January 28, 2015

Psychology is Theory based

Research is developed around theoretical predictions (Why it/What will happen?)
Theory Definition:
o Theory:
Why something happens
o Phenomenon:
Shows a difference or correlation between two effects
Example: Suppose 2 groups write for 20 minutes a day for 3 days. One group is the control
group, who writes about anything, and the experimental group wrote about a trauma in their
life. Those who wrote about trauma had higher scores of healthiness in 6 months. Without
knowing why, this is simply a phenomenon, not a theory. However, further theoretical
research was undertaken, and the reason why was determined to be that people had a better
understanding of the event, and used words of cognitive understanding
Theory Development:
o Inductive: specific to general
A generalization based on one specific example
Ex. Kitty Genovese murder: A crime reporter found that 37-38 people witnessed the
crime. No one called. He thought that everyone there was callous.
Bystander intervention: if someone else is in a helping situation, it is less likely that any
single person helps (bystander effect) (diffusion of responsibility)
o Deductive: specific from general
People who are cognitively burdened are more likely to give up, have inhibitions, and lose
memory
Through that research researchers developed ego depletion: If our ego (our life-force) is
overly taxed, we have trouble using our ego for different purposes (inhibition, memory,
waiting, tasks), it is draining for us to have our ego depleted
o Theory Evaluation:
Is it testable/falsifiable? (Can you use the scientific method to test?)
Testing can occur in the future
Freud fails this (battle between id vs superego cannot be tested)
Does it fit the data?
Is the theory fully supported by statistics
Is the data parsimonious? (Does it follow Occams razor?)
If there are two theories, the simpler explanation is normally more correct
Does it generate further research?
Is the article cited many times? (are others talking about it?)
January 30, 2015
Research Steps:
o Formulate Theory
o Formulate hypothesis
o Design study
o Collect data
o Analyze Data
o Disseminate results
Translational nature of research
How can we apply this to humanity? What is the use on the broader world.

Lecture 2

Design: Experimental vs Correlational

Experimental
Variables:
Manipulate (Independent)
Measure (Dependent)
Difference in measurement is caused by
change in independent variable

Correlational
Relation between variables (+1, 0, -1)
Testing patterns between two variables
Correlation could be positive (between 0 and
1), negative (between 0 and -1), or no
correlation (near 0)
Height vs. Weight have 0.60 correlation
Alcohol vs Test scores have negative
correlation (-0.20 -0.30)
Big Five personality traits (extroverted vs.
introverted) vs feeling of passionate love has
no correlation (0.08)
No Causation
All we know is that there is a systematic
linkage between the two variables
We do not know if one variable directly affects
the other
SAT scores vs. college GPA (.50), but the SAT
scores do not cause GPA. The SAT just
measures intellect and other factors.
o We dont know exactly what other factors
cause this GPA to change

Random Assignment Key

A given subject is equally likely to be in one of
the conditions being experimented on
Tries to equally distribute any different traits of
the subjects.
Eg. Ego depletion: Easier task, then hard task
and Hard task, then easier task.
Suppose the first group occurs during the
beginning of the semester, and the second
occurs during later in the semester.
o Bias can occur when people are more
taxed at the end of semester
Control Key: Control over the environment
Need to be able to change only the
independent variable(s)
Standardization: All the researcher-subject Path Analysis: Allow us to talk in causal-type
interactions are the same.
language with correlation analysis.
Tape recording or script reading allows the Allows us to see the effect of many variables
reduction of researcher bias
(paths) on a certain dependent variable
Look for the maximum significance, and show
which one is the probable causation.

