Exam Notes Social and Community Psych PDF

**Social and Community Psych** **Final Exam Study Notes** - **Social Psychology Definition:** - " The scientific attempt to explain the ways in which the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings "...

**Social and Community Psych** **Final Exam Study Notes** - **Social Psychology Definition:** - " The scientific attempt to explain the ways in which the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings " - *Gordon Allport (1954)* - How thoughts feelings and behaviors are influenced by other human beings - The study of individuals in a society - It is through other people and the media that we develop attitudes about the world and everything in it. - **Schachter 1959 Social Isolation Experiment** - 5 volunteers in a windowless room - Results: 80% of people felt uncomfortable with no human contact, and this had psychological impacts - Most people can't last long without human contact - **Limitations:** - Small number of participants - Lack of cultural representation - Small group leads to outliners - Impact of windowless room: lack of natural environment not accounted for - Impact of types of food and entertainment, on motivation - Measurement tools? - Who measured psychological impact - No control groups - How long did the impacts last? - **Ethics:** - Freedom to withdraw - Informed consent - Debriefing and resources post - Recruitment - Benefit to participants - Any payment or coercion - **Hawthorn 2006 Holt-Lunstad 2015 Shanker 2015** - **Impacts of Social Isolation** - High blood pressure - Mental Illness - Physical inactivity - Dementia - Emotional distress - Poorer immune functioning - Smoking - Poor sleep - Decreased feelings of wellbeing - Poor Health behaviour - Premature death - **Milgram 1967 6 Degrees of separation** - **6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon** - **Small World Phenomenon** - Any one individual can be connected to any other individual through at most 5 other people - **Environmental Factors** **Explain why the same person may act differently in different situations** 1. Other people 2. Objects 3. Information 4. Social Systems 5. Events - **Dispositional Factors** **Explain why different people react differently to the same situation** 1. Personality 2. Demographic factors age gender 3. Mood 4. Culture 5. Prior beliefs 6. Genetic predisposition - **Brindal 2021 COVID Study** - Life satisfaction study before during and after COVID - Dispositional ( individual factors) influenced how people felt about their life satisfaction. - **Limitation:** Self-reported, subjective, after the event - **Community Psychology** - Considers environmental factors and political systems how they influence behaviour - Rejects Individualism and first order change - Accepts Collectivism: attends to societal problems and second-order change - Society, media and environmental factors that contribute to how a person lives their life. - **Second Order Change:** - Empowers community problem-solving - Preventative measures - **Kelly 2019** - **Social Enterprise In Scotland** **EXAM NOTES WEEK 2 RESEARCH AND REPLICATION HISTORY** **History of Social Psychology** - **Aristotle:** Society shapes human development - **Comte:** Its people who cause and are the consequence to society, they are the products and producers of social environment **1879 Wilhelm Wundt** - First Lab - Separates Psychology from Philosophy and Biology **1898 Norman Triplett** - Started Social Psychology - Wrote first paper - Founded: Social Facilitation Theory **John Dewey:** - In collectivist work, shaping society benefits the masses. **1908 McDougal:** - First Social Psychology textbook **Ross:** - Social Psychology Textbook **1920-1930 Floyd Allport** - Called the father of Social Psychology and Experimental Psychology - Focus on Individual dispositions, not society - Great Depression Research: community ties a protective factor against bad things. **Sumners:** - Criticised treatment of African Americans - Criticised IQ test Western scale on other cultures - Father of Black Psychology **1930-40s-50s Festinger** - World War 2 - Conformity, obedience and authorities studies - Experimental lab research, controlled conditions - Okay to trick participants **Skinner:** - Behaviourist - Mental States are preconditioned **Cognitive Revolution** - Against behaviourism,, we act because of what we think **Lewin** - Interactionalism perspective: behaviour and attitudes interact between a person and environment personality + social psychology - Research outside the lab ( field studies ) - Research resistance to propaganda - Worked for the government not people - *[Discovered subjective experience are more impactful than objective experiences]* - *[Government, Military and law enforement]* **1960-70s Big change In Social Psychology** **Milgram:** Prison experiments **Zimbardo:** Obedience simulation **Crisis:** - Questioning whether lab observations apply to real life. - Experiment Ethics: not treating participants ethically **1970-2000s** **Pluralism** - Lab research combined with correlation research - Allowed measurement for more variables and a better measure - Not well controlled - Field studies popular - Inclusion of diverse participants and cultures - Psychology from other cultures - Ethical standards created and adhered too - Re-focus on oppressed groups - Cultures - Informed consent - **Collectivist perspective in psychology** **SOCIAL FACILITATION** ***[The presence of others enhances performance]*** **Norman Triplett** **Aerodynamic Theories** - Suction Theory - Shelter Theory **Psychological Theories** - Hypnotism: by the wheels in front for endurance - Encouragement Theory: friends lift your spirit and performance - Brain Worry Theory: Worry if your fast enough increases performance - Automatic Theory: Body of front rider takes the physical force - Dynamogenic Theory: The presence of others arouses competitive instincts **( Social Facilitation )** **Fishing Line Kids Test:**  - Kids pulled In fish faster In social groups Vs solo **Floyd ALLPORT 1924 " SOCIAL FACILITATION"** - coined the term - the presence of others enhances performance - other people in the area influence behaviour **Bayer 1929** - Chickens eat more food around other Chickens **Chen 1937** - Ants excavate more dirt when other ants are around **PESSIN 1933** - Memorise 3 letter made up words - Alone with lights and buzzing - While another person is watching: the social group had the most errors - Control: alone and quiet: performed the best **SOCIAL INHIBITION & DRIVE THEORY** ***Reduced performance when others are around us*** **Drive theory 1** **ROBERT ZAJONC 1965** - Arousal facilitates the performance of the