Social Psychology Lecture Notes PDF

Lecture 1 Course assessments Midterm 1 (30%) Midterm 2(30%) ○ Midterms will happen during normal class slot ○ Multiple choice and 2 short answer Final(40%) Interaction points (optional)(up to 5%) + 1 % Bonus Assignment...

Lecture 1 Course assessments Midterm 1 (30%) Midterm 2(30%) ○ Midterms will happen during normal class slot ○ Multiple choice and 2 short answer Final(40%) Interaction points (optional)(up to 5%) + 1 % Bonus Assignment ○ Multiple Choice and Short Answer What is Social psychology? The scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual , imagined, or implied presence of others. Gordon Allport (1954) How do we influence other people ○ Compliance But you are free to refuse technique  Do We Need Social Psychology? ○ Social behaviour is very intuitive. We are all intuitive social psychologists. ○ Psychological truths are often counter-intuitive. They defy common sense views and basic intuitions A counter- intuitive Truth: Affective forecasting errors ○ Giving yourself the premonition that if you don't get the outcome you want you'll achieve lower happiness compared to regularly ○ They predict/forecast a feeling will have a major influence over how they feel. Over time these events have far less impact than predicted Getting vs not getting outcomes seem to matter little in the grand scheme of things. If we do not predict correctly on how we will feel it may steer us off our goals. The ultimatum game ○ Accept you get the proposed amount/ Reject both get none  Many Important social behaviours may have hidden causes (or predictors) ○ Disgust Sensitivity The more disgust sensitivity you display the more likely you are to be conservative The more you worry about contamination the more you vote conservative. This is a correlation not a causation Evolutionary Origins of the Social Mind ○ Why? Thoughts Neuro-psysiology Culture/Society Genes ○ Natural selection and evolution (Charles Darwin) Basics Variation Individuals differ in traits E.g Different beaks are best suited for different things  Competition Heredity Genes are passed on from parents to offspring through reproduction Given these three facts, changes in a specials WILL occur over time In the competition to survive and reproduce, individuals with certain heritable traits will have an advantage These individuals will be more likely to pass on these heritable traits to future generations Thus, frequency of traits increases in the next gen Natural selection works not only on the body but also on the mind The brain has evolved adaptations to solve problems that humans have faced over long stretches of time ○ Survival problems (e.g, how to know whether a food item is toxic(disgust)) ○ Social problems (e.g, how to choose mates, maintain relationships, and navigate the social hierarchy) ○ Parental investment Theory The sex making more parental investment will be more sexually selective (e.g, pregnancy in humans) In humans, women will be more selective Mormon Cricket gives up a huge sperm sack to a woman i.e making more of an investment. The male cricket is more selective ○ Why? Altruism  Interpersonal Attraction Aggression Social Conformity Prejudice “Our modern skulls house a stone age mind” John Tooby and Leda Cosmides. ○ The environment we’ve created( internet, social media) is creating a disconnect with our mind People are getting lonelier Research Methods In Social Psychology ○ Operationalization An objective measure of the phenomenon of interest Involves defining a (fuzzy) concept in a way that allows objective, precise measurement ○ Big challenge in psych is trying to measure a phenomena that depends on the assumption you can make a perfect introspective definition that can be measured Major research Approaches ○ Descriptive Trying to absorb as much of the phenomena as possible whilst not trying to measure or relate What is the state of the thing you are trying to understand? What type of people use social media? What do they use it for? How many hours per day? Do they use it even around friends? ○ Correlational Test association between two variables  Correlation does not equal causation More people who buy ice cream the higher the murder rates ○ Causation is spurious at best ○ ○ Experimental  Manipulate one variable (x) to determine its effect on another variable (y) Dependant variable is what you believe to be affected by independent Manipulate Independent variable in a way that proves dependant variable is affected by it Studies are an example with a set of conditions and variables Randomization in participant condition assignments ○ Helps ensure the only thing being manipulated is the independent variable  Lecture 2 sept 11th Self Better than average effect ○ People believe that they are better than average on a variety of traits and abilities “Most people are average but few people believe it” 