Social Psychology: The Scientific Study of Human Behavior - PDF

1/16- Introducing Social Psychology Social Psychology ​ Social Psychology: the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another ○​ Examines topics such as: ​ The self ​ Social beliefs and judgments...

1/16- Introducing Social Psychology Social Psychology ​ Social Psychology: the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another ○​ Examines topics such as: ​ The self ​ Social beliefs and judgments ​ Attitudes and behavior ​ Conformity and obedience ​ Persuasion ​ Group influence ​ Prejudice ​ Aggression ​ Attraction and intimacy ​ Helping ​ Focuses on individuals and how people affect one another ​ The study of the psychological processes people have in common that impact how people think about, influence, and relate to one another ○​ Contrasts with sociology which focuses more on groups, organizations and societies ○​ Contrasts with personality psychology which focuses more on the characteristics that make up an individual ​ Studies: ○​ Social thinking social influence, and social relations ​ How we perceive ourselves and others ​ What we believe ​ Judgments we make ​ Our attitudes ○​ Social influence ​ Culture ​ pressure ○​ Social relations ​ The connections we form with others ​ Positive or negative relations History of Social Psychology ​ Was founded at Indiana University by professor Norman Triplett ○​ He conducted the first research study in social psychology in 1898 ​ He noticed bicycle riders who competed against others performed better than those who competed than those who competed against the clock ​ He propped that the presence of other riders causes other riders to become more competitive, which enhances individual performance ​ He tested this by building a “competition machine” ​ 40 participants wind up a reel, alternation between working alone and working parallel to each other  ​ The results were consistent with the results from the cycling records. Those who competed with others performed better than those who worked alone ○​ Another experiment was conducted by a Professor named Max Ringelmann ​ Had men pull a rope alone and as a part of a group ​ People work harder (put in less effort) when they were alone than when they were in a group ○​ These two studies pointed in opposite directions, one should groups caused better performance while they other showed that working alone caused better performance. ​ More recent research has shown, the presence of others enhances performance when individual contributions are easily identified, but it reduces performance when people are “lost in a crowd” ​ Social psychology assumed its correct form in 1930 ​ Social psychology began to flourish in the 1950s and 1960s (After World War II) ○​ Laid foundations for many areas we study today (self-esteem, conformity, intimate relationships, etc.) Big Ideas ​ Social thinking ○​ We construct our social reality ​ People want to attribute behavior to a cause ​ Makes it seem orderly, predictable, and controllable ​ Two people may react differently to a situation because they think differently ​ Internal attribution: the person would respond in a judging and negative way to someone being late (“they’re just always late) ​ External attribution: the person would respond in an understanding and positive way to someone being late (“it was out of their hands”) ​ There is an objective reality, but we always view it through the lens of our beliefs and values ○​ Our social intuitions are powerful, sometimes perilous ​ Intuitions shape fears, impressions, and relationships ​ Thinking is often unconscious- offstage and out of sight ​ When we use intuitions, we make use of heuristics ○​ a mental shortcut we use to make judgments and make them accurately without putting in much effort ○​ Can lead to incorrect judgments ○​ Attitudes shape, and are shaped by behavior ​ Culture helps define out situations ​ Ex. standards regarding promptness, openness, and clothing ​ Social influence ○​ Social influences shape behavior ​ Internal forces, our attitudes, affect outer behavior (whether we vote, give in to peer pressure) ​ Our attitudes also follow behavior: we often believe strongly in what we have committed ourselves to  ○​ Dispositions shape behavior ​ Personality dispositions lead different people to react differently to a situation ​ Social relations ○​ Social behavior is also biological behavior ​ Nature and nurture together form who we are ​ Both biology and experience ​ The way we behave and function is a result of natural selection ​ We are bio-psycho-social organism ​ To understand social behavior, we must consider under-the-skin (biological) and between-skins (social) influence ○​ Feelings and actions toward people are sometimes negative (prejudices, aggressive) and sometimes positive (helpful, loving) From the Book (Ch.1) ​ Two contradictory criticisms of social psychology : ○​ It is trivial because it documents the obvious ​ We tend to invoke common sense after already knowing the facts ​ Hindsight Bias- I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon ○​ It is dangerous because its findings could be used to manipulate people Research Methods ​ Scientific Method 1.​ State a problem 2.​ Formulate testable hypothesis 3.​ Design a study to test hypothesis 4.​ Test hypothesis by confronting it with the data 5.​ Report results to the scientific community ​ Theory: an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observe devents ○​ Good theories effectively summarize many observations and make clear predictions that can be used ​ Constructs: abstract general concepts ​ Not directly observable (anxiety, self-esteem) ​ Social comparison Theory: people evaluate their outcomes, abilities, opinions, by comparing themselves to others ​ Knowing other people's values will change who we evaluate our own ​ Hypothesis: a testable proposition that describes a relationship that may exist between events ○​ Allows us to test a theory ○​ Gives direction to research ○​ Can make a good theory practical ​ Sampling ○​ Who will participate in a study ​ A select group taken from a population ​ The sample represents the entirety of the population ○​ Random sampling: one in which every person in the population being studies has an equal chance of inclusion ○​ Sample size; the number of participants in a study  ​ More representative sample from whole population with larger sample size Non-experimental Studies (Correlational Research) ​ Some variable cannot be controlled, and random assignment cannot be used for practical or ethical reasons, such as gender, race, or age ○​ Use correlational approach ​ Correlational Study ○​ Researchers observes whether variables go together, normally (correlate with each other) ​ Such associations are called correlations ○​ Correlation- gives the relationship or association between variables ​ Advantage: examines important variables in natural settings ​ Disadvantage: interpretation of cause and effect is ambiguous ​ Positive correlation: one goes up the other goes