dominant response - Arousal (others ) inhibits the performance of non-dominant responses - We do better with people around if the task is easy and we are good at it - We do worse with people around if the task is new and difficult - Performance is impacted by environmental influences **Drive theory 2** **Michaels Et al 1982** - Looked at pool players - The novice did worse with the audience - The expert did better with the audience **Drive Theory Criticisms and Limitations** - **No objective criteria** for determining if a task is difficult or easy - If the task is hard to do for a person assumption is a difficult task - **Limited meta-analytic support** - The presence of people only accounts for 3% variance in the difference of performance of difficult or easy tasks - **Inconsistency and contradictory results** - **Dispositional Factors:** individual differences in participants are ignored and they can impact how a person performs and in front of who **Individual and Dispositional FACTORS NOT environment influence social facilitation** ***Personality impacts performance*** **UZIEL 20027** - **Individuals who are self-assured and comfortable** in social situations show enhanced performance in the presence of others, Extraverted, high self-esteem - **Individuals with negative and social inhibition**: do worse in social situations show inhibited performance in the presence of others: neurotic, socially anxious, low self-esteem: negative orientation - **Personality and social orientation are important factors that influence a task** **Replication Crisis** **John Ioannidis 2005** - Why most Published Research findings are false due to scientific practices **Daryl Bem 2011** - ESP: The ability to predict the future - Feeling the future - Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognitive effect **Open Science Collaborative 2015** - Few studies can be replicated 1. Replications Crisis 2. Reproducibility Crisis **Galak and Nelson 2010** - Tried to replicate 8 of Bems studies and failed **WAGENMAKER et al 2011** - Said Bem failed because he used liberal statistical analysis to make the results look more significant - Bem used different statistical methods to predict the future - Said we must change the way we examine data - Found flaws in BEM **REPLICATIONS** - Prevent false positives - Increase confidence that results in accuracy **TWO TYPES OF REPLICATIONS** - **EXACT/DIRECT** - Tries to copy the previous study with the same set of methods and conditions. - **CONCEPTUAL** - Tries to confirm previous findings with different method for test but same idea - Testing the theoretical idea behind the study - Findings become generalisable **PROBLEMS WITH REPLICATIONS** **OPEN SCIENCE COLLABORATION 2015** - Did 100 replications in 2008 - Tested BEMS ESP findings - Tested **Psychological Science BEM ESP Findings** - **[Tested Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ]** - **Tested Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition** - Direct replications - 25% could not be replicated - 47.4% effect size was different - 39%Confidence interval different **Studies only replicated once so needed to be checked again** **Reasons for Non-replication Bad Research** - **Original Data was falsified** - 'Publish or perish' - File-drawer problem - Journals only publish significant results pushes researchers to push and change or hide results. - **Small sample sizes** - Answers not representative of the population - Large samples rule out chance - Doesn't reflect the populations - **Effects are not universal** - Effects are contingent on culture or world events - Might only be true to some groups but not enduring or universal - **Quality of the replication** - Methodology not exactly followed - Small sample size - Journals sometimes leave things out - Some methods are not reported and replications guess what was done - **Data Dredging P-Hacking :** when you change or write the hypothesis after the research is conducted to make it seem right - **Conflict of interest from funding or pharma** - **Working solo without combining efforts** **Priming Theory** - phenomenon whereby exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention - Michael Mosely Test - Examples - Priming older person words - Priming ideas of stereo-typical behaviour professor - Not supported by hotpack **LYNOTT et al 2014** **Measure to ensure replicability and reliability** - Methods used - Reporting and dissemination - Reproducibility - Evaluation - Incentives **Aim:** - Increase transparency - Reproducibility - Efficiency of scientific research - Increase knowledge of research methods - Enable practice of critical analysis skills - Enable practice of application skills - Use reasoning ability to explain unusual results **WAYS TO IMPROVE RESEARCH** 1. **Protecting against cognitive biases** - Self-deception - Use Blinding when testing for the researcher, data collection, participants of the research hypothesis 2. **Improve Methodological training** - Misinterpretation of P-value, null hypothesis, and effect size is common due to a lack of training - Make learning methods easy and simple 3. **Implementing independent methodology support** - Use multidisciplinary trials and teams - Committees - Conflict of interests remove 4. **Collaboration and Team Science** - Low statistical power increases false positive results - Collaboration gives high-powered designs and testing generalisability across sample populations 5. **Promoting Study pre-registration** - Improve quality - Improve transparency in reporting research - Reporting guidelines 6. **Reproducibility** - Describe method clearing so it can be replicated correctly - Provides transparency - Social Enterprise - Collaborative group work is good for the public - Creditability to scientific claims 7. **Incentives** - Positive, novel and clean results are more likely to be published - Replications not likely published - These incentives increase the likelihood of false positives being published **Week 3 Examine Notes** - There is considerable psychological and behavioural variability among the human population: 1. How intensely you respond to stimuli 2. Whether you respond to stimuli 3. In which direction you respond to stimuli - 1980s Started to recognise and include diverse participants and cultures into research - 2010 Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan: Introduced WEIRD - Western - Educated - Industrialised - Rich - Democratic - 68% participants in psychology from USA - 96% WEIRD - Participants represents 12% of the world's population - 73% authors from USA Universities - 99% were at universities in Western Countries - Studies lacked diversity. - **WEIRD does not consider psychological