94% of professors believe that they’re in the top 50% of teaching ○ We seem to hold a false view of our attributes and abilities ○ One of the most replicable effects in self literature Replication in Psychological science ○ Science is self-correcting ○ Replication is key to this self-correcting process Is self enhancement a response to a social threat? ○ We’re vulnerable to all sorts of social threats in our environment In an attempt to solidify ourself we exaggerate Self disclosure ○ The nucleus Accumbens Greater activity in the Nucleus Accumbens when people learn that their online content has many likes (vs few) Activated by primary words when talking about oneself ○ Is self disclosure pleasurable  When revealing facts about oneself(even trivial info) there is greater activity in Nucleus Accumbens than when judging or talking about someone else ○ Mere ownership effect Merely labeling something as yours/attaching a mental label “mine” leads us to show preference to such things You remember more things/more effectively that are attached to your identity(MINE) Self reference effect When viewing something, when you relate it to your self identity it becomes easier to remember ○ Optimism Bias People overestimate the likelihood of positive future events and underestimate the likelihood of negative future events E.g, newly married couples will 100% of the time not believe that they will get divorced even though statistically 47% of people do. E.g, smokers tend to underestimate their odds of lung cancer When valuing oneself we seem to view ourselves in rose coloured lenses/an artificial type of way What is the self? Emotion comes from a judgement of how some event relates to you. ○ Am I making progress towards a goal? Gives joy ○ Did I do something socially threatening? Gives embarrassment ○ If we view emotions to be produced by a sense of self, we can in turn change the way we feel by changing our self Many disorders come from a way we view ourselves. ○ Depression A pattern of thinking called rumination A pattern of repetitive negative thinking of the self The more ruminate the more likely they are to succumb to depression/relapse/make it worse ○ Schizophrenia  The delusion you see in schizophrenia is not random its linked to self E.g, persecution ○ The person thinks people are out for them or the government is listening to them ○ Dissociative States They wake up and forget who they are ○ Capgras Syndrome The belief that a person(often a loved one) has been replaced by an imposter The existence of this syndrome shows that basic recognition surpasses what you see and their behaviours. You mentally attribute each person with a “selfhood” that you've built for them within William James(1842-1910) ○ Two modes of self “I” self (self as a subject of experience) Somebody who is a subject of an experience ○ All mental content feels as they're being experienced by a single person(you as a subject) ○ The subject feels like somebody who can make decisions and think ○ The feeling that there is an experiencer behind the experience( experiencer who is having the experience) ○ A thinker behind the thoughts Two components ○ Body ownership ○ Ownership of conscious will “Me” self (self as an object of an experience) You are not only a subject but you can think about who you are You can make judgements about who you are Two components ○ Self concept  Who you are, what you’ve come from, what you've experienced ○ Self esteem Do people like me? Am I smart enough? ○ Sense of self is subjective Sense of body ownership is able to be swayed( E.g, Rubber hand illusion) Sense of body ownership is a concept made by ourselves ○ People begin to feel that the rubber hand is their own through the mind trying to create a sense of self ○ When the rubber hand is threatened people tend to show a stress response React as if their own body is impacted The boundary of our body and the environment around it is constructed by the mind The capacity to have a sense of body ownership arises from premotor cortex Lesions to the Premotor Cortex have lead to Asomatognosia ○ Women after stroke began to feel like her hand wasn't there at times ○ Ownership of conscious will Is the sense of choice bribing our actions or is the sense of choice a mental byproduct of the mind constructing moment to moment. Do we really choose our choices?  