Validity: Internal vs. External

o Internal Validity: Degree to which you are sure of the cause of the results of your study.
Used often in Experiments (normally higher in internal validity than Correlation studies)
However there might also be other causes for a certain result
o External Validity: Degree to which a subjects behavior is naturally occurring (higher in correlation)
As opposed to generalizability (how people would react when faced to a similar situation
Observational (without knowledge of observation of behavior) or guaranteed confidentiality
increase the amount of external validity
Increase external validity in an experimental study by using deception (i.e. saying that the study
is about one thing, whereas it is about something else)
Ex. Guessing between raised in the north vs raising in the south and the relation between being
machismo (trying to see if the culture is bent towards being machismo)
After identifying where you are from, you walk down the hall to get credit, and someone
confronts you. Tests the reaction between different people raised in different areas.

 Measurement issues:
o Operationalization: specific way you chose to manipulate or measure the variables
Ex. How alcohol amounts affect violence. How do we operationalize alcohol? People react
differently to different amounts of alcohol, and we need to have same BAC. How do we
differentiate between alcohol and the control?
Must manipulate what you want to be manipulating
o Manipulation check
A way, in the study, to check if you are actually manipulating what you intend to manipulate
February 2, 2015
Lecture 3
Research Methods
Laboratory
o Gives control to isolate differences across an independent variable
o Controlled environment and has standardization in communication
o Dependent variable is caused by the independent
o Ex. Social Exclusion: Subject is placed into a cubicle with 5 other people adjacent; they chat
with the neighbors, and are told that either everyone chose them to interact with or that no one
chose them. They would play a game that could be competitive or cooperative. Those who were
excluded played the game much more aggressively than those who were chosen.
Observational: Go to public places (or videotape public places) and observe behavior
o No manipulation or causation
o Simple observations of behaviorcorrelational research
o Every researcher involved needs a standard way to code behavior or a reaction to stimulus
o Inter-rater reliabilityassesses to what extent to which the observations are rated the same
o Ex. Eating alone between men and women. Researchers went row-by row and determined how
many people eat together or alone. Men were found to eat alone more often
o Internal validity suffers, high external validity
Field Experience: Manipulate an independent variable in the field
o Necessary to maintain standardization between test subjects
o Maintains internal validity; and external validity only when the behavior is natural (therefore there
needs to be standardization)
o Ex. Car parks behind a confederate car. A person comes out and tells the person parking (subject)
to put a quarter in the other car. In one group, the researchers sent a businessman, and in the other
they sent a security guard. 30% of the people listened to the businessman and 65% listened to the
security guard
o Unpredictable in terms of speed and number of test subjects
o Ethics? Hard to give informed consent.
Surveys: People respond to a set of questions (self-reporting)
o Used in conjunction with other methods
o Cross-sectional: Subjects fill out a survey once
o Longitudinal: Subjects fill out a survey multiple times in order to see changes as time goes by
o Self-reporting leads to bias
Conscious Bias: People want to look good
Ensuring confidentiality of the results is a helpful way to solve this problem
Unconscious Bias
People either never use extremes or they always use extremes
o Another problem is that it is hard to measure a second hand report
February 4, 2015
Lecture 4
Experience Sampling A subject self-reports his experiences about what is going around them