up; one goes down the other goes down ​ Negative correlation: one goes up while the other goes down ○​ We measure correlations by using the coefficient r ​ -1.0 indicates a negative correlation ​ r = -1.0 ​ 0 indicates no relationship ​ r = 0 ​ +1.0 indicates a positive correlation ​ r = +1.0 ​ A small correlation is r = ± 0.1, medium correlation is r = ±0.3, and a large correlation is r = ± 0.5 ○​ Time-lagged correlations reveal the sequence of events ○​ When two variables are correlated there are three possibilities: ​ X causes Y ​ Y causes X ​ Z causes both Experimental Studies ​ Advantages: random assignment and control ​ Two groups: experimental group and control group ​ Includes independent and dependent variables ​ By using control, the researcher manages confounding variables ​ Random assignment: the process of assigning participants to the conditions of an experiment such that all persons have the same chance of being in a given conditions ○​ Eliminates extraneous factors The Ethics of Experimentation ​ Experiments conducted at universities must first obtain approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) ​ Researchers must provided consent form from participants ○​ Informed consent: participants must be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participant ​ Demand characteristics: cues that convey the hypothesis to participants  ○​ This can cause participants to go along with or oppose the hypothesis ○​ Researchers try to conceal the purpose of the study ​ Deception: Mislead participants ​ Has to be essential or justified ​ Debriefing: giving the participants the full rundown of what the experiment’s purpose was (is done at the end of the experiment) ​ Mundane realism: degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations ​ Experiments realism: degree to which an experiment absorbs and involves its participants 1/23- The Self The Mark Test ​ Great apes were able to recognize that they were staring at themselves in the mirror ○​ Have a sense of self/ self awareness ​ Same experiment with different subjects: put dye on babies to see if they would try to remove it when looking in the mirror ○​ 18-24 m/o were able to recognize it was them in the mirror and tried to remove it Spotlight and Illusions ​ Spotlight effect: the belief that others are paying more attention to one’s appearance and behavior than they really are ○​ Seeing ourselves at center stage ○​ People drastically overestimate how much people are “looking at them” or “noticing” them ​ Illusion of transparency: the illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can easily read by others ○​ People overestimate the extent others can identify their emotions ​ Ex. lying Self-Concept ​ Self-concept: what we know and believe about ourselves ○​ Consists of self schemas ​ Schemas: mental templates by which we organize our world ​ Self-schemas: beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information ○​ Are to self concepts as books are to libraries ○​ Influence how we perceive and remember ourselves and other people ​ Guide how we perceive our social world ​ Social comparison: evaluations of one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others ○​ Happens spontaneously; without effort or intention ○​ Can be based on incomplete info ○​ Can diminish satisfactory ​ Ex. social media only portraying positive moments of people’s lives causing viewers to experience diminished satisfactory ○​ Ex. Boys were more likely to describe their gender when raised in a house with women (vice versa with girls) ○​ Ex. Students who were older than their peers were more likely to mention their age than others  ​ Looking-glass self: out use of how we think or imagine others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves ○​ Ex. 1 group was told they were tidy. 1 group was told they were dirty. 1 group was told nothing. ​ Results: When they were told they were tidy, they behaved in this way. ○​ People tend to live up to the labels you give them ​ Try to be consistent with this identity Self and Culture ​ Individualism: the concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications ​ Independent self: construing one’s identity as an autonomous self – as a unique individual with particular abilities, traits, values, and dreams ○​ Sets them apart from others ○​ Western culture values individualistic and independent ​ The american ideal: be a self made person, works alone to create/accomplish something while overcoming obstacles ​ This creates the unique person they are ○​ Correlates with an independent view of self ​ Focus on being good ​ Collectivism: giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one's identity accordingly ○​ Other cultures (Latin America, Africa, Asia) value fitting in/ being apart of the team ​ Asian culture ideal: doesn’t let ego get in to the way, how much have you brought to the team ○​ Correlates with an interdependent view of the self ​ Focusing on improving and growth ​ Ex. A test was given to American and Chinese students. They were asked to fill in “I am___”. ○​ American students filled in more personal, individualistic words ​ “I am athletic” ○​ Chinese students filled in more community based, interdependent words ​ “I am a daughter” ​ Depending on how your culture’s view of self, can influence how you view several other areas in life ○​ Favoring being independent ○​ Favoring fitting in ○​ Picking between 5 pens (4 green 1 orange) ​ More American students chose the orange pen, aligning with the independent view of self ​ More East Asian students chose the green pen, aligning with their interdependent view of self Independent (Individualistic) Interdependent (Collectivistic) Identity is Personal, defined by individual Social, defined by connections traits and goals with others  What matters Me – personal achievement and We – group goals and solidarity fulfillment; my rights and our social responsibilities and liberties relationships Disapproves of Conformity Egotism Illustrative motto “To thine own self be true” “No one is an island” Cultures that support Individualistic Western Collectivistic Asian and Third World Self-Knowledge ​ People also tend to overestimate things they are highly optimistic about ​ Planning fallacy: the tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task ○​ Ex. Had college students estimate how long a paper would take to complete: one optimistic prediction (everything goes according to plan) and one pessimistic predictions (everything that could go wrong goes wrong) ​ Less than ⅓ finished their paper by their optimistic projections ​ Even with the pessimistic predictions, many did not finish by that deadline ○​ People tend to be overly optimistic about themselves but are very accurate when predicting how long something will take someone else to do ​ Bad at making predictions about themselves ​ Anticipated emotions have a greater effect on our actions than our actual emotions ○​ The anticipation of guilt leads people to behave in a more socially desirable/acceptable way ​ Affective forecasting: predicting how we are going to feel ○​ People are pretty accurate on knowing how they are going to feel in a future situation ○​ Studies of “affective forecasting” reveal people have the greatest difficulty predicting the intensity and the duration of their future emotions ​ Impact bias: overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events ​ People tend to more wrong about the duration than the intensity ​ People tend to focus solely on the singular event, not considering other events that could happen during or around this event that can impact how you feel ​ Dual attitude system: differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habit 1/28- The Self Self-Esteem ​ Self-esteem: a person’s overall self evaluation or sense of self worth ○​ Tells us about a person’s self concept ○​ People are extremely motivated to maintain their self-esteem ​ Sociometer theory: the theory that self-esteem is a gauge that monitors our social interactions and sends us signals as to whether our behaviour is acceptable to others ○​ Increases of self esteem increase social acceptance  ​ Social rejection decreases self-esteem ​ Self-esteem fosters initiative, resilience, and pleasant feelings ○​ However self-esteem does not equal success ​ Ex. People with high self-esteem tend to have higher grades, however this is a correlation not causation ​ Getting good grades can promote high self-esteem ○​ Many violent, destructive people have high self-esteem ​ Narcissism refers to excessive self-love and a selfish orientation ○​ Ex. people who score high on measures on narcissism score high on measures of self-esteem ​ Correlation not causation ○​ Common theory: bullies have low self esteem ​ Tend to actually have high self esteem ○​ In an experiment, those with high levels of self esteem and narcissism were more aggressive than others ​ More likely to lash out when insults are given to them publicly (punctures carefully constructed bubble) ​ Terror management theory: proposes that people exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their morality ○​ People must find ways to manage their overwhelming fear of death ​ Longitudinal study” studies that follow people as they grew older ○​ Example: study showed that teens who had low self-esteem were more likely later to be depressed ​ This showed a correlation between the two, not necessarily a cause and effect ​ Could have a third factor Self-efficacy ​ Self-efficacy: a sense that one is competent and effective – how competent we feel on a task ○​ Leads us to set challenging goals and to persist ○​ Grows w/ hard-won achievements ​ Differences ○​ If you believe you can do something = self efficacy | if you like yourself = self esteem ○​ Self efficacy is related to success, self esteem is not Self-Serving Bias ​ Self-serving bias: the tendency to perceive oneself favorably ○​ Minorities tend to maintain a high self esteem (not significantly lower than men or other non-minorities) ​ Self-serving attributions: a form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors ○​ People are highly likely accept credit when told they have succeeded ​ Success = ability and effort ​ Ex. winning a basketball game ○​ Takes credit for good performance ​ Failure = external factors  ​ Ex. losing a basketball game ○​ Puts blame on factors that are out of their control ○​ People tend to deny having self-serving bias but readily claim others commit it ​ Put themselves on a pedestal ​ People rate themselves higher than others (better than average), and higher than how others rate them ​ Self-serving bias is usually stronger for traits that are more subjective or difficult to measure ​ Ex. Went to prisons and had prisoners rate themselves on skills ○​ Prisoners tend to rate themselves higher on skills such as honesty, kindness, law-abiding citizens, etc. (higher than those outside of prison) Unrealistic Optimism ​ People tend to be more disposed to optimism than pessimism ○​ Pro: Promotes efficacy and well-being ○​ Con: Increases vulnerability ​ Defensive pessimism: the adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to motivate effective action False Consensus and Uniqueness ​ False consensus effect: the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors ○​ When we fail, we overestimate how common it is for others to fail ​ False uniqueness effect: the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors ○​ When we success, we underestimate how common it is for others to succeed Self-Presentation Management ​ Self-serving bias is a prominent factor in self-presentation ​ Self-handicapping: protecting one’s self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure ○​ Two types of self-handicapping: ​ Behavioral handicapping ​ Men tend to use this type more ​ Ex. Using procrastinating as an excuse for poor performance ​ Reported handicapping ○​ Women are more likely to dislike those who use self-handicapping ​ Self-presentation: expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression ○​ Ex. humblebragging ​ Self-monitoring: being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting performance for the desired impression ○​ Those low in self monitoring tend to have fewer but closer friends ○​ Those high in self-monitoring tend to have more, but less close friends 2/4- Social Belief and Judgments Day 1 Priming  ​ Priming: activating particular associations in memory ○​ Can influence: ​ Other thoughts or actions ​ How we interpret and recall events ○​ Much of our social info processing is automatic ​ Human memory = a network ○​ Nodes = concepts ​ Related concepts are linked in memory ​ Embodied cognition: the mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments Experiments ​ Experiment by Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) ○​ Setup: 30 participants with scrambled words ○​ Task: unscramble words, form grammatical sentences with the words, then find the experimenter down the hall to receive second task ​ Experimenter was engaged in a 10 min convo with a confederate (fake participant) explaining task instructions ​ Confederate pretends not to understand task to elongate convo ​ Experimenter does not acknowledge the original participant ​ Dependent variable: Would the participant interrupt the convo or patiently wait? ​ Half of the 30 participants had polite words while the other half had words that correlated with rudeness ​ Do these words prime the participants to behave in a certain way? ​ Control group had neutral words​ ○​ Results: ​ Those who were primed with words relating to politeness behaved politely (waited patiently) ​ Those who were exposed were exposed to neutral terms were split in half (interrupt or waited patiently) ​ Those who were primed with rude words behaved rudely (interrupted) ​ Another Experiment by Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) ○​ Used student participants ○​ Task: Unscramble words either associated with elderly (wrinkly, bingo) or control words, then walk to the elevator ​ Researcher recorded the speed in which