Through EEG signals Libet(1989) learned that a brain signal 500 ms before the intention signaled whether or not the decision was truly intent or the brain doing its own things How do we really know why we did something? Limits of introspection ○ Often mistaken by the true causes of our behaviour and behaviour of others in our environments ○ Introspection is or can be misleading  ○ People picked the right most one of 4 identical stockings 4 times more than the left When asked why? They came up with reasons as to why the one they chose is better People did not recognize the true cause of their decision but instead in introspection created reasons as to why their choice was best ○ Do subliminal Emotional Cues influence our preferences? When a person's behaviour is influenced by very brief exposures to emotional cues Within that 10 ms moment the researchers show a neutral shape or a happy face or an angry one. 10 ms is too fast to react to consciously  The happy face raised liking ratings by almost double the negative How is information about the me-self stored in the brain? ○ Self representation and the medial prefrontal cortex ○ This region contributes to how we think about our tributes and aspects Self-Esteem ○ A sense of self-worth Can be explicit(conscious) or implicit (non-conscious) ○ Self-Esteem is a general emotional judgements we make about our self worth ○ When one develops a sense of learning about themself they also develop self esteem ○ Questionnaires are the best way to measure explicit self esteem Self esteem questionnaires don't truly measure how one feels about themselves as people have a tendency to self boost. Still a bad way of measurement ○ Implicit Association test (IAT) Measures implicit self esteem Reaction type test (as quickly as possible) Associate certain words as self or good /other or bad Assumption is that when shown themselves if you have an easier time putting yourself on one side vs the other it shows how you feel about yourself The performance on the self IAT are correlated weakly to self esteem IAT measures of self esteem are weakly correlated with explicit measures of self esteem( r=.17) IAT measures of self esteem predict people’s responses to task success versus failure For individuals high in implicit self esteem, ratings of task performance were less impacted by task success versus failure (compared to individuals low in implicit self esteem) ○ Different types of high self esteem Secure high self esteem A sense of self worth that is not easily shaken by life's insults and peoples mistreatment Defensive high self esteem Often comes across as proud of themselves/ self admiring but their self esteem is fragile, vulnerable to winds of external circumstances Narcissus(narcissism) One proposal is narcissism is defined by defensive self esteem ○ One hypothesis for what drives narcissism is really just a reaction to what they perceive as a hole in their self worth/inadequacy ○ Contingent self worth People base their self esteem on different life domains Results of class survey 4 categories Academic contingent self worth Daily fluctuations in self esteem, positive affect, and identification with major are tied to academic outcomes (grades received on exams and papers) Such fluctuations are stronger after receiving worse than expected grades( compared to better than expected grades) The size of these fluctuations depends on contingent self-worth (CSW): drops in self-esteem, positive affect, and identification with the major are larger for students who base their self-worth on academic performance Students with high academic CSW had lower self-esteem and positive affect even on baseline days(compared to students with low CSW) Losing the self  Lecture 3 Self Continued Self regulation ○ Self regulation refers to the processes that enable an individual to guide goal directed activities over time across changing circumstances(contexts). Regulation implies modulation of thought, affect,behaviour,or attention via deliberate or automated use of specific mechanisms Modification of our mental processes or behaviours so we can attain certain goals ○ Emotion regulation Cognitive Reappraisal Changing an emotional response by changing how we think about or interpret an event The idea that we can change how we’re feeling by changing how we think about it Same feelings can carry very different emotional impacts depending on the context ○ Such as muscle soreness and fatigue after working out vs just waking up This woman is receiving painful chemo is has worse affects than if we were to reappraise and say this woman is receiving a life saving-treatment EEG: The late positive potential  Cognitive reappraisal of love? ○ Starts with one of the 4 regulation prompts shown ○ Shows when asked to think about the prompt we tend to hold back Should we use reappraisal to cope with romantic breakups? These negative emotions may be valuable for us. They might carry information that we value such as the ability to avoid negative situations again in the next relationships such as abuse. The motive to feel and the motive to know E.g, Wanting to know about an affair even though  Cognitive reappraisal of negative arousal The body reaction associated with terror shares commonalities with positive arousal as well Stress reappraisal ○ Increased arousal felt during testing is not harmful. Instead, stress responses evolved to help us address acute