PSY 124 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Social Psychology, Memory, Daryl Dixon
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PSY 124
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
PSY124
Social Psychology
September 6, 2017
Kassin, Fein, Markus, Burke, Social Psychology, 2nd Canadian Edition.
• Study of idividuals’ thoughts, feeligs, actios i eviroets o average
• Approach is often empirical and experimental
Nudge squad
• More military saving for retirement
• Veterans taking advantage of benefits
• Small farms gaining access to credit
• Ways to encourage sun-safety behaviour
• Reducing counterfeiting
Themes in Social Psychology
• Studies are unnecessary and obvious
• Intuitions may be powerful or perilous
History of Social Psychology
• Aristotle questioning beauty in the eye of the beholder
• First experiment in 1900s: cyclists race faster in the presence of others
• First textbook by Allport 1924 stressed interactions between individuals and social context
• Focusing on Hitler and WWII
Replication Crisis
• Daryl Bem experimental evidence for influences on cognition and affect
• Concerns: garden of forking paths
• Open science collaboration: 36/100 studies replicated
• Revisiting established effects, new methods and statistics to increase replicability
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
PSY124
Social Psychology
September 13, 2017
Chapter 3: The Self
• Examining cost effectiveness of nudges (Benartzi et al, 2017)
• Taking pictures on phone does not reduce memory for actual events but shifts memory to focus on visual things
Self-Concept
• Humans recognize existence of self (hard to assess with other species)
o Weaes = isolated hoses ith eid usle goth, fatigue, eight loss solutio = ios
o Birds try to mate with mirrors
• Tested with putting dot of paint on face and exposing animal to mirrors
• Some primates (bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, dolphins, orcas, Asian elephants, magpies)
Ways to Know Ourselves
• Introspection – predicting future feelings affetie foeastig
o We are pretty bad at understanding reasons for our own behaviours
o Inaccurate due to impact bias overstimulating strength/duration of responses) & underestimating influence of other things
• Perceptions of our own behaviours – watching behaviours & inferring internal states
o Self-perception theory (Daryl Bem 1972): only if reason for behaviour can be attributed to personality traits with weak opinions
o Only for traits/states unsure of (Chaiken & Baldwin 1981 recycling questionnaire: ambiguous people consistent with questions)
o Intrinsic vs extrinsic = overjustification effect: receiving extrinsic rewards can attribute rationale for activity to reward
• Comparing ourselves to other people – social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954)
o Other people help us to define ourselves & we tend to describe ourselves in ways that distinguish us from one another
o We are particularly likely to compare ourselves to others when unsure or ambiguous about ourselves or performance
o Two-factor theory of emotion: observing people around us to determine our own emotions when we are uncertain of ourselves
o We tend to think/describe ourselves in ways that separate us from other people
• Autobiographical memories – drawing from memory/older experiences
o We do’t eee all eets euall o ojetiel
o We remember recent (recency effect), first/surprising, positive events more easily
o We remember things in a way that makes us seem more positive
Self-Esteem
• Trait & state elements to high/low self-esteem – people fluctuate in response to feedback and are highly responsive to praise/criticism
• Stable over lifetime (peaks at age 50 then declines), no gender differences
• Higher SE associated with: higher life satisfaction, lower depression/anxiety, higher self-efficacy, more confidence in being liked by others
• Objective differences (mixed) – little evidence that high self-esteem causes better outcomes & more evidence that SE = consequence
• Some minority groups score higher on average
• We do’t thik aout ouseles that uh ut he e do it teds to e egatie – not always possible to fix easily
o Solutions: fi hat e’e feelig ad aout o stop thikig aout it/distat ouseles!
What Determines Self-Esteem?
• Actual self: representation of traits/attributes you believe you possess
o Observant, patient, understanding
• Ought self: traits that would help you meet duties and responsibilities
o Trustworthy, responsible, punctual
• Idea self: traits that would help you meet your hopes, wishes, and dreams
o Courageous, passionate, motivated
Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987)
• More discrepancy between actual & others = low self-esteem
o Actual vs. ought: guilt, shame (not meeting responsibilities)
o Actual vs. ideal: disappointment, frustration, sadness
Self-Presentation
• Enhancing the self to oneself/others
Favourable Self-Views – self-serving bias & self-focused thinking
• Above average effect: people see themselves as better than average on most positive dimensions & personal values
• Dunning-Kruger effect: everyone tends to overestimate their own abilities especially with lowest scores
• Over-emphasize own skills in estimating percentiles
o Eas tasks: I’ pett good, so I ust e aoe aeage / Diffiult tasks: I’ lous, so I ust e elo aeage
• We use a heuristic – replace a tough question with an easier question to answer
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
