges, believing you can never improve and that efforts to learn or practice are pointless growth mindset: belief that a given ability can be trained or developed through effort leads to behaviors such as persevering in the face of failure or difficulty, embracing challenges, & finding the resources to grow. ○ Study: Scar study How is this an example of self-perception effects? females came into lab and were given fake scars to wear. from there they had to interact with someone else with the scar women who had a fake scare actually acted more ashamed/shy/less confident What did they do in the study & what did they find? Female participants given fake facial scar (vs. not in control condition) are asked to interact with another person Scar is surreptitiously removed without female participants in experimental condition realizing it was removed Scar-removed participants thought that their interaction partner reacted negatively to them, compared to what control participants thought People interacting with the scar-removed participants thought the women were reacting more negatively to the interaction relative to the control participant women ○ Stereotype threat: know definition, be able to read real life examples & know that it is stereotype threat Stereotype: Occurs when you are made hyper aware that other are viewing you through a negative lens about some generalized aspect of your social identity or social group membership This is emotionally upsetting. Feel pressure to disprove the negative stereotype This pressure drains cognitive resources, leading to poorer performance or behaviors that can inadvertently reaffirm or “fulfill” the negative stereotype. Study: Classic original study with Black and White students completing practice GRE – if you need help, READ NOTES IN POWERPOINT which help describe the specific study’s design and findings more fully. What did they do in the study & what did they find? Black and white students took test using GRE questions ○ Some told it was diagnostic of their intellectual ability and who you are as a person ○ Some told test was still being developed and scores were meaningless and nothing to do with your performance when told its a diagnostic test vs ○ with non diagnostic the black and white student performed just as well however when black students were forced to look at stereotypes they were more anxious and their scores suffered from that ○ being aware of people beliefs on them, made them worried and they focused so much on proving it wrong that their scores suffered Social Perception Social perception o Definition and how it is different from social cognition ▪ study of how we form impressions and make inferences about other people we use social cognition to help guide and inform our social perceptions o so our schemas and heuristics guide those social perceptions (what we notice and infer about social others ▪ think about the first impressions they can tell us a lot, and help us categorize ppl into different dimensions o What is thin slicing? Can they be accurate? ▪ Drawing meaningful conclusions about another person’s personality or skills based on an extremely brief sample of behavior it happens automatically, you have an initial impression that occurs very quickly they can be accurate, but also at times can be wrong o but they persist because they serve us well in a lot of circumstances o Are social perceptions relatively automatic vs. controlled? - First impressions are automatic: We often form initial impressions of others based solely on their appearance in less than 1/10th of a second - “ first impressions are the idea of judging a book by its cover” - with them we pay attention to any social signs or cues that we believe might: tell us something about what that person might be like, and it predicts the future social interaction and related social consequences children as young as 3 years old can infer personality or character traits based on stranger’s faces o can kind of tell if that person is good or bad, by the nice or not so nice face study done where professors do a ten second introduction video o students only saw body language no audio and rated them, then compared that to the end of semester class evaluation o found mostly students accurately predicted the highest rated teachers o Two big reasons why first impressions stick around? ▪ Primacy effects – what is this? - The first traits we perceive in others influence how we filter and interpret later information that we learn about them - first traits we anchor on, say we see person and decide they are sporty → impacts reactions for later - first time meet someone and think they are rude, and hangout for a while and see they aren't so mean so change my mindset ▪ Belief perseverance – what is this? - The tendency to stick with an initial judgment even in the face of new information that should prompt us to reconsider - when you have a first impression, and stick to that belief no matter what. normally because we don't have enough evidence to change that impression  o Three examples of how schemas bias social perceptions. ▪ Confirmation bias – what is this? How is this related to social perceptions? - leads us to attend or notice things that are consistent with (confirm) our schemas - notice things that are in relation to our beliefs, just confirming what you already believe ▪ Self-reinforcing beliefs – what is this? How is this related to social perceptions? - it’s hard to know alternate reality if we had noticed other information - only notice some information, but not be aware