demands and that increased arousal aids performance. ○ Stress can be helpful to promote performance Active control ○ Ignore and try not to experience stress (e.g., “put it out of your mind to remain calm”. Rethinking stress may actually be beneficial But maybe it's the control condition that impairs performance  Social Perception and Cognition Dual process theories in social cognition ○ Automatic Assumed to be triggered unintentionally Low effort/low resource Nonconscious Fast ○ Controlled High effort/high resource Intentional/voluntary Conscious Slow Cortical Blindness ○ Subjective blindness arising from damage to the visual cortex The amygdala ○ Key to fundamental distinction we make all the time ○ Evidence that when it is damaged ○ The brain has someway to process visual information even though there is damage to the visual cortex The brain has specific structures than can perform basic visual analyses on a crude level  ○ Our brains have evolved the ability to understand certain things visually whether its life or death Gaze How does others' gaze affect us? ○ Increased physiological arousal Measured through sweat off fingertips ○ Improved interoceptive accuracy More accurate making judgements of their own bodily states ○ Increased neural responses in face specific measures ○ Improved memory for target individual Non conscious detection of eye contact? ○ Amygdala activation for eye contact even with complete cortical blindness Facial Electromyography(facial EMG) ○ Do we react on a facial level to content under the surface of our awareness or while completely cortical blind Zygomaticus major muscle allows us to smile Corrugator supercilii muscle is for frowning Even when not explicitly smiling or frowning the muscles still react on a small scale that we can measure VN= very negative, MN= mildly negative and vice versa CS distinguishes across the whole chart whilst the ZM is only active in the positive end  Regardless of whether the content is conscious or unconscious the CM always shows a response In contrast the ZM only fires up with positive stimuli What is the purpose of consciousness? ○ Functional explanations ○ Epiphenomenal explanations Consciousness is a byproduct of our brain processes Automatic Social Cognition: use of heuristics ○ Status Quo Bias The idea that people tend to prefer the current state of affairs vs change People tend to stick with the status quo version as they already have funds into it  Yellow places is an opt in donation vs blue is an opt out More people would rather maintain the status quo and not opt out or in but are okay with whatever is already given to them Do people prefer status quo even when: Doing so is clearly worse than the other option There is no loss in switching away from the status quo ○ Would people allow themselves to receive electric shock in order to stick to the status quo? In the forced choice option you are forced to pick which eliminates a “status quo” therefore logically people don't want to be shocked  In the status quo condition 48 percent of people choice to receive a shock just because they wanted to stay in the status quo Even when the status quo is not positive for us we choose to stay within the status quo The anchoring Effect: ○ People tend to overly weigh initial information in subsequent judgements especially when that initial information is not relatable to a later judgement. Depending on which number you see first it can determine what you guess to the question “how many jellybeans are in the jar?” ○ Anchoring effect in the courtroom Can people who have training in the law, have judgements vulnerable to the anchoring effect ○ You give them a pair of rigged dice (they don't know) In one context they produce low value 1-2 In one context they produce high 3-6 ○ You then ask them how much this criminal deserves sentencing wise  ○ The chart shows a high Anchoring effect as people with higher rolls chose longer sentences and people with lower rolls chose shorter sentences ○ Priming Mere exposure of specific content makes relate content more accessible in memory When activating certain events in memory affects subsequent thinking, feeling, or behaviour Affective priming Emotional content may rub off on judgement ○ Availability heuristic We judge an events likelihood by how easily it comes to mind Reason many people believe that dying in a plane crash is a lot worse than a car one is because it gets more media attention You can influence one's judgments by manipulating one's bias by making someone remember something they're easily able to generate. ○ Easier to remember six examples compared to 12 Easier to make it more likely to see yourself in the way the manipulation wants The more people use social media the less well being they report Less positive emotion and less rating of life satisfaction When posting on social media people tend to post their