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Psych 360 Exam 1
2 levels of research |
1. conceptual level - ideas
2. operational level - how we define and measure those ideas |
Terror Management Theory |
-awareness of our own death is the ultimate source of terror and this is the reason we have created religions, beliefs, etc. to comfort us about death
-people are less tolerant to threats about their beliefs when mortality is made salient (noticeable/important/aware of) |
Idealized Research Process |
1. Theory
2. Hypothesis (operational definition)
3. Test hypothesis
4. Reject theory, support theory, retest with new operational definition |
Observational Method of Obtaining Data |
-scientist merely observes variables rather than controlling them
-can only establish correlation, not causation |
Experimental Method of Obtaining Data |
-can more confidently prove causation
- needs 3 things:
1) Manipulate independent variable (cause) and measure dependent variable (outcome)
2) Random Assignment
3) Control extraneous variables (any other variable other than the ID that might be causing outcome) by using constants or systematically varying |
Experimenter Bias |
experimenter unintentionally influences outcome |
Subject Bias |
1. good subject - tries to figure out hypothesis and behaves to confirm it
2. negative subject - tries to figure out the hypothesis and does the opposite behaviors
3. faithful subject - behaves naturally
4. apprehensive subject - knows they're being observed and it makes them anxious, which might make them behave differently |
Informed Consent |
participant has to know what they'll be asked to do, but does not have to know the hypothesis |
Debriefing |
at the end of the study, explaining everything to the patients |
International Review Board (IRB) |
introduced around the 1970's in an effort to minimize atrocities in psychological research; they perform a cost-benefit analysis |
Bottom-Up (data driven) Processing |
processing things as they actually are; accurate interpreting |
Top-Down (theory driven) Processing |
processing the world by filtering it through our beliefs and experiences; 2 different people could see the same event and come away with different ideas of what happened |
Schemas |
-collection of thoughts, feelings, beliefs that we have about an experience or event; expectations
-types:
1) person (or group; i.e. stereotyping)
2) self
3) role
4) event |
Schemas influence memory of information |
-Cohen, 1981
-knowing the woman was either a waitress or librarian caused people to only recall information that was consistent with their expectations for each
-people who were told her job before the movie had better recall of inconsistent things than the people who were told her job after the movie
-we pay attention to things which are inconsistent with our beliefs and explain them away rather than change our belief |
Schemas influence interpretation of information |
-Duncan, 1976
-people tended to think the same push was more violent when the perpetrator was black than when he was white |
Schemas elicit schema-consistent behavior |
-Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977)
-men were nicer when talking on the phone with a woman they thought was attractive than when they thought she was unattractive, and women ended up coming across the way the men predicted due to how they treated the women.
-self-fulfilling prophecy |
How are schemas activated? |
-environment, context
-categorization
-priming (activated by previous information processing that we might not be aware of) |
priming study |
-Bargh & Pietromonaco, 1982
-students were primed with quick-flashes of either violent or non-violent words and then told a neutral story about Donald
-students who were primed with hostile words described Donald as more hostile than the students who were not |
Benefit of top-down processing? |
Helps us to not need to constantly attend to everything - helps us function and block things out |
bottom-up processing study |
-Neuberg & Fiske, 1987
-outcome-dependent students spent more time reading about Frank than did the students whose success was not dependent on Frank
-we attend more to people who matter to us or affect us |
internal or dispositional attribution |
something about the traits of a person (ex: tripping because someone is clumsy) |
external or environmental attribution |
something outside of the person and situational (ex: tripping because someone stepped on a stick) |
social desirability |
- |
noncommon effects |
-if you are able to observe all possible behaviors people act in a certain situation and an option sticks out from the rest - is noncommon - then you can infer something about the person based off their decision. But if the options were all the same, you could not infer anything |
Covariation Theory |
-Kelly, 1967
-3 attributions:
a) reflects a disposition of the actor (Bob is hitting on Lacey)
b) was elicited by a characteristic or stimulus (Lacey is irresistible)
c) was a function of the situation (Bob is drunk)
-3 sources of information:
a) consensus: how do other people react to the stimulus?
b) consistency: how does actor react to stimulus in other situations?
c) distinctiveness: how does actor react to similar stimuli?
