PSYB10 Lecture Notes Week 11-13 (Fall) PDF

Week 11 (Aggression) Charles Whitman ​ Was a us marine and above avg IQ and successful man ​ diary entry ○​ don’t be angry ○​ don’t be aggressive ○​ smile ○​ don’t procrastinate ​ one day he goes top of tower of University of texas and shoots 10 peopl...

Week 11 (Aggression) Charles Whitman ​ Was a us marine and above avg IQ and successful man ​ diary entry ○​ don’t be angry ○​ don’t be aggressive ○​ smile ○​ don’t procrastinate ​ one day he goes top of tower of University of texas and shoots 10 people ​ why? ○​ Doctors did an autopsy of his brain and discovered a tumor growing from the thalamus, pressing against the hypothalamus and amygdala ○​ impacting core functions ○​ hypothalamus may control some aggression Aggression ​ Proactive versus reactive ○​ proactive aggression - you act aggressively without any provocation (you just go and seek out aggression) ○​ reactive aggression - responding to some provocation with some violence ​ Physical vs. Relational ○​ physical aggression - violence with the body (punching) ○​ relational aggression - inflicting harm on others through psychological means (backstabbing, gossip or spreading rumours etc) ○​ When asked who commits aggression ​ clear pattern seen in these two ​ males commit majority of physical aggression ​ relational is more females ​ gender difference plays a role ​ Proximal vs. Distal ○​ has to do with how physically close or distant you are from the perpretator ○​ proximal - close or seeing the person in the flesh ○​ distal - more common through technology like hurting people when you are not physically there (dropping bombs while you are in a room) ○​ Does the mindset between the two play a role? ​ hostile vs. Instrumental ○​ Relates to basic intent ○​ hostile aggression - occurs when intent is to produce harm ○​ instrumental aggression - the intent is not produce harm but the aggression occurs as a means to some other end  ​ eg. When a person tries to rob a bank they try to leave without harming, but in the process they hurt someone and producing harm was not the intent ○​ jeffery dahmer —> why he did what he did ​ he said killing was the least enjoyable part and said that he cared about what he would do with the corpses ​ who is committing the aggression ○​ between-groups ○​ between-individuals ○​ within-self ​ not really an example of aggression ​ physical injury (suicide) ​ Could be the same aggression as they use on others (open question for the prof) Causal Factors in Aggression ​ are all these forms of aggression served by a common psychological systems or processes? ​ Is this something in the brain or mind that leads us to this aggression? ​ or are they served by different processes? ​ Evolution ○​ does aggression exist in our species the way that it does ​ genes ○​ Why do people differ in their aggressive behaviour? Is it due to genes? ​ Neurotransmitters and hormones ○​ what is going on in the molecule that are circulating in our brains that cause aggression ​ Brain structures ○​ What brain structures are involved ​ affective states ○​ why do people behave aggressively when angry or jealous ​ environmental factors ○​ what are in their environment that makes them more likely to behave that way ​ culture Evolution ​ Freud ○​ passage: The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours  ○​ the fact that we humans need to remind ourselves in our religious scripture not to kill other people telling us about our history ○​ maybe our ancestors not only killed, but had a lust to kill ○​ aggression may be deeply encoded into ourselves ​ what is good for evolution is not always what is good for wellbeing (charles darwin) ​ evidence that aggression is evolutionary (sexual size dimorphism and competitive mating) ○​ something is adaptive if it involved reproduction ○​ Has to do with the observation that in most mammals there is an avg size difference in males and females ​ Males are physically larger than females why? ​ Competitive mating - the idea that when the most selective or choosy sex is the female then it leads to competition for males for access to females ​ Females are more sexually selective where males have pressure ​ Physically larger males are likely to beat rivals ​ Level of male to male conflict → the more intense the fighting the bigger the size difference between males and females in that species ​ Aggression here is used to find secure sexual partners ​ Access to resources and territory ​ Lethal intergroup conflict ​ Researchers looked at wether chimpanzees engage in coordinated attacks against rivals to gain territory ​ Findings: chimps have expanded their territory at the expense of a neighbouring community. The conflict that occurs between chimps is to gain territory. ​ Infanticide in Langur monkeys ○​ Infanticide - killing