o
o
o
o
o

A trigger sets off when a person reports (they stop what they are doing and report on themselves)
Was there a relationship between attractiveness and social interaction?
Reporting on something as it occurs (rather than after a time in survey)
Stronger external validity
Example: Emotions were considered a reaction to the environment. But a research suggest that
there was a personality aspect to it (they feel higher or lower or both more or less of the time.). He
sampled people at different times of day and on different days. He noted several situational trends,
and that there were consistencies in people in positive and negative aspects
o Still however relies on the subject to self-report (same problems as surveys)
Unconscious and conscious bias
o Subjects might not do things when they occur, but smartphones may simplify the process
Simulation: subjects pretend to be in a situation, they role-play the situation.
o Abusive simulation study: one person was trying to be abusive, and he would observe reaction.
He could not find an abusive couple, so he used a
o Stanford Prison Experiment: Researcher set up a prison in a psych class, some were prisoners, and
the others were guards. The only rules were the fact that the prisoners had to stay and the guards
would not hurt the prisoners. The guards harassed the prisoners so much so that they had negative
effects. The guards had way too much power. People become power-hungry when they are given
roles.
o What the roles should be like, not what they actually are.
o You recruit subjects to simulate a scenario.
Archival: The data was collected not for a psychology study, but researchers use this data to gather
general facts to test hypotheses
o Must consider a strong way to operationalize the variables being coded.
o Ex. They used NPR Fund drive tapes to correlate what they say to the amount of money donated.
For example, matching donations, listening family, and not guilt helped the most to get the most
money donated.
Quasi-experimental: it can be a method of itself, or it can be a set of variables embedded in another
research
o Independent variable isnt manipulated, but an experiment can have a grouping variable
o Example: Gender is a quasi-experimental variable. There can be differences, but it cannot be
manipulated. Any differences can occur naturally
o Ex: How does social network change as you are in a relationship or not. Cannot control if a person
is in a relationship, but random events allowed researchers to see changes. Attachment styles (: 1.
Secure, 2.anxious, 3. avoiding) are other types of quasi-experimental variables.
o No random assignment, so the internal validity is hard to gauge.
Multitrait/Multimethod: If a person can demonstrate support of a reaction through different research
methods, it is more likely that a theory represents human behavior.
o If it is true in a lab, is it true in the real world?
o If it is true in the real world, it needs to be true in a lab to ensure that the research is not
correlational.
o Need to be able to operationalize variables in different ways. Cannot simply do it in one way
Ex. Frustration: operationalized through a variety of ways, for example, through the amount
of shock time, reaction to a violent video game, likelihood of a bad review, if working on
kids in a playground one might operationalize frustration as a child kicking.
o With more operationalization, leads to more general view of behavior.

February 6, 2015
Potential Biases
o Design Problems

Lecture 5

 Demand Characteristics: Cue that hints a subject to what the hypothesis or the study is
arguing.
Threat to internal validity and external validity (behavior is not naturally occurring a
subject can deliberately support or not follow the hypothesis)
If the debriefing or pre-test shows that the subject knows what the study is studying, the
experiment might need to be shown
o Experimenter Bias: An expectation that a certain study would yield a certain result, so the
experimenter tells the subject something to elicit what they want
Threat to internal validity
A professor performed a study on the effect of experimenter bias on graduate students. The
grad students had to determine whether one group was smarter than the other. He told one
half of the graduate students that group A was found by undergrads to be more intelligent
than group B, and the other half that group B was more intelligent than A. As expected, the
first group found Group A to be more intelligent, and the second found group B.
The experimenter can run a blind (i.e. they dont know what side of the independent variable
the subject is in) or they could use scripts or tape recordings to standardize instructions
o Participant Bias
Evaluation Apprehension: When people know that they are in a scientific study, subjects get
nervous and fear getting judged by the person doing the study. They tend to want to look
good to the interviewer.
Ensure confidentiality of results would help prevent this
Threat to internal and external validity
Issues of Ethics in Research:
o Pre-Milgram Study
Ethics was up to the original researcher. Some researchers were conservative, others were
less conservative
o Milgram Study
Stanley Milgram (Yale) recruited subjects from New Haven and were told that they were
studying negative reinforcement. The subject was paired with another confederate of the
researcher. The real subject is the teacher and the confederate is the learner. The learner had
to learn a series of words. The teacher would test the learner, and if they got it wrong, they
would shock them, and hear an actual reaction, but there was no shock. The expectation
was that they would stop after the confederate said to stop. 70% kept on shocking the guy.
Several months later, there were several psychological problems that occurred in those that
were studied.
o Post Milgram Study
Belmont Report: issued standards for all research conducted
All research that involves human participation must pass through an Institutional Review
Board (IRB)
Informed consent (potential risks/acknowledgement that you have to volunteer):
Subjects have to be able to volunteer.
o Field experiments do not typically have informed consent (but this only measures
normal behavior)
Risk vs. Benefits: IRBs must weigh risks vs benefits; most IRBs do not really want risky
studies
Debriefing: serves an educational component and to make sure that there was no change
in their state of mind.
Social Cognition: The study of Schemas:
Schema: Organized knowledge structure that influence perception, memory, and behavior