variability** 1. How strongly they respond to stimuli 2. Whether they respond to stimuli 3. How they respond to stimuli - **WEIRD PROBLEMS:** 1. Miss important dimensions of variation 2. Devote undue attention to behaviour tendencies that are unusual on a global context 3. Uneven and incomplete understandings - Conducted the Müller-Lyer - The Illusions Index test and compared industrialised societies Vs non-industrialised societies. - Found differences in perceptions in visual illusions. - **Non industrialised**: - easily see the see the lines are equal - Will take smaller amount of \$ now rather than wait for more \$\$ later - **Industrialised**: - Need the lines to be extremely different lengths before they can see a difference - More risk adverse when gambling, will wait rather than taking small amount of \$ now for bigger amount of \$\$ later 1. Non-Industrialised 2. Industrialised 2a. Non-Western 2.b Westernised 2bb. Non-USA 2bc. USA - Industrialised Two Categories: 1. **Non-Western** 2. **Western** a. Non-USA b. USA - **Industrial Non-Western** 1. Holistic: seeing things as whole 2. Relationships between objects to explain and predict based on these relationships 3. Moral reasoning: wider range of moral principles 4. Fulfill interpersonal relationships 5. Divinity 6. Moralise food, sex and relationships - **Industrialised Western:** 1. Analytical 2. Detached from objects and their context 3. Focus on objects attributes 4. Use category rules to explain and predict behaviour 5. From USA 6. Moral reasoning: uses principles of justice and harm when judging moral behaviour 7. Higher motivation for consistency 8. Prone to social loafing - **Industrial Westernised USA** - More individualist - Prefer more choices eg Ice-cream flavours - Analytic reasoning - 4000 times more likely to be recruited for research - Rationalize their choices - Less conforming - Focus on autonomy - Less prejudiced - Self-monitoring - Susceptible to attitude change - Susceptible to social influence **Trangender, Non-binary and Gender Diverse Research** - Cameron & Stinson 2019 - How gender and sex are measured in studies - Not one study measured for differences in sex and gender - Denies or erases gender identity. - Studies failed to account for 6800 people - Provides inaccurate description of participants - Misclassification of participant threatens the validity of results - Cause reactance effects - Not Ethical - Causes psychological harm - Prevents dignity and respect for gender diversity **INDIGENOUS PSYCHOLOGY DEFINITION KEY FEATUREs** - Primacy of indigenous or local or culturally defined perspective - Relevant to the indigenous, native culture, people reflecting their sociocultural values - Indigenous culture as the source of concepts and theories, rather than a set of imposed theories and knowledge - Researcher concepts, theories, methods, tools and results adequately represent, reflect, or reveal the studied phenomenon in its context **Two Types of Indigenous Psychology** **Both:** - Contrast imported western theories and methods - Background of colonisation 1. **Philippines, Taiwan and India** - Refers to all people residing in the country - Long history of psychology from 1970s 2. **Australia, NZ and Canada** - Refers to the first inhabitants of the land - Short or non-existent history of indigenous psychology **Indigenous Psychology looks at:** \- Martinez Cobo (1986) 1. People who have historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies. 2. Are distinct from other sectors of society, who now life on their lands 3. Are a present non-dominant sector of society 4. Aim to preserve, develop and transmit for future generations 5. Ethnic identity and ancestral territories 6. Live with own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems **3 Common Features of Indigenous People** **MARTINEZ COBO (1995):** 1. Way of being is still being impacted by colonization 2. Lives are characterized by surviving and adaption and assimilating to the dominant settler society 3. Maintaining connectedness to lands and sustaining ways of life **Colonization is** - Invasion of geographical area by a new group and the subjugation and displacement of existing peoples. **Indigenisation** - Is the process of developing indigenous psychology, whereby local cultural or region develops its own forms of knowledge and practice **Stages of Indigenisation** 1. Acknowledgement of the limitation of western theories 2. Correcting and adapting to western theories to suit local realities and discover indigenous concepts and methods that arise from local cultures 3. Self-perpetuating discipline independent of western psychology **Enriquez 1993 Two Types of Indigenisation** **A hybrid is the best approach!** 1. **ETIC/ Without** - Create indigenous version of the imported materials, and adapt to indigenous context - Translating western theories and changing them with cultural language and cultural context 2. **EMIC/ Within** - The source of concepts comes from indigenous culture - Draws on local knowledge - Creates own theories - Highlights what missing from outsiders - Brand new **Cosmology** - Origin narrative that seeks to explain the existence of the universe and our relationship to and purpose in it, what we will become. - Stories and beliefs about the origin of the universe, individual relationships to and purpose in the universe and what individuals should od - Who am i? - Where do I fit in? - Where am I going? - Why is this important to do in my life? **Different Indigenous Cosmologies** 1. **Filipino:** developed from Ethnic Psychology 2. **Taiwanese:** developed from Chinese historical, cultural and social and language traditions even Buddhist 3. **Indian:** entwined with Hinduism and folklore practices **Indigenous Australians Facts** - 3.3% of the population - Average age 22 - Live in 35% cities 20% regional 22% outer reginal 22% remote - 260 distinct languages at time of colonization **Indigenous Australians Cosmology** - Understand the world, waters, earth, flora, fauna and other people as spiritually interconnected - Semin-nomadic - Focus on social, religious, spiritual activities about belonging to country - Each person has family, kinship, language group belongs spiritual connection related to wellbeing - Each person has predefined relationship to every other person determine behaviour, responsibilities, expectations and obligations **Colonisation** - Destroyed indigenous culture - Were controlled by government from 1883-1967 - Citizenship from 1967 **The Self** - **Self-awareness:** - The act of thinking about ourselves - Introspection - **Self-concept:** - The content of the self - Our knowledge about who we are - Our sense of self - Gender