of an infant of another member of your species ○​ Adult males will kill infants why? → these species have a monopolized access to sexual partner by small number ○​ Species where mating access is more equitable → males are more likely to mate with females → less infanticide ○​ In lions there is evidence that when a cub has been killed to infanticide the mother enters estrous sooner. The possibility is that the active killing of an infant may have been adaptive because it meant you have a reproductive advantage. ​ Thus Freud’s idea is backed up with these evidences A modular View of the Brain ​ Argues that human nature consists of multiple tendencies which can often conflict with each other ​ Tendency to fight and support ​ Abraham Lincoln’s speech → our nature has different aspects some that are good and some are bad ○​ The better angels of our nature ○​ We are living the most peaceful and non-violent period of life ever ○​ Violence and aggression is decreasing over time ○​ We are presented with a false view that violence is increasing and is all around us ○​ What we see on the news is heavily distorted (news highlights negative news more) Genes ​ 50-65% the differences across individual aggression can be explained by their genes ​ Twin studies → compare them to non-identical twins ○​ Observing aggression ​ Which genes are contributing? ○​ The diathesis-stress model → used in explaining mental illness ○​ Model proposes that for some psychological phenomenon we need to look at the interaction between the person’s genetic vulnerability and their environmental exposure (life stress eg.) ​ Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) - influences the catabolism (breakdown) of a variety of neurotransmitters - serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine (go over this experiment again) ○​ can have a variant that leads to high activity levels of breakdown or low activity levels of breakdown ○​ examined how much neglect a child felt as a child for males ○​ divided males into 3 groups (no maltreatment, moderate maltreatment, severe maltreatment) ○​ results: disposition towards violence as a measure — males who have low version of MAOA of the gene are more sensitive for life stress than males who carry high levels of that gene ○​ if you have a version of the gene that leads to low MAOA activity (neglect and abuse from parents) then you end up being more dispositional to violence ○​ have they been convicted of violent offence — similar pattern ^ ○​ low MAOA and severe maltreatment = antisocial behavior Neurotransmitters and Hormones ​ The gender differences of aggression  ​ testosterone is important ​ fetus is exposed to testosterone in a mother’s womb evidence that prenatal exposure to this may predict aggression later in life ​ the digit ratio measure that looks at the length of your fingers ○​ 2D over 4D ○​ ratio is sensitive to prenatal testosterone levels ​ clear sex difference in who is more likely to become addicted to substances ○​ males are more likely to become more addicted ○​ For psychological disorders females are more likely to be diagnosed ○​ study: authors compared a group of patients with alcohol addiction with digital ratio ​ results: patients that have a smaller 2D 4D ratio reflecting higher prenatal testosterone exposure are likely to show alcohol addiction and that relationship extends to aggression ​ males who have a smaller 2D 4D ratio show higher level of aggression at the self-report level ​ a weak sample size ​ The challenge hypothesis ○​ Testosterone rises among males in response to biologically-valued challenges (attracting a mate; competing with an adversary) ○​ This increase in testosterone promotes aggression ○​ Testosterone levels would decrease when males become father ​ their investment is now to take care of the child, not much competition ​ study: tracks men over 4 year to see how much testosterone changes over time ​ begin with men who never became fathers (compared to baseline their levels did not change much) ​ men who have a newborn (a month ago) show a decline in testosterone ○​ when males are found in sexual competition their testosterone levels increase Amygdala ​ plays a role in aggression ​ Kluver-Bucy Syndrome - occurs when the amygdala has been removed in an animal ○​ drives down aggression they may not even be aggressive when their life depends on it ○​ Animals are hypersexal and low on aggression ○​ if you activate the amygdala it triggers aggression and become active when not needed  ○​ It can become active in cases like a epilepsy that starts from temporal lobe and trigger the burst of electrical energy that leads the animal to behave aggressively Frontal Lobe ​ Hypothalamus and amygdala interact with the frontal lobe (PFC) in driving up or down the risk for aggression ​ Study: observing PFC