o Influence when we perceive, what we pay attention to, how we behave, what we remember
o Culebra Caribbean Island, can remember whats on the island, how to get to the island, what
food is on the island
o Takes knowledge about the topic and experience to form these associations.
o Things that are close together (eg. A color (green) invokes another (red) that can relate to various
colored objects (apple) (Fire Truck)
Schema Generation:
o Experience
As we learn more, we begin to use representations about these concepts. When we learn
words, we can associate a word with this representations.
o Modeling
How we see other peoples schemas and imitate them
Little kids attitudes about politics, money, and other issues are really similar to their parents,
mostly by imitation
o Operant Conditioning
Reinforced for having a schema: when people reward you for having a certain attitude, you
are more likely to embody that schema.
How people respond to our schemas can alter our schemas and how we embrace them
o Social Comparison
When we dont know what we are thinking, feeling, or how we are to behave, we look to
other people for their schemas, and we are influenced by their schemas
Ex. The attitude we have about certain movies, etc. might be influence on our friends
opinions.
o Genetic Predisposition
Identical twins vs twins raised in different environments vs. fraternal twins: Some genetic
predispositions to certain attitudes between schemas. There are greater overlaps between
twins and twins raised in different environments than between identical and fraternal in their
opinion of politics, food, etc.
February 9, 2015
Lecture 6
Structure Characteristics
o Dynamic: Schemas are changing as our level of knowledge about the topic changes
Explodes around age 6 as language develops
o Yet Stable: Once we have well developed our schema, we look for things that agree with our
schema (confirmation bias)
Ex. Arrive on campus meet roommate, initially dynamic, but becomes stable as we get to
know them better. We use actions that agree with our schema and ignore that which disagrees
with our schema.
o Central Nodes: things that are interesting to us because they are associated to our schemas
Aspect of a schema is activated
Ex. Halo Effect: Physically attractive people have other positive characteristics.
Can be general or idiosyncratic to you
Ex. If someone is Warm, and gives a lecture,, they will be perceived better than one who is
Fuzzy Boundaries: schemas tend to overlap (properties can overlap) and its hard to interpret where one
schema begins and ends
o Ex. Love vs lust: There is an overlap between
Evaluation Characteristics
o Seek Meaning
We want to take new information and fit in into a schema
o Categorize Quickly

 We want to group people and assume that people fit into schemas as soon as we ascertain
their characters
o Seek consistency (confirmation bias)
Seek out information that agrees with your schema, and ignore those things that do not agree
with their assumption.
Example of our laziness in thought
Types of Schemas
o Person: Schemas about individual other people
We have schemas about people who we know and those who we just have knowledge of but
not interpersonal relations
Needed to call home for $100, but wants to make sure that no one asks what the money is for.
Who would you want to respond the call? Your schemas determine whom you would call.
o Concept schemas: Schemas about objects
Examples: kangaroos, chairs, Instagram
Accept many complex schemas
o Self Schemas: Ourselves
Very complex
We are the only people who know most things about ourselves
Several different types of self, depending on the environment we are in.
We tend to go back to the way they used to act with people (ex. We act like our high school
years with high school friends)
o Group (Stereotypes): What attributes get activated knowing somebodys group
These are often central nodes
o Event (script)
Schema for what happens during a certain type of event, your script for a certain sequence
of events.
Ex. Schema for going to the doctors office
Certain protocols for doing many of lifes activities
If there is not a strong event schema, it creates some anxiety.
If there is no schema and other people are present, you will watch the other people for
guidance on how to behave. Social Comparison tends to apply to event schemas, we look to
other people as a guide to behave
Social Comparison matters less after experience
Influence of Schemas
o Perceptions (expectations, motives, moods, activation)
Hannah study: Two groups watch a little girl coming out of the house to school; second half
is the girl taking an oral test (mixed bag of a performance). One group watches the girl come
out of a house of high socioeconomic status, the other group watched the girl come out of a
house of low socioeconomic status. They then asked how Hannah did on the test. Those who
think shes wealthy see only when she gets hard questions right, and those who think shes
poor see only when she got easy questions wrong. Even though the second half was the same,
the rich Hannah was thought to be smarter, because of confirmation bias.
If expecting a competitive situation, you ignore cooperation and watch for competition
o Memory and recall
Schema used to memorize and what used to recall matters.
Ex. Subjects were divided into two groups, one half was given a schema beforehand before
watching a video of a person getting ready to be a librarian or a waitress. The other half was
shown the video and was given a schema afterwards. Regardless of getting a schema before
or after, people remembered schema consistent things rather than schema inconsistent.
Having a schema before watching the video allowed for better memory than learning the
schema afterwards.