it took them to get to the elevator ○​ Results: control group walked quicker than those who were primed with elderly words ​ Reflected the concept they were exposed to ​ Experiment #3 ○​ People were more likely to wobble on a balance beam in a room with posters of beer and vodka as opposed to an apple or orange juice ​ Experiment #4 ○​ Having students think about college professors led to them answering a greater number of questions correctly in a trivia game ​ Experiment #5  ○​ Participants primed with helpfulness picked up more items from the floor to help the experimenter than did control participants ​ Experiment #6 ○​ Showing participants a picture of a library caused them to sneak more softly during the experiment, compared to control participants ​ Experiment #7 ○​ Participants primed with fast animals were considerably faster to pick up a questionnaire in an adjacent room than participants primed with slow animals Intuition ​ Schemas: mental concepts or templates that intuitively guide our perceptions and interpretations ​ Emotional reactions ○​ Often nearly instantaneous ​ Given but a very small exposure to someone – even just a quick glance at their photo – people’s snap judgments do better than chance at guessing whether someone is outgoing or shy, straight, or gay ○​ We remember things such as facts, names, and past experience explicitly using System 2 ○​ We remember things such as skills and conditioned dispositions implicitly using System 1 Overconfidence ​ Overconfidence phenomenon: the tendency to be confident than correct – to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs ​ Incompetence feeds overconfidence ​ Dunning-Kruger effect: ignorance of one’s incompetence ​ 2 ways to reduce overconfidence bias: 1.​ Prompt feedback a.​ Receiving prompt feedback on guesses we make can help us better predict things in the future 2.​ Get people to think of one good reason why their judgments might be wrong a.​ Forces them to consider disconfirming information Confirmation bias ​ A tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions ​ Even when people are exposed to information disconfirming their beliefs, most choose to stick with their original beliefs ​ Ideological echo chamber: people often choose their news sources to align with their beliefs ​ Confirmation bias appear to be a system 1 snap judgment Heuristics: Mental Shortcuts ​ Representativeness heuristics: the tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member ○​ Snap judgments on whether someone or something fits a category ​ May lead to discounting other important information ○​ Example: Kahneman and Tversky (1973) ​ Participants read the following: A panel of psychologists interviewed 70 engineers and 30 lawyers and summarized the impressions in thumbnail  descriptions. The following description was drawn at random from the sample of 70 engineers and 30 lawyers. ​ Read about Jack and determined the likelihood of him being one of the 70 engineers in the sample of 100. ○​ He has geeky hobbies and has no interest in politics ○​ He fits the stereotypical description of an engineer ○​ 75-80% likely was the most common response ​ They then flipped the amount of engineers and lawyers. ○​ The estimates did not differ in these two cases, showing insensitivity to changes in the base rate info ​ Base rate information: info about the frequency of members of different categories ​​ ​ ○​ Results: people relied a lot more on representativeness than base rate info ​ Read about Dick and determine the likelihood of him being one of the 30 engineers in the sample of 100. ○​ He does not fit the stereotype of either one of the careers ​ Non-diagnostic ○​ 50% was the most common response ​ The idea of 50/50 chance since they do not have representativeness heuristic to rely on ○​ Base rate fallacy: the tendency to ignore or underuse base rate information and instead to be influenced by the distinctive features of the case being judged ​ Availability Heuristic: a cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory; if instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace ○​ Quick judgments of likelihood of events (how available in memory) ​ May lead to overweighting vivid instances and this, for example, fearing the wrong things ○​ Example: Which is more common, words that start with the letter r or words that contain r as the third letter? ​ People tend to think that more words begin with r ​ Not correct ​ It’s easier to think of words that start with r ○​ People are slow to understand specific examples from a general truth, but they are remarkably quick to infer general truth from a vivid example ○​ People tend to overestimate the number of dramatic deaths (shootings, fires) and underestimate less dramatic deaths (heart attacks, strokes) ​ People readily recall dramatic events which influences their perception of how likely these events occur ​ Social media plays a role in this ○​ Schwarz tested whether people use the availability heuristics to make judgments about themselves  ​ Four conditions where they had to come up with instances of assertiveness (6 vs 12) ​ At the end, they rated their overall assertiveness ​ Those who had to think of less instances rated themselves more assertive than those who had to think of more instances ○​ Thinking of few instances of an event is easier to do ​ Flipped when discussing unassertive acts Counterfactual Thinking ​ Counterfactual thinking: imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but didn’t ○​ Upward counterfactuals: focusing on how things could have been better ​ Make us feel bad but better prepare us for the future ○​ Doward counterfactuals: focusing on how things could have been worse ​ Make us feel better but don’t orient us to do anything differently for the future Errors and Biases ​ Illusory correlation: perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists ○​ People easily misperceive random events as confirming their beliefs ○​ If we believe that there is a correlation, we are more likely to notice and recall confirming instances ​ “It seems like” ○​ We tend to overestimate the frequency of more vivid and memorable instances or events because they are the ones that are most available to memory ​ This bias stems from the availability heuristic ​ Illusion of Control: the false belief that one can influence certain events, especially random or chance ones ○​ Shown in gambling, lottery ○​ Those who are clinically depressed are quite accurate in knowing how little control they have on what happens to them ​ Gambler’s fallacy: the tendency to believe that a particular chance is affected by previous events and that chance events will “even out” in the short run ○​ This bias stems from the representative heuristic 2/6- Social Beliefs and Judgments Day 2 First Impressions ​ We form initial impression of others based solely on their facial appearance in less than 1/10 of a second ​ Impressions are not always correct ○​ There is evidence that shows people can make accurate judgments simply based on facial