FOR PEOPLE WHO COMMITTED serious crimes/offenses or criminals ○​ difference is that the offenders have less activity in PFC at baseline ○​ Individuals that have been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder also show reduced activity of PFC at baseline ○​ PFC controls impulses and instincts ○​ when PFCA IS UNDERACTIVE THE INSTINCTS GO UNCHECKED AND LEAD TO aggression Affective States ​ more likely to aggress when frustrated and angry ​ Frustration theory of aggression - people behave aggressively when they are angry ​ fear — people behave aggressively when they are in fear ○​ more likely to attack someone if you fear that they will attack you ​ sexual jealousy — leading cause of domestic violence ○​ fear that their sexual partner had or has an affair ​ do people get pleasure out of aggression ○​ playing a game in which your partner can deliver a loud aversive noise and you get to do it back ○​ when the retaliation happens there is an increase signal in NAc ○​ the stronger the retaliation the more signal in NAc ​ when people are bored they do things to escape boredom ○​ these things involve aggression and violence ○​ do things surprising themselves by doing these things ○​ Study: asks people to tell how susceptible they are to boredom ​ the more they agree with this the more bored they are ​ sadistic aggression - involves enjoying inflicting harm on others ​ this is also measured ​ the more bored you are the more you say that you enjoy inflicting pain upon others ​ Correlational findings extend to online trolling, sadism in the military, sadistic murder fantasies ​ Experimentally inducing boredom increases aggression towards animals (killing worms)  ​ individuals watch a clip of waterfall for 20 mins vs a 20 min documentary ○​ in the middle of that video there are worms given to see if you kill the worms during waterfall vid or documentary vid ​ find that other opportunities to escape the boredom (other things to not be bored while watching the vid) individuals do not kill the worms ○​ only individuals high in sadism kill the worms ​ When behavioral alternatives are available, boredom only increases aggression in those high on trait sadism). But when no other alternatives are present, boredom increases aggression regardless of trait sadism ​ alcohol and aggression ○​ marriage at Cana — uhhh jesus apparently turned water into wine when he went to a wedding with his mom (mary) ○​ ascending limb of the BAC curve - when we ingest alcohol the BAC goes up for some time ○​ Descending limb of the BAC curve - when the BAC goes down ○​ effect is mainly present in ascending limb of BAC curve as level is increasing people are likely to behave more aggressively ○​ task called the Taylor aggression paradigm — led to believe that you are in a competitive game with someone else but the other is just the competitor ​ person does something to you and you get to retaliate and shock them ​ Analyze what level of shock they give in retaliation ​ when people have taken alcohol in that ascending limb of the BAC people shock intensity goes up giving more shock  Week 12 (Prejudice and Altruism) Prejudice ​ builds upon a pattern which is humans have an ability to segregate themselves from the groups and victimize each other ​ stereotype - high level cognitive beliefs or evaluations that we have about particular groups of people ○​ characteristic of specific people ○​ can be removed of emotional content ​ prejudice - has to do with feelings and emotional reactions that we experience upon thinking about members of specific groups ​ discrimination - behaviors and how we act towards people based on their group membership Measuring Explicit and Implicit Prejudice ​ Explicit Prejudice: conscious, controlled, and can be verbally declared ○​ open to awareness and controlled thinking ​ Implicit Prejudice: non-conscious, automatic, and challenging to verbally declare Implicit Association Test (IAT) ​ A person is presented with a face or word and to categorize into one bin (good or bad) ​ If a person holds a negative attitude about black people they are likely to categorize the face of a black person in the black category when it is paired with bad compared to good ​ people show anti-black bias ​ the IAT is not picking up a person’s true racism, it is instead reflecting learned culture associations ○​ during IAT you are simply re expressing the associations ○​ supported by changing what a person is exposed to in the environment ○​ get the person to perform IAT but in a different environment which can shift the person’s results ​ the race-IAT predicts: people’s response predicts the person’s reflection of the real world behavior ○​ Experiment where there is a black experiment present and then measure things like eye contact and the physical distance ○​ the person’s performance on