 Subjects were witness to the same car accident (car is slowly moving towards the tree). They
were called back a little while later. One group was asked how fast the car was going when
it hit the tree or how fast the car was going when it smashed the tree. The latter group
remembered more damage that actually had happened. Schema that has been activated when
you go and retrieve the memory can alter it.
False memories: Freshman would sign up to be in a study, research contacted their parents
for 2-3 events from 5 year old, subject was told they had three memories they go from their
parentstwo were real, one was fake. The fake one was not initially remembered, but a week
later,
February 11, 2015
Lecture 7
o Behavior: Schemas can effect behavior as well as those around you
Overtly: behavioral confirmation
Study: Male subjects reported to one lab, and females went to another. Guys were told
that they would be given a face-to-face conversation with another person. They had to
take a survey with weird questions. The males were then given the survey of a person
whom they were meeting (they were middle of the road). A picture was associated (either
attractive or unattractive) with each survey. The women were told that they would have
a random phone conversation with a man. The conversation was rated by both the man
and a woman, and an outsider. Halo Effect: The man was warmer if he knew that she
was attractive. How the woman reacted in the survey were found to be warmer when the
man was warmer. So when a man thought a woman was more attractive, both parties
were warmer
People were given the expectation that another person they were interviewing was an
extrovert or introvert, and interviewed random people. An independent observer showed
that the person was more introverted if they asked introverted questions.
People try to be agreeable to other people.
Covertly: Priming: subtle activation of a schema, and its effects on subsequent behavior
The activation of a schema without your awareness (subconscious or non-conscious)
You press the button and pick the correct shape, and believe that is what the study is
concerning. But the actual study is flashing words in front of your eyes. They are primed
with words of either competitiveness, aggression, or cooperation. People were more
likely to be competitive or aggressive depending on the words flashed
One group reads a passage with harsh aging words like decrepit or old. Another was
given a neutral word. People were given a memory test and were told by the researcher
that the study was over. The looked at how the participant walked down the hall. Those
with aging words were walking like an older person.
Wine study: language of background music increases chance that a person selects a
certain wine of that region
A person flashed neutral words to one group, and helping words to another group. The
subject goes to an elevator and a confederate drops pens. People with helping words
were more likely to help those confederates. A third group was given a stimulus that
required thinking so it overrides the priming. Pens fell and exploded with ink. Helping
group was less likely to help.
o Decision Making
People were thought to be completely rational, objectively thinking between pros and cons.
In reality, small things make us make the decision we make.
Controlled vs Automatic Processing
o Controlled: performance/thought concentration