of what you are missing. so can't recognize you lack the full picture ▪ Self-fulfilling prophecies – How is this related to social perceptions? - we elicit stereotypical behavior that confirms our suspicions Social signals vs. social cues o Definitions of social signal vs. social cues - Social signals: international or purposeful behaviors that are meant to communicate a particular social meaning or message - intended goals - smiling at a stranger to signal friendliness - high fiving to signal celebrating them - fashion choice to signal a specific identify or form of self-expression - ex. laughing - Social cues: broader category that can include social signals, but also includes unintentional or unintended social meanings or messages - sweaty hand - avoiding eye contact - laughing uncontrollably - yawning because exhausted - poor complexion because of recent illness Courtship displays: a set of behaviors displayed with the intention of attracting a mate - female fish will put temporary stripe patterns on them to attract males and keep other females away - Behaviors include: ritualized movement, vocalization, etc. o How they are different from each other? Hint: Which one is intentional only vs. which one includes both intentional and unintentional? - social cues are both intentional and unintentional - at a job interview and shake their hand, your hand is sweaty. you can't control that sweat. so you are telling them through that hand your nervous - avoiding eye contact or blinking too much from lying - social signals are intentional and meant to communicate a particular social meaning - putting effort to say hello to someone, really purposely conveying a welcoming feeling o Nonverbal behaviors - Definition - the ways in which people communicate intentionally or unintentionally, without words - facial expression - tone of voice - gestures - body position/ movement or gaze direction - with awkward moments, like when you make fun of someone and they are behind you.  - These nvb are to help convey social standings in a group. to communicate emotions, thoughts, and opinions of others. and lastly to express your “persona” (who you want other people to think you are) - can contradict spoken words (ex: sarcastic tone) - can substitute for verbal messaging Mind perception o What is the “Problem of Other Minds”? (Qualia, Chalmer’s philosophical zombies, i.e., we can’t know other minds directly and we can’t know for sure if other people have minds) - can experience your own mind. but cant truly experience anyone else's mind - we must rely on: - verbal communication (what some says) - patterns of behavior (what someone does) - nonverbal communication (how someone says or does something) - qualia: - the quality or subjective dimension of perception and experiences - how do you know u perceive red the same as someone else - chalmer: talks about philosophical zombies - says other ppl could be zombies and we dont know - but deep down they aren't humans at all o What is “mind perception”? In The Mind Survey (presented later in the same lecture …) - perceiving that someone or something else has a mind - but also perciving the quality of that mind ▪ What is the dimension of “agency”? What are we evaluating about other minds when we are perceiving their potential degree of agency? - do those things have experience - how much self control does it have - does it have capacity for memories - some see god to be high in agency, but low in experience - does it appear to have its own will or choice of behavior? - look at intentionality like does it intend to hurt or help me (or others)? ▪ What is the dimension of “experience”? What are we evaluating about other minds when we are perceiving their potential degree of experience? - Does it experience the world? - Can it feel pain or pleasure? - pain, pleasure, feelings - babies are high in experience but low in adjacency o Anthropomorphism ▪ Know definition - perceiving minds in things they don't (might not) have them - specifically, perceiving other minds to be like human minds - considered over detecting: human mental qualities, where in fact those minds may actually be much more different from human minds (ex: animals) ▪ Study: Loneliness & anthropomorphism – are lonely people more vs. less likely to anthropomorphize objects? - lonely people are more likely to perceive “minds” everywhere  - lonelier people have higher mind perception for animals, celestial bodies, and spiritual beings ▪ Why might we anthropomorphize? - without a lot of “social others” around us, we feel the need to create them/ find them in objects - it is adaptive to err on the slide of perceiving agents - false negatives are generally more costly than false positives - religious ideas may be a valuable extension of mind perception - survival tactic o What is dehumanization - under-detecting human mental qualities, such as perceiving minds as being “less than human” when in fact, those are humans - this then justifies abusing or using the individual or group of individuals as objects - common psychological find: that we tend to see out group members as less human than us - dehumanizing language often equates the victim groups with animals and animal characteristics - ex: giving no white ppl the name castas. - ex: rwandan genocide: tutsis were lableed as “cochroaches” What are the three broad processes that we rely upon to make inferences about other’s minds? - mental inferences: - done through probabilistic inferences - simulation vs. theory of mind - attributions o Probabilistic inferences – what do these rely upon? ▪ Study: 14-Month-Old Infants Infer Rationality (of an adult) – see Lecture Notes on slides We are born without preexisting knowledge of the world, but we possess an intrinsic sensitivity to statistical regularities in our environmental stimuli and are able to apply that information to make an inference. o as a kid see a zebra: think maybe a horse, but it has stripes so do tigers. so what's the closest match for that information based on what you know ▪ so mapping gon information you already know to new things infants do this a lot o in the study: had experimenter turn a light on with their head with hands under table, and then with their head while hands on the table ▪ baby sees this and can figure out they are turning on the light with their head because they can't do it with their hands leaving them to more likely do it as well → when the parents hands were hidden  but when hands were out, baby may find it weird and turn the light on with their hands o “Mental theories” AKA “theory theories” – describe what these are (statistical regularities help with mental theories) - have knowledge/ schemas on how other minds work, or what can have a mind and what a mind is in the first palace - schema developed over your lifetime (changes with experience) - have stereotype of teacher, you have a schema of what you expect them to be like, what behavior and how they should support you - that's the knowledge we have acquired overtime about what teachers are like in general o Embodied Simulation – describe what this is - using your previous experiences and knowledge about yourself and the world to help you simulate what something is like - all mental state even cognition are rooted in embodied simulation - also called grounded cognition - if you have fallen down stairs you have more of an embodied knowledge and experience to understand how one feels when they fall also - or you like brussels sprout and your friend is similar to you so you can infer they will like it Theory of mind (ToM) o What is “theory of mind”? - The ability to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc. — to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own - ex: I might be hungry, but I know that not everyone is hungry - a hungry 2 year old, however, thinks everyone is hungry because they are hungry - likely requires both mental theories about what a “mind” is AND the ability to simulate other’s experiences - Same brain areas activated when thinking or perceiving similar others. —> Simulation Theory BUT, different brain areas activated when thinking or perceiving different others —> Mental Theory - Brain is activated in a similar manner when we perform an action and when we see someone else perform the same action - Argued that this is a basis of ability to feel empathy. - Example—when we see someone crying, mirror neurons fire automatically and involuntarily, just as if we were crying ourselves o What is the False Beliefs Task (Sally-Anne Task) & what is it used for? - kids do not recognize that their own knowledge is different from other people - a common experiment used with 3 year old children- sally and anne - sally has a marble and a basket and anne has a box - sally puts the marble in her basket and leaves - while she is gone, anne puts the marble in her box - so, when sally comes back, where will she look for the marble? - we know that sally will look in the basket, because that is where she left it - but, a 3 year old does not recognize that people’s knowledge and understanding is variable - they will say that sally will look in the box (forget sally and i don't share same knowledge) Attribution Theory Definition (“umbrella term” for …) o describes related theories or accounts about the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior ▪ why you or someone else did something ex: your friend and you go to a party, she goes off on her own and never see her again that night o Did your friend ditch you? depends on an attribution you may make ▪ could say her friend called her over for help so that's why she disapeared Heider’s internal versus external attributions. What are these? To push yourself, how do these relate to person vs. situation explanations discussed in first parts of the course? Naïve” or “commonsense” psychology - Viewed people as amateur scientists who piece together information to figure out the cause of events / behavior - “Why did she do that? What was he thinking?” o internal attribution - caused by traits, motives - they did this behavior because of who they are deep down - her own traits and motivations internal - if ur friend abandoned you at the party, its because shes an ass o external attribution - caused by situations, pressures - interpret their behavior to a force, like a new comer in the group - know they are trying to be friendly Kelley’s Covariation Model o To form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence or absence of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs. o What are the 3 kinds of information he said we use to make internal vs. external attributions? ▪ consensus info the extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does o Tommy sees a snake and is scared, everyone around him is scared, so maybe the snake is scary (external attribution) o If only tommy is afraid and everyone else is not, this says something about Tommy and snakes (internal attribution) ▪ when its about tommy but not environment ▪ distinctiveness info the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli  o If Tommy is afraid