appearance ​ Ex. People do better than chance at guessing whether someone is outgoing or shy, Democrat or Republican, etc. Integrating Multiple Factors ​ A few observations can help is form a fuller understanding of a person ​ We use known traits to infer other likely characteristics  ​ People integrate multiple pieces of info to create a meaningful whole ○​ One item may influence the interpretation of others Attribution Causality ​ Attribution theory: the theory of how people explain others’ behavior ○​ Dispositional attribution: attributing behavior to the person’s dispositions and traits ​ Internal attribution ​ Unfavorable reaction ○​ Situational attribution: attribution behavior to the environment ​ Sympathetic reaction ​ Misattribution: mistakenly attributing a behavior to the wrong source ○​ Examples: ​ Among men more than women, eye contact, a complement, a friendly remark, a brush against the arm, and an innocent smile are often interpreted as sexual come-on ​ A speed-dating study showed that while men overperceive sexual interest, women tended to under perceive sexual interest ​ The attribution you make influences reaction ​ Relationship-enhancing style of attribution: tendency of happy couples to attribute their partner’s good acts to internal factors and bad acts to external factors ○​ More common in happy couples ​ Distress-maintaining style of attribution: tendency of unhappy couples to attribute their partner’s good acts to external factors and bad acts to internal factors ○​ More common in less happy couples The Fundamental Attribution Error ​ Fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias): the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon other’s behavior ○​ People attribute another’s person behavior to internal or dispositional causes to a much greater extent than they should ○​ Ex. participants read essay (written by college student) favoring or opposing Castro ​ Written with free choice or as instructed by experimenter ​ Either choose their perspective or were told which perspective to write on ​ Participants had to choose writer’s true opinion ​ Why make the attribution error ○​ Behaviors is more noticeable than situational ○​ People assign insufficient weight to situational causes even when they are made aware of them ○​ It takes considerably less cognitive effort to make internal attributions ​ Perceivers are more likely to commit the FAE when they are cognitively busy or distracted ○​ Most research shows the the FAE is more common in individualist cultures than in collectivist cultures ​ Collectivist cultures tend to place more emphasis on situational explanations of behavior than individualists cultures do  ​ Ex. Participants: Indians living in India and American living in the United States of varying ages ​ Asked to think of various examples of their friends’ behaviors ​ Asked to explain why those behaviors occurred ​ Results: cultural differences increased with age ○​ Children did not have a vast difference with attributions ○​ Americans participants made more personal attributions ○​ While the Indian participants made more situational attributions ​ Ex. People in upper social classes, relative to those less fortunate, have more choices to make, more opportunities, and greater control over their lives ​ People in the upper social class are more likely than those in the lower classes to see behavior in general as caused by internal personal traits Social Beliefs Purpose ​ Can influence the person’s we are judging behavior ​ Self-fulfilling prophecy: a belief that leads to its own fulfillment ○​ Behavioral confirmation: a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people’s social expectations lead them to behave in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations ○​ Ex. college men given a photo of a women with whom they were about to have a phone convo ​ At random, the men were either given a photo that a previous group of raters had judged to be attractive or one that a previous group had rated as unattractive ​ This photo was not the actual woman they were about to speak with ​ Woman was not a confederate ​ Results: the men who thought they were talking to an attractive woman responded to her in a warmer, more sociable manner than the men who thought they were talking with an unattractive woman ​ This influenced how the women behaved ​ The supposedly attractive woman spoke more warmly than the supposedly unattractive woman ○​ Acting in the same manner as the man they were talking to ​ Subsequent studies have found similar results with gender roles reversed 2/11- Behavior & Attitudes (day 1) The Nature and Origin of Attitudes ​ Attitude: a favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward objects people, and events  ○​ People form attitudes by combining positive and negative affective (how we feel), behavioral, and cognitive information about an attitude object ​ Three components of attitudes: ○​ Affective component: people’s emotional reactions toward the attitude object ○​ Behavioral component: how people act toward the attitude object ○​ Cognitive component: the thoughts and beliefs that people form about the attitude object ​ Any given attitude can be based on any one of these components or some combination of them Cognitively Based Attitude ​ An attitude based primarily on people’s beliefs about the properties of an attitude object ○​ Example: an attitude based on the objective merits of a car ​ How many miles per gallon does it get? ​ What are its safety features? Affectively Based Attitudes ​ An attitude based more on people’s feelings than on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object ○​ Example: sometimes we simply like a car, regardless of how many miles per gallon it gets ○​ Example: occasionally we are attracted to something – such as another person – in spite of having negative beliefs about them ​ Example: known the person is a “bad influence” Behaviorally Based Attitudes ​ An attitude based on observations of how one behaves towards an object ○​ Example: you as a friend how much she likes to exercise ​ “Well, I guess I like it, because I always seem to be going for a run or heading over to the gym to work out” ​ Her attitude is based more on an observation of her behavior than on her cognitions or affect Explicit v.s Implicit Attitudes ​ Once an attitude develops, it can exist at two levels ○​ Explicit attitudes: attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report ○​ Implicit attitudes: attitudes that exist outside of conscious awareness ​ Implicit and explicit measures of attitudes measure different aspects of an individual’s overall views of an attitude object Measuring Attitudes ​ Self-report measures are direct and straightforward ​ Attitude scale: a multiple-item questionnaire designed to measure a person’s attitude toward some object ○​ Most popular: the Likert Scale ​ Respondents rate their agreement with statements about ana attitude object on a multiple-point scale ​ Their total attitude score is the sum of these responses ​ Issues: people can be bias ○​ People may be reluctant to admit their unpopular attitudes or prejudices to make a good impression  ○​ Some self-report techniques guarantee anonymity, so participants can be honest because the opinions they express won’t be linked to them ○​ Other techniques increase honesty by convincing participants their psychological reactions are being measured ​ Even when it’s not true ​ Experiment: ○​ Bogus pipeline: a phony lie detector device that is sometimes used to get respondents to give truthful answers to sensitive questions ○​ An elaborate mechanical drive that supposedly records our true feelings physiologically ​ Have them lie first to show the machine “works” ○​ Results: respondents are more honest and less likely to give positively biased answers when they believe deception would be exposed by the bogus pipeline ​ When the bogus pipeline is used: ​ People are more likely to admit to drinking too much, using cocaine, having frequent oral sex, and not exercising enough ​ People express more racial prejudice ​ Adolescents are more likely to admit drinking and smoking ​ The most popular technique to measure implicit attitudes is the Implicit Association Test ○​ IAT: a computer-driven assessment that uses reaction time to measure how quickly people associate concepts ​ Measures people’s automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words ​ Easier pairings (and faster responses) are taken to indicate stronger unconscious associations ​ How it works: ​ Pictures (insects or flowers), Words (+ or -) ​ Categorize a target ​ Press one of two response keys ​ Two categories represented on one key ​ Compare response latencies of different categorizations ○​ If the target is associated with the positive terms, the participant is presumed to have a positive attitude towards the target ○​ If the target is linked more quickly with the negative terms more than the positive ones, then the attitude is identified as negative How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior ​ Experiment ○​ LaPiere (1934) ​ Tools a young Chinese American couple on a three-month, 10,000-mile car trip, visiting 250 restaurants, campgrounds, and hotels across the US ​ Although prejudice against Asians was widespread at the time, the couple was reduced service only once ​ When LaPiere later wrote back asking the places if they would accept Chinese patrons, over 90% of respondents said they would not Specific Attitudes  ​ The more specific the attitude toward the behavior in question, the better that attitude can be expected to predict the behavior ​ LaPiere (1934) asked proprietors about Asians in general but then observed their actions towards only one couple ○​ He should have measured people’s more specific attitudes toward a young, well-dressed Chinese couple accompanied by a White American professor ​ Davisons & Jaccard (1979) ○​ Tried to use attitudes to predict whether women would use birth control pills within the next two years ○​ Attitudes were measured in a series of questions ranging from ​ Very general (“How do you feel about birth control”) ​ Low correlation value ​ Very specific (“How do you feel about using birth control pills during the next two years” ​ High correlation value Theory of Planned Behavior ​ The best-known theory of when and how attitudes predict deliberate behaviors is the theory of planned behavior ​ Theory of planned behavior: the theory that attitudes, social norms, and perceives control combine to influence intentions and thus behavior ○​ Behavioral intention: an individual’s plans to perform the behavior in question Subjective Norms ​ Subjective Norms: perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior ○​ Example: we want to predict whether Mary will attend a violin concert, despite disliking classical music ​ Her best friend is playing and Mary feel her friend would be disappointed if she doesn’t go ​ Known this subjective norm, we can assume Mary will attend the concert Perceived behavioral control: ​ Perceived behavioral control: an individual’s beliefs about whether they can actually perform the behavior in question ○​ If people think it is difficult to perform a behavior, they will not form a strong intention to do so ○​ If people think it is easy to perform the behavior, they are more likely to form a strong intention to do so Actual behavioral control ​ Unforeseen circumstances or lack or ability can prevent us from following through on behavior ○​ Example: a would-be voter w/o transportation cannot act on political attitude ○​ Example: desirable consumer products may be unaffordable Attitude Potency ​ Attitudes precut behavior better when they are: ○​ Brought to ming ○​ Formed through direct personal experience ​ Experiment: Fazio & Zanna (1981)  ○​ Introduced two groups of participants to a set of puzzles ○​ One group worked on sample puzzles; the other group merely watched someone else work on them ○​ All participants were then asked to rate their interest in the puzzles (attitude) and were given an opportunity to spend time on them (behavior) ○​ Attitudes and behaviors were more consistent among participants who had previously sampled the puzzles Chapter 4 (from the book) ​ Attitudes: feelings, often influence by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond favorable or unfavorable to objects, people, and events ​ Study: Allan Wicker ○​ Student attitudes toward cheating bore little relation to the likelihood of their actually cheating ○​ Attitudes toward organized religion were only modestly linked with weekly worship attendance ○​ Self-described racial attitudes provided little clue to behaviors in actual situations ​ Many people say they are upset when someone makes racist remarks; yet when they hear racist language, many respond with indifference ​ Moral hypocrisy: appearing moral while avoiding the costs of being so ○​ Experiment #1: ​ Two tasks: an appealing one with a prize and a dull one with no prize ​ Pick one and assign the other to another person ​ 1 out of 20 believed that assigning the appealing task with the reward to themselves was the more moral thing to do yet 80% did so. ​ Even when told to ransom assign task with a coin flip, more than 85% still gave themselves the better paying assignment – meaning a good number were fibbing about the coin flip’s outcome ○​ Experiment #2: ​ Tim Murphy was publicly anti abortion until an extramarital affair has him asking the woman to get an abortion. ​ IAT assessments results: ○​ Implicit biases are pervasive ​ Ex. 80% of people show more implicit dislike for the elderly compared with the young ○​ People differ in implicit bias ​ Depending on their group memberships, their conscious attitudes, and the bias in their immediate environment, some people exhibit more implicit bias than other ○​ People are often unaware of their implicit biases ​ Despite believing they are not prejudiced, even researchers themselves show implicit biases against some social groups ○​ Many people have an implicit bias favoring their own