the IAT predicts the subtle measures of reaction with minority group ○​ Another research shows that the person’s performance of the IAT predicts things like amygdala response to black faces ​ the more amygdala response a person shows to new black faces the higher their anti-black racism on IAT ​ Amadou Diallo — cops mistook him as a rapist they were looking for  ○​ cops shot him to death when he was pulling out his wallet to show his ID after he was stopped while driving ○​ automatic association may have led the cops Roots of Prejudice: Minimal Groups ​ we have a basic tendency to separate the world between us and them on the basis of little information ○​ Characteristics and features ○​ is the foundation of prejudice and intergroup hostility ​ How can children better resist these divisions? ○​ The blue eye brown eye experiment ○​ When students believed they were in the superior group, they performed better on tasks ○​ And vice versa, if they thought they were inferior, they did worse ​ realistic conflict theory - conflicts between groups happen when there is competition for resources Roots of Prejudice: Empathizing ​ 2 features of empathy: ​ Mentalizing/Perspective-taking: a cognitive understanding of another person’s mental state and situation ○​ putting yourself in other people's shoes cognitively ​ Emotion/Experience-sharing: a mirroring of another person’s emotional state ​ empathy involves resonating with other people’s emotional state Mentalizing: Theory of Mind ​ a measure for prejudice ​ sally-Anne False-Belief Task - assessing development of mentalizing children ○​ Theory of mind is the understanding that other people have minds that are different from one’s own ○​ In this task the child is told a story ○​ story: a girl named sally who puts marbles in a basket and anne transfers the marbles from basket to drawer sneakily ○​ ask the child where does sally look for the marble ○​ if the child lacks theory of mind then they will say that sally will look for the marbles in the drawer ○​ autistic individuals have difficulty with this task Mentalizing: Temporo-parietal Junction ​ this brain region is a boundary between temporal and parietal lobe  ​ important for perspective ​ damage to the TBJ perform worse on false belief task but not on other tasks Emotion Sharing: Pain and the Motor-evoked potential ​ The transfer of emotion is mirroring ​ Motor-evoked potential - a signal that elicit in the motor cortex when people are exposed to pain there is a suppression of the MEP ​ If you expose someone to painful stimulus the region of the motor cortex that corresponds to that muscle shows a reduction in activity in MEP Empathy - mirroring another’s pain ​ When seeing someone else is also seen being exposed to the painful stimulus and I see it the MEP is also suppressed ​ Study: participants saw slides of hands being pricked at the fbi muscle and see if the MEP is suppressed ○​ Do not see a suppression when the hand is brushed with a q-tip and also no suppression when the apple is being pricked with the needle Empathy and in-group Bias ​ We empathize with people more within our in-group ​ The MEP is a measure of empathy, it’s elicited automatically ​ Study: in this image, the strongest MEP suppression occurs when an ingroup faces the adverse event (shown by skin colour), no MEP suppression when they see outgroups feel pain, and no MEP suppression for people of the random unrealistic colour ○​ This aligns with their behavioural ethnic bias: in the domain of emotion sharing, people have a bias with how they empathize ○​ People’s empathy is more primed and attuned to resonating with ingroup versus outgroup members ○​ Easier to empathize with people of our own group ​ Role of personal liking: we empathize better with people we like Infrahumanization ​ The (implicit) belief that outgroup members are less human than in-group members ​ Consequences of biases ​ Groups may sometimes see members of other groups less than human ​ By believing that they do not hve the same emotional complexity as we “humans” do ​ This divides the world into 2 ○​ Primary emotions - emotions that we shaer with species (emotions that we discuss etc) ○​ Secondary emotions - social emotions (shame, awe, pride etc.)  ​ Other groups being less capable of understanding these emotions as they are more complex Focus on counter-stereotypic Examples ​ If you bring people that challenge your stereotypes in the picture it can minimize stereotypes on your behavior ​ Study: harvard student – focus on martin LK ○​ Had to perform IAT bring to mind MLK or the other white politician ○​ Finding: anti-black bias goes down in the counter-stereotypical example ○​ When obama was elected there was a difference in IAT results ○​ Researchers had a hard time analyzing the strong anti-black bias Why? ​ Obama’s election was a counter-stereotypic example ​ Media played a role as well Minimal Groups ​ We can draw the dividing line (between us and them) upon other characteristics by disadvantaging groups ​ We can change the attribute we divide by ​ Resulting in a member who was in the out-group becoming apart of the in-group ​ Study: individuals had to learn who was on their team for a game ○​ Lions and tigers ○​ Get individuals to remember the members of the team ○​ Perform something similar to IAT to observe negative attitudes or prejudice against individuals ○​ Words (good or bad) and faces (white or black) ○​ Findings: when I view faces of people (white or black) that are in-group members I am a lion = do not show an anti-black bias ○​ Members of out-group = anti-black bias shown ○​ Results show that there are negative biases against certain people in other groups ​ Carls sagan used the minimal group to define the dividing line from us vs them into a baseline (earth to not planet earth) Altruism ​ Vietnam → buddhist minority were oppressed by government ○​ They would protest by setting themselves on fire ​ A puzzle for darwinian evolution ○​ Builds upon the basic notion of fitness which is an increase in reproductive capacity → more resources to reproduce Why help? ​ Distal Causes - Explaining a phenomenon based on its evolutionary history ○​ Why an organism would have the capacity to feel fear etc ○​ 3 varieties ​ Altruism exists in species because an organism may help another for the purpose of mating = more chances to reproduce ​ Scorpion fly ​ Kin selection - the more closely related you are to a person the more likely you will help them ​ More likely to help my brother than cousin ​ My brother’s benefit is own own benefit (genetically) ​ Reciprocity - animals give because ‘if I give something to you, then you give something back to me’ ​ Proximal Causes - In the moment what is motivating an organism to give (altruistic) ○​ Warm glow: People help due to the satisfaction they get from the voluntary aspect of giving (believed to be more selfish) ○​ Pure altruism: People help due to the satisfaction they get from seeing others benefit (believed to be more selfless) ○​ Study: gave participants $100 and give money to charity ​ Trials → Voluntary transfers: You choose to donate $50 to charity ​ Mandatory transfers → Someone mandatorily transfers $50 of your money to charity ​ If they only show pleasure in the voluntary trial → people only care about warm glow ​ In mandatory trial = there is pure altrusim (because you are forced) ​ Results → both trials people show satisfaction and activity in NAc ​ Pure altruism is present  Week 13 (Psychological Wellbeing) Altruism continued Psychic Numbing ​ The death of a single Russian soldier is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” ○​ → Attributed to Joseph Stalin ​ The intuition that the more people are becoming victims the more we become empythetically numb ​ Empathy is lessened ​ Jessica McClure fell into a well and was stuck there in 58 hours ​ Google searches for syria increased → so did the donations for syria ○​ Due to the image of the baby ○​ Donations diminished rapidly Identifiable Victim Effect ​ Shot me out of the skyyyyyy → You're my kryptoniteeeeeeeee ​ The tendency to offer more help to victims who are identifiable ​ Our empathy is biased ​ Claims that we are more altruistic to these identifiable individuals ○​ Heightened altruism ​ Study: participants were presented with cenarios of victims where they can donate to ○​ PARTICIPANTS donated more when a victim had a name and photo ​ Paradoxical Effect: More vivid idenity → more likeliness of us donating ○​ People often give more to single victims then group victims ○​ Study with 2 names presented and participants give more when the 2 names are separate compared to when names are together ○​ As the suffering goes up our impacting goes down Peter Singer’s Shallow Pond Scenario ​ Asks whas the difference between the child drawing situation and children suffering in a different country ​ Says that we are biased because we are reactive with cases that we can see in front of us and blind (wilfully) to cases that we cannot see Empathy Vs. Compassion ​ Empathy involves self-based emotion sharing ○​ Feeling the impact of it through oneself on oneself ​ Compassion involves turning attention to other person and is about me wanting you to be well Wellbeing Lecture starts What Makes a good life ​ Aristotle ​ Hedonia - feeling good and pleasure ○​ We often seek positive emotion ​ Eudaimonia - a sense of purpose and meaning ○​ Engagement with ethical life and doing good and finding out the truth ○​ Being significant Why does Happiness sem out of reach? ​ Counter-intuitive (paradoxical) features about our minds ​ Evolution and the hedonic treadmill Maximizing