highs in life, almost an artificial cosmetic version of our life. ○ When people view other peoples social media posts and they try to remember how their life is compared the availability  heuristic cannot easily retrieve such experiences, which leads to lower self esteem and life satisfaction Decision Fatigue ○ As people make decisions repeatedly, their thinking becomes increasingly vulnerable to mental shortcuts and heuristics ○ They default to rapid form of thinking (automatic) ○ Medical decisions from doctors are influenced by decision fatigue Are doctors vulnerable to the overprescription of antibiotics? Yes  ○ Post decision dissonance When we have to make a decision between two almost equally valued things, the idea presents that upon making the decision we feel a form of regret or buyers remorse (unpleasant feeling) We then reevaluate our liking to resolve the sense of dissonance( We make ourselves like the item we chose more than the other) Free choice paradigm ○ There is evidence that such changes in preference that we show occurs on an unconscious level  ○ ○ Even though the amnesia patients aren’t able to remember which one they chose(3 or 4) their brain still shows more preference to the picture they picked This shows that the brain is unconsciously altering preferences to resolve uncomfortable feelings How do we explain others' behaviour? ○ Attributions of social behaviour Dispositional attributions Attributions inside a person ○ Something that has to do with oneself(personality, feeling, morals, intent) Situational Attributions Attributions outside a person ○ Something that has to do with outside variable (culture, family)  ○ We tend to underestimate situational bias and underestimate our ability to be influenced Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) ○ A tendency to believe that a behaviour is due to a person's internal disposition rather than the external situation E.g When someone cuts you off while driving you assume that that's their character, they're a jerk or an ass. We fail to think about things like maybe they're late and they simply didn't see you. We assume on a very basic level that they cut us off because of something within them and not anything situational We don't appreciate the true role of situations to someone's behaviour ○ Alex tribeca effect Two people come into a lab to flip a coin to see who's the contestant and who's the questioner. The questioner has to come up with questions and the contestant has to answer them ○ They are then asked to self rate their general knowledge There is an audience who is watching the whole thing(they know it was randomly selected) ○ They are then asked to rate the knowledge level of the questioner and contestant Both the contestant and the audience rated the Questioner as having a higher level of general knowledge ○ What’s happening is that they’re having hard time accounting for the role of the situation in their behaviour (FAE)  Students are assigned an essay on fidel castro. They can pick between Pro-Castro or Anti-Castro Students are then asked to rate each other's essay on their attitude on whether the writer was pro or anti. ○ Students judged that the people who chose pro castro side are more supportive of castro than vice versa When the writers weren’t given a choice and were told which one to write even then the observers judged people who wrote pro essays to be more supportive of castro outside of the essay We have a hard time accounting for the role of the situation. We believe everything people do is from their own volition without accounts for circumstances ○ More recent finding have begun to challenge FAE Studies are questioning what the observer has to base their opinion upon. If the Observers for the Castro essay only know that the students wrote pro or anti essays without knowing anything else about them it would make sense to assume their stance based upon only information available. Self serving attributions ○ When trying to understand the behaviour of people that one loves, a person may make dispositional attributions for good behaviour but situations attribution for bad behaviour When they do something good you say it’s because they're a good person but if they do something bad you'll say the situation made them E.g your wife made u food, you say it's cause she's nice, But then she eats it you say its because shes hungry This applies to oneself as well ○ Called selective attribution bias Interpersonal Attraction ○ Why people are attracted to each other Romantically Platonically  Russell Bertrand ○ This passage is a profound reflection by the philosopher Bertrand Russell on the three guiding forces of his life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the pity for human suffering. These three passions have shaped his experiences and directed his life, despite the turmoil and anguish they sometimes brought him. 1. **Longing for Love**: Russell speaks of love as a source of ecstasy, a transcendent experience that brings immense joy, even to the point where he would give up everything for a brief moment of it. Love, for him, also provides relief from the deep loneliness that comes with being human—a sense of isolation in the vast, cold universe. Finally, love symbolizes a glimpse of something divine or heavenly, a mystical union that echoes the visions of saints and poets. 