race even if their explicitly stated attitudes are unprejudiced ​ Dual processing ○​ Confirmed by the existence of distinct explicit and implicit attitudes  ○​ Automatic (effortless, habitual, implicit, system 1) ○​ Controlled (deliberate, conscious, explicit, system 2) ​ When attitudes are specific to the behavior ○​ Experiment: Icek Ajzen and Martin Fishbein (1977, 2005) ​ Claimed that when the measured attitude is a general one and the behavior is a very specific one, we should not expect a close correspondence between words and actions ​ Attitudes did not predict behavior in most studies ​ But attitudes did predict behavior when the measured attitude was specific to the situation ○​ Ex. Attitudes toward the general concept of “health fitness” poorly predict specific exercise and dietary practices. But an individual’s attitudes about the costs and benefits of jogging are a fairly strong predictor of whether he or she jogs regularly ○​ To change habits through persuasion, we must alter people’s attitudes toward specific practices ○​ 2 conditions in which attitudes will predict behavior ​ (1) when we minimize other influences upon our attitude statements and on our behavior ​ (2) when the attitude is specifically relevant to the observed behavior ​ Possibly (3) an attitude predicts behavior better when the attitude is potent ​ When attitudes are potent ○​ Study #1: Mark Synder and William Swann ​ Question: If we are prompted to think about our attitudes before acting, would we be truer to ourselves? ​ Findings: attitudes predicted behavior (verdicts) only for those who were first induced to remember their attitudes – by giving them a “a few minutes to organize your thoughts and view on the affirmative-action issue” ​ Our attitudes become potent if we think about them ○​ Study #2: Edware Diener and Mark Wallbom ​ Noted that most college students say cheating is morally wrong ​ Students were asked to work on a test until the bell went off ○​ 71% cheated; working past the bell ○​ When made self-aware by working in front of a mirror while hearing their own tape-recorded voices– only 7% cheated ​ Mirrors tend to cause people to behave in a way aligned with their moral attitudes ​ Forging strong attitudes through experience ○​ When attitudes are forged by experience, not just hearsay, they are more accessible, more enduring, and more likely to guide actions ​ Role Playing ○​ Role: a set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave ○​ Examples: ​ Stanford prison experiment  ​ Students participated in a week long study; be a part of the introversion week or extraversion week ​ Students were either asked to be as extroverted or as introverted as they can be ​ Results: students in the introversion week felt less connected and happy in the end while those in the extraversion week felt more connected and happy ○​ Moral” when we act out a role, we slightly change our former selves into being more like the role ​ Saying becomes believing ○​ People tend to adjust their messages to their listeners and, having done so, to believe the altered message ​ Evil and Moral Acts ○​ A trifling evil act erodes one’s moral sensitivity, making it easier to perform a worse act ○​ We tend not only to hurt those we dislike but also dislike those we hurt ​ Study for evil acts: ○​ Students we asked to look at one bug in a container then dump it into the coffee grinding machine then press the button on for 3 seconds ​ Those who believed they killed five bugs went to “kill” significantly more bugs during an ensuing 20-second period ​ Study for moral acts: ○​ Kids were left in a room with a robot toy and told not to touch it ​ One group was given a severe threat the other was given a mild threat to persuade them not to play with the toy ​ Weeks later, another researcher did the same thing with the same children without the threats. Those who received the mild threat were more likely not to play with the toy ​ The threat was mild enough to keep them from acting but also mild enough for them to make their own decision ○​ Since they chose earlier not to play with the toy, the children internalized their decision ​ Moral action, especially when chose not coerces, affect moral thinking ​ Theories ○​ Self-presentation theory assumes that for strategic reasons, we express attitudes that make us appear consistent ​ To appear more consistent to others, we may automatically pretend to hold attitudes consistent with our behaviors ○​ Cognitive dissonance theory assumes that to reduce discomfort,we justify our actions to ourselves ​ Assumes we feel tension, or “dissonance,” when two of our thoughts or beliefs (“cognitions”) are inconsistent ​ Study: Festinger 1956  ​ Background: They read about a UFO cult that expected to be saved by flying saucers from a cataclysmic flood anticipated on December 21, 1954. They then joined the cult to observe what happened next ​ When the time approached, the followers quit their jobs and gave up their possessions. When nothing happened, their beliefs did not decrease, but rather increased. They claimed they had been spared due to their faithfulness ​ In modern experiments, people whose confident beliefs are shaken will often respond by seeking to persuade others ○​ “When in doubt, shout” ​ Selective exposure: the tendency to seek info and media that agree with one’s views and to avoid dissonant info ​ People who have strong views on some topic are prone to “identity-protective cognition” ​ On more practical and less values-relevant topics, “accuracy motives” drives us ​ Cognitive dissonance focused on what induces a desire action ​ Big decisions can produce big dissonance when one later ponders the negative aspects of what is chosen and the positive aspects of what was not chosen ​ With simple decision, this deciding-becomes-believing effect can breed overconfidence ○​ “I must be right” ​ Our preference influence our decisions, which then sharpen our preference ​ This choices-influence-preferences effect occurs even after people press a button to choose what they think was a subliminally presented vacation alternative ○​ Example: Rosalia decided to take a trip home if it can be done for an airfare under $500. It can, and she begins to think of additional reasons why she will be glad to see her family. When she goes to buy the tickets, however, she learns there has been a fare increase to $575. No matter; she is still determined to go ​ It rarely occurs to people, “that those additional reasons might never existed had the choice not been made in the first place” ○​ Self-perception theory assumes that our actions are self-revealing: when uncertain about our feelings or beliefs, we look to our behavior, much as anyone else would ​ Studies show people would rather see info that supports their beliefs rather than challenges it ​ Assumes we make similar inference when we observe our own behavior ​ We act in this way so that we can’t easily attribute our behavior to external constraints ​ Facial feedback effect: the tendency of facial expression