 Ex. First learning to drive (gas vs. break, mirrors). We become hyperaware of our task. We
dont want to overspeed or break too oftentry to be safe.
Perform more slowly, more effort
Concentrated behavior
Single task oriented
Put into controlled when:
Difficult or novel task
High motivation
Individual Difference: Need for Cognition: people need to be concentrating on the task
o Automatic Processing
Automatic: performance/thought with little awareness
Example: people who are used to driving concentrate less (ex. Talking on cell, singing with
radio)
Perform more quickly, less effort
Often inflexible (automatic) behavior: changes in the routine are hard to adapt to
Muti-task
Put into automatic when:
Routine task
Easy task
Tired (ego depletion)
Distracted
Low motivation: we dont care about the performance or issue
Leaking pen example: shifting from automatic (primed) behavior to controlled behavior
when they had to think
o Social cognition Biases
More likely under
Automatic processing
Low need for cognition
Dont care/tired/not rational decisions
Cognitive Miser behavior in general
Having concentrated behavior is taxing so people depend on automatic congition
Ex. Study about a non-specific bias. Copy machine at a college library (field
experiment). They planted a person at the copy machine, and another person was waiting
behind the subject. They assigned the subject in front of the confederate to 3 conditions.
1/3 of the people asked if they could cut in front of them. 1/3 of the people asked if they
could cut with a reason. The last 1/3 had a bad reason because I have to make copies.
35% for the first condition, 70% for the last two, shows that people only heard because
People in an assisted living center with different problems were divided into two groups.
One group had nothing done to them. The other group had 20 minutes of cognitively
active things. The latter group had lower rates of dementia, so control processing is hard
but necessary.
Automatic decision that can be wrong because you dont pay attention or you are paying
attention to another thing
February 16, 2015
Lecture 8
Social Cognition biases:
o Small sample error
Decisions are too extreme based on a very small sample (not enough evidence to base decision
on)

 Vivid casesomething that we base our opinions on (only one case that makes our entire
decision) (the small sample)
One experience leads to an entire schema to be developed
o Underuse baserate information
Statistical information about a scenario
We either ignore or use the wrong baserate information.
There are two bowlsA and B. In different bowls there are red and white balls. We choose
one of the bowls and take a ball from a bowl. Bowl A has 1 white and 9 red. Bowl B has 91
red and 9 while. Subjects were in automatic or controlled processing. Those in the first group
were more likely to choose B and those who are able to think chose A
o Availability heuristic
Use rational evidence vs using the first evidence that comes to mind
How easy examples come to mind bases our decision
o Representativeness heuristic: Overrides our baserate info
Ex. Subjects were told that researchers have selected a person from the phonebook, and were
given a description of that person. People were asked whether this person was a normal person
or some modifier that fits a schema of the words that they feed. (ex. Linda is a strong
independent woman, is Linda a bank teller or a feminist bank teller, most people would
say Linda is a feminist because of our schema activating)
o Overconfidence
People are more confident of a decision after making the decision than before making the
decision
Ex. at a horserace before and after putting money down, found that those who put the bet had
much higher confidence
Confidence before is more equal to reality than confidence afterwards.
Cognitive dissonancenotion that we like to have things in balance. Attitude and behavior
must be aligned
If we made a decision, and we think about it, we are more likely to inflate our opinion of our
decision to reduce tension. We would be more confident in our decision.
Attribution Dimension
o Attribution: How we assign cause for peoples behavior. Why are people doing what they are
doing?
o Internal and External attribution
Internal: Something about the person that makes them do what they do
External: Situation causes their behavior
Continuum
o Stable vs unstable
Consistent vs Inconsistent (can these change?)
o 4 different types
Internal stable: personality/traits (these wont change)
External stable: re-occurring situation (hard to change)
Attributing lack of sleep to a loud factory
Internal unstable: mood/motivation (wont be there consistently, can change in next
interaction)
External unstable: unpredictable situation (one environmental condition)
Attribution Theories
Heiders levels of responsibility: You want to be able to form an internal stable attribution
o Ex. Someone throws a snowball and hits you in the head. Three people are behind you
o Association: of a person to an act (which people did it)
One of those three people did it
o Causation: Whodunit?