2. **Search for Knowledge**: While not explicitly expanded on in this passage, Russell's life was dominated by his intellectual pursuits. The quest for understanding and truth would have been as central to him as love, as it fed his need to comprehend the mysteries of existence and human experience. 3. **Unbearable Pity for Suffering**: Russell’s compassion for the suffering of humanity is another key driver. His empathy for others’ pain made him sensitive to the injustices and tragedies that afflict people, adding to his personal anguish and perhaps motivating his desire for a more just, compassionate world. Russell likens these passions to powerful winds, pulling him in different directions across the "ocean of anguish." The journey, though turbulent, reveals his deep humanity, desire for connection, knowledge, and compassion for the world’s suffering. In this reflection, Russell encapsulates the complexity of the human condition—torn between the quest for joy, meaning, and the confrontation with life’s inevitable pain and isolation.  Evolution of sex and attraction ○ Olivia Judson In this passage, Olivia Judson explores the centrality of sex in the natural world and how its various forms contribute to the beauty and diversity of life. She suggests that if it weren’t for the biological drive to reproduce, many of the vibrant displays and behaviors seen in nature would not exist. 1. **Sex and Beauty in Nature**: Judson highlights that sex is behind much of the beauty and flamboyance we observe in nature. The blooming of flowers, birdsong, antlers on deer, and even the racing heartbeat are all connected to reproductive strategies. These traits evolved to attract mates, and thus, reproduction has shaped the aesthetic and behavioral wonders of the natural world. 2. **Diverse Definitions of Sex**: By describing various reproductive strategies across different species, Judson illustrates that "sex" takes on many forms in nature. What humans commonly think of as sex—copulation—is just one method among many. Frogs and fish engage in external fertilization through spawning, while creatures like scorpions and millipedes use sperm packets. Sea urchins release their eggs and sperm into the water, hoping they will meet by chance, and flowering plants rely on external agents like wind or insects to facilitate reproduction. 3. **Evolutionary Force**: Ultimately, Judson emphasizes that the need to find and seduce a mate is one of the most powerful drivers in evolution. The diversity in reproductive strategies underscores how critical sex is to survival and how it shapes the development of species over time. Traits that help individuals attract mates or ensure reproductive success become amplified through natural selection. This passage reveals that sex is not just a biological process but also a fundamental force that drives the evolution of life’s most beautiful and extravagant traits. Through these varied reproductive  strategies, life in all its forms has found remarkable ways to propagate itself across the vast spectrum of nature. ○ Power of attraction in our lives Attraction Process in which people draw others romantically in their lives Once you've attracted someone and engages in a mating ritual you sometimes attach Attachment Forming emotional bonds, living together, get married, become a couple Maintenance How is everything protected, persevered, secured, defend against threats ○ Attractiveness expanded What makes a face attractive? Plays an important role in selecting a partner The “What is beautiful is good” stereotype People tend to believe that physical beauty is associated with positive psychological characteristics Some evidence leads to belief that physical attractiveness leads to social competence “Attractive is Only Average” Average of individual faces is the mathematical average ○  ○ Exaggerated as in any features 1 has that 2 doesn’t is exaggerated (high cheekbones, etc) The “Mere exposure” effect As stimulus expose increases you end up liking the thing more and more ○ When presented non consciously it tends to amplify the mere exposure effect than consciously When presented with something consciously there is a chance to deliberately counteract the exposure effect In a way non conscious processing tends to be more rapid ○ The Late Positive Potential (LPP)  The **Late Positive Potential (LPP)** is a specific brain wave pattern observed in electroencephalography (EEG) studies. It is a component of the event-related potential (ERP), which measures brain responses to specific stimuli. The LPP occurs as a positive deflection in EEG signals, usually around 300-600 milliseconds after the presentation of an emotional or significant stimulus, and can persist for longer depending on the stimulus and context. ○ Key Characteristics of LPP: 1. Time of Appearance: The LPP occurs later than early sensory processing components, such as the P300, emerging between 300 and 600 milliseconds after the stimulus is presented. 