vs. Satisficing: Is wanting the always better? ​ When you agree with these statements you are a maximizer ○​ Always seeking the best ​ Maximizer → only the best for me ​ Satisficer → Good enough for me ​ Data suggests that having a maximizing mindset is correlated with a range of a psychological limitation or undesirable features ○​ The more maximizer you are the more regret you show ○​ Higher depression and less optimism and less satisfied with life ○​ NOT EXPERIMENTAL FINDING The Easterlin Paradox ​ At any given point in time, both across and within nations, happiness varies with income. But over the long-term (e.g., 10 years), a country’s happiness does not increase when that country's income increases ​ More income = more happier ​ Across countries the wealthier countries are happier compared to non-wealthy countries ​ As country becomes wealthier (within a country findings) people do not become happier ​ How we value our happiness depends less on money in bank account and more on where we stand compared to our peers ​ Peer-group income negatively predicts individual happiness ​ If everyone is becoming equally as wealthy then your status in the group remains the same ​ People care more about how they stand compared to others compared to money Why does happiness seem out of reach? ​ Hedonic treadmill: our overall happiness stays the same regardless of our motivation to increase it by seeking out rewards (like a hamster running on its wheel)  ○​ Humans run through life eagerly, just to find themselves in the same place ○​ But, you can increase life happiness in ways that ascend that hedonic treadmill ○​ We want, then we attain, we feel and experience and then we adapt (the pleasure goes away) ​ Amplify desire (anticipatory pleasure) but suppress contentment (consummatory pleasure) ○​ Dorm room satisfaction example → affective forecasting ​ They seem to adapt to an emotional baseline ​ Heighten negative emotions (e.g., fear reactions) under specific conditions Evolution and Threat Prevention ​ The Smoke Detector Principle (SDP): Evolved protective systems produce excessive rates of false alarms ○​ False alarm (when you think its something but its something else) or miss (truly a threat but ‘who cares’) ○​ Miss is bad evolutionarily because you have a tomorrow ○​ It leads us to a built-in a bias to misprecieve threats and exaggerate the level of threat in environment leading us to worry about scenarios that may never happen Natural selection and the elusiveness of happiness ​ Whats advantageous for evolution may not be advantageous for happiness ​ What would go in the overlapping region? ○​ Sex ○​ Food ​ Good for evolution only ○​ Aggression ○​ Competition A wandering Mind is an Unhappy mind ​ Mind has the ability to hijack focus ​ Does the tendency for mind to wander have anything to do with happiness ​ Participants had to download an app ○​ Probe → ask them 3 questions ​ What are you doing ​ How happy are you right now ​ Is you mind wandering right now ○​ The bigger the dot the more the activity reported ○​ Engagement in activity correlated with their happiness  ○​ People reported to be more happy when their mind did not wander and was focused on the task at hand compared to when they were not focused and when their mind was wandering Flow ​ Characteristics of Flow ○​ Absorption in the activity: merging of action and awareness ○​ Loss of self-consciousness ○​ Altered sense of time ○​ Sense of ecstasy ○​ Intrinsic motivation + match between skill versus challenge ​ Psilocybin Mushroom is another way to answer if people can get out of the hedonic treadmill ○​ Changes people’s attitudes about life ○​ Same experiment as before ○​ May change how people may die Age and Happiness ​ People become happier as they become older ​ People over 60 report more satisfied and happier and less anxiety ​ Experience sampling - probing people in moment to experiencing and asking how they feel over a time period ○​ Findings: as they get older they report more positive emotions ○​ 60-70 year of age ​ People become less open to experience more conscientiousness ○​ OCEAN (Decrease O, increase C, E increased (social dominance) decreased (social vitality), Increase A and decrease N (the more reactive you are to events the more neurotic you are)) ​ Maturity principle - as we age we become more emotionally stable and less vulnerable to negative emotion Personality change: Clinical interventions ​ N changes when you respond to specific interventions ​ Eg. clinical interventions ​ Robert Nozick’s experience machine ○​ The remaining period of your life will only be happy → you will be attached to a machine and believe that everything you feel is real. Would you chose to enter this machine ​ The more negative life events you have the less happiness you report but the more meaning you report