or sex - Location - Occupation - Personality - Likes dislikes - Physical attributes - Nationality or ethnic - Relationships - Religion - Hobbies and interest Sense of self develops in childhood, it's the image we hold in our head **Chronicity:** - Defining ourselves in ways that sets us apart from others, by what is different from others. **2 Types Self-Construal** - How you define and make meaning of the self in relation to others - **Salient:** you only describe of yourself in certain contexts - **Chronic:** you describe yourself as in certain contexts 1. **Independent:** - Define the self in relation to stable personality traits, - Value independence - Value uniqueness - Compare self to others - Western countries - I am smart - I like psychology - I like board games - I am good person - I am conscientious 2. **Interdependent** - Define the self in relation to others : eg Geelong cats supporter - A group membership - Value harmony with close others - Non-western countries - Collectivist cultures **Two Types of Interdependence Self-Construal** 1. **Relational Interdependence** - Self-view incorporates close relationships with other people - Women have this - Western societies - I am daughter - I am an aunt - I am a best friend 2. **Collective Interdependence** - Self view is incorporated into membership of a large group, - Footy group - I am Australian - I am student at ACAP - Men have this **Study of self-construal theory** Singelis 1994 - Hawaii uni students - Self-construal Scale - Results supports the theory **Study of self-construal theory** Han & Humphreys 2016 -   **Self-Construal Study** Hamilton & Biehal 2005 Advertising **Results:** Independent participants make riskier choices with money for personal gain Interdependent participants where risk adverse to protect the greater good and others, worried about losing a lot of money - **Self-construal Study** **Mandel 2003** - Primed for independence or interdependent by reading the Sumerian Warrior Story - Chose between risky and safe options for four scenarios, two financial scenarios and two social scenarios Results Mandel: Interdependence: risker financial choices cause family will support them, less risking social behaviour truth or dare game at work Independent group, less risky financial choice, not relationships to support failure, Riskier socially, no family to shame **The Self Concept of Indigenous Australians** - Holistic definition of Aboriginal health and wellbeing that encompasses the entire community - Acknowledges the self, kin, family, community, traditional lands, ancestors, spiritual existence - Challenges western ideas of self-concept  Remember that:  \"Culture encompasses all that human beings have and do to produce, relate to each other and adapt to the physical environment. It includes agreed-upon principles of human existence (values, norms, and sanctions) as well as techniques of survival (technology). Culture is also that aspect of our existence which makes us similar to some people, yet different from the majority of the people in the world... it is the way of life common to a group of people, a collection of beliefs and attitudes, shared understandings and patterns of behaviour that allow those people to live together in relative harmony, but set them apart from other peoples.' (State of the World's Indigenous Peoples)  **Week 4** 1. **Introspection** 2. **Observing our Own Behaviour** 3. **Comparing ourselves to others** 1. **Introspection:** - Looking inward to examine inside information that you have about your thoughts, feelings and motives - Thinking about ourselves is rare **Study 1** **CSIKSZENTMIHALYI & FIGURSKI (1982) PAGER** - People had lower affect when thinking about themselves - When we are doing a voluntary activity ( watching TV) we have a negative self-affect **Self-Awareness Theory of Introspection:** - When we think about ourselves it causes us to evaluate and compare our current behaviour to our internal standards and values ( guilt ) - We become judgemental and objective observers - We remember the kind of person we want to be and think we should do something productive because we feel bad we are not. - Self-awareness is positive when we exceed our internal standards we feel good but only temporarily. We feel like we must do better next time. - But if you do well, but don't feel you can do it again or do it even better you have a negative effect. - Every time you exceed your expectations your standards get raised and you must do even better next time to feel good - Self-awareness causes us to evaluate and compare our current behaviour with our internal standards and values - Act more in accordance with own ideals - **Am I meeting my expectations below** **DIENER & WALLBOM (1976): Introspection and Behaviour Cheating on timed 5 minute test** - Participants seated with a mirror in front of themselves were less likely to cheat and follow their internal values - Participants with low self-awareness and introspection will cheat **SOHN ET AL. (2019): TROLLING ON FACEBOOK BULLYING SOCIAL NORMS AND INTROSPECTION** - When people have introspection because they see their face on the video screen on FACEBOOK they are less likely to write abusive comments. - Greater introspection Social norms have less impact on our behaviours - Less introspection more likely to bully others or join in on online bullying - Less introspection more likely we are to follow any social norm and join in on bad behaviours **2: Self-Awareness Observing Our Own Behaviour** **Self-Perception Theory** - Using our body reactions and behaviours to tell how you feel rather than expressing how you feel - We infer our attitudes and feelings by observing our behaviour and the situation it occurs - Anxiety Vs Exicitment: meaning changes - When someone asks about who we are: 1. We use introspection to see if we know it already 2. Observe our behaviours In the situation to infer 2a. Check if behaviour is voluntary: and a part of who we are 2b. If not voluntary behaviour we take a guess that is often wrong **NISBETT & WILSON (1977):** 1. **Panty Hose Selection Why?** 2. **Warm or Cold teacher Experiments** - We are not good at determining or knowing why we think or feel a certain way. - We aren't good at knowing what influences our behaviours and choices - We rate nicer people more attractive - Our physiological reactions influence our emotions and it changes how we perceive things, others and ourselves **DUTTON & ARON (1974): People can misattribute feelings of arousal.