of snakes, bears, bunnies, and babies, says something about Tommy and his fear (internal attribution) o If Tommy is afraid of snakes and bears, but not of bunnies and babies, maybe that says something about snakes and bears being scary (external attribution) ▪ consistency info the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time an circumstances →how often the behavior is constant o tommy sees a bear three times at different places, and is scared every time (internal) as it looks at tommy o o Be able to pick out from a real-life example / scenario what kinds of covariation information is being used o Know whether HIGH vs. LOW for 3 kinds of information leads to either an Internal vs. External attribution ▪ internal attributions occur when consensus= low o behavior is unique to the individual (only tommy scared of snack) distinctiveness=low o person displays the same behavior with different targets in different situations consistency=high o if consistently that way across time, its reliable so aout tommy as a person ▪ external attributions occur when consensus=high o (everyone is scared of snake, it's about the snake not tommy) distinctiveness= high consistency=high Fundamental attribution error (FAE) and self-serving attributions o Definitions for both ▪ FAE: The tendency to overestimate the importance of durable traits in explaining other people’s behavior and to underestimate the importance of situational factors ▪ Belief that people’s behavior matches or corresponds to their dispositions/ aka personality traits Pervasiveness of this error makes it “fundamental” ▪ Attribution is a Process Make an internal attribution for other people’s behavior o Assume that a person’s behavior was due to something about who that person is o Occurs quickly, spontaneously; FAE is a type of automatic heuristic Adjust attribution by considering the situation  o May fail to make enough adjustment in second step o Requires effortful, conscious attention ▪ say get cut off, immediate say they are an ass, don't have time to really think about it o Why do we tend to make the FAE? ▪ Power of the situation is ignored Psychological research reveals that situations are powerful & shape our behaviors & perceptions Due to our subjective, limited perspective, this is very difficult to see in other people’s behavior We fundamentally jump to the conclusion that people behave a certain way due to their internal state (extension of mind perception) o we jump to conclusion that people behave the way they do due to internal state ▪ Perceptual salience – what is this? The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention o we often focus attention on other people, not the surrounding situation o the person is “perceptually salient” o brain uses the focus of attention as a starting point for inference- which then leads to bias in processing ▪ We make self-serving attributions we tend to use internal attributions to explain other people’s bad behavior but tend to use external attributions to justify or explain our own bad behavior similarly, o Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors ▪ now when looking at yourself we use external attributions to explain our bad behaviors → i did bad on the exam because ppl distracted me and when we do something successful it was all me, not looking at the external factors that helped you o like parents gave me funding to go to college to do well o Why do we tend to make self-serving attributions? ▪ we want to maintain self esteem it’s hard to admit or even sometimes recognize when we are at fault ▪ we want other people to think well of us and admire us so we present ourselves in a better light ▪ we know more about the situational factors that affect our own behavior than we do about how situational factors might be impacting other people’s behaviors o Study: Castro essays – what was the main finding?  ▪ Jones and Harris Study ▪ IV: U.S. participants randomly assigned to either: Choice: write about their own feelings about Fidel Castro No Choice: forced by coin flip to write a particular view on Fidel Castro (pro vs. anti) ▪ DV: Other participants judged the author’s attitudes Even when participant judges knew that the essay topic was externally caused (forced) (i.e., no-choice condition with coin flip), they still assumed that the essay still reflected the writers deeper feelings about Fidel Castro (internal attribution) o the FAE occurred, because we tend to shift focus to other people not the surrounding situation ▪ say get cut off on road, looking at that person, but not aware of everything happening around o Study: Taylor & Fiske (1975) – how did they manipulate perceptual salience and what was the study’s finding? ▪ IV: Which actor that participants could better see when observing a conversation between 2 actors ▪ DV: Participants rated each actor’s impact on the conversation Results: People rated the actor they could see more clearly as having the larger role in the conversation ▪ results: people rated the actor they could see more clearly as having the larger role in the covnersation o Satisfied vs. dissatisfied couples – how does satisfaction vs. dissatisfaction change the types of attributions made about one’s partner? (e.g., when do we judge partner more like a stranger with the FAE vs. more like ourselves with self-serving attribution?) o satisfied couples tend to make external attributions for partner’s bad behavior driving home and my partner was more irritable, it was because he had a bad day at work and he was hungry ▪ tend to make internal