Psychology 2070A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Demand Characteristics, Stanley Schachter, Doomsday Cult

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2070A/B
• Professor: Kelly Olson

Document Summary

A study by penelope lockwood and zivz kunda was conducted about the effects of information about superstars on other individuals it is a social comparison study. Lockwood and kunda hypothesized that being exposed to information about an extremely successful person would make some participants feel negatively about themselves. This prediction is consistent to the study done by thornton and moore, which showed that participants who sat beside a poster-board displaying photos of attractive people rated themselves more negatively than did participants in control settings. But lockwood and kunda also predicted that some other participants would actually feel better about themselves after exposure to a superstar. Lockwood and kunda suggest that the critical factor is whether or not people think that they themselves have the potential to be very successful. They predicted that students who were still in their first year would be inspired by the stellar student because they still had lots of time to achieve similar success.