Chapter 1 The value of being able to infer other s traits and states to predict their behavior o Prediction our brains have evolved to make predictions about the environment and one of the most important features of our environment is other people o Social Brain Hypothesis what is this person like how will they respond it is incredibly adaptively quickly infer states and traits Studies of thin slices of personality perception o We re pretty good personality detectors most of the time o Study Ambady and Rosenthal videotaped 13 college professors teaching Showed a sample of students a second no volume clip of each other Compared ratings from 30 second thin slices with end of semester ratings from students in the course Found strong significant correlations for 9 or 15 traits and an overall correlation of r 76 quote strong People just get a sense of how somebody is Biases in impression formation o The Halo effect or the Lucifer effect The tendency to assume predominantly positive or negative traits based on perceiving one or two positive or negative traits If you hear something good about someone you think they are all good and vice versa o Stereotyping and Illusory Correlations The tendency to assume and perceive personality traits in an individual based on their social group membership s And then to pay greater attention to info that confirms the stereotype o Negativity Bias Extra sensitive about negative things The tendency for impression formation to be more heavily influenced by negative trait information than positive trait information It s easy to lose your halo but hard to lose your horns o Dispositional Bias aka Fundamental Attribution Error The tendency to ignore situational determinants of others behaviors and attributing their actions to their character We know we are good people who sometimes do bad things but other people are always bad Ex They ran the light because they are inconsiderate not because their child in the back seat distracted them o Na ve Realism The tendency to think we ourselves are bias free objective Ex washing your hands has been shown to cause famous study Harsher moral judgments of others less guilt after lying and lower volunteering rates Because we unconsciously feel clean pure and thus free to judge The Science Game o Two non scientific ways of knowing Experience Learning Empirical Evidence and testing an observation or measurement that contributes to either verifying or falsifying a claim and that is independent of the observer objective everyone has access to it and nobody is special o People with an extra sense and can see a person has a green aura is not credible and they have no empirical evidence Chapter 2 Evolution 101 o Principles of Variation Different species AND organisms within the same species show variation in their traits the same Variety is the rule Variety is necessary so every organism is not It s nature s protection against environmental change and an unknown future Variability and individual differences are the rule Ex British vs Dutch Great Tit Global Warming Importantly evolutionary processes have no foresight We re not evolving toward any end goal No perfect humans Species change when environments changes Since we don t know what traits we will need best to keep a variety around o Ex pushiness or Assertiveness in US vs Bulgaria In humans some mechanisms seem to ensure variability o Ex the Sweaty T shirt Study men sleep in a t shirt women smell it and decide who they are attracted to Somehow they select people the opposite from them this being because it will give their children the best of both worlds with variety Inheritance Adaptation Traits are heritable passed from one generation to the next Some traits enable individuals to be better adapted to the selective pressures of their environments A k a to have increased fitness The ability to survive and reproduce viable offspring o Principles of Inheritance and Adaptation o Pressures of Natural Selection think survival Darwin s finches Humans appetite is imbalanced evolved to over eat as opposed to under eating o Pressures of Sexual Selection Many organisms compete for reproductive opportunities 80 of human females but only 40 of males historically have reproduced this shows that all people don t reproduce and all traits don t get selected Some traits become exaggerated via being sexually selected Peacock tail inter sexual competition costly display if I can show you I went through hard ships of having this tail and I am still living I must be a good mate Giraffe neck intra sexual competition Creativity Humor o Our traits are largely evolved for fitness in an outdated Environment of Evolutionary EEA spiders are part of our EEA Evolution is extremely slow Hasn t existed for 10 000 years end of the ice age Complex traits requires 1 000 10 000 generations to evolve We re living in a model world with stone age minds o To meet the Ultimate goals of evolution organisms must contend with a number of proximate goals day to day Ultimate survival and reproduction Proximate not starving attracting a mate building alliances etc Trade offs in achieving Proximate goals o Parenting communal vs nuclear o Mate retention high jealous vs low jealousy o Mate acquisition the Vineyard Analogy monogamy v promiscuity Produce a lot and hope some work out or have a few and raise them extremely well quality vs quality o Status esteem prestige motives dominance motives o Affiliation fear of strangers o Self protection fear of strangers strong alliances strong extraversion o Immediate physiological needs morning v night person The environmental problem task the adaptive solution s the psychological or physiological traits s supporting that solution Chapter 3 Cooper and Zubek s 1958 Maze bright vs Maze dull rat study and Interactionalism o What happens when we raise them in different environments o New experiment manipulate the environment Normal environments had soft bedding enclosed spaces moderate Restrictive environments Enriched environments had just a food box and a water pan had lots of toys ramps slides tunnels highly stimulation stimulating o They thought environment would matter only a little but actually the environment actually trumped the rats o Advantage of bright rates wiped out when raised impoverished o Disadvantage of dull rates overcome when raised enriched o Evolution and DNA are just the first draft the blue print o In other words it s not nature OR nurture its Interactionism from
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