attributions for partner’s good behavior helped me with my homework because hes a good partner o dissatisfied couples tend to make external attributions for partner’s good behavior he helped with my stats hw, because he wants to cheat later and throw me off guard ▪ tend to make internal attributions for partner’s bad behavior o he's being irritable because that's who he is ▪ the closer you are to someone and view them as similar to yourself, the more likely you are to interpret their behavior like you would your own we make similar self-serving attributions for close others Other types of attributional biases o Defensiveness attribution ▪ What is it? explanations for behaviors that avoid feelings of vulnerability, mortality, guilt, or that help us avoid admitting that we are wrong o get in a fight with someone, will get defensive and say i did this for blah blah ▪ trying to avoid the guilt o or a friend gets broken up, tend to talk about how horrible the ex was ▪ Advantages & disadvantages o Belief in a just world ▪ the assumption that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get bad things happen to bad ppl → person in prison deserves to be there ▪ How is this just an extension of the FAE? we are assuming that people cause the things that happen to them (internal attribution) and not acknowledging the effects of the environment (external attribution) ▪ Advantages and disadvantages Advantages: o help us deal with feelings of vulnerability and guilt o makes the world seem sensible and safe if we only “play by the rules” disadvantages o leads to blaming a victim for crimes committed against them o lots of random stuff can happen outside of our control o What is the Bias Blindspot? ▪ Study: Are people more vs. less likely to think they are susceptible to attributional biases relative to the average person? most people believe that attributional biases occur o but we tend to believe other people are more susceptible to attributional bias relative to us ▪ had americans vs “average americans” susceptibility to attributional biases. people believed that others were more susceptible to biased thinking than themselves o a lot of people, said i do it but not as bad as others o How do attributions differ across broadly “Western” vs. broadly “Asian” (especially, East Asian) cultures? ▪ Individualistic vs. Collectivist – what does this mean? Which cultural groups are broadly more likely to find the individual vs. context/situation more perceptually salient initially? in the image on the left man in front is smiling and everyone behind is as well second image he is smiling and everyone else is sad o What emotion is that man feeling?  ▪ average american may say happy ▪ but if you were raised in east or south asian culture that answer may differ in other ways ▪ in another study, man in a big crowd, some may say when just looking at him he is angry the american participants tend to ignore background contexts and focus only on facial features for inferring other person's emotional state the chinese participants tend to also take into account the background context to help infer others person's emotional state o western cultures ▪ analytical thinking style focus on the objects without considering surrounding context person is self contained, independent stressed individual autonomy o east asian cultures ▪ holistic thinginstyle focus in the overall context, relationship between objects emphasize group autonomy sense of self comes from group belongingness Self-Awareness Self-Recognition o What is the mirror test and what does it test? (Answer: self-recognition, which is fundamental for self-awareness, so it also helps test self-awareness) o a behavioral test used to determine if an animal or human has the ability to recognize themself in the mirror ▪ can they tell its themselves in the mirror ▪ self-world differentiation ▪ Important for development of mind perception, emotions, empathy & theory of mind, morality, etc. ▪ self recognition requires social interaction to develop need similar others to help us develop self recognition the self world differentiation o “this is me” and everything else that is not me is the world around me o What animals HAVE and HAVE NOT passed the mirror test? ▪ Have: chimps, bonobos, orangutans, dolphins, elephants, corvids ▪ Have not: Rhesus monkeys, dogs, cats, giraffes, horses, parrots, pigs Self-Awareness Theory o Be familiar with definition ▪ the idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their attributes and behavior (actual self) to their internal standards and values (ideal self) it is developed at around 15-24 months, when human infants can pass the mirror task important for development of mind perception, emotions, empathy, and theory of mind, mortality, etc. o at 3-4 years when realize body is separate, but also mind is too o Define objective vs. subjective self-awareness. Compare & contrast the two. ▪ subjective: attention from self as subject, toward other objects equivalent to “knower”, “I” not always present; created by tasks or distractions experience of “flow state” where you “loose yourself” ▪ objective: attention to self as object equivalent to “known”, “me” not always present; created by mirrors, cameras, audiences, or other self-focusing stimuli increases salience of discrepancy between real self and self standard  o What happens when we compare our actual self vs. ideal self? How can this make us feel if there is a discrepancy? Positive discrepancy vs. negative discrepancy ▪ the bigger the discrepancy between the actual and ideal