to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness  ​ Examples: ○​ Paralyzing the frowning muscles with Botox slows activity in people’s emotion-related brain circuits and slows their reading of sadness-or anger-related sentences ​ Botoxing the frowning muscles decreases psychiatric patients’ depressive symptoms ○​ When people are insulted to sit straight and push out their chest, they feel more confident in their written ideas than when sitting slouched forward and with eyes downcast ○​ Even word articulation movements come tinged with emotion. In a series of experiments, both German- and English-speaking people preferred nonsense words and names spoken with inward (swallowing-like) mouth movements ​ For example: “benoka”, rather than outwards (spitting-like) motions, such as “kenoba” ​ Motions trigger emotions ​ Would imitating others’ expressions help us know what they are feeling? ​ Study: Kathering Burns Baughan and John Lanzetta ○​ This study suggests it would ○​ Students were asked to observe someone receiving a supposed electric shock and to make a pained expression whenever the shock came on ​ Results: compared to students who did not grimace, those who did prespired more and had faster heart rates whenever they saw the shock being delivered ​ Enabled them to feel more empathy ​ We naturally and unconsciously mimic others’ emotions ○​ Self-affirmation theory: a theory that (a) people often experience a self image threat after engaging in an undesirable behavior; and (b) they can compensate by affirming another aspect of the self. Threaten people’s self concept in one domain, and they will compensate either by refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domain 2/13- Behavior and Attitudes (day 2) Why does our Behavior Affect our Attitudes ​ Three reasons 1.​ Self-presentation theory 2.​ Cognitive dissonance theory 3.​ Self-perception theory Consistency ​ People are strongly motivated by a desire for cognitive consistency ​ Cognitive consistency: a state of mind in which one’s attitudes and behaviors are compatible with each other ○​ Inconsistency is unpleasant and therefore motivated people to restore consistency ○​ In general, people choose the path of least resistance to restore consistency  ​ Because attitudes are easier to change than behaviors, people often change their attitudes Self -presentation: Impression Management ​ We care about what other people think of us ○​ We have a strong desire to be seen by other people as consistent ​ Self-presentation theory states that, for strategic reasons, we express attitudes to make sus appear consistent ○​ People do not want to be seen by others as a hypocrite Cognitive Dissonance ​ Cognitive dissonance: tension that arise when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions ○​ To reduce this tension, we often adjust our thinking ​ When people realize their attitudes and knowledge of their actions (“cognitions”) are inconsistent, it creates and uncomfortable state of tension (“dissonance”) ​ Study: Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) ○​ Participants completed boring knob turning task ○​ They were then told to tell the next “participant” that the task was actually quite interesting and enjoyable ○​ Participants were paid either $1 or $20 to lie ○​ They later rated how much they enjoyed the boring task ​ Results: ​ Control group (no lie/no dissonance) - admitted they did not like it ​ $20 group (low dissonance) - claimed the task was enjoyable because they had sufficient reason for doing so; $20 ​ $1 group (high dissonance) - claimed the task was enjoyable, even without a sufficient justification. ○​ They adjusted their thinking to saying the the task might’ve been enjoyable ○​ Insufficient justification: reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one’s attitude-discrepant behavior when external justification is “insufficient” ○​ Effort justification: the tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard or suffered to attain ​ Example: ​ Aronson & Mills (1959) ○​ College women volunteered to join a group that would be meeting regularly to discuss sex ○​ Participants were told that they would have to pass an “embarrassment test” before joining the group ○​ The test consisted of reading sexual material aloud in front of the experimenter (a man) ○​ Severe initiation condition: had to recite obscene words ○​ Mild initiation condition: read a list of more ordinary words pertaining to sex ○​ Control group: admitted without an initiation test  ○​ Each participants then listened to a “live discussion: being conducted by the members of the group they would be joining ○​ Discussion was actually a prerecorded tape designed to be as dull as possible ○​ After the discussion was over, they rated how much they like it ​ Results: ​ Control (no initiation): lowest rating ​ Mild inition: lower rating ​ Severe initiation: highest rating ○​ Post-decision dissonance: cognitive dissonance experienced after making a difficult choice, typically reduced by increasing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and decreasing the attractiveness of rejected alternatives ​ ​ Dissonant cognitions – desirable features of what was rejected and undesirable features of what was chosen ​ Study: Brehm (1956) ​ Participants evaluated various consumer products ​ They were offered a difficult choice between two items they found equally attractive to take home as a gift ​ They they reevaluated all the products ​ Ratings increased for the chosen item and decreased for the item that was not chosen Self-Perception ​ Self-perception theory: the theory that when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as would someone observing us– by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs ○​ Especially true when we can’t easily attribute our behavior to external constraints ​ Intrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in a nativity because we enjoy it or find it interesting ○​ Do it for the sake of doing it ​ Extrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures ○​ Doing this to avoid a negative consequence or attain a positive outcome ​ Overjustification effect: the result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing ○​ Study: Lepper and colleagues (1973) ​ Schoolchildren given an opportunity to play with colorful felt-tipped markers ​ They were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions ​ They were simply asked to draw some pictures with the markers ​ They were told that if they used the marker, they would receive a reward ​ They received an unexpected reward when they were done ​ A week later: they put paper and markers on a table ​ Since no rewards were offered on this occasion, the amount of time the children spect with the markers reflected their intrinsic motivation ​ Results: ​ No reward: engaged in the behavior a lot ​ Unexpected reward: engaged the most  ​ Expected rewards: did not engage as much Comparing theories ​ Dissonance theory explains attitude change ​ Self perception theory explains attitude formation