|
Two-Step Model of Attribution |
-Gilbert
-1st step: we see someone do something or we notice something and then automatically make internal attributions
-2nd step: we take other information into consideration if we're motivated and able, and maybe revise initial inference
-our gut instinct is typically that people do things because of how they are |
cognitive load |
can we make you do other things enough that it makes you stop thinking about something else |
Fundamental Attribution Error |
when we observe other people, we tend to ignore the situation and make dispositional inferences
-Jones & Harris, 1967: pro-Castro vs. anti-Castro essays |
Actor-Observer Effect |
fundamental attribution error tendency is stronger when making inferences about other people than it is for ourselves
-for the actor, the situation is more salient. but for the observer/audience, the actor is more salient |
salience experiment |
-studied the role of salience in attribution
1 5 3
A B
2 6 4
-1&2 thought B controlled the conversation
-3&4 thought A controlled the conversation
-5&6 thought they controlled the conversation equally |
Self-Serving Bias |
our needs/desires are influencing our inferences in our favor
-we take credit for success and deny blame for failure
-stems from our desire to maintain a positive sense of self |
severity bias |
we make judgements of responsibility based on the severity of the outcome
-Walster, 1966
-the more severe the outcome, the more we tend to blame |
Central Self-Representations |
beliefs that are always there and are integral to the person (dad, scientist) |
Peripheral Self-Representations |
sometimes there, but not always; tend to depend on the situation (used to play soccer, so would only become important if they are going to play a soccer game, but he wouldn't introduce himself as a soccer player) |
Time Reference in Self-Representations |
"who I think I was"
"who I think I am"
"who I think I will be" |
Actualized Self-Representation |
"who I think I ought to be" vs. "who I think I actually am"
-Oyserman & Markus, 1990
-non-juvenile kids could clearly describe both who they feared becoming and who they want to become, but juveniles could only describe the person they feared becoming |
Valence in self-representation |
good vs. bad aspects |
sources of self-representation |
1. roles: having a certain role could make someone behave in a certain way, which becomes how we define ourselves
2. group membership: stereotypes of what our groups are like - "self-stereotyping
3. Self-Perception Theory
4. social comparison: we have a desire to understand ourselves but when we don't have objective standards to look at, we compare ourselves to other to figure out who we are; Festinger, 1954 - he suggests that we compare ourselves to people who are 'worse' than us to make ourselves seem 'better' |
Self-Perception Theory |
we observe ourselves and make inferences based on context/situation
-ex: "I did what I was told = I'm a compliant person" |
Motivations in self-knowledge |
1. Assessment/accuracy: comparing ourselves with similar others and objective standards; when we want to truly know ourselves, the good and the bad
2. Enhancement: desire not to see ourselves as we actually are, but more positively
3. Verification: we want to confirm what we already think we are; only accept information that is consistent with our idea of ourselves; Swann, Stein-Scroussi, and Giesler, 1992: participants preferred partner who saw them the same way they saw themselves (sociable or unsociable)
4. Improvement: we want to improve who we are |
downward social comparison |
Enhancement
selectively seek situations where you know you will succeed |
re-interpreting information |
Enhancement
self-serving bias |
self-handicapping |
Enhancement
setting yourself up for failure so you have an excuse to keep seeing yourself positively |
BIRGING (basking in reflected glory) |
Enhancement
associating yourself with the success of others
-Cladini et. al, 1976: students were more likely to wear school colors after a win than after a loss |
self-concept |
a shifting array of chronically accessible self-aspects linked with more ephemeral self-aspects |
what affects whether a self-definition is activated/accessible? |
1) centrality: some aspects are more central to us than others
2) social context: room of men + women activates gender considerations |
awareness of activated/accessible self-definitions |
we can have self-definitions that we are not aware of; are activated subconsciously |
Self-Awareness Theory |
self aware --> compare to standard --> fall short --> painful emotions --> change self or avoid self-awareness
-when we focus internally (rather than externally), we are self-aware and compare ourselves to relative standards
-Beaman, Kentz, Piener, and Svanum, 1979: kids were less likely to take more candy when there was a mirror |
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model of Social Behavior |
-Tesser, 1988; consequences of upward social comparison
1) Reflection vs. comparison process
2) relevance determines reflection vs. comparison
3) closeness of other determines the strength of the reaction
4) how self reacts to the threat of comparison process:
a. re-evaluating the relevance of the dimension
b. distancing self from other
c. sabotage other's behavior |
the self is the same, culture changes its expression |
Sedikides, Gaertner, and Taguchi, 2003 |