Final Exam Study Notes - Social and Community Psych

**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 -