** - Bridge Solid Vs Hanging and Fear Vs Sexual Attraction - We can't tell the difference - Behaviour can have multiple possible explanations - The inference we make about attitudes and feelings depends on the explanation we choose *eg fast heart rate fear or excitement* **COSTA ET AL. (2018, Study 1): SKYPE relationships changing the angry persons voice** - People act calmer when their voice sounds calmer. - When the voice is calmer people feel calmer and less reactive - Speaking calmer in conflict impacts our own and others behaviour - Heart rate: lowers when the voice is calmer - A calm voice influences the perception and changes how we and others feel. 3. **Using Other People For Self-Reflection** **Social Comparison** - Social comparison is the process of thinking about information about one or more other people in relation to the self - We notice similarities and differences between self and others - **We compare:** - Behaviour - Ability - Opinions - Life circumstances - Jobs - Things we own **Social Comparison Theory** - We learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to others **4 QUESTIONS OF SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY** 1. When do we do this? 2. Who do we compare ourselves to? 3. Why do we compare ourselves to others? 4. What is the impact of social comparison? 1. **When do we do this?** - We compare ourselves to others when we have no objective standard to measure ourselves against - We compare ourselves to others when we care about our performance in the domain 2. **Who do we compare ourselves to?** 1. **Upward social comparison** ( doing better than us) 2. **Downward social comparison** ( doing worse than us or past self) 3. **Lateral social comparisons** ( at the same skill level) **Downward Comparison Theory** - Compared to those doing worse than us - Because threats hurt our self-esteem - Restores self-esteem - Prone to people with low self-esteem to make themselves feel better - Boosts self-evaluations - We **contrast** ourselves because we are sensitive to the differences between ourselves and others **Upward Social Comparisons Construal Theory** - Compare to others doing better than us - To improve self-esteem by identifying like them - To make ourselves feel better - Not comparing but identifying with better people - Feel successful - Boosts self-evaluation - Aim to **assimilate with successful people** - We are sensitive to similarities between self and others **GERBER et al 2018 Contrast and Assimilation with Others** **The Positive effects of Comparing To others** - Upward comparison gives us hope and inspiration - Downward comparisons gratitude - Contrasting ourselves to others in the dominant social comparison response **The Negative Effects of Comparing to Others** - Upward effects: Regret, envy of others' success - Downward effects: We feel worry about ourselves **Helgeson and Mickelson 1995 MOTIVATION** - Culture influences motivation 1. **Self-enhancement**: makes us feel better 2. **Self-destruction:** to confirm my fear of getting worse 3. **Self-evaluation:** To see how we are doing 4. **Self-improvement**: I can get better 5. **Altruism**: To help others 6. **Common Bond:** For empathy and support **SONG ET AL. (2019): Culture and Motivation by Comparisons FACEBOOK FATIGUE**  - Different cultures may have different motivations for engaging in social comparisons **JOHNSON (2012): How we respond to Upward social comparison** **People more successful than us:** **THREATS TO SELF-ESTEEM** **Positive** 1\. When individuals think they can improve themselves: a. They perform better and/or engage in more self-improvement behaviour b. When you expect to get a promotion but don't get one perform better because you feel envy towards the person who got it **Negative Threats** 1. When individuals **can't improve**, they **act to harm** the other person by: c. Interfering with performance d. Creating coalitions against the other person e. Being ''nasty'' to them f. Withholding or reducing the quality of relevant work information - Sabotaging the other person's reputation - Increase social loafing **Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory/ Model** **Comparing yourself to a friend** - Only matters if we care about the comparison - When we care we can reduce the threat to our self-evaluation by 1. **Reducing closeness to the friend** 2. **Stop caring about the thing itself** 3. **Sabotage to stop the friend from being good at it** **Tesser & Smith 1980 Bring a good friend to the experiment** - When we feel under threat by others in a task we care about we sabotage the other person - We will sabotage a friend when there is a chance they could out perform us - Being outperformed by a friend is worse than by a stranger - Being out performed by a friend in something we care about is bad **NICHOLLS & STUKAS (2011): Narcissistic Personality and Competitiveness** - The higher the narcissism the more likely you are to reduce closeness to a friend if they do better than you - Narcists like friends who they can beat **WEEK 5** **ATTITUDES, SCHEMAS, HEURISTICS AND BEHAVIOURS** - **Attitudes consist of 3 components C A B or ABC** 1. Cognitive thoughts and beliefs about a target 2. Affective emotions, feelings and reactions towards a target 3. Behaviour actions and observable behaviour toward a target - **An attitude is:** an evaluation of people, objects and ideas - **2 Types of Attitudes** 1. **Explicit Attitudes** - We are aware of - Consciously endorsed - **Susceptible to social desirability bias:** we can lie to others about our thoughts feelings and behaviours to please others - In control of - We can share with others our attitudes - Introspection 2. **Implicit Attitudes** - Attitudes are less accessible to our conscious awareness - Less control over these attitudes - Less susceptibility to social desirability bias - Subconscious out of our awareness - Can't be controlled - Automatic - Can conflict with the explicit attitudes we hold - Are measured by reaction time and response - **Implicit Attitudes Test ITA** - Measure the speed at which we respond - Measures implicit attitudes outside our awareness - Validity: the ability of the measurement tool to measure what it says it is measuring is not effective. - It might just be measuring cultural associations on implicit attitudes - It may just be measuring the first thought that is conditioned into your mind, but not actually how to think today. - Reliability: when the ITA was retested it could not predict the same results, results were different every time. - If someone has English as a second language results varied In native tongue. - **From the ITA we have learned that the first thought we have is conditioned thought and the second thought we have defines who we are.