 Eliminate those who couldnt have done it (i.e. one person rubbing off snow)
o Foreseeability
Could a person have seen they consequences of their actions
o Intentionality: Could they have seen the consequences before they did it and still try to do it?
Did they mean to do it?
o Justifiability: mitigating circumstance (some sort of external cause to their behavior)
Did an outside factor force them to do it?
Corresponding Inference theory: when we have information we know the array of choices this person
could have had
o Common effects
Things in the array of things they could have done which are similar
o Non-common effect
Things across the array of things they could have done which are different.
o When there is only one difference, there is the cause
o Miss teen USA Contest example: There are three contestants who all were attractive, Intelligent,
and sang. These are all common effects, but they were from different states. Since Drigotas was
from Maine, it makes sense that he rooted for the contestant form Maine.
o Personalism: if the behavior is directed to you
o Hedonism: other persons behavior causes us pleasure or pain. (does not have to be directed at
you)
If either of these things were there, there was more likely to make an internal attribution.
Ex. Walking down a street with another person. You love dogs, and the other person does not
like them as much. You see a person hit a dog. You are more likely to make an internal
attribution than the other person.
February 18, 2015
Lecture 9
Kelleys Cube: 3 dimensions: more info than what we
o Consensus (social desirability): how different is a person behaving than the people around him
If a person behavior different, we can make an internal attribution
If a persons behavior the same, we make an external attribution
If a person whose behavior is different from the norm, and its socially undesirable, the
behavior seems purposeful (we can make an internal attribution).
o Consistency: If we behave the same over time, we can make an internal attribution; if a person is in
a different situation once, we make an external attribution for the behavior
o Distinctiveness: do people behave the same in different situations
If the same behavior occurs in a different situation, we could make an internal attribution
If the behavior is distinctive (i.e. it changes in a different situation), can make an external
attribution
o Does not lean towards making an internal attribution, like Correspondence and Heider
Attribution Tendencies (biases)
Fundamental Attribution Error (correspondence bias): We tend to make internal attributions
o The tendency to overestimate internal causes for others behavior
Why: salience, stable expectation
We are biased to think that if people are acting in a certain way, they will always act in
that way (Schemas)
Ex. Groups gave a speech (group A gave a speech on their personal beliefs, group B gave a
speech on a topic assigned by the experimenter, group Control gave a speech on whatever);
an independent panel judged each of the speeches and whether the person believed in what
they were saying. They knew if the topic was assigned or not. They corresponded the beliefs
of Group B to what they were saying

 Belief in just world: Circumstances are a result of internal characteristics (i.e. victimblaming in rape or homeless people are lazy)
Actor-Observer Effect:
o We commit the Fundamental Attribution Error for others actions, but not our own (we are more
likely to consider the external effects to our actions)
o Ex. People describing why they chose their major and why roommate chose major. Roomate was
more likely to be
o Ego-defense actor-observer Effect occurs mostly during negative events (eg. Failing a test)
o Actor more info- we arent fully aware of what is affecting others, but we know our external issues
o Consistency: We want people to fit our schemas about them , but dont care for consistency in
ourselves
o Visual Salience:
Ex. We see that people are more likely to use internal attribution if they can see what they
say. If we see ourselves acting, we are more likely to see ourselves interally
Self-serving Bias
o Tendency to make internal attribution for success and external for failure
o Ex. If you do well in class, you talk about your intelligence and internal characteristics; if doing
poorly, the class is dumb or other external factors
o Researched in: Gambling (winning: system of picking coins, losing: luck (house always wins)),
insurance (single car accidents: external reasons; multiple cars: internal reasons), coaches in sports
(winning: we are the best, losing: refs, field conditions, and other external factors), marital
behaviors
o Ego protection, managing our schema about ourselves (we pay more attention to external
conditions when things go poorly)
The Self
o Self concept (self-schema): cognitive component
Knowledge of self (traits, abilities, etc.)
How do we gather this knowledge?
Introspection (what am I good at, what am I not good at)
o Experience
Look to others
o William James - looking glass self
A lot of our knowledge about ourselves is gathered from how people react to
us
o Social Comparison Theory: We determine how good/bad we are at something by
comparing ourselves to other people
Our traits relative to other people (compare ourselves to other people)
How other people are doing determines how we are doing
Ex. A person gets an 85 on a test. One group of subjects is compared upward
(with a 95) and the other is compared downward (with a 75). Those who were
compared upward were less happy than those compared downward. But those
who were compared upward did better than those compared downward on the
next test
People were given epinephrine, which made people have a feeling. A
confederate of the experimenter was either happy or angry while talking to
subject. The subject was either happy or angry depending on the person they
were talking with.
See Social Comparison
Once Gathered:

 Complex and resistant to change: since we have so much information about ourselves,
its rare for schema to shift
Egocentric bias:
o Self-reference remembered better
Examples from our own life work better than the things that arent connected
to the person.
o Remember in our favor
We remember the good things and we forget about the bad things
Not applicable to depressed people (same with bias)
People with depression have reversed bias, when they succeed it was due
to external, when they fail it was due to internal
February 20, 2015
Lecture 10
o Self-esteem: affective component
The way we feel about ourselves
Measurement: Self-Discrepancy Theory
Comparison between how we ideally want to be to how we actually are (for a certain
trait) (our ideal self vs our actual self)
If our actual ability > ideal ability, we are happy, and vice versa
If there is a discrepancy, we need to either change our view of our actual ability in a trait
or we need to change our ideal image
Related to Self-Awareness
When we make people self-aware they make people aware of their Self-Discrepancy
(mirrors, video tapes)
Ex. Halloween experiment, kids would go to the door and the owner would go into the
kitchen, and tell the kids to take one piece of candy. The only change between the two
groups of kids was a presence of a mirror. The kids who trick-or-treated with a mirror
were less likely to take several pieces of candy or take from the money jar next to the
candy.
Ex. Researchers saw people walking in a hall with mirrors on the other side. They would
rate the people on attractiveness, and see their reactions to the mirrors. The attractive
ones would be more likely to look at themselves.
Self-aware alcoholics are less likely to relapse
Ego Protection Devices:
Self-serving bias: internal measures for success, and external measures for failure
Self-handicapping: If failure rate is high, we personally set up and external reason for
why we fail.
o Ex. One group has a hard anagram test, the other had an easy anagram test. The
groups were told that they were taking a similar test, but they were offered to test a
drug that would make them worse at the test. The first group was much more
likely to take it than the other.
Basking in Reflective Glory (BiRGing): Associating yourself with groups and people
that are more successful (name dropping)
o Ex. More people wore Michigan paraphernalia when they won at home than when
they lost.
o Get some of their glory rub off on us
Muhammad Ali Effect
o We will choose to evaluate ourselves on the dimensions were good at, and think
those dimensions are the one that matter

o Ex. Research at a business school asked subjects about GPA and tst scores, and
self-reported data about connections. Those subjects were then asked about what
was the most import to business success grades and success or connections and
schmoozing. Obviously, those who were good at academics chose academics and
those who were good at connections chose connection.
o Muhammad Ali: He had been socially promoted all throughout high school. He
didnt do well enough in school, but was promoted because of boxing success. He
said that boxing was the most important thing
Downward Comparison: Compare yourself to those who are doing worse than you, you
feel better if there is someone doing worse than you
o Self-presentation: behavioral component
Impression Management Devices
Self-monitoring
o Ability to pick up cues on what the situation calls for, and can you change your
behavior to fit those cues
o High Self-monitors can alter their personality and know the situations
Hard to know true personality, chameleon-like
o Low self-monitors have trouble picking up cues or changing personality
True personality shines through
Self-promotion
o Skill to be able to promote yourself without making it seem like bragging
Self-regulation
o Ability reign yourself in from any extreme behaviors (e.g. ramping up from
lethargy)
o If the ideal image gets out of whack, it can be reined in
Often hard and tiring (ego depleting)
o Its tiresome to keep maintaining an impression
This is incredibly important in interviews