2. Emotional Processing: The LPP is particularly sensitive to emotionally charged stimuli, such as images or sounds that evoke strong emotional reactions (e.g., fear, joy, or disgust). It reflects the brain's heightened attentional focus on these stimuli. 3. Increased Amplitude for Emotional Stimuli: The LPP tends to show a larger amplitude in response to emotionally salient stimuli compared to neutral stimuli. The stronger or more relevant the emotional content, the greater the LPP amplitude. 4. Topography: The LPP is typically maximal over the central and parietal regions of the brain but can also extend across other areas depending on the task and emotional content. ○ Function and Implications: Attention and Emotion: The LPP is associated with the brain's allocation of attentional resources toward emotionally significant information. It helps researchers understand how emotions influence attention and memory processes.  Emotional Disorders: In clinical research, the LPP is used to study emotional processing in individuals with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other disorders. These conditions often show abnormal LPP responses to certain stimuli, revealing disruptions in emotional regulation. Cognitive Control: The LPP can also indicate cognitive control over emotional reactions, as its amplitude can be modulated by tasks that require participants to regulate their emotional responses (e.g., reappraisal or suppression). ○ In summary, the LPP is a brainwave that reflects how strongly an individual responds to emotional stimuli, making it a useful tool in understanding emotional and attentional processes. Does the LPP react to more exposure of a face? ○  ○ Social Influence ○ Social Influence changes an individual's belief about what other people think ○ Social influence alters individuals’ responses in a variety of domains ○ In this study they asked students what they would rate the person on the photo But before they show it they would say if their peers gave a low or high rating with 1 trial they said nothing The photos of the low peer rating and the photo of the high peer rating were previously rated to be about the same conventional rating but when told  what their peers rated them you see more people become influenced to rate amongst peers ○ Attachment expanded Secure attachment style: Characterized by trust, a lack of concern over being abandoned and the view that one is worthy and well liked Anxious attachment style: Characterized by a concern that others will not reciprocate one’s desire for intimacy, resulting in higher than average levels of anxiety Anxious/ambivalent individuals show higher levels of obsessive preoccupation, sexual attraction, desire for union, desire for reciprocation, and belief in love at first sight compared to avoidant and secure individuals, who do not differ significantly from each other in these areas. Avoidant attachment style: Characterized by a suppression of attachment needs Avoidant individuals are the least accepting of others, differing from both anxious/ambivalent and secure individuals. All three groups (anxious/ambivalent, avoidant, and secure) show distinct differences in emotional extremes and jealousy.  Relationships with parents serve to establish a mental model in which you expect the world will treat you that way as you get older If parenting was inconsistent you'd believe that you cannot rely on the world or other people (anxious attachment) ○ Individuals with Secure attachment styles tend to remember their parents in more positive terms and vice versa for anxious ○ Longitudinal data speaks against memory bias explanation  Changes over time independently tend to tell you whether someone will develop secure vs insecure attachment over life Weak correlation and is not set in stone ○ Love in the Brain Of 4500+ mammals, less than 5% are “monogamous” One thesis Monogamy in humans evolved as a way to increase the likelihood our offspring will survive and reach reproductive age Babies have big heads and require more investment therefore need both parents in life and for that reason evolution has develop pair bonding monogamy Passion Sexual Excitement ○ Honeymoon phase, full of energy, craving and longing for persons company Intimacy Emotional Warmth ○ Warm being in that