** - **Implicit and Explicit Test By GAWRONSKI (2019):** - Looked at are people really aware of their own attitudes. - Found that people ARE aware and CAN access their own implicit atttitudes - Found a low correlation between implicit and explicit results because 1. Motivation and opportunity influence attitudes 2. Different content exists in our implicit and explicit attitudes 3. Participants can predict their own scores 4. We say we are aware of our own implicit attitudes - **Schema** - A schema is a mental representation of the various things we come across in our everyday life - A mental blueprint - A belief about how we expect something to be or behaviour - A script - Schemas reduce cognitive load and work - Schemas save time - Schemas allow us to go beyond the information we are given Example: Feng Min knows she has to line up to order fast food because she\'s been to many fast food establishments before. - **Heuristics** - Heuristics are mental shortcuts - Rules of thumb for decision-making and judgments - Reduce problem-solving - Rule-based decisions - Form attitudes quickly - **Types of Heuristics** 1. **Representative Heuristics** - How similar it is to the category we already have - Does the example belong to a particular group based on our mental representation of the category? - Ignores base rate statistics and facts - This can lead to the wrong conclusion - It fits into the representation you already have in your mind Example: Claudette knows a chihuahua is a type of dog because it\'s similar to other types of dogs. 2. **Availability Heuristics** - Judges the likelihood of an event or the correctness of a hypothesis based on how easily the event comes to mind - The more common an event the easier it is for your brain to access - Gives a good approximation of frequency or correctness - Less reliable for infrequent but highly accessible events - The frequency of something tells us how likely we think it can happen - Events we hear about more often come to mind quicker and we assume its because it happens more often. - The more we hear about something the more common we think it is **SCHWARZ ET AL. (1991): Heuristics Assertive Vs non Assertive** - German female students - Recall words 6 examples - Recalls 12 examples - Results found the easier it is to recall information the more you believe it to be true. - The harder it is to come up with examples and recall them the less likely you are to believe it as true. - **Illusory Correlations in Heuristics** - Believing there is an association between two variables, events, actions or ideas when they are not associated - Believing two things are connected when they are not Example: Yui believes that people act more strange on full moons than other days. - **Two Types of Thinking** 1. **Cognitive Miser** - Reluctant to spend cognitive resources - Conserves cognitive resources ( doesn't use much energy ) - Avoids engaging in effortful thinking - Mental resources are highly limited - Uses schemas and Heuristics - Solves problems in the simplest way with no effort - Makes assumptions - Stereotypes - Automatic judgments and fast decisions Example: A way of processing information and making decisions which conserves cognitive resources by relying on heuristics and schema. 2. **Naïve Scientist** - Looks for clear and reasonable explanations of what is happening in the world - Approaches each situation on individual basis - Analyses everything before making decisions - Looks for evidence - Uses cognitive resources - Flexible thinking - Spends time thinking to make wise decisions - **The Motivational Tactician Framework** - Tell us how we pick cognitive miser or Naïve scientist approach when thinking - Based on: 1. **Time we take before responding to think things through** 2. **The cognitive resources and information we use to provide us with an educated decision** 3. **Is the decision an important one?** - **Attitude 3 Attributions** **Attribution Theory** - We like to know or attribute a course to why things occur - It's our beliefs about why things happen  - When things go wrong we either blame external things or internal things - **Actor-Observer Bias ( attribution bias 1 )** - We make **external/ situational attributions** for our **own** behaviour: because we have more information about ourselves and we want to maintain a positive self-image - We make **internal/ dispositional** attributions for **others'** behaviour - **2. Self-Serving Bias ( Attribution style 2)** - We make attributions that support a positive view of ourselves - When good things happen we make positive self-internal attributions - When bad things happen we blame the outside world and others and make negative external attributions. - We want to make ourselves look better - A bad mark on the test: external reason or attribution - Good mark on the test: we make internal attributions to reinforce our self-esteem - Children and older people have a larger self-serving bias compared to middle-aged groups - Children and older people have internal attributions about good things that happen and external attributions about bad things that happen - Cultural differences: USA, China and Korea, have the highest self-serving biases - Psychopathology: Anxiety and Depression, blame themselves when things go wrong, and when things go right they see It as external and having nothing to do with them. **ATTRIBUTIONS Self-Serving Bias Study 2** **3 HUA & TAN (2012): Olympic Games** - TV and Newspaper reports from gold medal winners about the reason they won - Western Cultures: Winning gold medal contribute success to internal dispositional self-construals about their abilities - Non-Western cultures: attributed their gold medal to external or situational construal. - **Where do attributes come from** - **Attitudes can be implicit**: we are not aware of the things that are shaping our attitudes - **Attitudes can be explicit**: we are aware of what is shaping them - **Genes and Atttitudes** - **EAVES & HATEMI (2008): Twins or relative Study on Gay Rights and Abortions and Genetics** - Social learning from your parents only plays a very small role in the development of attitudes - Genetics plays a role in attitudes towards 1. Abortion 2. Gay rights 3. Death penalty 4. Jazz music 5. Censorship 6. Divorce 7. Political attitudes 8. Religion importance - Attitudes are influenced by genetic factors like personality traits or physical attributes. - **Attitudes and Social Learning Theory** - Bandura's social learning theory - New behaviours can be acquired by observing and imitating others - Children learn behaviours by observing others - **Attitudes and Classical Conditioning** - A stimulus that elicits an emotional response is paired with a neutral stimuli - Eventually, the neutral stimuli elicit the emotional response by itself **OLSON & FAZIO (2001): Classical conditions to hold certain attitudes** - Positive or negative stimuli can change attitudes - Classical conditioning can change explicit attitudes without people being aware of what is happening  - Pairing something positive with a stimulus changes the positive attitude related to that stimuli also. - **Attitudes and Operant Conditioning** - Behaviour that is rewarded becomes more frequent - Behaviour that is punished becomes less frequent - **Attitudes and Experiences** - **Direct experience or mere exposure** 1. Can change a preference or positive attitude towards something 2. Can take place without conscious awareness 3. Exposure to novel things at first elicits fear or avoidance 4. Subsequent exposure causes less fear and more interest in new things 5. Repeated exposure increases **perceptual fluency** which is how good we are at perceiving an object. 