PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Positive Illusions, In-Group Favoritism, Affective Forecasting
Document Summary
Biases in perceiving the self: positive illusions. Debate about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Traditionally considered negative-we should have a more accurate self-knowledge. Introspection and self-knowledge: we have insider access to knowledge about ourselves, limits: what if we don"t really know, people usually think they know why they acted the way they did; readily offer explanations, not necessarily accurate, ex. Women all had reasons/justifications: the power-saw study. Watching a documentary with a power-saw being used outside. But people in the loud condition said that it had impacted their enjoyment: guided by plausible causal theories. Factors that are plausible, salient, and easy to articulate: emotion. Need to look to external cues to infer. Males crossing scarier bridge had more arousal and were more likely to call researcher later for a date than those crossing safe bridge: predicting our behaviour. Close family/friend actually more accurate at predicting your behaviour: predicting our emotions.