persons company Commitment Caregiving and trust Those three across different studies have emerged as important to relationship satisfaction They are loosely connected but can also be disconnected (you can have passion without commitment) ○ They may change as time goes on (passion may wane but the other 2 are still there) Why do some animals form pair-bonds Prairie voles ○ Monogamous Once their partner dies they don’t take on another Montane/meadow voles ○ Polygamous  Have sex and move on Both are quite similar in ways of life except for that one component ○ After mating prairie voles show preference in staying with partner whereas montane go towards neutral Neurobiology of pair bonding Dopamine ○ Complex neuro transmitter Very important for motivation Fuels our ability to want ○ Starts in ventral tegmental area and projected into various parts of the brain such as nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex The researchers, James G. Pfaus and Anthony G. Phillips, conducted experiments to examine how dopamine receptor antagonists affect these behaviors. Key Points: 1. Experiment 1: ○ Systemic administration of dopamine receptor antagonists (haloperidol, pimozide, and the D1 antagonist SCH 23390) reduced anticipatory behaviors, including lowering the number of anticipatory level changes (LC) and affecting sexual performance measures such as increased mount latencies (ML) and intromission latencies (IL), and decreased the number of intromissions and ejaculations.  ○ Drugs like clozapine and the D2 antagonist sulpiride had different effects, increasing IL and LC but not affecting ML or ejaculation. 2. Experiment 2: ○ Bilateral infusions of haloperidol into the nucleus accumbens reduced anticipatory behaviors (LC) but did not affect consummatory measures of sexual performance (e.g., number of ejaculations). ○ Infusions into the dorsal striatum increased ejaculatory measures (NE), while infusions into the medial preoptic area (MPOA) replicated many systemic effects (e.g., reduced LC, increased ML and IL). Conclusion: The study demonstrates that both anticipatory and consummatory aspects of sexual behavior in male rats are influenced by dopamine receptor activity. Dopamine in the nucleus accumbens plays a role in controlling anticipatory behavior, while the MPOA may influence the initiation and rate of copulation. Neuropeptides: Vasopressin and Oxytocin ○ Neuropeptides are molecules that can act as neurotransmitters in brain or hormones in the body Seem to be critical for attachment ○ Commonalitys seem to involve the social analysis and significance aspects in our brain Some evidence shows that when some animals are deficient in such neuropeptides they have trouble identifying others Key for social identification ○ Vasopressin Injecting vasopressin accelerates pair bonding in male prairie voles Injecting vasopressin antagonist (blocker) reduces pair bonding in male prairie voles  ○ Oxytocin Injecting oxytocin accelerates pair bonding in female prairie voles Injecting oxytocin antagonist reduces pair bonding in female prairie voles ○ In prairie voles they have a much greater density of oxytocin/vasopressin receptors in dopamine(“wanting” reward) pathways The neuropeptides are in high contact with dopamine ○ The montane voles have a lower density They are further apart and aren't in communication with dopamine What is love? ○ Pair bonding results from the interaction between brain circuits that generate desire and those that enable individual identification ○ ○ Maintenance Expanded How do people remain committed when faced with temptations? The role of jealousy ○ So much of the violence we see in the world seems to be attributable to jealousy  ○ One argument is that jealousy is evolutions answer to helping us maintain romantic relationships When people are jealous they are motivated to participate in relationship guarding procedures Sex differences in jealousy? ○ Key problem that males face is paternal questions Key problem that females face is losing the resources of the partner ○ 30 year debate The sex difference is stronger when using forced choice questions than continuous ratings When you ask someone to report in a continuous metric such as 1-9 the sex difference disappear University aged samples tend to show stronger effects than older samples Heterosexual couples tend to show stronger effects than homosexual couples How do people remain committed when faced with temptations? Devaluation of romantic alternatives ○ When romantically attached to somebody our minds and brains automatically turns down the value that we assign to  other romantic partners/ suppresses attraction on a nonconscious level ○ This seems to occur in not only ratings but in terms of where our attention goes Those in relationships do not show the same level of attentional capture by attractive alternatives than those who are single