6. You can't know something till you try it 7. The more exposure you have to something to greater the positive feelings have hae towards it, and the more positive attitude you have about it 8. The more exposure the less fear, unless it hurts us during exposure ORIGIN OF ATTITUDES - EXPERIENCE **1.ZAJONC (1968): Foreign Word Exposure Through Experience** - 7-letter Asian words - Great exposure to a new word the more it was associated with a positive happy meaning **2 MORGENSTERN ET AL. (2013): Cigarette ADD** - We have an increased like of things we are exposed to more often - The more they saw the cigarette ad the more they liked it - **3 Self-Perception Theories** - We infer our attitudes and feelings by observing our own behaviour in a situation in which it occurs - If we don't know how we feel about something we look towards our behaviour to tell us our attitude towards it - **Cognitive Dissonance** - The feeling of discomfort caused by holding two or more inconsistent cognitions or thoughts - When we perform a behaviour that is discrepant from one's self-conception - We want to keep a positive self-image, so we distance ourselves from friends who we cant outperform or sabotage them - **Things we can do when we have cognitive Dissonance** - Change behaviour TO MATCH COGITIONS - Change cognitions; TO MATCH BEHAVIOUR - Add new cognitions: TO JUSTIFY OUR BEHAVIOUR - Sometime our behaviour at different from our thoughts and our attidueds become in conflict - When we have to choose between two alternative we face cognitive dissonance - We are pressured to reduce this feeling - Our behaviours by making a choice strengthen the cognitions from the behaviour choice **BREHM (1956): Cognitive Dissonance and behaviour** - After we select out of two difficult choices the choice we select goes up in desirability and the choice we reject goes down in desirability - Our actions by choosing change our thoughts about the desirability of the choices, to confirm we made the right choice (Mills, 1958) - Behaviours can strengthen the cognitions that lead to them. - Cheating on the exam, say its okay after you cheat and its okay for others to cheat now also. - (Aronson & Mills, 1959) - College students "boring discussion groups" - Our behaviour can change our cognitions to justify our actions - **We justify our own actions** **Week 6: Social Influence** - **Social Influence** is the effect that words, actions or the mere presence of people has on our attitudes, thoughts, feelings and behaviours. - **Conformity** is the change in one's behaviour due to the real or imagined influence of other people. Asher's line study examined this. - **Obedience** is the change in behaviour in response to direct order from authority. Migrams electric shock experiment. **Social Influence Type 1 is the Elaboration Likelihood Model** - **Two dual ways we process social influences** 1. **Central Route**: used to respond to persuasion, we need all the information at hand, we need time to consider our options, we must use objective information - **Critical thinking** - **Person has motivation** - **Has the ability** - **Has the opportunity to consider information** - **Attitude changes last longer** - **Cognitive more predictable behaviour** 2. **Peripheral Route:** We use heuristics, rules of thumb, quick thinking, our frequent common response, and very automatic responses. - **Heuristic** - **Lacks motivation to decide** - **Lacks the ability to decide** - **Lacks opportunity to consider things critically** - **Durable attitude change is less likely** **(Langer et al 1978) Peripheral Route** - Line up for photocopier - Gave any excuse to cut in line worked 94% of the time - People respond automatically when they hear "because.." regardless of the excuse that follows. - We don't really listen, the heuristic takes over and triggers compliance **Tactics of Manipulations** - All manipulation relies on heuristics ( mental shortcuts) - Replying automatically without much thought before responding - Happens when we are familiar with a stimuli - Influence peoples attitudes **Reasons we are so easily manipulated** 1. Reciprocation 2. Liking 3. Consistency and commitment 4. Social validation/proof 5. Authority 6. Scarcity 7. Unity **Tactic of Manipulation 1 AUTHORITY** - When someone says something and we interpret them as being an expert, they can manipulate us easily - We defer to credible experts and authority figures to help us decide how to behave - We defer to experts when we feel ambivalent - We defer to experts when it feels ambiguous situation - They don't have to be real authority  **Tactic of Manipulation 2 SCARCITY** - If its rare its valuable - The shorter supply the more desirable - " closing down sales" - People don't want to miss out **Tactic of Manipulation 3 RECIPROCITY** - We feel the need to repay others for gifts or favours **REGAN (1971): Reciprocity Study FREE COKE** - Raffle tickets purchased after free Coke-Cola - People bought 500% more raffle tickets after being given a free drink - We repay favours even if we don't know the person or want the gift - We repay favours that are different from the exact one they gave us - We will return the favour worth more than the original favour was valued - Feel a strong sense of owing a person - Repaying reduces our discomfort and guilt and keeps social favour **HITOKOTO (2016): Reciprocity North America Vs Japan** - Collectivist cultures have higher feelings about indebtedness to others when someone does them a favour compared to individualistic cultures - We feel more indebted to a stranger who helps us than a friend - Collectivists are less likely to accept gifts or favours that they are unable to return. **Tactic of Manipulation 4 RECIPROCITY VS CONCESSIONS** **THE DOOR IN THE FACE TACTIC.** - Used by sales people - Offer high price first - Offer is rejected - Lower the price - Offer is accepted RECIPROCITY **via concessions** **CIALDINI ET AL. (1975, Study 1): Chaperone juvenile detention center inmates on a trip to the zoo** - Use of heuristics and peripheral route quick thinking happened - The way you structure your request leads to greater compliance RECIPROCITY **via concessions** **MILLER ET AL. (1976):** - We are more likely to actually do the smaller favour after a larger favour was offered first - People feel responsible for the outcome when people make a concession for them and offer a lower rate, they are more likely to follow through and purchase or act - **Tactic of Manipulation 5. LIKING** **Regan (1971)** - People tend to favour and comply with people they know and like - Liking someone leads to higher compliance rates **LIKING HEURISTIC MENTAL SHORTCUTS** 1. CONTACT AND COOPERATION - We like people the more we interact with them - The more we cooperate with them - The more repeated exposure the more we like them 2. CONDITIONING AND ASSOCIATION - We can be conditioned to like people or objects that we associate with goodness - Positive associations are connected to the other message through conditioning 3. PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS 4. SIMILARITY **Tactic of Manipulation 6. LIKING: PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS** - **HALO EFFECT** - We tend to think people who are physically attractive must have other attractive qualities, such as: - Expertise - Trustworthiness - We automatically assume attractive people are - Smarter - Kinder - Socially skilled - This is automatic heuristic shortcut (Clifford & Walster, 1973) - More attractive kids rated brighter and more successful on school report card (Pfann et al., 2000; Johnson, 2010) - More attractive earned more money (Dipboye et al., 1977) - More likely to be hired for a job (Berggren et al., 2017) - Receive more votes in politics (Kurtzburg et al., 1968) - Less likely to return to jail **Tactic of Manipulation 7. LIKING: PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS:** **CONDITIONING AND ASSOCIATION** LIKING **VIA PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS and conditioning and association** **PRAXMARER (2011):** - Positive correlation between attractiveness and expertise and trustworthiness - The more attractive a person in an ad the more likely we are to believe the information **Tactic of Manipulation 8. LIKING: SIMILARITIES** **(Heider, 1958)** - People who are together tend to be similar on a range of variables, age, education, race - Similarities create an instant bond - We like people similar to us **BURGER ET AL. (2004, STUDY 1): Similarity** - People who share the same birthday were more likely to comply than those who didn't - Similarities make people comply - Make you more willing to donate to charity when believe you share the same first name as requester - More willing to help others with a common finger print similarity **(Jiang et al., 2010)** - Similarities Improve positive attitudes (Emswiller et al., 1971; Suedfeld et al., 1971) - Similar dress style more willing to sign a petition **Tactic of Manipulation 9. LIKING: SIMILARITY** **CHAMELEON EFFECT** - Non-couscious mimicry of postures, mannerisms, facial expressions and others' behaviours when interacting - Smooths social relationships - Rapport building - Can mistake someone for a friend **CHARTRAND & BARGH (1999): Chameleon Effect** - We unconsciously mimic others **KULESZA ET AL. (2016):Chameleon Effect** - The chameleon effect of mimicking only works if the person is unaware the other person is mimicking them **Tactic of Manipulation 10. LIKING: SIMILARITY** **THE ECHO EFFECT** - Copying a persons speech and paraphrasing (Van Barren et al., 2003) (Kulesza et al., 2018) - Copying or paraphrasing results in a larger donation - The echo effect makes people like you more **Tactic of Manipulation 11.** **CONSISTENCY AND COMMITMENT** - Humans have a fundamental desire to be and appear consistent with their actions, statements and beliefs - Higher openness less affected by consistency - Higher in conscientiousness more effected by consistency and commitment - Constancy is valued - Inconsistency is not valued - Consistency is efficient - We only need to make one choice or take one option and stand by it - Consistency in others is desirable - Efficient use of heuristics - Less effort required - Reduces cognitive dissonance **Tactic of Manipulation 12.** **CONSISTENCY AND COMMITMENT** **FOOT-IN-THE-DOOR TACTIC** - Make a small request - Get the person to agree - Make a larger request - Person feels pressured to agree - If you agree to a small request you are more likely to agree to large request after **FREEDMAN & FRASER (1966, Study 2): Foot in the Door Tactic of Consistency** - What may occur is a **change in the person's feelings about getting involved or about taking action**.  **Tactic of Manipulation 13.** **CONSISTENCY AND COMMITMENT** **LOW-BALL TACTIC** - Offer products at good value and price - Has hidden extras you have to purchase not mentioned earlier Cheap Flights \| Widest Choice & Book Online \| Flight Centre **Tactic of Manipulation 14.** **CONSISTENCY AND COMMITMENT** **BAIT AND SWITCH** - Present product or good offer - Get agreement - Now not available or sold out - Change for a worse or more expensive product **Tactic of Manipulation 15.** **SOCIAL VALIDATION** - We look to others for cues on how to think, feel and behave - Others' actions validate our own - When we are uncertain we turn to others on how to correctly behave - Responsible for bystander effect  **GUADAGNO ET AL. (2013):Social Validation** - **Quantity means good Quality** - Social validation increases behaviour - We are more likely to tip if there is money in the jar already - Canned laughter - Facebook likes - Night club line-up - " fastest-growing" - "best-selling" **Tactic of Manipulation 16.** **SOCIAL VALIDATION & LIKING** - Social validation is MORE effective when the person performing the act is similar to us **Tactic of Manipulation 17.** **CULTURAL DIFFERENCE** - **Collectivist Vs Individualistic Personality** - **Consistency and Commitment Vs Social Validation** - **Which has the biggest influence?** - Collectivist people NOT collectivist cultures increase the likelihood a person will comply when social validation is used - Individualist people, not cultures were more likely to comply when their OWN commitment and consistency is considered - Your personal style regardless of your culture is the strongest predictor of willingness to comply - A collectivist personality more influenced by social validation - More Individualist personalities more influenced by consistent behaviour and commitment behavours.